Thomas Bray D.D. (5 March 1749 – 15 December 1820) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'pref ...

who served as the

Archbishop of Cashel The Archbishop of Cashel ( ga, Ard-Easpag Chaiseal Mumhan) was an archiepiscopal title which took its name after the town of Cashel, County Tipperary in Ireland. Following the Reformation, there had been parallel apostolic successions to the title ...

from 1792 to 1820. Dr Bray was ordained to the priesthood on 22 May 1774 at Paris.

Life

Thomas Bray was born in

Fethard, County Tipperary Fethard (; ) (archival records) is a small town in County Tipperary, Ireland. Dating to the Norman invasion of Ireland, the town's walls were first laid-out in the 13th century, with some sections of these defensive fortifications surviving ...

in 1749, to John and Margaret Power Bray. John Bray was a wine merchant. Margaret's brother, James, was a canon at Cassels in Flanders, who also served as chaplain to the French Ambassador at Rome. James owned property near

Avignon Avignon (, ; ; oc, Avinhon, label=Provençal dialect, Provençal or , ; la, Avenio) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Vaucluse Departments of France, department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region of So ...

and helped pay for the education of his sister's many children. Thomas Bray studied at Avignon, at the

Collegio Urbano The Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide () was established in 1627 for the purpose of training missionaries to spread Catholicism around the world (the Latin term "''de propaganda fide''" means “for the propagation of the faith”). ...

, and in Paris, where he was ordained in 1774. In 1779 he became a parish priest in Cashel; in 1782, he was appointed one of two vicar-generals for the Archdiocese of Cashel. In 1792, he was appointed to succeed James Butler II as Archbishop of Cashel. Bray used a bequest from Archbishop Butler to establish the

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convent in

Thurles Thurles (; ''Durlas Éile'') is a town in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is located in the civil parish of the same name in the barony of Eliogarty and in the ecclesiastical parish of Thurles (Roman Catholic parish), Thurles. The cathedral ch ...

. In 1800, the Archbishop condemned the practice of

keening Keening (Irish: Caointeoireacht) is a traditional form of vocal lament for the dead in the Gaelic Celtic tradition, known to have taken place in Ireland and Scotland. Keening, which can be seen as a form of sean-nós singing, was performed in th ...

, that was still be carried on in some places.O Súilleabháin, Sean. ''Irish Wake Ammusements''. Mercier, Dublin, 1976 Thomas Bray died on 15 December 1820, and was succeeded by his coadjutor Patrick Everard.Brady, W. Maziere. ''The Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland, and Ireland'', vol. II, Rome, 1876, p. 30
/ref>

Works

He was author of the following privately printed work: ''Statuta Synodalia pro unitis Diœcesibus Cassel. et Imelac. lecta, approbata, edita, et promulgata in Synodo Diœcesana; cui interfuit clerus utriusque Diœoeceseos, habita prima hebdomada mensis Septembris, anno M.DCCC.X.'', 2 vols., Dublin, 1813.Fenning, Hugh. "Troy to Bray: Letters from Dublin to Thurles, 1792-1817", ''Archivium Hibernicum'', Vol. 55 (2001), pp. 48-125
/ref> This book contains a papal bull against

freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

; a decree of the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trento, Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italian Peninsula, Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation ...

against

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon Code duello, rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the r ...

s, with an explanation of it in English to be given by each priest to his flock; and short memoirs of the archbishops of Cashel and the bishops of Emly. The second volume bears the following title: ''Regulations, Instructions, Exhortations, and Prayers, &c., &c., in English and Irish: with the manner of absolving heretics, in Latin and English: for the united dioceses of Cashel and Emly.''

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bray, Thomas 1759 births 1820 deaths Roman Catholic archbishops of Cashel 18th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Ireland 19th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Ireland People from Fethard, County Tipperary Christian clergy from County Tipperary