The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Moran, His Eminence Patrick Francis, Cardinal

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1412590The Dictionary of Australasian Biography — Moran, His Eminence Patrick Francis, CardinalPhilip Mennell

Moran, His Eminence Patrick Francis, Cardinal, third Archbishop of Sydney and first Australian cardinal, was born at Leighlinbridge, county Carlow, Ireland, on Sept. 16th, 1830. When only twelve years of age he accompanied to Rome his uncle, Cardinal Cullen, then Rector of the Irish College in the Eternal City. There he remained until 1866, successively as student, professor, and Vice-Rector of the Irish College. He received ordination on March 19th, 1853. During the quarter of a century that he resided in Rome, he made a special study of the archives of the early Irish and British Churches, with the result that he is now generally acknowledged to be amongst the foremost living authorities in the department of antiquarian research. His studies in this direction have borne permanent fruit in no less than twenty publications from his pen. In 1866 he returned to Ireland in the capacity of private secretary to his uncle, Cardinal Cullen, now promoted to the archbishopric of Dublin. He also became Professor of Hebrew and Scripture in Clonliffe College, Dublin. In 1872 he was consecrated Bishop of Ossory, where he remained until March 21st, 1884, when he was translated to the vacant archdiocese of Sydney. He arrived in Sydney on Sept. 8th of the same year, and was welcomed by a concourse estimated at one hundred thousand people. Next year he was summoned to Rome, and raised to the cardinalate by Pope Leo XIII. on July 27th. He presided at the first plenary council of the Catholic Church in Australasia, which was attended by seventeen prelates. It assembled in Sydney in Nov. 1885. Without being precisely popular, Cardinal Moran is generally respected in the colonies as an able and energetic primate. Among other works he has published "Memoir of the Most Rev. Oliver Plunkett" (1861); "Essays on the Origin, etc., of the Early Irish Church"; "History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin" (1864); "Historical Sketch of the persecutions, etc., under Cromwell and the Puritans" (1865); "Acta S. Brendani" (1872); "Monasticon Hibernicum" (1873); "Spicilegium Ossoriense, being a Collection of Documents to illustrate the History of the Irish Church from the Reformation to the Year 1800" (3 vols., 4to, 1879); a volume of poems entitled "Fragmentary Thoughts"; also a political work on "The Federal Government of Australasia," and "Letters on the Anglican Reformation" (1890).