The Press. — London, England, 1858-12-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 4,1858. 1174 invalidate the world-wide Supremacy inherent in the Papacy ; or abrogate the right, and, if a suitable opportunity should present itself, the duty, of the Sovereign Pontiff to reconquer and reduce anew to obedience any portion of his subjects, any kingdom or nation, that may be in a state of rebellion against his authority. In witness whereof the Bull in Caw; Domini, which pro nounces sentence of exsowastnication against all who rebel against the Supreme head of Christen dom, is annually republished at Rome ; the for mality of such republication at the seat of the Papal Government being, by the provisions of the Bull itself; binding upon all, ecclesiastics and laymen, Catholics and heretics, throughout the world. Peace, real peace, with a Power advancing such pretensions, is obviously possible only on one condition—that is, submission to the Papacy. Until that submission is yielded, any apparent peace, any relaxation of direct and open hostility, any approach to friendly intercourse, any consent to mutual co-operation, even though under the sanction of formal compacts and treaties, on the part of the Papacy, is nothing more than a delu sion and a snare—a phase of Papal policy, adopted under the pressure of circumstances in times of Papal weakness, with the mental reservation of intended recurrence to a totally opposite, an in ternecine policy, whenever the Papacy shall feel itself strong enough to assert its full authority. This is the key to the view taken of England, and the line of policy adopted towards it, in those secret counsels of the Papacy to which Dr. WISE MAN, by virtue of his office as Cardinal, is a party —to which, by virtue of his allegiance to the Pope, he is as much sworn to give effect to the utmost of his power, while keeping them invio lably secret, as are the Ministers and Privy Coun cillors of Queen Vicronia to keep secret the deliberations, and to carry into effect the resolves, of her Government. It is by the light of the theory of the Pope's universal supremacy, and of the relation in which Cardinal WisEmAN stands to the Pope, as his Privy Councillor, and his plenipotentiary—not ambassador, but deputy governor—in England, or rather over England, —and not over England only, but over the United Kingdom, and throughout the British dominions —that the proceedings of that arrogant intruder must be examined, if we would form a correct estimate of their objects and tendencies. The errand on which Dr. WISEMAN was sent to this country is, simply, to reverse not only the religious, but the political effects of the Refor mation in the sixteenth century; to re-establish the supreme authority of the Pope amongst us, or, rather, over us; in pursuance of the sentence pronounced against the British Government in the days of Queen ELIZABETH, a sentence which his never been revoked nor cancelled—sus pended, it may be, while CHARLES H. deceived, and JAMES 11. betrayed, the nation,—but still in full force, not executed only for lack of power. By virtue of that sentence the right of Queen VICTORIA to the British Throne, and to the alle giance of her subjects, is a perfect nullity; and so is every act of her Government ; so is the le gislation of the British Parliament, and every statute it enacts,—all heretical, in deroga tion of "the Supremacy of the Holy See," and, therefore, aL initio null and void. This is no merely theoretical deduction from the letter of the Bull in Ccen4 Domini, and other parts of the Roman canon law, which it would be tedious to recite ; Cardinal WISEMAN is himself a living witness to the practical application of the prin ciples of that law to the British dominions. If he had not considered, and intended deliberately to treat, the Throne and Government of Queen VlcroluA as a nullity, would he have had the audacity to enter the Queen's dominions in his official character as a " Prince of the Holy Roman Church " without saying so much as " by your leave " to the Queen's Government, and to announce his determination to " govern" the Queen's subjects in the Pope's name ? If he had studied for years how best he could proclaim his profound conviction, and that of his Sovereign the Pope, of the nullity of Queen Vicroara's Throne and Government, he could not have hit upon a more effectual, scarcely upon a more offensive, method of doing so. And when, stn! by the insolent affront thus put upon the BritiZs throne and kingdom, the British Parliament enacted a law—thanks to Lord JOHN RUSSELL and his Whig Following a miserably inefficient one—not making, for they were illegal already, but expressly declaring illegal the territorial titles conferred by a decree of the Papal Court upon Dr. WISE MAN and others the Queen's sub jects within her dominion; the only notice taken of that law by him and his coadjutors in their aggression upon the supremacy of the British Crown was their ostentatious persistence in the use of those titles. Now, as regards England, Dr. WisEmAx is too shrewd a diplomatist not to know that it would not be advisable to carry this intrusion of a foreign supremacy into the dominions of the British Crown too far all at once. What he might have hoped to do, at one time, when he imagined that at least one-half of the clergy and laity of the English Church were prepared to fling them selves into the embrace of Rome, it is impossible to say. But from that day-dream " llis Emi nence" has no doubt awoke long ago ; and, having pretty clear evidence that he is not likely with advantage to pash his pretensions further just at present on this side of St. George's Chan nel, it was far from unnatural that he should direct his eyes towards the opposite shore. In Ireland his secret mission as Privy Councillor and Special Delegate of the Pope has a much wider scope. There the territorial invasion of the Queen's dominions, although not less illegal, is of older standing ; the hierarchical organiza tion is more complete, and has taken deep root all over the country ; there an ignorant peasantry, kept in a state of ignominious bondage under a pnesthood drawn mainly from its own ranks, and trained up at a Jesuit college in Jesuit doctrines and Jesuit ethics, may be made sub servient to the secret purposes of the Papacy to an extent never to be ventured on or hinted at, even among " the faithful," in Eng land. The theory of the Papacy may there he carried into practice one step further. Here, if the point be raised, it is, of course, only over the Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, and over them only an ecclesiastical and spiritual rule, that the Cardinal professes to exercise. But in Ireland it is a fact well established in the minds of the priests and of their flocks that obedience is due to the Pope from all ; Protestants are looked upon and execrated by the priestridden multitude as revolted subjects of the Pope, whose rebellion is, not excused, but ag gravated, by here tical error, and, it is added , by the usurped and unlawful possession of property which, accordion. to Popish law, rightfully belongs to the " Catholic " Church, and to the representatives of former " Catholic " proprietors. A population imbued with such notions presents a much more promising field for the prosecution of the objects fbr which Dr. WISEMAN has been raised to the dignity of " English Cardinal." And that he thought so is evident from his own account of his Irish progress. " He was," so he told his Hanover-square audience, " invited by a brother bishop, who " represented that it was necessary that he " should go in order to encourage and strengthen " his congregations against the obstacles they " had to contend against." What obstacles are those ? Obstacles to what ? The Cardinal shall make answer for himself. Ireland pre sents to his eye " the appearance of a country " throwing off the dust of three hundred years, " and endeavouring to obtain that position to " which they"—the Irish Catholics—" are en " titled ;" the appearance of "a great nationality " struggling to rise from a state of great depres " sion.' Of what nationality is his Eminence speaking ? Let him again explain himself. After some flummery about the " nationality of faith " —that is, Romish superstition,—and the "na " tionality of charity "—that is, the multiplication of monasteries, convents, and the like,—the Car dinal went on to say there was in Ireland " another nationality, and that was their attach " ment to the nationality of the Holy See. In " England there was the greatest attachment of " the National Church, because it was a national " and a domestic institution. They could under " stand that feeling in England; but, during his " visit to Ireland, he had received the kindest " addresses, which had been presented to him " not only by the clergy but by the laity, by " societies and other bodies of men, and every " one of them breathed the strongest feelings of " Atial affection and devotion to the See of Rome. " He believed that the very kind feeling that " had been expressed for him was entirely owing " to the belief that he was more i mniel " nec ted with the Pope than ot h er Bisho " l " was in fact a connecting li n k betweenP; eaitu :' Habemus confitentem reum ! It was to freshen up in the hearts of the I r i s h peoplet tachment to " the nationality of the I:1; See"—that is, to steal away from their lawful Queen the hearts of the people, and to bind them more closely to the Pope's supremacy--thr pur poses of the Papacy, to be developed in due time —that Cardinal liirfsigtaAN made the tour of Ireland. It was for this that he displayed his scarlet robes to the wondering gaze of Irish rail way porters ; and, in open violation of the law, headed processions of bishops and priests in full canonicals at Ballinasloe and elsewhere. It was to inculcate this sentiment of " the nationality of " the Holy See " that the Pope's health was sub stituted for that of the Queen at :the festive demonstrations got up in honour of "His Emi nence," and that the luckless German brass band which, uninitiated in the mysteries of Papal diplomacy, innocently and instinctively struck up " God save the Queen ' to the first toast, had to pay the penalty of broken heads for their want of sympathy with the occasion they had been hired to grace by their performance. It is some satisfaction, certainly, to learn that the Cardinal's progress was not altogether as triumphal as the Popish newspapers boasted, or as he himself endeavoured to persuade his audience at the Hanover-square Rooms. Judging from the statements made at a public meeting since held at St. James's-hall, by eye-witnesses of the scenes enacted during the Cardinal's visit, there appears to have been considerable exagge ration in the descriptions which filled the columns of the Irish journals of the enthusiastic reception that awaited him from railway station to railway station, and from town to town. But notwith standing the comparative tameness of the out ward show and demonstration of attachment to " the nationality of the Holy See," which it was doubtless one of the Cardinal's objects to elicit, it would be rash to conclude that his visit has been a failure altogether. If the rabble that thronged around him was neither as numerous nor as noisy as he might have wished, the signal has, never theless, been given in Ireland for a renewed aggression in the name of the Pope upon the supremacy of Queen VICTORIA. how far that signal has been understood and responded to — how far the revival of Ribbonism may be taken as au indication of its having told upon the Irish mind—still remains a question ; and before . a satisfactory solution of it can be arrived at, it will be necessary to make, as we propose to do in our next, some little inquiry into the princi ples on which the Papacy has been wont to pro ceed, and the methods to which it has commonly had recourse, for the reduction of its rebellious subjects. POACIIERS AND PROPERTY. WHAT is a Poacher ? It has become rather an important question to consider for Society and for Humanity. The daily journals of the last week contain accounts of not less than five or six ca‘o in which poachers—aggressively, mind, not defen sively—have carried personal violence to the extremity of murder. And in most cases the fatal result has been the consequence, not of chance medley, not of heat of passion or of suddenness of contest, but of prepared and pre meditated organization. It becomes needful , therefore, to ask,—What is a poacher, and how is he to be regarded by Society, and how dealt with by the law and its Executive. The Morning Star says the poacher is a man hungry and cold, starved, and enterprizing, who, with the highest instincts and the highest cou rage, sallies forth on a dark November nigbt to get food for his family by the capture ot the well-fed pheasants, partridges, hares, rabbits, and other tempting birds and beasts of same , which in the order of Nature and Providence do in reality belong to nobody but those wbo are able to catch them, although by imperial law they have been made the property of those on whose estates they are found. Gamekeeperti we are told, upon the same authority, .are men who wickedly provoke murder, " by in citin g " fury of their opponents, by submitting W be " placed in a position of peril to which no scr- •