Chapter XV, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 7 page 4

In January, 1830, the catholic bishops assembled in Dublin, to deliberate, according to annual custom, on their own duties and the interests of their church. Dr. Doyle, at the close of these deliberations, drew up a pastoral, to which all the prelates affixed their signatures. It gave thanks to God that the Irish people not only continued to be of one mind, labouring together in the faith of the gospel, but also that their faith was daily becoming stronger, and signally fructifying among them. Having drawn a picture of the discord that had prevailed in Ireland before emancipation, the pastoral went on to say that the great boon " became the more acceptable to this country, because among the counsellors of his majesty there appeared conspicuous the most distinguished of Ireland's own sons, a hero and a legislator - a man selected by the Almighty to break the rod which had scourged Europe - a man raised by Providence to confirm thrones, to re-establish altars, to direct the councils of England at a crisis the most difficult; to stanch the blood and heal the wounds of the country that gave him birth." The pastoral besought the people to promote the end which the legislature contemplated in passing the Relief Bill - the pacification and improvement of Ireland. It recommended that rash and unjust oaths should not be even named among them, and deprecated any attempt to trouble their repose by "sowers of discord or sedition." The bishops rejoiced at the recent result of the protracted struggle, not more on public grounds than because they found themselves discharged from a duty which necessity alone allied to their ministry - " a duty imposed on us by a state of times which has passed, but a duty which we have gladly relinquished, in the fervent hope that by us or our successors it may not be resumed."