Life
1722-1797 [pseud. of Charles Walmsley]; Catholic prelate and mathematician,
b. Lancashire; ed. Douai and Paris; Sorbonne, DD; Benedictine monk, 1739;
travelled in Italy; published important astronomical and mathematical
papers, 1745-61; FRS 1750; titular bishop of Rama, Dec. 1756; resided
in Bath, administering western district, 1757-97; published The General
History of the Christian Church, from her Birth to her Final Triumphant
States in Heaven (1771), a millenial text and source of the prophecy
that the Catholic Church would emerge triumphant in 1825, widely believed
in Ireland, an edition (6th) being published in Cork. DNB [OCIL].
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Notes
Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (1988), p.295, ‘millenial expectations
... focussed around the phenomenally popular Prophecies of Pastorini,
promising a delivery from bondage [LAND, and cf. Lawless’s view of
peasant millenium] and the destruction of Protestantism, in the year 1825
... desseminated with extraordinary speed, especially in Co. Limerick,
possibly through network of Ribbonmen printers.’ ‘anti-Protestant
millenialism’.
Jonathan Bardon, A History of
Ulster (1992), Pastorini, the pseud. of an 18th c. English Catholic
bishop [who] foretold the violent destruction of Protestant Churches in
1825, cheap eds. circulating freely (Bardon, p.243).
Frequent references to Pastorini’s prophecies in the William Carleton’s story ‘The Poor Scholar’ (Hayley, ed., Traits and Stories, 1843-44 Edn., Vol. II, Facs. rep. Gerrards Cross, 1990), ‘An; doesn’t Pastorini say it? Sure, when Twenty-five comes, we’ll have our own agin, the right will overcome the might - the bottomless pit will be locked - ay, double bolted, if St. Pether gets the kays, for he’s the very boy that will acommodate the heretics wid a warm corner; an’ yit, faith, ther’s many o’ them that myself ‘ud put in in a good word for, afther all.’ (p.253); ‘Pastorini says that there will soon be a change, an’ tis a good skame it’ill be to have him a sogarth when the fat livins will be walkin’ back to their ould owners.’ (p.261).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)