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| Effigy of Pope |
Mother Francis Raphael Drane wrote about the hostile sentiment Mother Margaret encountered and the great anguish she felt as a result. “It is not to be told what pain she endured when any of the ordinary phraseology of Protestant disrespect to the Mother of God reached her ears. Everyone will remember the delirium of Protestant bigotry which broke out all over England on the appointment of the Catholic hierarchy. No Catholic could at that time drive through London without having his eyes and ears shocked by some blasphemous inscription or disgraceful cry. Cars containing effigies of the Pope, the Cardinal, and the great enemy of souls were paraded through the metropolis as in the days of Shaftesbury and the effigies were afterwards committed all together to the flames. In the city of Exeter, the emblem of our Redemption itself was added to the bonfire which was lighted before the gates of the Bishop's palace. But it was reserved for the Protestants of Bristol to conceive the idea of a yet more horrible exhibition. The proposal was made to dress up an effigy of the Blessed Virgin and flog it through the streets of the city. It is indeed difficult to imagine how a thought so utterly revolting could have suggested itself to any, even nominally, Christian mind, were it not evident that these outbreaks of popular fury often bear the signs of an infernal inspiration. But when the tidings of what was contemplated reached Mother Margaret, it nearly killed her. She wrung her hands as in agony, and turning her face to the wall, exclaimed repeatedly, ‘I shall die, I shall die; oh, my Mother, I shall die!’ In a letter written at the time she expresses her anguish, and adds, ‘I must go out and rescue her, I fear I shall not be able to restrain myself.’ And she urged some of the Catholic gentlemen to take the law into their own hands, and ‘to go out and fight for the Blessed Virgin,’ wondering how any could be so tame-spirited as to keep at home.
Drane, Augusta Theodosia (Mother Francis Raphael), Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan: Foundress of the English Congregation of St. Catherine of Siena of the Third Order of St. Dominic, Longmans, Green and Co., New York, New York, 1929, p. 325.
