The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-02 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 2.

Ix another column we have inserted a Roman
eatholie's *coward of some very amusing devices of
the new Cardinal or his friends for raising money to
meet the increawd expenditure required to keep his
m•.tropalitan dignity afoot. Laughable as that rate-
moot may appear, it Las a pregnant moral for such as
will understand 'the whole movement indeed is a
flehile ludiforiunt, and, although we may smile at the
absurdities, we must not be insensible to the dangers

involved in it.
Tne Roams catholic, are the parties immediately '
interested in the question bow to provide for the due
idol mistral ion of their own charitable trusts ; bat they
an ad the only parties interestel. Every lover of
civil and religious freedom, every friend of education
and improvement, every honest patriot, in short, has
som.thing to my on that matter; nor ought the
F.F.N.• government, which protecte all her subjees,
whatever their rank or persuasion, to regard with
indifference the es:etence of difficulties which may
defraud their theoretic equality ot right to that pro-
tection of any portion of its practical effect. We
care not whether the funds at Oardinai WISLYAIeS
disposal for these national purposes be great or small
It is a matter of public principle, net of pecuniary
amount. If, as our correspondent asserts, the enor-
mous sum of 1511,0001. fur religious mother charitaAs
objects, be now at the absolute disposal of that pro-
late alone, without computing this lands similarly at
the merry of cal of his euffragans, the OM is only
an much the more important, practically cossidered ;
bat the right of these Roman catholic flecks to a rigid
account ot their stewardship, arid the duty of parlia-
ment and the courts of poetic, to enforce that right,
must be the same, although the rout amount of the
trust funds should Lave been very much exaggerated

by that tatima,e.
From the communications with which some of their
clergy and laity have furnished es, our readers will
have seen what are the difficulties which prevent
them frum seeking the aid of the courts to compel
these soi-disaul irresponsible trustees of theirs to •
faithful, frugal, and public scheme of administration.
In the first place, we are told any Homan catholic
presuming to seek the protection of his country's
laws against an usurping prelate will certainly be
"censured," and that, lightly as such censures mo,t
be esteemed by men of ague, and barmier, u they
must prove against those of the laity, their practical
effect, when levelled against the clergy, is by no means
contemptible, and, in many cases, may even
be to deprive them of their bread. For,
say oar correspondents, there are censures
which deprive a priest of his " faculties,"
license) in whole or iii part, and, however unjust they
may appear to the ae they affect, there is scarcely a
priest in the world—perhaps not one—who will not,
when stricken by a censure of that kind, obey it im-
plicitly, and cease to perform the Interdicted functions
so long ss the censure lasts. That is to say, the con-
gregation tv.d the lay patron (if there be one) mey
be effectually deprived of the whole benefit of his
ministry, and of the funds ant of which it is sup-
ported, at the arbitrary will of his prelate, exercised
by him in • manner altog.ther unjust.
The only check hither,o found upon such exorbitant
authority, besides that very unsatisfactory one called
"Public *Pinion." consists in the occasional determi-
nation of a patron, or • trustee, or • congregation,
not to submit to have a new priest thrust upon them
by the bishop, bat to do without the sacraments and
ordinances of their religion rather than receive them
from the hands of any but the deprived minirer.
But instances of such courage and self-denial are, it
is aided, very rare, and are likely to become more so,
since the late changes—the repeal of all former
customs, lane, and privileges, having deprived the
scrupulous of what plea they had before for thus
withstanding the will of a bishop.
For our parts, we must candidly say, that in these
difficulties, as they are called, we see nothing what-
ever to justify or excuse Roman catholic inaction. The
long and short of the matter is this : spiritual can-1
sures are ernployed,directly or indirectly, we care not
which, fur pecuniary or other temporal ends. By the
common law of the land, as well as by certain statutes
paned in Roman catholic times, it is an offence so to
no ; and the penalties are no less than those of preesu-
nire,—that is to my, forfeiture of property, and im-
prissumeot for life, or at the Lir CEN'tl pleasure. The
recent pamphlets of Mr. ANSTET and Mr. BARNES
clearly 'show that each is the law of the case ; and
this being so, the Roman catholic laity, at lest, hav-
ing the remedy sow within their power, have only
themselves to blame, if they submit fur one hour to
the stupid and impotent oppression of their cardinal
and his adherents.
Nut so with another and the only remaining diffi-
culty which we have to notice, and which appears to
us well worthy of legislatorial consideration. Owing
to the bungling way in which the Relief Acts were
drawn, it is now more than doubtful whether Roman
catholic endowments anterior in date to these enact-
ments are now rude valid ; that is to say, whether
the old law of superstitious use., u it is called, is not
still in force with respect to such endowments. To
add to the difficulty, many, and perhaps the whole,
of those endowments were made by secret as-
suraeces, and therefore void under the Mort-
main Acts; and jet, by a singular omission in
the Roman Catholic Belief Acts, no provision
has ever been made for enabling Roman catholic, to
comply with the Mortmain Acts, upon the necessity
for any further concealment being removed. Conse-
quently, if • bill were now to be filed against any
defaulting trustee, layman or clerk, bishop or cardinal,
foe an account of his management of any one of those
endowments, the whole proceeding would be at once
rendered nugatory by his entrenching himself behind
the laws of Mortmain and superstitions uses, and
declining to answer interrogatories which tended to
elicit intormation perilous to the charity and perhaps
oriminatory of its managers.
It is now some four years eines these anomalies of
English law were made the aubieot of our considers-
tics and comment, and we have seen no reason to
chums the opinion which we then expressed. Had
the bell of 1847, brought into the last parliament by
Mr. ROMILI.Y and Mr. F.WART, " for the better id-
ministration of charitable trusts," been passed into a
law, that difficulty would have been effectually re-
moved. It simply provided that no charitable foun-
dation should be deemed illegal, merely because of
past or present enactments against superstitious uses,
or because Jesuits or masks were entrusted with the
management or participated in its advantage; and
that all such charities.. were sot then enrolled under
the Nlortmain acts should be allowed the further term'
of twelve months for that purpose—an indulgence fre-
quently granted to protestant charities by parliament.
The measure, however, was not then ressedand al-
though renewed by Mr. ANSTST and one 01.1oenan
Nlailute in the present parliament, yet not being sup-
ported by other Roman catholic., it was dropped after
the first reading. But the matter cannot rest any
longer in so much uncertainty, and, if &nobleman lint
L3td CAMOTS, zealous for his religion, yet, as his ad-
mirable letter proves, nowise minded to brook inso-
lence or wrong at the hands of its ministers, wen
inclined to take the task of legislation out of the
heads of minister., the crisis is favourable.
At all events, it is not very favourable to nab
legislation as will suit Cardinal WISEMAN and the
bishops. On referring to the Daily News, for 1847,
our readers will meet with finnan allusion to • cer-
tain bill, then prepared by Mr. Baosiuwe, of the
Chancery Bar, wider the eye of theme prelates, and
11:=by them in the hands of Lord AZONDZIL AND
I', for the purpose of being laid before parlia-
ment. Bat " the motion for leave" we never made.