The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-01-06 00:00:00

THE CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD.

The subjoined letter was published in an Evening Paper
of yesterday, in the leading article of which reference was
made to it in the following terms :
" We publish to-day an extraordinary, an instructive,
and a most revoltingstatement, under the title of Modern
Popery.' It is not necessary we should recapitulate here
the shocking details; but they are calculated to excite
deep and serious reflections, when we recollect what has
hitherto been the great argument of the advocates of Ca-
tholic Emancipation, that we must not estimate the princi-
ples and practices of Popery in the present day by its
corruptions and oases of former ages. Yet what a
tulle does the ease we now snake public %rsr to uses
enormities which furnished a fruitful but melancholy
theme to the moral satirists of Italy and France, during,
the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. It is
horrible to reflect that such crimes can be meditated—and,
though not in this instance, yet in too many others, per-
petrated—under the mask, and by the influence, of reli-
gion. We have the names and residences of all the parties
mentioned in the document referred to, but, for the present,
we have judged it expedient to suppress them. The state-
ment is addressed to one of the most distinguished of the
Catholic Bishops."
TO THE RIGHT HEY. OR.

XITIIHOP OF
MT LORD,—It in now six months since I brought a charge
against one of your Clergy, the Rey. —, for having attempted
to seduce my wife,
crime of adultery with him, in my own house, under the same roof
with me and my nine children, while she was on her knees at con-
fession to him in an inner room. Received by me in the most hos-
pitable manner, miserly unsuspected of the capability of his har-
bouring the thought of such an act, and domestieateil as he often
had been at my fire-side, I could not give credence even to • faith.
ful and affectionate wife, when she first disclosed the offered wrong
to me ; and it was not until it had been offered a third time, and
even in my view, though unseen by him, that I could believe hu-
man nature capable of such an act. My wife and I waited on you
at your conference in , last May, and there stated to you
the particulars of this disgraceful transaction, in the presence of
the accused person. He acknowledged the truth of our allegations
against him—that he had used questionable freedoms with my wife,
-but attempted to justify his having asked to kiss her,on the grounds
of his wishing to afford her a testimony of hie approval of her zeal
for the Catholic Religion. I then asked him why did lie say to my
wife on one of these occasions that he was too fond of her ; and he re-
plied in your hearing, that it was for her being so religious a woman,
and on account of her attention to him as a Priest. This explanation,
howev6r, seemed to be quite as unsatisfactory to your Lordship as
It really was to us. You told me In his presence that he had no
right to kiss my wife, or any other woman, and that his conduct
in my house, to which he had been hospitably admitted, had been
quite unjustifiable. tile. then implored my compassion
upon him, and said that if I would not expose him he would
take his oath that lie would leave the country for ever, and go
to New York ; you then removed him to the parish of —,
as it was generally supposed, for the benefit of his health ; and in
hie place rent the Rev. , (another priest of the same BUT.
name with the former, and whom we shall call the " the locum-
tenens priest;") who, I understand, would have been left
longer here, but for the vicinity of the --, of
in the parish of ---, (certain Roman Catholic families
who, it would appear, had suffered some similar injuries); and
thereby hangs another tale—but I have nothing to do with it, and
will confine myself to my own grievance. Here would the matter
have rested for ever, had the man who thus requited my attach.
ment to our Church, and my hospitality to himself, in so unworthy
a manmer. remained in —, or gone, as it was reported, to be
Bishop of New York—descended from an ancient Catholic family,
whose hereditary pride it was, to entertain their clergy—and mar.
tied into a family still more ancient and more Catholic if pos.
Bible, the —, of the county of —, neither my wife nor I
would willingly bring shame on an entire Church, for the delin-
quency of an individual ; and, however our feelings had been out-
raged, you should never have had another complaint from us,
had not this man had the matchless effrontery to come back in
two short months afterwards, to the triumphant justification of
himself, and to the utmost peril of our substance and lives by the
prejudice which his advocates have had the address to raise
against us, among the country people, as malicious calumniators—
as heretics in disguise, and the accusers of an innocent man.—
Mr. —, who is now as busily employed, as ever he was, in hear.
ing confessions, and preaching on celibacy, alleges that my wife
and I are both devils, the fabricators of a cruel saluoiny against
him. This he told to my own brother-in-law, —, of the
In this parish of —; and when reproved him for what
he had attempted, and still more for his inveterate language against
injured and insulted people, he implied that the whole of this had
arisen in consequence of his having rebuked me for being a Ribbon-
man, and compelling me to quit that society. Now, my Lord,
I never was a Ribbonman, although my zeal for my Church
more than once laid me under the euspicion of being one, and if
I Tully were one, and had confessed it to Mr. —, he ought
not to have rereaMd tile confession. The consequence of Ms
having thus calumniated me was what might lave been nata.
rally expected.' We went immediately to —, Esq.
(one of the most respectable Magistrates in Ireland), and madwl
a written deposition before him, as a Justice of the Peace, of the
whole transaction from beginning to end. Mr. —.-- sent foe
the accused person, and for the Reverend who had re.
mained in the neighbourhood, after the return of his namesake,
and he also sent for my maternal uncle, the Reverend —,
parish priest of --, as a proper person to have justice done
to both parties; Mr. idle accused - priests was in the
town, but did not think proper to come forward. My wife
then 'swore upon the Holy Evangelists all that she thought
shc ought indecency and prudence to reveal of *hM had
_

sake, not to suffer this man to remain Any longer: 81)&1
added, that although Air. had bound me over io kuis
peace, I could not answer for bis personal safely, if he shoultertr
vine in my way again, under any suspicious circunurtanree.
These arguments, for a moment, seemed to bear some weight wit't
you, and you will confess that in times like the present they de-
serve attention, end ought to have effected the removal of this mete.
if not from the chstach, at least from a neighbourhood, in which he
had laid himself so open to censure, not only upon my account, but
also upon that of others,: ;inch treatment as we have got is not to
be endured—and you seem to think so yourself, when you promised
that you wculd,retuove this man from we. You observed, however,
at the same time, that as he had not wings to fly, he required some
little time to make ready for the journey, and so far from advising
, him to stay where he was, you told us you would give him every en-
, eouragement to removeto another parish. I observed that in doing
so, you might probably become the author of sin, by imposing him
upon strangers, who might with less good forum than vianiut
had, prove as unsuspicious of him as we had been. You then isted
me in anger, would I presume to demand from you what yet in-
tended to do with the man, or would I not leave the considerate's
of the case to the Church, the soli judge and arbitresa of such
matters. Upon this we departed in hope of hi. immediate re- I
moral, but though Ile has not yet ventured to meet the congrega-
tion at (the chapel attended by his accusers), and has bit
duty done here by a curate, he is our parish priest still, and it
being but a very few weeks since another of your priests give
heinous offence to morality, in a similar way, I beg leave most
humbly to submit to yottr Lordship's consideration the necessity of
a thorough investigation of this metter, and that you will, by some
public declaration of your Opinion upon it, rescue me and my lii.
invent wife from a heavy imputation, or this erclesiestic from that
of being an unpretitable servant. The original of my wife's dePo-
sition remains in the office of Mr. (the Magistrate)—and
am ready to testify upon oath the correctness of what is stated in
this letter.
I remain, my Lord, your obedient servant,
Dec. 11, 1625.
P.8.-111y sole object in the publication of this letter is to pro.
cure such an investigation of the whole affair as will show to the
world who is the injured party ; that is, whether my wife ard my-
self are caluntniators ; or whether Mr. --, under thp guise of
religion, is an abandoned character, and of cou:se eat for his
sacred calling. Your Lordship is aware, from what yay, wife
stated to you, that it was not one attempt he made hellOtiee her
WO adultery—but that he 'mewed Ma attacks 'Upon Mt' ',Mee
:hree times after committing 'the impious offence detailed slime.
Yam .I.fordaltip, knows this. I saw once th• smarm *rear% my
parlour window, as I was returning at night from the cow-boot .
1141 that the hypocrite, when he heard me coming, took up Yes -
Breviary, pastaading to be employed in an ace of devotiou.