From Lizst to the Carmelites in Kensington: Father Hermann Cohen

Blessed Dominic Barberi, whom we celebrated earlier this week, was not the only nineteenth century missionary sent to England to help bring converts to the Church. David Oldroyd-Bolt writes in The Catholic Herald about Hermann Cohen, "Jewish child prodigy of the piano and gambling addict turned champion of the Eucharist and promoter of nocturnal Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament." He was convert to Catholicism because of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at Benediction and Holy Mass:

It was while taking time to discern his vocation that Cohen popularised the practice of nocturnal devotions to the exposed Blessed Sacrament. Having taken advice from several priests Cohen decided to become a Discalced Carmelite. He served his novitiate at the convent of Le Broussey, near Bordeaux, receiving the habit on October 6, 1849 (the feast of the Holy Rosary) and making his religious profession on October 7, 1850.

Cohen, now Fr Augustin-Marie du Très Saint Sacrament, then spent a decade preaching around western Europe, often to crowds of thousands. Liszt and Cohen were reconciled in 1862 during a visit to Rome and remained close thereafter. At Cardinal Wiseman’s request, Pope Pius IX sent Fr Cohen “to convert England, as one of my predecessors sent the monk Augustine”. On October 15, 1863 he, along with several French Carmelites, moved into a house in Kensington. That year, for the first time since the Reformation, an English novice took the habit.

During the Franco-Prussian War, Fr Augustin-Marie went to Spandau prison to minister to the 5,000 French soldiers being held there. Smallpox was rife, and it was while administering Extreme Unction without a spatula to two men that he himself caught the disease. On January 19, 1871, he made his last Confession, received Holy Communion and said his last words: “Now, O my God, I place my soul into Your hands.” He died peacefully the next day.

Fr Cohen’s Cause for beatification was put forward on January 19, 2016 by Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux and Bazas.

In researching this Carmelite foundation in Kensington, I realized that this was the Carmelite church we attended every day for Mass when Mark and I visited London with Monsignor William Carr from May 7 to 14, 2003, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Simon Stock. What a providential coincidence:

Cardinal Wiseman asked Fr Hermann Cohen, a former professional musician, protégé of Liszt and convert from Judaism, to found a Carmelite monastery in London. In 1862, Fr Hermann came to London and temporarily based himself with the Sisters of the Assumption in Kensington Square. In 1863 he rented a large house in Kensington Church Street with extensive grounds to the south which later became the site of the church. A disused school was converted for use as a chapel. In 1864, the property was bought for £3,500. In July 1865 the construction of a permanent church began, from designs by E. W. Pugin. Built predominantly in the Early English style, the church opened on 16 July 1866. In 1875–76, the community also bought the copyhold of the remaining land along the north side of Duke’s Lane for approximately £4,600 and built there the priory, from designs by Goldie, Child & Goldie (1886–89, photo top right).

During the Second World War, Pugin’s church was severely damaged. A new church was built from designs by Sir Giles Scott, Son & Partners, who had been appointed in 1954.

More about the Carmelite Priory at Kensington here. More about Fr Augustin-Marie du Très Saint Sacrament here. The prayer for his beatification is here (English translation here).

Monsignor Carr, who concelebrated our wedding Mass on April 6, 1991, concelebrated Mass every weekday at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Simon Stock, always proclaiming the Gospel. For Sunday Mass during that visit Mark and I went to the Brompton Oratory because the Oratorians would not, according to the Carmelites, allow Monsignor Carr to concelebrate Mass. He wanted to experience the choir at the Oratory and of course to revel in the connection to Cardinal Newman!

St. Vincent Pallotti's London Connection

Today would be the memorial of St. Vincent Pallotti if t'were not Sunday (I once applied for a position with the Pallotines here in Wichita; the order was setting up an office of their Society of the Catholic Apostolate--I had to write a long essay in which I waxed eloquent, to no avail, on the correspondences between Newman's Oratory and Pallotti's Society), the nineteenth century founder of the Pallotines. He died on January 22, 1850 and was canonized in 1963 by Blessed Pope John XXIII. His London connection?--St. Peter's Italian Church on Clerkenwell Road. According to the parish website:

In the early 19th century the Saffron Hill area of London was a poor neighbourhood of densely populated slum-ridden alleys. By 1850, nearly 2000 Italian immigrants had settled there, chiefly employed as itinerant workers - street musicians, organ-grinders, street vendors or as artisans producing plaster figures, picture-frames, looking-glasses, barometers and other scientific instruments. They worshipped at the Royal Sardinian Chapel, Lincoln's Inn Fields, because they had no church of their own.

In 1845 St. Vincent Pallotti, a RC priest and founder of the S.A.C. (Pallottine Fathers), thought of constructing a church in London for Italian immigrants.
The Irish architect, Sir John Miller-Bryson, modelled the church on the Basilica of San Crisogono in Rome.

Originally it was meant to hold 3,400 people, but the plans were scaled down. It was consecrated as "The Church of St. Peter of all Nations" on 16 April 1863 and, at that time, it was the only church in Britain in the Roman Basilica style.

and

St Vincent Pallotti, the priest asked by Cardinal Wiseman to establish St Peter's, was born in Rome in 1795. His parents Pietro Paolo and Magdalena were the decisive religious influence during his youth. He was ordained priest on the 16th of May 1818. After his ordination, he committed himself to keep alive the Christian faith of the people of Rome. His pastoral presence on all fronts urged him on to become an animator of collaboration among clergy, religious and laity. He held very strongly a belief in the then new concept that every Christian, not just those in the holy orders, has from Jesus a mission for the Church and for the world.

To put this concept into action he founded in 1835 the Union of Catholic Apostolate. This movement brought together priests, monks, nuns and lay people as a community for the common purpose of living and spreading awareness of the Good News to all of the world.

St. Vincent died on the 22nd of January 1850 at the centre of his new community, the church of San Salvatore in Onda, Rome. He was beatified by Pope Pius XII on 22 January 1950, and proclaimed a Saint by Pope John XXIII in January 1963.

Another Papal Bull Irritates Another English Queen

"Am I the Queen of England or am I not?" So said Queen Victoria when news of the Restoration of the English Catholic hierarchy was announced in 1850. Pope Pius IX issued the Papal Bull "Universalis Ecclesiae" on September 29th that year. The first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Nicholas Wiseman issued a pastoral letter to English Catholics, "Out of the Flaminian Gate," on October 7, 1850. His tone of exultation offended the Queen and her government, especially in its praise of the Pope:

And in nothing will it be fairer or brighter than in this, that the glow of more fervent love will be upon it. Whatever our sincere attachment and unflinching devotion to the Holy see till now, there is a new ingredient cast into these feelings; a warmer gratitude, a tenderer affection, a profounder admiration, a boundless and endless sense of obligation, for so new, so great, so sublime a gift, will be added to past sentiments of loyalty and fidelity to the supreme see of Peter. Our venerable Pontiff has shown himself a true shepherd, a true father; and we cannot but express our gratitude to him in our most fervent language, in the language of prayer. For when we raise our voices, as is meet, in loud and fervent thanksgiving to the Almighty, for the precious gifts bestowed upon our portion of Christ’s vineyard, we will also implore every choice blessing on him who has been so signally the divine instrument in procuring it. We will pray that his rule over the Church may be prolonged to many years, for its welfare; that health and strength may be preserved to him for the discharge of his arduous duties; that light and grace may be granted to him proportioned to the sublimity of his office; and that consolations, temporal and spiritual, may be poured out upon him abundantly, in compensation for past sorrows and past ingratitude. And of these consolations may one of the most sweet to his paternal heart be the propagation of holy religion in our country, the advancement of his spiritual children there in true piety and devotion, and our ever-increasing affection and attachment to the see of St. Peter.

As Cardinal Wiseman progressed on the Continent toward the British Isles he heard about the anger expressed in the British papers. Queen Victoria expressed herself in the strongest terms and the Cardinal responded by publishing a pamphlet and giving lectures that indicated the Catholic Church had no intention of opposing Her Majesty's Government in any way.

Queen Victoria's Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, introduced a bill in Parliament which passed making it illegal for the new Catholic Bishops to be physically present in their new dioceses--a law which was never enforced by the next government under Gladstone. There were still flare ups of anti-Catholic rioting and violence, but the Cardinal Archibishop had toned down his rather triumphalistic rhetoric and settled down to the restoration of simple things, like schools, chapels, seminaries, and churches. Because of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act of 1851, the hierarchy did not restore the pre-Reformation sees.

Two Hymns of the Catholic Restoration in England

Father Frederick William Faber wrote, among other hymns, "Faith of Our Fathers". In the current issue of Voices, Helen Hull Hitchcock describes how she grew up singing that hymn as a Protestant, not realizing that the martyrs described were the Catholic martyrs of England!
Faith of Our Fathers

Faith of our fathers, living still,
In spite of dungeon, fire and sword;
O how our hearts beat high with joy
Whenever we hear that glorious Word!

Refrain:
Faith of our fathers, holy faith!
We will be true to thee till death.

Faith of our fathers, we will strive
To win all nations unto Thee;
And through the truth that comes from God,
We all shall then be truly free.

Refrain

Faith of our fathers, Mary’s prayers
Shall win our country back to Thee;
And through the truth that comes from God,
England shall then indeed be free.

Refrain

Faith of our fathers, we will love
Both friend and foe in all our strife;
And preach Thee, too, as love knows how
By kindly words and virtuous life.

Refrain

Reading about that hymn and singing it lately at Mass on Sunday, reminded me of another hymn I read about during Pope Benedict XVI's visit to England in September 2010: "God Bless Our Pope" which begins with the fascinating line "Full in the panting heart of Rome". Nicholas Wiseman, the first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster wrote the hymn:

Full in the panting heart of Rome,
Beneath th'apostle's crowning dome,
From pilgrims' lips that kiss the ground,
Breathes in all tongues only one sound:

Refrain:
'God bless our Pope, God bless our Pope,
God bless our Pope, the great, the good.'

The golden roof, the marble walls,
The Vatican's majestic halls,
The note redouble, till it fills
With echoes sweet the seven hills:[Refrain]

Then surging through each hallowed gate,
Where martyrs glory, in peace, await,
It sweeps beyond the solemn plain,
Peals over Alps, across the main:[Refrain]

From torrid south to frozen north,
That wave harmonious stretches forth,
Yet strikes no chord more true to Rome's,
Than rings within our hearts and homes:[Refrain]

Quite an example of that triumphal tone that caused trouble when Wiseman prepared to return to England for the re-establishment of the hierarchy in 1850! New lyrics were written for that visit to England last year.