The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-15 00:00:00

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against it; but
? (TlPar,

man, indeed, said was its object, the consequence would be
that spiritual and temporal things would be so mixed np tha
you could not allow them to be put in force by a synod with-
out giving the Pope a great deal of temporal power in this
kingdom.—(Cheers.) If they allowed these rescripts to be
introduced from the Pope, as the source of jurisdiction, not
over persons, they must have tke whole system of the'canon
law introduced into England, the first principle of which
canon law was that all the laws of any country must give
way to the Pope's edicts. This doctrine was furthfr illus-
trated by the decretals of Gregory IX., who, comparing the
spiritual and temporal jurisdiction, said there were two
great lights in the heavens, that which governed the day
was the spiritual authority, and that which governed the night
wai the temporal; so that there was_ the same difference
between the temporal Sovereign and the Pope as there
was between the sun and the moon.—(A laugh.) Boni-
face VIII., in his decretals, said that both the swards were
in the power of the Church—the spiritual and the mate-
ri@l, and he claimed a temporal power over all men for the
safety of their souls. Cardnal Bellarmine explained this
by saying that tb• temporal power thus claimed was only
. ad bonum spirituale, which was a tolerably wide definition.
But this book of Cardinal Bellarmine's was so displeasing
to Sixtus V. that he put it upon the prohibited list for this
explanation and restrie!ion alone. It was true, as the Hon.
and Learned Gentleman stated, that Rome never changed,
and he should look at this position with reference to the
bull In coma Dcmani. That bull was ordered to be made
known yearly, and to be published on the doors of churches.
Every sentence began, " We excommunicate and anathe-
matize." The persons excommunicated were all persons,
whether judges or persons in authority, who interfered with
. archbishops or bishops, or any of their servants or messengers.
Everybody who appealed from the decrees, sentence, and
orders of the Church was by this bull excommunicated and
anathematized. So that an appeal ad Cancellariuns—(A
laugh)—if the canon law were introduced, would bring
every person who might institute such an appeal to
the Court of Chancery under the anathemas of this bull. It.
also provided that all those who came under its censuses
should be incapable to receive absolution from any but the
Pope, except upon their death-beds, and then only from
some high spiritual authority expressly deputed by him.
-Did these Ecclesiastical Churches of England and Scotland
Institute a claim of temporal jurisdiction in everything? But
there were higher considerations of State policy concerned.
The Popes had claimed *e power to depose sovereigns—
(Hear, hear)—and to absolve the subjects of heretical princes
from their oaths of allegiance. They also absolved soldiers
from the obligation to serve heretical princes. Tell him that
these powers were defunct! He replied that the Roman Ca-
- tholic hierarchy had been defunct for 300 years, but had.
now been restored. And who should say that the Pope
might not think it right again to depose a Sovereign from
his throne, and absolve his soldiers from their allegiance?—
(Hear, and " Oh !") The Hon. and Learned Gentleman
- said Rome was changed ; and there were some recent facts
of ominous import. Austria would net have dreamed until
lately of suffering a Papal bull to be introduced into her do-
minions until it bad first received the ezequatur Begium, yet
that power had given way upon that point.— (Hear.) And
• Rome might yet find an opportunity of exercising a power set
. largely and so broadly claimed. Bat the Hon. and Learned
.Gentleman would say of this argument as he said of the
spiritual jurisdiction of a foreign ;Sovereign, " That the
House ought to have considered the subject when it passed
Catholic Emancipation." It was considered, • and an oath
was exacted from the Roman .Catholic Members in which i
they swore that they would not attack or disturb the set
Cement of the Church of England as by law established-
Another clause of the Emancipation Act prohibited the f
assumption of certain ecclesiastical titles, which, however,
had been evaded. He, for one, did not set any value upon
these securities, for he had a doubt whether, as a question
of constitutional expediency, it was right to fetter the mem-.
hers of that House in any manner in the consideration of what
• was brought before them.—(Hear.) The laity of the l:oman
Catholic Church has been for 150 years loyal subjects, but
were we bound to give them the right of claiming to be the
only Church in England ?—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. and
Learned Gentleman seemed to have forgotten that we had an
established church in England.—(Hear, hear.) Were we
bound to admit that the Roetnan Catholic dioceses were the
only dioceses in England—Neat they bad a right to place
Canterbury, to put aside London. and to set up West-
minister ?—(Hear.) The Hen. and Learned Gentleman said
that if we gave the R man Catholics the right to exercise
spiritual privileges, we must give them the power to de-
velope that right to the fullest extent. But bow much fur-
ther would that natural development go? Why, to the in-
troduction orthe canon law, which would enable the Church
to excommunicate every person who brought an ecclesiastic
before a civil court, as we had seen in Sardinia. Cardinal
Wiseman said he did not take the property of the bishops of
the Established Church; but they owed him no thanks for
that, for he could not.—(Hear.) But they must look to
countries where the Roman Catholics bad power, and see
what they did. there.—(Cheers.) And he said that the " na-
tural development" of that Church was to refuse absolution
to.any person who interfered with ecclesiastics and brought
them bafore the civil tribunals.—(No, no.) Why, look at
Sardinia. The object of the Siceardi laws was to try eccle-
siastics in the civil courts, and they punished the Minister
with excommunication. He (Mr. P. Wood) would stop
this "natural development" in the first stage; for that,
he believed, would be the course most conzatent with civil
and religious liberty, and the peace, happiness, and pros-
perity of this country. If the Pope were allowed to go on
in this course, he believed we should have, not a develop-
ment of religious feeling, but a tierce and bloody con-
test, before a stop were put to it.— (Cheers.) He would
put a s'c p to such proceedings at once.—(Hear, hear.) The
-Pon. and Learned Member for Plymouth said the Hon.
„Member. ;or Marylebone (Sir B. 1E311) hail evinced a fierce
.and persecuting spirit, became lie said that if he was a tio-
.m.ot Catholic he- would lie opposed to this l'apal measure.
But surely that was a fair representation. '['he whole de-
- hnce of Cardinal Wiseman intimated the fart that Belgium
-o as an exception to the almost general rule of Europe; that
being one of the most ultra-Roman Catholic countries, it
,had followed the steps of Austria. in England before the
Reformation, all Catholic as it was, it was uniformly held
tlliat the Pope hail no right to intrude in the appointment Of
bishops; awl he found in Lingard's history of the Anglo •
,Oaxon system that no biibop could be appointed by the me-
tropolitan without the consent of the King and Parliament.
The Hon. Member for Marylebone said. were h, a R man
Catholic he would protest against the new system ; and many
Roman Catholics did protest that to i 4 e.
called a pers:eating 8,"
found the name of Howard as strop
illation against this Papal ig;res,"
house of Howard said, as his ancestors 121,1
would hold no divided allegiance; but was there any as-
surance that he would not be persecuted ii lie took any step
whatever to intertere with the assumption of the pre!esias-
iieal over the civil Govrtime• t ? -([dear, bear.:) His I Ina.
and earned Friend had referred to till circu.rstanca that
the Roman Catholic religion was the religion of nearly all the
European Governments, anti he asked what was the use of
referring to the sours- taken by ;hose Gevernmente i n this
p-int: Now ;he arum-net which 1;e (Mr. Woo t) and his
friends used on this subject was, that eves in other countries
where the Roman Catholic re igion was the religion of the
State the tAoye-eign thought it necessay to watc : over the
encroachments of the Papacy ; but, because this was the
case, it by no means followed that those aggressions were to
be allowed in another country where the Roman Catholic re-
ligion was not the religion of the State, and in a country where
the claims of the Pope were held to be in direct opposition to
those of the Sovereign ( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member
for Sheffield first began this style of argnin nt. but it was
clearly one that would not stand the test of reason. Ile
would refer to the reprint of the report of the Committee of
1816, in which they would find it laid down as the opinion of
one of their own jurists, Van Espen, that the right of the
placet was " inseparately comected with the Sovereignty."
of every country, and that "no priuce could renounce 1 "
and, further, that it was the du'y of every prince in this re-
spect " to protect their an jests, to watch over the tranquil-
lity of the State, and preserve heir long-standing rights and
privileges."— (Hear.) He asked them if these were not
duties resting upon the Sovereign of this country and upon
her Ministers? (Hear.) He asked whether the tranquillity
of this State would long be preserved if bulls of the descrip-
tion to which he had referred were permitted to be promul-
gated here?—(Hear.) They might talk of a fanatical spirit
if they liked ; but they might depend upon it that at the bot-
tom of the opposition now raised in England was the old
Saxon spirit, the old English feeling, that led our barons to
pass the law c f the 16th of Richard II , which ever opposed
ecclesiastical usurpation, occasioned the Reformed at in the
days of Henry VIII., precipated James 11. from his throne,
and which allowed our present sovereigns to occupy the
throne only so long as they did not profess that execrable
mixture of temporal and spiritual things which he believed
was as injartous tc liberty as it was to freedom.—(Hear,
hear.) He might refer to another extract from Van Espen,
in which he stated that it was the duty of Attorney-Generals
to watch over the preservation of this right of the placet,
meaning thereby that it was the duty of all the law officers of
Sovereigns and States to take care that this right was
strictly and narrowly watched. The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman (Mr. Walpole) had represented his Hon. Friend
the Member for Marylebone as saying that he had no ob-
jection to the goverment of vicars apostolic, and then he
added, very complacently, that had the Hon. Member for
Marylebone studied the subject as deeply as he had done,
he would have seen that literally the only difference be-
tween bishops and vicars apostolic was a difference in name.
Now, to say the change was only one in name was certainly
a very astonishing misrepresentation on the part of his Hon.
Friend. He (111r.-Wood) had already directed the attention
of the House to this point, and had shown from various bulls
that for the last 300 years the Church of Rome was only a
missionary church in this country, and that she bad made no
pretence to be the church of this country. In all her
rescripts she spoke of persons, not of territories, and
claimed no territorial • power whatever. There was an
entire departure from this principle, however, in the
recent rescript, and, notwithstanding all that had been
said by his Hon. and Learned Friend the Member for
l'lymoutli, he must repeat his belief that that change
!mounted to a gross violation of the law of nations. - (Hear,
't4e.r.l When a bishop was appointed to Jerusalem by the
ta(rmeign of this country no territorial designation whatever
Tegl`r,u him; he was only appointed to preside over such
rtihk subjects and foreign Protestants as should be willing
to B'ilbject themselves to his superintendence. They never
heard of a British subject taking, in Turkey, the title of
pasha of any district
tin that country. Ind, there was no
analogy between cases ; and it seemed trifling with the
House to contend that, because the Government of England
submitted to vicars-apestnii .
it should submit also to the
pcsaziitnh:at'erritorial jurisdiction.—(Hear,
appointment of bilk°
Wiseman would only govern
hear.) doubt
Inhe had no power to do thoselwho submitted to his oils
otherwise;
but would he not
as challenged his authority n 1
ohthite and curse such
in— the largest
teehnatsetheright of
Indeed, it had
never been denied Clem dinal wize: 1)
all was .
governing
3.- had found no
and Learned. Friend said it waa onlya
0_ • His Hon.
suffered all. But if it were so, for 300 yeanrair names after
necessity whatever for
difficulty, and they could point out no.
one single
this change. • He had listened in vain to hear asingle Gen-
tleman say. that the Roman Catholicsvv.
and in vicar
spiritual grievance from Cardinal Wiseman be'
apostolic, instead of Bishop of Westminster; the five
speeches he had heard front the Hon. Member for Demi*
he had not heard him complain of one spiritual grievance.
Was the House then prepared to say that the people of Eng_
land would be justified in allowing this step to be taken ; and
when his Hon. and Learned Friend said he thought it almost
scandalous that the House should be occupied in discussing
this trumpery Bill, when they ought', to be proceeding with
the financial measures of the countzl, he confessed- that he
was of a different opinion. Even in the Bill, as at present
proposed, there was an asse;tion of the illegality of this act,
and although that assertion might not be contained in lan-
guage so strong or concise as he might wish, still the ille-
gality was asserted, and in that assertion they were taking
the first step in, the establishment, and not in derogation of
civil and religious liberty.—(Hear, hear.) His Hon. and
Learned Friend said he had ao fear of the Church of England;
she had her endowments and everything to carry her for-
ward. He (Mr. Wood), too, had
nofear for the Church of
England. It was not that which made him earnest in
this matter, what he'trembled for was the civil liberty of
„England.-AHear, hear.) The Pope
sa
buwit
nthe British
4inspire only Ireland ; in Russia he
saw
Poland, H
and
*; !`"nt rho south be saw but some of the smaller States.
'..sor \Spain and Italy, and let him rejoice at them hee

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