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

LONDON,

Rome and without having obtained its consent. He assured
the Noble Lord that the Sicardi laws went much further than
he seemed to strepse • that they tre:we:el upon purely eccle-
siastical matters, such as the holidays of the Church, and
the like. The censures of the Churcii were necessarily in-
curred by those Catholics who bad taken part in the passing
of these measures. When the unfortunate Minister Roses was
on his death-bed his confessor refused to give him absolution
until ha had made reparation for the injury he had done.
The dying man did make a retractetion 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 infidel 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 Catholie 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 Tuam severely to task because they bad 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
bad 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.•etßonsidering 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 Neble 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 Noble 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, increasing 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 apestolical 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. lie could not refuse to
acknowledge that it contained every truth most sacred to
man, although he 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 ease 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 bad faith in sacraments, and one that
would maintain its faith against all that mere politicians
could accomplish. 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
countriee. In all nations there was an instinctive resistance
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 forgottenithe bull In
ccend Domini !—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 one 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 7,000,000 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, bad any of the Irish Members of that House
the courage to go back to Ireland and contradict
Dr. M'Hale? Not one. The people of Ireland being Roman
Catholics, received everything that their priest told them as
if his voice were the voice o' 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, be 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 Or. Cullen was sent
to Ireland. If they doubted this statement he might refer
them to pages 96 and 10etof Lord Shrewsbury's pamphlet,
who broadly statei 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 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 bean 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.
—(Hear, hear.) He had observed that is 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 oorselves 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
twhaes
spho sps
Poor
- ltahwa t
utohieoeo,
cc
ho uo Ipdl a
iho awv eh
mfo r
tghoot tce no
mt s
sciaosoee or
sf
thhaedmclitsomiascsceodu,
natndfotrhpermosoanmnieorg
toin winhteicrfhorDer;viAtlh'Haanyle cparlileesclt
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, hear.)
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 religious
liberty. When Bonaparte had the Pope in his possession be
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 all 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 society, and could not fail to be attended with