The Sun.
London, England, 1824-12-07 00:00:00

CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION.

(Front " The Times" of yesterday. )

It is even as we had feared for Ireland. The
cause of Catholic Emancipation—that stalking-horse of selfish
ind infuriated parties, but a cause in itself both sound and:
just, in the same degree in Mich it is liberal and persaasive—
has been once more brought. tp the edge of destruction, by what
a sensible correspondent in an Irish newspaper calls the " fa-
tality" which has all along pursued it. But what, let us ask,
is that fatality ? Why, it is nothing more than the fatal va-
nity and violence—the fatal shallowness and stupidity—the
moral arrogance, ambition, and intolerance, discovered uni-
formly at the moment when the exhibition of such qualities
must be most ruinous, by those who professed to feel the deepest
interest in the measure, and to identify their own fortunes with
the success of it. The loss of the question of Emancipation
has before been brought about by Catholics themselves : if
lost again, it will again be owing to Catholics. The habitual
insolence and clamour of the Orange party had but served the
cause they sought to overturn, by disgusting the people of
England with their injustice. But the Orangemen were re-
pressed by the Government, anti were declining rapidly.—
Equal folly on the other aide, however, has more than trimmed
the balance. Fear and anger, mingled with disgust, are the
sentiments, now rising every where throughout England against
the Catholics—their rent--their priesthood—their demagogues
—and their pretensions. Whom are they to thank for this ?
The hypocrites who have betrayed the cause,—not the open but
ineffectual enemies who had for so many years opposed its gra-
dual and resolute advances.

'e have said that a serious alarm begins to prevail on the
subject of the Catholic proeeedings. We do not partake of this
alarm : we see reason enough to satisfy our own judgment, for
despising the danger at which many good men tremble, and
which is exaggerated and blazoned by many of an opposite
stamp. At the same time, if we cannot agree with the inti-
midated part of the community, we can allow for them. To
the pains that have been taken both to provoke and terrify the
Protestants of this country, it is impossible that we should blind
ourselves or others.

Among those phenomena of the present age at which our
ancestors, could they have risen to behold them, would have
been astonished) was the new arrangement of parties and of
sympathies, which had associated in a manner unknown to
former times, the professors of Popery with the friends of civil
freedom. Why was this re-action ? Not because of any grow.
ing taste for Popery ; but because the fears which it once in-
spired had ceased or diminished. We will venture to assert,
that in ninety-nine cases out of an hundred, the Protestant
friends of Catholic Emancipation were obliged to withdraw
their minds altogether from the history and character of
the Catholic relitTion, before they could bring themselves
to take a hearty interest in the grant of power to the lay-
men of that creed. It was not to increase the influence of
the Popish priesthood that any sane Member of Parliament
in this country could tender his vote for the admission of
Catholics to the Legislature. The prevailing sentiment of
Englishmen has been, and we trust it will so continue, that
a Popish hierarchy in full power, is the natural enemy of all
constituted power but its own. We do not say that a Popish
establishment is altogether inconsistent with civil freedom,
but, that its tendency is to encroach upon that freedom, all
history—and no history, in a manner, more impressive than
that of Europe for the last ten years—assures us. In our view,
therefore, the sound and rational argument in support of the
measure of Catholic Emancipation was twofold—first, that it
would do justice to the Catholic laity ; secondly, that by with.
drawing that laity from the exclusive influence of the priest.
hood, it would tend to undermine the pernicious power of their
Church.
What is now the aspect of the whole question as presented to
t in-
stead of strengthening liberty, and , • .
wegu shall be told there
us by these very claimants for Emancipation
w e aoakrtedwn illn gen:
Pet
vholeeVpnelltilluyysa,tltipi
Popish
be a step towards Popish supremacy,
sllloohaerreho fwtolisa at
igeroetaotd
.c a uiste
is
ni
od
vainet c
that
a
is no such thing meditated by the. Association of the Catholics.
The thing is notorious ; the unwise and ill-fated leaders of that
bodyti lave,so
Church—in
faradependson them, identified their cause with
that of '
the Popish
other words, with the subversion
of the Protestant Establishment. In their cruise for poli-
fboctar their r
tical power, they ought to have thrown their priesthood over-
pnsiltoetsad,
and of which, they have taken the reverend persons
would
iTeffectouuarl vfoolltey
ofo Catholicgiven them the command of the ship.—
o
That question
orator
on bes
anddi emstuartbatetelbeyo, such
nwe
that the future conduct of the lay-Ca-
have already taken a public opportunity to deny ; because
we are persuaded
tholics would be in no respect influenced by their recent
and ill.considered proceedings. But looking at the conse-
quence of those proceedings as they regard the minds of
others, nay, of perhaps a large majority of English Protes-
tants, let us once more put it to Messrs. O'Connell and
Co., what sort of politicians have' they shewn themselves?—
With a friendly Government, which has pursued a fair sys.
tern towards Catholic and Protestant, these foolish men have
done their own interests more mischief than the Government
had laboured to do them good—they have, by • a turbulence
which has studiously outrun and superseded Lord Welles-
ley's conciliatory policy, thrown back their cause to the same
point at which it stood in relation to the public feeling of Eng-
lighmen, when an open insurrection professed to be excited by
the inveterate Orange politics of Lord Talbot. As we said
before, let not the Protestants be blamed for this. They are pro-
voked—they are, some of them at least, alarmed by the bully-
ing fanaticism of these armed supplicants for power. We, never-
theless, beseech the Government to pause, and let the leaders of
the Catholics retrace their erring footsteps, before it legislates
directly against them—but inevitably and fatally against the
general rights of the subject. And we end, by admonishing the
lay Catholics themselves, on the authority of their own Vicar-
General, to distrust tlw sincerity of the longish priesthood, in
the pursuit of Catholic emancipation. The priesthood know
that their single tie over the laity is not that of a common
creed, but of a common political humiliation. They are
well aware that to incorporate the Gentry with the British '
Constitution, would be at once to disunite them, from that
hierarchy which: never can be a part of the Constitution.--
We are charged by some of the Irish' newspapers with hos-
tility to the present Catholic Assembly. The charge is a silly
one. We have besought the Government to leave it as long as
possible unmolested. We have advised the Association stre-
nuously to abstain from mingling its political interests with
those of any other party—with the Radicals, the Antiunionists,
or the intriguers of its own church. We wish it to conciliate,
not to irritate, the people of England. We are just so liir its
enemies, as it has proved itself' the worst practical enemy of
emancipation. Of this last measure we are just so far friends,
as we have reason to anticipate that it may help to promote the
internal peace of Ireland, and to support in Church and State
the Protestant empire of Great Britain.

The Catholics of the Midland District, compris-
ing the counties of Warwick, Stafford, Worcester and Salop,
finding that the designation which they' had assumed, as form-
ing a branch of the General British Catholic Association, was
illegal, huve formed themselves into a distinct society, to be
called the, hlidland Catholic Association.—(ifereford Inde-
pendent.)

Tuesday last being the day fixed for removing
the remains of the late Rev. H. J. RIC/MA.)4 LL.B., and
Mrs. Ricu max, from their residence at Dorchester, to Christ
Church, of which place they were both natives, at seven in
the morning the bells of the different parish churches began
tolling, and the bodies were deposited in the New Church,
which was soon crowded with persons anxious to pay the last
tribute of respect to the memory of their beloved and lamented
Pastor, and his amiable wife, withdrawn from them by one of
those mysterious dispensations, which powerfully teach us the
necessity of bell a
rest." The chute I
corporate, and inhabitants of the parish, having
was hung with black, and the clergy, body
waysready, and that " here is not our
expressed a
wish to accompany the bodies out of the town, about half-past
nine the procession moved in the following order :—The two
Churchwardens; six Clergymen, two and two; Robert Pat.deaeon•of Dorset, and the Rev. W. Churchill ;
tison, Esql, and A. Edwards Esq. ; the Very Rev. the Arch-
the Alayor, Recorder,the Sergeants
Corporation, two
at Mace;
djs. lolf. lithiechdoecealan,,ed
,as
mourners,
the
Tra d e
timoetnidAieoitin
lbaeeirrrdslnodifliaebthl;:teaarnlis ofo
f the Shaftesburyparish,
(High Stewardl; the'
two Mutes, two Undertakers- the Body of the
andFti
twrve
.nt andw; two;
coach, with two
close the procession.—
Body of Mrs. Richman,
On the arrival of the hearses and mourning coach at Christ
adhneators;e a drawn
u ibusy:.four horses ; the
Church, on Wednesday mowing, they were joined by the
relatives,ond many friends of the deceased, and their bodies
were laidin the family vault amidst a large assemblage of per-
sons, who appeared deeply. impressed with the. melancholy
scene.