Vicariate/Diocesan Papers Papers, mostly pastoral and printed letters, from the Vicars Apostolic of the English districts and, later, bishops of the English dioceses, to the clergy and laity. The letters highlight the development of the Roman Catholic Church in the nineteenth century and its response to social, political, and religious issues at the local and national level. These include advice on lenten regulations; plenary indulgences associated with papal Jubilees; regulations for special Masses; appeals for various Catholic educational and charitable institutions (as well as the Irish Famine and other natural disasters); responses to Irish secret societies; and declarations of support for Pope Pius IX during the 1848 Revolutions and the Italian Wars of Independence. 1695 - 1909