A statement of the number of Fathers who attended the council, at any
particular time during its celebration, can hardly convey an accurate idea
of the numbers who took part in its proceedings. Some were always arriving
and others departing. Some fell sick, and a few died. The number in
attendance, however, was always considerable. An official list, published
by the Apostolic Chamber, shows the number and quality of such as were
entitled to be present, and who could have attended except on account of
hindrances arising from sickness, age or impediments thrown in their way
by the governments under which they lived. These included 55 cardinals, 11
patriarchs, 7 primates, 159 archbishops, 755 bishops, 6 abbots, 22 mitred
abbots-general, 29 generals and vicars-general of orders; in all, 1,044. A
later official list of 1st May states the total number at 1,050, new
primatial, archiepiscopal and episcopal churches having been erected in
the meantime.
On the 8th December there were at Rome: 49 cardinals, 9 patriarchs, 4
primates, 123 archbishops, 481 bishops, 6 abbots, 22 abbots-general, 29
vicars and vicars-general of orders; in all, 723 Fathers. On 20th December
there were 743.
The following Bishops of England were in attendance at the council: The
Most Rev. Archbishop Manning, of Westminster; the Most Rev. Dr. Errington,
Archbishop of Trebizonde; the Right Rev. Dr. Grant, of Southwark; the
Right Rev. Dr. Cornthwaite, of Beverly; the Right Rev. Dr. Uullathorne, of
Birmingham; the Right Rev. Dr. Clifford, of Clifton; the Right Rev. Dr.
Chadwick, of Hexham; the Right Rev. Dr. Amherst, of Northampton; the Right
Rev. Dr. Roskell, of Nottingham; the Right Rev. Dr. Vaughan, of Plymouth;
the Right Rev. Dr. Turner, of Salford; the Right Rev. Dr. Brown, of
Shrewsbury.
There was a somewhat longer list of Irish bishops, viz.: His Eminence
Paul, Cardinal-Archbishop of Dublin; the Most Rev. Dr. McGettigan, Primate
of all Ireland, Archbishop of Armagh; the Most Rev. Dr. Leahy, Archbishop
of Cashel; the Most Rev. Dr. McHale, Archbishop of Tuam; the Right Rev.
Dr. Derry, of Clonfert; O’Keane, Fermoy; Kelly, Derry; Moriarty, Kerry;
Leahy, Dromore; Gillooly, Elphin; McEvilly, Galway; Furlong, Ferns; O’Hea,
Ross; Dorrian, Down and Connor; Butler, Limerick; Conaty, Kilmore; Nulty,
Meath; Donnelly, Clogher; Power, Killaloe; McCabe, Ardagh.
The hierarchy had not yet been restored in Scotland; so that country could
send only three bishops to the Œcumenical Council. These were the Right
Rev. John Strain, Vicar-Apostolic, Edinburgh (afterwards, in the restored
hierarchy, Most Rev. Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh); the Most
Rev. Dr. Eyre, Archbishop, Glasgow; the Right Rev. Dr. McDonald (in the
restored hierarchy, Bishop of Aberdeen), Vicar-Apostolic, Preshome.
All the other civilized nations, with scarcely an exception,(7) sent their
bishops to the general assembly of the Church. France supplied the
greatest number, eighty-one. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies came next,
being represented by sixty-eight bishops. Next came the States of the
Church, sending sixty-two bishops. From Great Britain and Ireland, with
the colonies, including Canada, went fifty-five bishops to the great
council. Austria and Hungary were nobly represented by forty-three
bishops. Spain and the United States of America sent each forty prelates,
and the States of South America, thirty; whilst of the Oriental rites
there were forty-two bishops. Piedmont, Tuscany, Lombardy and Venetia,
together with Modena and Parma, Prussia, Bavaria, Mexico, Belgium,
Holland, Portugal, Switzerland, the Isles of Greece, and even the Turkish
empire, cheerfully willed that the Catholic prelates of their lands should
bear their part in the grand Œcumenical Council which was now about to
assemble. All these, with the cardinals, abbots, mitred abbots and
generals of religious orders, who were also members of the great assembly,
made up the goodly number which has already been adverted to.(8)