Old Michael

In October, an aged Cardinal attended the Catholic Truth Society’s annual conference in Dublin. He predicted that next October he would be in purgatory.*

Last week he died—His Eminence Michael Cardinal Logue, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, 114th successor of St. Patrick, the serpent-killer. He was the only Primate to have been made a Cardinal in Ireland’s 1,500 years of Christian history.

Cardinal Logue lived simply. He had no secretary, few servants. When guests came to his villa, Ara Coeli, he would show them to their rooms, carry up their bags. Recently he guided an American tourist round his Cathedral. The tourist offered him a tip, asked: “What’s your name, my man?” Replied the Primate: “Oh, some call me ‘Old Michael,’ and then some call me ‘The Cardinal.’ ”

Cardinal Logue could laugh heartily. Once, examining a group of tradesmen for confirmation, he asked whether it would not be a sin to conceal the defects of a donkey to a prospective purchaser.

“Troth,” replied a tradesman, “I am afraid your Eminence would never make a living selling donkeys.”

The Cardinal was an outstanding theologian. He was a statesman-labored for Irish peace as well as for Irish freedom.

* According to Vincent Pater: “We believe that Purgatory exists, as we believe firmly that Hell and Heaven exist, because God has made known this to us through the Catholic Church. . . . It is a place of detention where the imperfect departed souls are purified before entrance into Heaven by suffering both from deprivation of the vision of God and from some kind of confinement by fire.”