An English Jesuit priest,
Father Bernard Vaughan, made a name for himself in Manchester
and London as a dynamic preacher. He accepted invitations to
deliver sermons in Ireland, Canada, and the United States and
also gave hundreds of talks around the world. In Lotus
Eaters Bloom remembers listening to one of his sermons,
and in Wandering Rocks Father
Conmee approvingly, if a little condescendingly, assures
one of his parishioners that, "Yes, it was very probable that
Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, yes: a
very great success. A wonderful man really."
Bernard John Vaughan was born in Herefordshire, England to
Lieutenant Colonel John Francis Vaughan and his wife Eliza in
1847. The name Vaughan is Welsh, as Conmee recognizes—"Of
good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not?"—but
this good family had lived in Herefordshire for a long time,
firm in their recusant Catholic faith. Eliza Vaughan converted to Catholicism not
out of expedience but as a matter of passionate conviction.
All five of Bernard's sisters became nuns, and six of his
seven brothers became priests (three eventually were bishops,
and one a cardinal).
Bernard began his religious career as a parish priest in
Manchester. Eighteen years later, in 1901, he took a post in
London's East End, an experience that lent him the "droll
eyes and cockney voice" that Conmee remembers: "Pilate!
Wy don’t you old back that owlin mob?" Vivien Igoe notes that
Vaughan "worked tirelessly in the East End among London's
poorest citizens. He visited the slums of Dublin frequently.
He spoke at the Rotunda several times and at St Patrick's
Training College in Drumcondra. In his latter years he toured
the world for 18 months, travelling 30,000 miles and
delivering 400 speeches to half a million people."
Bloom heard Father Vaughan speak as a warmup act in the
service in which Molly performed in Rossini's Stabat Mater. He
responded less enthusiastically than Mrs. Sheehy does in Wandering
Rocks: "Father Bernard Vaughan’s sermon first. Christ or
Pilate? Christ, but don’t keep us all night over it. Music
they wanted."
