The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-08 00:00:00

from the power the priest had over the weak, miserable
mind of the poor man, and over the minds of his
family and friends who believed the priest had the power to
consign them to damnation. You could not reach that
power by Act of Parliament.—(llear, hear.) You might
print book after book, you might pronounce anathema after
anathema, but you could not relieve the poor man from this
fear in his mind, and it was the power the priest had
which gave him real power, and not the operation of the
law. If they said they would make a law to prevent
persons on their deathbeds leaving property to priests and
bishops he would be the very first to assist them, but he
would extend it to all alike. He should fear a Methodist
preacher as much as Cardinal Wiiseman—he should fear the
Bishop of London quite as much as Cardinal Wiseman.—
(Laughter.) He would direct an Act against them by the
general name of " priests," but he would not direct any
against a Catholic bishop which he did not apply to a Me-
thodist preacher. Did the Noble Lord know what he was
about ? Had there not been for the last half dozen years a
constant acknowledgment of the Catholic bishops in Ireland
by the names of their sees; and not only that, but had not
the Charitable Bequests Act expressly appointed a commis-
sion partly composed of Catholic bishops, and had not a
commission issued from the Sovereign naming those bishops
by the titles of their sees?—(Cries of " No, no.") Had
not bishops been named by persons in authority by the
names of the sees in which they resided, and were they not
recognized in Acts of Parliament by those names? Why,
there was a very stringent Act, which rendered it necessary
to record the name of every Catholic priest, and the name of
the person from whom he derived his orders, and table after
table had been filled up under it, naming the Catholic bishops
by the names of their sees.—(Hear, hear.) His objection to
this measure was, that it was a step backward in obedience
to prejudice out of doors—that it was a retrograde step,
made because of the feeling of Hon. Gentlemen opposite.
The Noble Lord could not be alarmed at the power of the
Pope in this country unless he was alarmed at the influence
of the priesthood on account of their intelligence, industry,
and continued application to the principles of religion.
There was something in the circumstances of a Catholic
priest coming into this country which exhibited Lim in an
exalted position. He came into a kingdom where he had to
meet great prejudice, among a people full of distrust and
predisposition to suspect him; and there, though protected
by the law, he made no converts but by the influence
of his mind over the minds of others, and could derive
no power but from his own industry. It was dangerous
to meddle with such a power, and all he would say
of the Noble Lord's law was that it derived its benefit from

Rome and without having obtained its consent. He assured
the Noble Lord that the Sicardi laws went much further than
he seemed to suppose • that they trenched upon purely eccle-
siastical matters, suchl as the holidays of the Church, and
the like. The censures of the Church were necessarily in-
curred by those Catholics who had taken part in the passing
of these measures. When the unfortunate Minister Rosae was
on his death-bed his confessor refused to give him absolution
until he had made reparation for the injury he had done.
The dying man did make a retractation privately, and he
thereupon received the sacrament of absolution; but, having
subsequently refused to allow his retractation to be published,
the clergyman who attended him was obliged to refuse him
the last sacrament of the Church, the viaticum. The
Archbishop of Turin, however, in consideration of his
having received absolution, allowed the Catholic rites
of burial to be performed over his remains. That
was the whole case. The Noble Lord was not more
fortunate in his reference to France, whose wide-spread
immorality and infidelity did not say much for thd
tampering of the State with the Church. The
Noble Lord also spoke of Austria, and expressed his regret
at the restrictions which had been imposed upon the Church
by the Wide' Emperor Joseph. Those restrictions had been
found so injurious that the present Emperor, finding that the
Catholic religion had been the real bond of order in the late
convulsions and struggles which threatened the dissolution
of his empire, had in gratitude liberated the Church from
their operation. The Noble Lord had also referred to several
instances in which the monarchs of this country had inter-
fered with the liberties of the Catholic Church ; but he
begged to remind the Noble Lord that every case he had
mentioned was the act of a despotic monarch, who cared
very little either for the civil or religious liberties of
their subjects, and invaded both whenever he could. The
Noble Lord had taken the Catholic Archbishops of Armagh
and Tuani severely to task because they had not expressed
themselves in the same terms of gratitude to the British
Legislature which had been used by other prelates of
their Church immediately after the passing of the Emancipa-
tion Act. The truth was, however, that the policy which
had been pursued towards Ireland since the passing of that
Act had not been such as to command the gratitude either of
the laity or the clergy of the Catholic Church. With respect
to the supremacy of the Queen, he begged to say that the
Catholics entirely acknowledged it in temporal matters.
The Noble Lord spoke of the loyal Catholics, and the Ultra-
montane Catholics, and seemed to insinuate rather than
openly declare that those Catholics who did not admit the
supremacy of the Queen in ecclesiastical as well as temporal
matters were not loyal. But he would ask the Noble Lord
if the bishops of the Protestant Church were all agreed with
respect to the Queen's supremacy? if he was not mistaken,
he had seen within a few weeks past a protest from the
Bishop of Exeter and another bishop against the terms in
which her Majesty's supremacy was spoken of by the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. Conside•ing that the bishops of the
Protestant Church were divided upon it, and that the Dis-
senters utterly repudiated the idea of it, he (Mr. O'Connell)
thought it rather too much that the Noble Lord should en-
deavour by a sidewind to stigmatise as disloyal those
Roman Catholics who did not acknowledge the spiritual su-
premacy of the Queen. In February, 1844, the Noble Lord
declared that it was " a foolish prohibition " to provide by
statute that Roman Catholic bishops should not be allowed
to style themselves by the name of the diocese over which
they presided. He left the Ncble Lord to reconcile the words
which he uttered on that occasion with the declaration he
had made to-night; for he (Mr. J. O'Connell) confessed he
was unable to reconcile them. Why did not the Noble Lord
object to the document issued by Pope Gregory XVI., in
1840, it creasing the number of vicars-apostolic in England
from four to eight? The same authority was claimed, and
the same phraseology adopted, in that document as in the
letters apostolical of Pope Pius which the Noble Lord had so
loudly denounced to-night, and yet not a single remonstrance
was uttered against it. He regretted that the Noble Lord
should have disturbed the country for so little reason, for
the poor, paltry, inefficient, and contemptible measure which
he had introduced on this occasion was a proof that
he himself considered the movement to have been uncalled
for.— (Hear. )
Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND said, he could not be a party
to a great deal of the cry which had resounded from one
part of the country to another. He could not run a muck
against the Roman Catholic Church. He could not refuse to
acknowledge that it contained every truth most sacred to
man, although be must, at the same time, admit that it had
been so perverted that it might fairly be questioned whether
or not more evil than good had resulted from it.—(Hear,
hear.) He confessed he was very much astonished when he
heard it asserted that the present case was not one of ag-
gression, because he would defy any gentleman to point out a
single instance in history where a parallel case had occurred.
He defied them to show any state in Europe where the
Pope would have been allowed to do what he had done here.
As other occasions might arise on which it would be easy for
him to express the satisfaction which he felt at the present
position of affairs, he should at that moment refrain from
saying more on the subject of those sentiments which recent
events were in some respects calculated to call forth. In the
present situation of ecclesiastical affairs, after the decision
pronounced by the Privy Council, by that selected person
who might be considered to have spoken with the voice of
the Queen ; after the decision that had been pronounced by
the country at large; after the opinions given by a great
majority of the House of Commons, and by a great majority
of the House of Lords, he did rejoice that there was still one
church left which had faith in sacraments, and one that
would maintain its faith against all that mere politicians
couldaccomplish. An Honourable Gentleman had told the
House that there was a distinction between the Bishop of
Rome and the Court of Rome; and another Member of that
House declared that that was the first occasion on which he
had heard of any such thing; but it was hardly to be sup-
posed that such distinctions were not known and
perfectly well understood. It was also well understood, and
a matter, too, of great practical importance, that the
dogmata of Popery were received by those who belonged to
the Church of Rome as of the highest authority in things
invisible, but that in external and visible things the state
alone was paramount. That these were the prevailing opi-
nions in Roman Catholic countries no one who had the least
acquaintance with passing events could doubt. It was but
recently that the Republic of France had put down in Lyons
an association the object of which had been to obtain secular
power for the ministers and agents of the Papacy, and these
rights, and similar rights of the state, were not merely as-
serted and acknowledged in France alone, but in all other
countries. In all nations there was an instinctive resistance

its utter inefficiency.—(Cheers.) The Noble Lord had thought
fit to warn him not to have faith in what was called philo-
sophy. If not, he wanted to know in what he was to have
faith, for, in his sense of the term, to have faith in philosophy
meant to have faith in the strength of truth. If he was not
to believe in philosophy he had against the Roman Catholic
priest no defence whatever.— (Hear, hear.) if the Noble
Lord said there should be no Roman Catholic bishop he im-
pugned the freedom of the Roman Catholiee, and said they
should not have the comforts of their religion ; but if he
meant they should not be called bishops of any particuler
place within the realm he (Mr. Roebuck) would not divide
against it, because he considered the measure utterly un-
worthy of a moment's consideration; and looked upon the
Noble-Lord as having, in vulgar phrase, " thrown out a tub to
the whale." The description which the Noble Lord at first
gave of what was necessary to be done somewhat staggered
him, for he thought the Noble Lord was about to yield to the
Hon. Gentlemen opposite, and to deal with the question in a
way that would be satisfactory to them. No such thing. The
Noble Lord simply yielded to the vanity of certain persons;
and if the Roman Catholics would follow his advice they
would say, " We do not care about calling eur archbishop
the Arch bishop of Westminster—we will give him some other
name; he will still derive his power from the Pope, and after
your Bill passes be will have exactly the same diocese, ex-
actly the same power, and he will -deal with the property
which you seek to protect just as he would have done had it
never been proposed." Suppose that instead of calling him-
self Archbishop of. Westminster he were to call himself Arch.
bishop in Westminster. Your Act of Parliament then would
not touch him.— (Hear, hear.) But if the Act should be
framed to meet that case, he might call himself bishop of any
foreign district with power in Westminster (so we under-
stood the Honourable Member, but he spoke throughout in
a very low tone, and was occasionally altogether inaudible).
How would you get out of that? How, too, would you
frame an indictment under the Act ? and if it were in Ire-
land how would you try it ?—( Hear, hear.) It was extra-
ordinary that the Noble Lord had carefully avoided giving
any explanation of the machinery of the Bill. The Noble
Lord said it was an offence for a Roman Catholic prelate to
call himself Archbishop of Westminster, but he had not
stated whether it was to be a misdemeanour or a felony—whe-
ther it was to be punished by imprisonment or fine, nor had
he declared how he was to be tried. Was there ever such
a meagre finale to such an overgrown commencement? -
(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord might as well have said at
the outset that all he proposed to do was to prevent Roman
Catholic prelates from using certain titles, and there an end.
The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam had called himself
so for many years. Suppose he and his brother prelates
were to say, " We have enjoyed our titles for a long time,
and we will not surrender them at your bidding ; we will re-
sist and test your law and your machinery for enforcing it."
Suppose the Archbishop of Main were to write a letter to
the Lord-Lieutenant, signed by his title, and say that he
did so on purpose in order to try the law. How would you
deal with that case in a country where nine persons out of
ten were Catholics?—(Hear, hear.) The Bill would, he
feared, be productive of mischief, not advantage—it would
cause excitement, not allay it. Carrying out his hypothe-
tical case, he would suppose that the Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland took up the gauntlet which the Archbishop of Tuam
threw down. An indictment would, he presumed, be sent
before the grand jury, and then remitted to a special jury.
Conceive the state of things in the Archbishop's diocese
while the matter was pending.—( Hear, bear.) Remember
you had to deal with an excitable, a strongly religious,
and he would say a prejudiced people, over whom the
Archbishop exercised a power which to us was un-
known. ( Hear, hear.) His influence was great over the
minds of the people, not only of his own diocese, but of
the whole of Ireland. Should the Government venture to
imprison a person who was sacred in the eyes of the people
of Ireland they would endanger the peace of the whole
country.—(Hear.) And why was this hazerd to be run?
Here was England, whose fleets could sweep the seas, de•
daring herself insulted because one priest chooses to call
another by a long name, and to tell him that he bad power
and jurisdiction over certain counties in England. And
the Noble Lord spoke of this proceeding as if it took away
power and jurisdiction from somebody else. Was the
Archbishop of Canterbury one bit the weaker because
Archbishop Wiseman existed ? Bad his temporalities been
touched ? Had his spiritual power in his diocese been
diminished? Was he not still the Primate of the Church of
England? Then, if the Archbishop of Westminster had not
been hurt by the act of the Pope, had the Queen been hurt ?
Was not Cardinal Wiseman, although he called himself
Archbishop of Westminster, just as much the Queen's sub-
ject as before? Could he de anything now which he could
not do before? and if he should do anything unlawful could
he not be punished for it? There might be cause for dis-
satisfaction if the Catholic bishops were established here
in connexion with the State, as they were in some of the
colonies; but as long as the Roman Catholic system was a
voluntary one we had no more cause to meddle with it than
with a private club. If we allowed the Catholics to manage
their own affairs as they pleased no danger would accrue.
This reminded him of something he had heard about Lord
Minto, which he would take the opportunity of repeating in
the presence of a Cabinet Minister. He was informed that
Lord Minto had received a letter from the Abbate Hamilton,
a Scotchman, and a convert to the Roman Catholic religion,
whom he knew at Rome, to this effect :—The Abbate Hamil-
ton said that Lord Minto, coming direct from an audience
with the Pope, told him that he had seen a brief by which
the hierarchy of the Roman Church was established in Eng-
land. Lord Minto said that the Pope had shown him the
document, but he (Lord Minto) told him that he had no-
thing to do with it, because with the internal regulations of
the Church of Rome the British Government had nothing
to Ido.—(Hear, hear.) That was the language used by
Lord Minto to Abbate Hamilton, who, since the outburst
of puritanical spirit in this country, had written to Lord Minto
to recal the remarkable circumstance to his recollection.
To return to the question, he appealed to the justice of the
House, and asked whether the whole conduct of the Noble
Lord at the head of the Government had not tended to in-
duce a belief in the minds of the Catholics of this country,
that what was about to be done would give no offence.—
(Hear, hear.) It was useless for the Noble Lord to accuse
him of misrepresenting him, and to refer to his past career,
when he (Mr. Roebuck) pointed to his present acts. It was
just as if a person convicted of picking a pocket should al-
lege that he had borne a good character for twenty years.
In such a case the judge would say, " More shame for you ;"
and so he said to the Noble Lord. When the Noble Lord
turned tound upon him with his overwhelming sarcasm and
said that he ought to have credit given him for good inten-
tions, he would remind the Noble Lord of the old proverb,
which said that hell was paved with good intentions. A few
years hence the Noble Lord would bitterly regret that he
had yielded himself up heart and mind to the eentrol of an
ignorant multitude, and prepared an Act of Parliament
founded on feelings of bigotry.
Mr. J. O'CONNELL said that he would not address a
bitter word to the Noble Lord although he could not divest
himself of a bitter feeling caused by the Noble Lord's ex-
citing the bigotry that had disgraced this country during
the last few months. Although the Noble Lord had proved
false to his name, he had on the present occasion done wisely,
and even courageously, in preparing to undergo the ridicule
which would be heaped on him for having brought forth this
mouse out of a mountain rather than propose a severe penal
enactment. Of the Noble Lord's Bill itself he would say
very little. The Noble Lord, however, at the commencement
of his speech spoke of the Primate of all Ireland, the Rev.
Dr. Cullen, as an ecclesiastic who was utterly unacquainted
with that country. Dr. Cullen was for many years the
representative of the Irish bishops at Rome, and in that
position he was necessarily acquainted with every detail of
the Catholic Church in Ireland. At the period of Dr. Cullen's
appointment the intrigues of the British Government
had succeeded in introducing division into the ranks of
the Irish Church, and this division was strongly manifested
on the occasion of the election made by the parish priests of
the diocese of Armagh. The Pope, to avoid giving a triumph
to either party, appointed Dr. Cullen to the vacant see.
The Noble Lord thought that Dr. Callen ought to have con-
sulted the Irish Government; but he (Mr. J. O'Connell)
thought that he was under no obligation to take that course.
The Government brought forward the scheme of the Irish
colleges without consulting any of the Catholic prelates,
and that was no inducement to Dr. Cullen to go out of his
way to consult the Government. The Noble Lord had
blamed the Synod of Thurles for having dared to express
their opinion on the education question ; but the fact was,
that: by their oath as bishops they were compelled to ex-
press their opinion on that subject, and they did no more
than express their opinion. They sought no endowments
for themselves, they nought no monopoly in the appoint-
ments to the colleges. All that they asked for was a gua-
rantee of the orthodoxy of the teachers in those colleges,
so that they might be assured that no infidel doctrines would
be taught to the Catholic youth under their care. The Noble
Lord had also accused the Synod of Thurles of interfering
with the question of occupancy of land in Ireland. They
did no such thing. They merely deplored the ruth-
less acts which had been committed by Catholic as well as
Protestants landlords, and expressed their deep sympathy
with the people under the miseries to which they had been
exposed ; and he maintained that they could not have done
less in the discharge of their sacred duty. The Noble Lord
had referred to various instances of Romish aggression, but
he had not been fortunate in the instances he had taken.
With regard to Sardinia he had misstated everything and
had totally omitted to mention the bad faith of the Sar-
dinian Government towards the Court of Rome. In 1841
a treaty was solemnly entered into between the Sardinian
Government and the Court of Rome abrogating certain im-
munities and privileges of the Catholic Church in Sardinia.
In Is4B the Sardinian Government came forward with
another proposition still further abrogating the immuni-
ties of the Church. The Court of Rome met it with a
counter-proposition, and it was expected that some
arrangement would soon be come to hPtween the two
Courts, when suddenly the Sardinian Ambassador was
withdrawn from
Rome,
abarnogdatteh S
de
tahredineianntire Government,
immunities
of the Church without any further consultation with

to the domination of the priesthood—that system which en-
slaved the laity, and which of all oppression was the most
oppressive. What did Cardinal Wiseman himself say in his
edition of the" Exercises" of Loyola ? He said this :—That no
Roman Catholic could dare to be without a spiritual director
—a man to direct him in everything—in every thought,
word, and action—in every single thing pertaining to him.
If that were not the greatest possible slavery, no one
could tell what slavery was. But that was not all. They
were told that they ought not to be astonished at these pro-
ceedings, not to be in the least surprised at them, although
it was in the same breath asserted that this measure of the
Papacy was merely a sudden thought adopted by the Court
of Rome, and although the Pope declared, from the first
moment at which he assumed the far-famed chair of St.
Peter, that the Court of Rome never gave up the assertion
of their right to dispose of the crown of England.—(" No,
no !" from a few Members.) Had they forgottenlthe bull In
ccenet !—had they forgotten the evidence given before
a Committee of that House by the Irish Roman Catholic
Bishops? Over and over again it had been stated, and not
disproved, that the Court of Rome claimed to exercise that
authority.— (Cries of " No, no I") If gentlemen went on
with these denials, he should be obliged to quote, and that
he did not like to do, for quotations wearied the House.
Every pne well knew that that power was claimed—that
the establishment of the claim was most earnestly desired
—and, when they were considering about the best
modes of resisting this aggressive power, it would be
well for them to remember its strength, and the extent to
which it had formerly been used. The last rebellion raised
by the priests of the Church of Rome was O'Neal's rebel-
lion, and, from that time forward, they were kept down by
the penal laws, and, unfortunately, those laws having been
continued, occasioned continual irritation among the great
body of the people; it rendered the quiet government of
Ireland a matter impossible; and by the aid of that irrita-
tion Dr. Cantwell was enabled to persuade too large a num-
ber of the people of Ireland that there existed in this coun-
try, and in that House, and in the House of Peers, a direct
conspiracy to starve the people of Ireland and to alienate
the estates of the Irish, with a view to their passing into
the hands of the Saxons. Now, Bishop Cantwell, giving the
people of this country credit for not intending all the evil
which the measures of Parliament were calculated to pro-
duce, imputing to them no small amount of ignorance and
John Bull simplicity, still succeeded in persuading a large
proportion of the 7,000100 of poor deluded Irish that, on
the part of the English Government, there existed a settled
determination to starve them ; and Dr. M‘Hale told them
that the poor-law had been enacted with that purpose. Now
he would ask, had any of the Irish Members of that House
the courage to go back to Ireland and contradict
Dr. APHale ? Not one. The people of Ireland being Roman
Catholics, received everything that their priest told them as
if his voice were the voice of God.—(" No, no.") He trusted
it would not be necessary for him to quote his authorities on
in support of that position a truth which he believed was too
generally known to be denied. Did they not every one of
them know that the Roman Catholic regarded the voice of
his spiritual superior as the voice of God ? and, if recent evi-
dence of such a truth were required, he might refer them to
what had taken place with respect to the Queen's Colleges
in Ireland when Lord Clarendon unfortunately consulted the
Roman Catholic bishops about those educational institutions.
Then the tidings went to Rome that the English Protestant
Government could no longer rule the Roman Catholic popu-
lation in Ireland; and then it was that Dr. Cullen was sent
to Ireland. If they doubted this statement he might refer
them to pages 96 and 109lof Lord Shrewsbury's pamphlet,
who broadly stated that there existed at the Court of Rome
an anti-English party, of which the Irish ecclesiastics formed
a part, and by them Dr. Cullen was sent over to Ireland as
a spy.
Mr. J. O'CONNELL rose to order. He conceived it to be
disorderly to charge in that House any absent person with
high treason.
Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND resumed. Dr. Cullen came to
Ireland, having long been at Rome an active member of the
anti-English party there. Dr. Cullen was there at the time
when he must have heard that Smith O'Brien went to France
for the purpose of inducing the authorities of the French Re-
public to assist the Irish in throwing off the authority of
England ; then it was that the anti-British party thought
they could insult England with impunity; they thought
that then was the time when the Protestant power might be
put down ; then it was that Cardinal Wiseman said to the
Lieutenant-General of the Jesuits that if they gave him (Dr.
Wiseman) the necessary powers he would speedily establish
a Jesuits' college in London. It was for purposes like those
that the anti-British party sent Dr. Cullen to Ireland, and
put him over the heads of all whom the Irish Roman Ca-
tholic bishops had recommended for the primacy to the Pope.
—(Heer, bear.) He had observed that in the discussion
of this question it had been argued that the proceedings of
the Court of Rome were fraught with much mischief, and
likely to produce hereafter much evil; but that was
nothing, or very little, to us, and that we need
give oerselves no trouble about the matter.—(Hear.) But
he confessed himself considerably at a loss to discover how
any one could argue so and at the same time recollect the
proceedings in Ireland which the Roman Catholic priest-
hood adopted in the maintenance of their own power. It
was impossible that they could have forgotten the case of
the Irish Poor-law Union chaplain whom the Commissioners
had dismissed, and the manner in which Dr. M'Hale called
them to account for presuming to interfere with any priest
under his jurisdiction. Such proceedings would always be
the necessary and unavoidable consequences of conceding to
the Church of Rome the powers now claimed.—( Hear, bear.)
They talked of perfect toleration; but where did perfect to-
leration exist? There was certainly no Roman Catholic
country in which it could be found. Whatever freedom the
Roman Catholics enjoyed in the United Kingdom they owed
to the soil of England; to that they owed civil and religions
liberty. When Bonaparte had the Pope in his possession he
demanded from the head of the Roman Catholic Church that
all religions should, in France, be placed on a par; but the
Pope peremptorily refused that, and declared such a measure
to be impossible, that such a recognition of ali religions was
wholly rejected by the canons and councils of his Church,
that it would be inconsistent with the tranquillitY of life, the
well-being of pociety, and could not f4il to be attended with

THE SUN, LONDON, SATUritDA'Sr

i the most lamentable consequences. Such was the toloration
of the Church of Rome. Hon. Members of that House had
often expressed themselves most anxious for education, but
he for one was opposed to the education which was sanctioned
by the Roman Catholic clergy ; but he was favourable to
sound education, as the only means of encouraging the poor
wretches of lay Roman Catholics who were enslaved by the
clergy of that persuasion. There was unfortunately a wide
distinction between the education given at the schools of the
Roman Catholic priests and that given at other places of
education. So long as, and to whatever extent, they pos-
sessed authority, nothing in the way of education would be
communicated, except that which was calculated to enslave
the spirits and the mind of the laity. The object of every
other sect was to give, by means of education, the greatest
possible amount of information ; to let in as much light as
possible; but the reverse of that was the aim of the Roman
Catholic priesthood. The declaration of that body now
was, that the Queen's Colleges in Ireland were to have no
students, and Cardinal Wiseman claimed ecclesiastical rule
in England ; yet, in the face of that, Hon. Members were
placing him on the same footing as a Dissenting minister.
Did any Dissenting minister speak of disposing of the crown
of England, or say that people would be damned if they did
not rest "on the rock?'' In this system, the bishop was
the slave of the cardinal, the priest of the bishop, and the
people of the priest. Further, he would ask was the House
prepared to sanction the extension of the monastic system in
England, of the conventual system, of those secret prisons
in which young females were confined? But they were all
considered essential to the development of the teligion of
Rome. Englishmen must remember that the Pope never
altered, never abandoned any of his pretensions; and would
they tamely submit to the proceedings of those scoundrel,
who went about the country stealing away their children
under the pretence of their having taken vows? Even in
Bavaria, which was a Roman Catholic country, no one was
allowed to take vows for more than three years. Again he
would ask, would they allow the monastic institutions to be
multiplied in this country till they attained such a height as
that their inhabitants would, as clergy, claim immunity from
civil obligation, and until, as in the time of Bede, there would
not be men enough for the service and defence of thecountry ?
Another object of this measure of the Pope's was to take
away all trust funds from the English courts of law, and to
place them under the sole management of Archbishop Wise-
man. That was the real gist of the question.—(Hear.) The
money was the thing —( Hear.) It mattered very little whether
they called Dr. Wiseman Archbishop of Westminster or
Archbishop of England ; but to take the property of Roman
Catholics out of the hands of our courts and get it into their
own—that was an object worth attaining. The Catholics
could do nothing themselves. They must receive the sacra •
ment every Easter; they must do penance for every word
they might utter against the appropriation by the clergy of
these trust funds. He saw a Right Hon. Gentleman ( Mr.
Baines) who was about to introduce a measure fer the pro-
tection of poor girls in workhouses; but he could assure the
Government that the poor girls in convents in this country
required protection quite as much.—(Hear -) A few years
ago a remonstrance was signed by 13 archbishops and
bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, complaining of the
persecution they endured from the English Government.
Their ground of complaint was, that by the statute of most-
main the Government would not allow a poor. Papist, at the
last hour of his existence, to give some of his land for the sal-
vation of his soul. But did the House see the petition of the
Roman Catholic priests against the bishops, in which the
former complained that the bishops "got the death-beds,"
and that they (the priests) got nothing from that source ? -
(Hear, hear.) The assertion that the Papal bull was no
attack upon the Queen's supremacy could only arise from
real ignorance as te the nature and extent of the Queen's su-
premacy. If they went back to the earliest times they
tbund that the Queen was held to be, in the coronation ser-
vice of Edmund the Confessor, which was very much like
that now in use, persona duplex. She was Vicarius Christi,
which declared her spiritual, and not her temporal supremacy.
The Sovereign of this country was persona mixta—a priest
upon his throne. She was prayed for in the Liturgy at the
head of ecclesiastical persons, and not of civil governors. She
received tithes as au ecclesiastical person, and was anointed
with oil, which was a symbotot spiritual, and not of temporal
government. Thus every assertion of spiritual authority in
this country was an attack upon the Queen's supremacy.—
( Hear, hear.) He doubted whether we should not be obliged
to have a great many more Acts of Parliament to make this
question fit in with the present framework of society. He
doubted whether the Government could beat back the Papal
aggression by anything of the kind now proposed. The
priests, he feared, would slip through their fingers, and carry
their measures in spite of them. But if the Government
found that the view of the Queen's supremacy which he had
just asserted, and which was now the law of the land, was
no longer tenable, then let them have the manliness to repeal
it; but don't let it be expunged from the statute-book at the
dictate of this insolent prelate.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. E. B. ROCHE said that whilst the last speech was
being delivered he had almost fancied himself listening to one
of the minor canons in Exeter Hall. It was quite clear, what-
ever were the peculiar religious opinions of the Hon. Gentle-
man, that he did not hesitate to
" rush in where angels feared to tread."
—(oh, oh.) The Hon. Member then proceeded to notice the
speech of Lord John Russell, which he said was entirely
unsuited to the measure he proposed to introduce, and was
a sort of homage to the vile spirit of religious discord and
sectarian bigotry. The Noble Lord's Bill, however, fell very
far short of what might have been anticipated from that
speech; and he (Mr. Roche) was glad of it. Still he found
fault, and very great fault with the measure, even as it
stood, and contended that the Act of Elizabeth, cap. 2,
sec. 3, was sufficient to meet any aggression such as that
which had been stigmatised by the Noble Lord; and that
though the penalty was repealed by an Act of her
present Majesty's reign, the offence was retained, and
the act of Cardinal Wiseman could be punished as a mis-
demeanour at common law. The Bill of the Noble Lord was
therefore quite unnecessary. But the Noble. Lord con-
descended to propose its extension not only to England,
where there had been a cases belli, but to Ireland, where
there was no necessity whatever for any measure of the
kind. Beyond that it was a retrograde movement, because it
was an attempt altogether to ignore the existence of the
Roman Catholic Church throughot the empire, although that
Church bad been virtually•recognized by this House and by
successive Governments, not only in the colonies, bnt in Ire-
land itself.— (Hear, hear.) What was the fact with regard
to the manner in which they had treated the Roman Catholic
Church in Ireland, not merely by Acts of Parliament, but by
the conduct of the executive? They had recognized the titles
and dignity of their hierarchy in the Bequests Act, and a
local Act- the Dublin Cemeteries Act. One of the sections
of the latter empowered his Grace Dr. Murray, as Archbishop
of the diocese of Dublin, and his successors in that see, to
appoint a chaplain for the cemetery to which the Act re-
ferred, and to revoke the appointment in case he should see
sufficient reason for so doing. That was a direct recognition
of the spiritual jurisdiction of Archbishop Murray over the
diocese of Dublin, and pro Canto, a recognition of the supre-
macy of the Pope. Let them look to the conduct of the execu-
tive in Ireland also. He might, in proof, revert to what had
been mentioned the other night by the Hon. and Learned
Member for Sheffield in reference to the Queen's visit to
Ireland. On that occasion, for the Lord Chamberlain's
office in Dublin, a list of the personages was issued who
should have the entrée to the Court. In that document
the Roman Catholic Primate and the Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Dublin were mentioned immediately after
the Protestant Primate and the Protestant Archbishop, and
took precedence of the Protestant Bishop, and also of the
Duke of Leinster and her Majesty's Ministers. Any exten-
sion, then of the
.proposed measure to Ireland, thereby
ignoring the authority of the Catholic Church in that king-
dom, was a retrograde movement on the score of civil and
religions liberty. The Bill was, in fact, a direct censure
upon Lord Clarendon and the executive in Ireland for their
conduct on that occasion. The Noble Lord talked of pro-
secution. If anybody were to be prosecuted, it was the
Irish executive; not that he recommended the prosecu-
tion of Lord Clarendon for
giving their proper titles to the
Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, and thus acknowledg-
ing the position of the prelates who had been elected to
that high rank by the united voice of the Catholic
people of Ireland. They were entering upon a wrong
course in going, as they were by this Bill, to re-enact
the penal laws—they were wrong in abandoning their own
Lord-Lieutenant, and in abandoning their own pledges and
principles. If they passed the proposed measure they would
want an Act of indemnity for Lord Clarendon. The Noble
Lord had shown no cause for extending the measure to
Ireland; he had made out a strong case for England, but
with that he (Mr. Roche) had nothing to do. He cared.
he cared little whether he ac-
leietptlteedfotrhe Cardinalinvitation
Wisemano f
the
Noble Lord to go and reside in
Rome or not; but with respect to Ireland they were
committing a bad act in extending the proposed measure
to that country, for which course no cause had been shown.
act of prudence en the part of
paused before he rushed into a tlht
ewo would
Noble haveijord beento
have bu t p an
con-
troversy like this, which was likely to degenerate into a reli-
gious dispute and scramble. He (Mr. Roche) wished it
were in his power to change the feelings of indignation
on the part of the Irish Peoples which the measure would
provoke, and divert their attention to the industrial re-
bnlwetr ; but as he feared he could
Lord that he was entering upon
ould shortly find it very agree-
ogat ebo nitc:ne ruthaorets i
diverge.eon from
n warnedomf
wt hhte
creth
Ncwhooa
sue
not yet too late to withdraw the
measure—or at least to strike out of it all reference to
Ireland.
Mr. MOORE said that the Noble Lord at the head of the
Government had delivered a speech on Catholic history,
which would have done honour to him had he filled the
chair in one of the Queen's colleges in Ireland. The Noble
vices,
he
ee
Lord had undertaken to prove that there was a spirit in
Popery, the full development of which was dangerous to the
Government and to the community, and that it there-
fore became the duty of the State to interfere and prevent
of despotic Governments in ancient and modern times, and
referred to the conduct
had
dndamental principles of
free-will. The Noble Lord, however, had omitted the case of
America, though it was the only one that was at all analo-
iitn. T
substance
establish
le
dt h at
ht evm
gous to our own. America was a free country, and the Pope
might send as many cardinals there as he pleased ; but if
they disobeyed him they would be punished, and if they
attempted to put their hands into other people's pockets
they would be restrained. The Noble Lord had referred also
to the acts of Catholic prelates in the middle ages, with a
view to show that the Catholics of those days would have
resisted the attempts of the Pope to nominate bishops. In
those days, however, the bishops were not only spiritual
prelates, but they were also temporal potentates, having con
siderable jurisdiction under the law of inheritance, and
those of marriage and bequests. The Bishop of Durham,
was not only Bishop, for instance, but Prince Palatine of
the County, and the laws were administered under him and
in his name. It was absurd to compare the case of those
prelatic princes, with poor Catholic priests, who received
nothing from the Stated but slight and obstruction. That
was, indeed, the very to
antry of bigotry. But he com-
plained that the Noble rd and his party did not come into
court with clean hands. They had done nothing for these
people, and would let nothing be done for them. That dog
in the manger sort of policy would not do. They must
choose between alliance and non-intervention. The Queen
was one of the greatest Catholic potentates in Christendom.
Let the country acknowledge her to be so, and there would
then be little difficulty with Romanists, but whilst she was
bound to protest against the religion of a third of her subjects,
the reason for such a course must be a contradiction in terms,
and the course itself an intolerable persecution. The
people of England, they were told, felt that there had been
a great demonstration on the question, and that their will
had been definitively expressed. But was that so? Why
as to the unanimity of the movement, it was, at best, a
war of opinions between two-thirds of the community and
the other third. They had been told of a terrible storm
but had met with nothing but a Scotch mist—a drenching
drizzle of scurrility and cant, from which oppression might
be deemed relief and persecution shelter.—( Hear, hear.)
And with regard to any decision of a popular character upon
this question, he could only say that if the confessional were
esteemed by them of more importance than taxation, the
infinitesimal progress of Puseyism than the giant strides of
crime, or Popery than pauperism, then he thought it high
time that the House should assume its noblest functions and
its highest responsibility—that of asserting against the wild
voice of a three months' agitation the steady, conscientious,
and consistent development of public opinion during more
than half a century. The Noble Lord's notorious letter to
the Bishop of Durham Watt aimed ut something more than to