Perhaps that was just a different time when people could just sit and read.  I would think a Cardinal, however, would be too busy for that, or even a simple parish priest would be.

So one Migne volume in a month, that to me would be incredibly daunting.  They're huge volumes with tiny print, and, what?, probably at least a thousand pages each, right?

Perhaps he meant that he's read FROM all the Fathers.  I was in graduate school at The Catholic University of America in Greek/Latin and finished the coursework for the Ph.D. ... though didn't believe I could spend another 7 years between the two rigorous exams they had and the dissertation.  I went there precisely because they had the only Ph.D. Classics program in the country that emphasized Patristic/Medieval Latin and NewTestament/Patristic Greek.  Unfortunately, however, their requirements were obscene where you had to do a list of Classical texts in Latin / Greek that were AS EXTENSIVE as any other Ph.D. list in just straight Classics, for the Master's degree, and THEN you had to do an EQUALLY gigantic list in the New Testament / Patristic / Medieval area, not to mention art, archaeology, epigraphy, paleography, etc.  In that extensive time period, from the 2nd/3rd century B.C. (due to needing to know about the Septuagint for the Greek side), until about A.D. 1200 (or so), the amount of material is absolutely overwhelming.  There are so many different periods and locations throughout the world that it's mind-boggling, and so IMO their program was WAY too broad, and I'm not sure who the heck could ever finish it without intending to become a Professor (there) after about 7 more years after coursework ... and that's assuming you don't need to work for a living during that time.

Kudos for trying that program, that Classics program is no joke.  I looked into the Classics PhD program, but at the end of the day I did not want to live in Lexington, Ky., because that was the only viable option.  UL offered some Humanities PhD, with a concentration in Classical languages. I would rather drink my own vomit than do that program, as the majority of the classes were nonsense.  But then Lexington had no traditional Mass...And of course a PhD in classics, where to find a job?  It is a beautiful degree, but there are only two high schools in the Louisville area which still offer Latin, and forget about Greek.  I opted for the lucrative degree...Philosophy (everyone can please laugh now).     

Kudos for trying that program, that Classics program is no joke.  I looked into the Classics PhD program, but at the end of the day I did not want to live in Lexington, Ky., because that was the only viable option.  UL offered some Humanities PhD, with a concentration in Classical languages. I would rather drink my own vomit than do that program, as the majority of the classes were nonsense.  But then Lexington had no traditional Mass...And of course a PhD in classics, where to find a job?  It is a beautiful degree, but there are only two high schools in the Louisville area which still offer Latin, and forget about Greek.  I opted for the lucrative degree...Philosophy (everyone can please laugh now).   

Yeah, both as an undergrad and in graduate school, I did take some philosphy and theology classes, at the Master's level, but overall they were such trash, that I opted to go the Classics route instead, where I'd selectively supplement from philosophy/theology.

I partly regret not getting the Ph.D., but it would have been another 7 years, and having been through undergrad, and seminary, etc. ... I was already closing in on 30 at the time, and at some point I came to the realization that I didn't really want to teach Classics for a living.  So, getting employment at the university level was already quite difficult if you weren't a female or minority, as they always got any jobs that did open up over some white guy.  At the High School level, the private schools didn't pay enough to support a family, whereas the public schools (which did pay a decent/living wage) were war-zones where I didn't feel I was actually teaching anything, just trying to pass the time and make money, which I could do in any profession.  I taught first part-time and then full-time in the Arlington VA public schools (High School), and the full-time pay was decent, and over time you would definitely make a lot more (as pay rate was always based on time served in those places), but of the, oh, 150 or so students I had, there were maybe a half dozen who actually wanted to learn Latin.  Rest just took the class because they wanted to take something and, well, the students really liked me.  I started teaching 3 classes (so part-time), but the next year they had to expand to 6 sections (so full-time basically).  When I first started teaching "Latin III", I pulled out the old Latin III text (different series than what i had used but, you know, still following the same basic path).  Latin III was when you started Cicero.  I could tell they weren't up to it within minutes.  So I backed up to Latin II, pulled out some Casesar "Gallic Wars" ... same thing.  So I stepped back to do a grammar/vocabulary "review", and, I'll tell you right now that EVERY SINGLE ONE of these "Latin III" students at that school were not even at the level where we were after our literal first quarter of Latin I in High School.  That was incredibly demoralizing.  By the standards of my own High School curriculum, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them would fail, and of course you're not allowed to do that.  So I tried my best to touch something to the 3-4 students (tops) in each class who wanted to learn, but at the end of Latin III, they had maybe gotten to where they could start doing a decent job reading Caesar.