Pius IX, Paul Cullen and Rome
In Rome, the rector of the Irish College, Paul Cullen, took many initiatives. Irish and British residents in Rome set up a committee to raise funds and Cullen's name is at the head of it. Pius IX, shocked by the Famine news, sent 1,000 Roman dollars to the Irish bishops in January 1847, an example followed by Cardinal Mai, the Secretary to the Congregation of the Index and Cardinal Fransoni, Secretary to the Congregation of Propaganda. Pius organized a triduum of prayer in the popular church of Sant' Andrea della Valle. On the first day the leader of the Liberal Catholics, the very eloquent Padre Gioacchino Ventura, who had great influence with Pius IX and was an ardent admirer of O'Connell, preached in Italian. On the second day, the Bishop of Montreal, where so many famine refugees were arriving, preached in French and, on the third day, Cullen preached in English.
The students and staff of the Irish College did without their dinner to raise money. The students at Propaganda College gave up the medals they had won. Cullen, wrote to his brother in Liverpool appealing to him to give what he could and asked his sister to auction a valuable cross she possessed, apparently a papal gift. The Romans responded generously. Diamonds, paintings, rings and gold watches poured into the Irish College. Two Romans, after hearing Ventura's sermon made an unusual gift--2,000 cubit palms of marble. A priest gave the silver buckles from his shoes, probably the only thing he had to spare, as Cullen remarked. In March, the Pope then took the unprecedented step of issuing an encyclical appealing to the whole Catholic world on behalf of the Famine victims. Bishops everywhere were asked to appoint three days for public prayers and "to exercise your charity in exhorting your people to contribute towards the relief of the Irish people." This appeal had a great impact throughout the Catholic world. French and Italian Catholics had raised money for Ireland but, with the Pope's appeal, the bishops throughout Europe made a more-spread appeal for funds. Belgium, the Netherlands, the German states, Austria and other European countries began to contribute money for relief. Subscriptions came from the capital of Tsarist Russia, St. Petersburg and from Instanbul, where the Sultan of Turkey, who was told of the Famine by his Irish physician, responded generously.
Catholic relief continued right up to 1850 and the L10 ($1,300 in today's money) Murray continued to send to priests in the most distressed areas, kept many alive. It was all the more necessary then because, at the end of 1847, Trevelyan decided that the distress was over which he repeated in February 1848. The effect was to close off charity. But the Famine was quite appalling again in the winter of 1848-9. Then, in 1849, the Society of Friends, after telling the government that the relief work was beyond the reach of private exertion, wound down the Society's heroic work. The Catholic relief continued right on up until 1850. It avoided the costs and delays of official relief, and does not appear to have been misused.
Side note, from my old home town...
