A man who “did ordinary things extraordinarily well”, Fr John Sullivan, a graduate of Trinity, was beatified in Dublin today, making him the first Trinity graduate to be beatified and marking the first beatification ceremony to take place in Ireland.
Beatification, not be confused with the conferral of sainthood, is one of the highest honours the Catholic Church confers on its members and requires one miracle to be attributed to an individual. The honour, while it has become more common in recent years, is still incredibly prestigious for Catholics.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, representing Pope Francis today, conferred beatification on Sullivan this morning, reading the official beatification document in Latin to the packed church.
The mass, which took place in St Francis Xavier’s Church on Gardiner St, saw members of the religious community from across Ireland in attendance, including Archbishop Eamonn Martin, Primate of Ireland for the Catholic Church, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Michael Jackson. Provost Patrick Prendergast was also in attendance.
Despite Trinity being hundreds of years old, it is perhaps unsurprising that it took until 2017 for a graduate to be beatified – it was not until 1970 that the Catholic Church in Ireland lifted its ban on Catholics attending the College, despite Catholics being formally permitted to attend Trinity from 1793. Sullivan, who grew up Anglican, was the son of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland John Sullivan, attending Trinity between 1879 and 1885, where he was a law student, gold medallist and classics graduate.
Speaking at the mass today, Amato described Sullivan as someone who “sought and journeyed in his faith and in his life”, even before his conversion to Catholicism in 1886.
An Irish Jesuit, Sullivan worked in Clongowes Wood College School, Kildare, from 1907 onwards as a chaplain, where he remained until his death in 1933. His remains were brought to the Gardiner St Church in 1950, and remain there today in a shrine to the Jesuit priest. Sullivan’s holy day, from today onwards, will be May 8th.
Educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, before coming to Trinity, Sullivan went on to continue law studies after completing his classics degree, qualifying in law in Lincoln’s Inn in London before converting to the Catholic Church.
The actual beatification process is very short, and today saw Martin and Jackson together, in an unprecedented step for inter-church relations, ask for Sullivan to be made “blessed”, before Amato made the official conferral. The first steps towards beatification took place on November 7th 2014, when Sullivan was declared “venerable” and his beatification received the approval of Pope Francis in April 2016 after a single miracle, the recovery from cancer of a woman in Drumcondra in 1953, was attributed to him.
