The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-26 00:00:00

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LOA-DON, MONDAY, OCT. 26.

SPAIN AND IRELAND.

Tint doctrine of " a free church in a free state "
bas not found favour in the eyes of the Court of
Rome, and yet it would bo too much to say that
the Vatican rejects the doctrine absolutely under
all circumstances and in all places. It rejects the
doctrine in Catholic states, that is, in states where
the Church of Rome is either the church
of the state or the church of the majority
of the people, and dominant in privi-
leges and prerogatives. In Italy it resents
the doctrine with particular bitterness because
Cavotrx announced it as the final formula of the
reconciliation between Papal Rome and Italy; as
the condition which should enable the Holy
Father to resign his temporal power as the ruler
of a small state in the heart of Italy, and to pre-
servo his spiritual supremacy unimpaired and un-
assailed as the successor of ST. PETER and the
sovereign guardian of the tombs of the Apos-
tles. It rejects the doctrine enunciated
by CATOUR, as one of the insidious resources of
that statesman's moral engineering for sapping up
to the walls of Rome by a series of parallels, and
establishing a breach without violence or noise.
It rejects the doctrine in France, because it pre-
fers the precarious and interested support of an
arbitrary government which takes the dominant
Church into partnership, to the risk of relying on the
pious zeal of the faithful, amidst a population
infected with the poison of VOLTAIRE. During the
reign of Loris PHILIPPE, it is true, it demanded
liberty, because it was dissatisfied with equality. But
it condemned LAMENNAIS, lIONTALERBERT, and
LACORDAIRE when in the flush and ardour of a
chivalrous faith they demanded liberty of the
Church in the sense of separation from the State.
In Spain at this moment the Papal Nuncio is in-
structed to repel the principle and repudiate the
offer of liberty in exchange for the absolute domi-
nation the Church has hitherto enjoyed.
In Protestant and heretical States, which
have long since suffered all the horrors of excom-
munication, and apparently have not been much
the worse for it, in Great Britain, in Northern
Germany, in the Scandinavian kingdoms, the Church
of Rome professes to demand nothing more or better
than a generous application of the principle of a
free church in a free state, which in the
United States, in Canada, in Australia, in all that
new world peopled by men of British or Teutonic
speech, is the only available condition of ita ex-
istence and its growth. In Ireland the circum-
stances are peculiar. There the Church of Rome
is the church of the groat majority of the people,
yet has for centuries suffered those disabilities at
the hands of the state which wherever it

is predominant it never fails to inflict upon
religious minorities beyond its pale. And as
towards Ireland the Court of Rome stands at pre-
sent in this singular attitude. It would rather for
propagandist purposes retain the semblance and Vie
badge of persecution than become a free Church,
with other free Churches, in a free State. The
Court of Rome would not even object to that en-
dowment in company with other endowed churches
of the minority which Mr. DISRAELI was
fain to propose. But the interests of the Irish
Catholic population are no more identified with
those of the Court of Rome, than the in-
terests of the Italian, or the Spanish, or the
Austrian Catholic population. And no doubt
the Irish Catholic hierarchy, who know the temper
of the race over whose spiritual destinies they
preside, have caused it to be known in
the councils of the Vatican that a great act
of imperial justice and reconciliation c►nnot be
rejected in the face of the world, because the doc-
trine of a free church in a free state, sometimes
dangerous and sometimes inconvenient, is the only
possible alternative wherever domination has
passed or is passing away.