The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-23 00:00:00

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LONDON. THURSDAY. DECEMBER 23, 1847.

Every Roman Catholic in her Ma,rasTr's dominions
will feel grateful to the Earl of ARUNDEL and
SURREY for the noble-spirited letter addressed by him
to Jour? TUAM, the " Lion of the tribe of Judah."
`With a chivalrous sense of his own position, and that
of his co-religionists, at a time when bloody murders
are said to cry to heaven for vengeance against cer-
tain members of the Irish priesthood, who have
profaned the holy day consecrated to the adoration of
the Divinity by inciting the peasantry to deeds of
brutality and violence, that young Nobleman has
implored the Catholic Archbishop of TUAM to make
such investigations into those charges against the sub-
ordinate clergy, as shall demonstrate either their
guilt or innocence, and to exercise in all
cases of proven delinquency the sacerdotal authority
confided to him at the period of his consecration•
Words could not be more impassioned or more pur
suasive in supplication than those of the noble heir to
the Dukedom of Norfolk ; they could not be more
justifiable in their earnestness; they could not be
more explicit in remonstrance ; they could not be
more gentle or more definite as expressions of per-
sonal reverence and ecclesiastical obedience. It is
such a letter as a HOWARD might have written to
HILDEBRAND in the days of the Crusades. It enun-
ciates a want which must be experienced by every
member of that Church among the English laymen
of which the Earl of ARUNDEL and SURREY is
one of the most distinguished ornaments.
It reminds Dr. M'HALE that the Roman Catholics
resident in this island are just now subjected to a
perpetual sorrow, because of their utter incapacity to
vindicate the teachers of their religion in Ireland
from the dismal accusations laid against them of being
virtually murderers and the inciters of murderers.
It explains to that prelate the anguish inflicted
upon the heart of every conscientious Catholic by
the reiterated charges made against certain members
of the Irish priesthood, of being dyed with a guilt
immeasurably worse than that of merely " moral
complicity," in the most devillish of the agrarian
assassinations. It calls to his recollection the fact
that neither the Earl of ARUNDEL and SURREY him-
self, nor any of his fellow-Catholics in this country,
are so situated as to
be able by any means what-
ever to substantiate
appalling ; accusations, the
daccuracy of those
of their being erroneous,an . the event
f releasing them-
selves from the odium which
therebyindirectly
tthis
attaches itself to the religion. It exclaims
upon
point—how bitter it is to the writers heart that he
cannot defend the Irish Church in his intercourse
with his friends, or against the attacks of
violent
opponents in the House of Commons. After re
re-
minding Archbishop M'HALE that the enemies of
Romaa Catholicism avail themselves of the oppor.
tunity afforded by the indolence of the superior
authorities of that religion in not bringing the sup-
posed offenders to an ecclesiastical tribunal, and visit-
ing them, in the event of their culpability being estab-
lished, with those punishments of sacerdotal degrada-
tion, ~sr suspension from their duties as clergymen,
which. are felt by a priest to be the most terrible and
ignominious. "Oh, my Lord Archbishop," continues
the Earl, " it is indeed severe to feel the justice of
such remarks—not the remarks, be it observed, of
thoughtless and uncharitable men, but of those whose