The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-25 00:00:00

terei conformably. It was ridiculous to talk of the but 1
Ira OETICe Domini, and other things, which Roman Ca-
tholics repudiated as much as Protestants. Ile contended
that this ball had never been in force in Ireland, and
had in fact been objected to by every Roman Catholic
power. If the bull were in force, scarcely anything
would he at rest in any Catholic state. He denied the
accuracy of the statement of the Hon. and Learned
Member for Oxford relative to the encroach-
ments of Popery, and the assertion that if
you gave the Pope "an inch he would take an
ell." The Hon. and Learuod Member bad referred to
Sardinia, but he denied there was an encroachment on
the part of the Pope in that country. There 'was 5
concordat between the Pope and the Sardinian lithfs,
and it was not until an attempt was made to break
through the conditions of the concordat that ill feeling
commenced. As to the refusal to administer the sacra..
meats of the Church to Count Roses, he asserted that
no churchman dare refuse the sacraments, except in
cases where it would be useless to administer them--
namely, in cases of impenitence. In the case of Maria
Manning the rites were not refused (we understood) by
a Protestant clergyman, although Mrs. Manning refused
to acknowledge her guilt. No Roman Catholic clergy-
man would have dared to hare done the same. The
Solicitor-General had declared that this Bill would pre-
vent the the establishment of a hierarchy and y
action in England. He would tell the Right Honourabe
Gentleman neither this nor any other Bill would effect
those purposes. They had failed to do it in days of
persecution, and how dare they, then, to assert they
be
would do it now ?—(Hear.) Let him, therefore, no t
told that this Bill would prevent synodal active. They
snod I
might encumber their statute-books with laws, but sy'oo:
dal action and the canon law, in spite of all that could
he dime, would still be the action and the law govern-
ing the Roman Catholic Church in England. With re-
spect to legal opinions as to the effect of the first clause,
he believed that any act done by a Roman Catholic pre-
late under a prohibited title would be null and void under
the first clause of the proposed Act; and as he consi-
dered this was not an extension of the Act of 1829, bu
an attempt to impose new penalties, he should resist the
Bill. So far from putting the English and Irish bistops
on the same footing, as pretended, the reverse would be
the case, The Bequests Act recognised the Irish Roman
Catholic bishops, and in consequence of that the judges
of Ireland, and among them Sir Edward Sugdee, h
considered the prohibitory clause in the Emancipateeb
bishops. This new Bill, however,
Act put aside, and had recognised the titles of toe,_
the sam
ts
placed the Iris h Roman Catholic bishops in
situation as they were before the Bequests Act was
passed. The people of Ireland looked on the measure,
even in its mildest form, as an insult to the religion of
one-third of her Majesty's subjects. He was "ref
upset all this,
Noble Lord was not aware of the excitement and ere
ment this Act had created in Ireland. He could not bare
believed, after four years of depression and absoluste
starvation, that it was possible to rouse the In
people to any exertion; but their religion was coneetqlvo:
in this question, and on that subject they were sensithia d
and exciteable. In his district the Irish people
called on him to oppose every Government measure, 11,s,
matter what the principles involved in them; but be co
luht:
not subscribe to that resolution consistently with
was anxious to sustain.—(Hear, hear.) If the
respect due to himself and to that public character ore
were passed the Noble Lord would lose the suplibrbt of
the people of Ireland; and the Noble Lord, seeib,g, '34
parties were made up in that House, must know full
he could not sustain his party without Ireland.—(Bear'
near.) Until this change in the ecclesiastical system Uf
the Roman Catholics in England was conteniPlated' bno
person was more popular at the Court of Rome tn t
mosso
Noble Lord, but since then the Noble Lord bad become_.
winghaw, had stated that he wished a
most unpopular. Dr. Utlathorne, the Biehop of Bit
London to be appointed, but his proposal
o 7
been rejected. And with respect to the ereati"
of a Bishop of St. David's, he could only ssY
believed the Papal brief bad been wrongly transitions. d
(Hear.) The Noble Lord (Palmerston) had esPrsessbev
his surprise that no communication had been ma Id
the Pope of Romo to Downing-street. But how c°ll
that take place when the Pope was not recognised eitner? ,
Bishop.
in his temporal character or his spiritual character bete_
have sent to Downing-street after the Diplom
It would not have cemported with the Pope's dignity '
tions Bill had ignored his existence, even as a spiritual
power. He was surprised to find how any mad tined
&tic Bela:
could come down and say that the Pope had ineu",ibe
en insult to the Crown or the people oi England' f
Government had no good ground for the introduction 0.
such a measure as the present; but the Catholics bad
gnionordaregliryo.undHefonrppnwsiesdhithbge fßoirli,thbeenaenssteabiltisyl:amseantreotfro!
grade movement in legislation, an infringement of the
g
Catholic Emancipation Act, and a departure from the
broad principle of civil and religious liberty. —(Cheers.)
Mr. SMYTHE wished to state to the House the rea-
sons why he should vote against what he could not help
calling a sham Bill of sham pains and sham PeDaltigess
against a sham aggression.—(Cheers from the oplAn's
of the Bill.) Entertaining so strong an opinion on this
qua Von, he was not surprised at the tone adopted hl
the Hon. Member for Cork, who had just sat down, be-
cause, after all, what were our relations with the Roman
Catholic Church of Ireland? It was idle to shrink or
evade that question. It could not be denied that within
the last ten years the State had contracted a morganatic'
or left-handed marriage with the Roman Catholic Church
of Ireland by means of the Bequests Act and the grant
to Maynooth, and that it now sought to insult the Irish
and to repudiate the not illegitimate offspring.—(Hear.)
Ina far different spirit had the Noble Lord the Secretary
for the Colonies acted, whose far-seeing and courageous
view, overlooking the miserable scruples of pedantic)
uniformity, had not disdained to afford Catholic prelates
in our colonies the titles which Mr. Pitt would have,
granted them; and who, knowing from the archives of
his office that we governed St. Lucia in the spirit fits
French laws, and Trinidad by its Spanish laws'
allowed the Cetholic prelates in those colonies
the titles which their Church awarded to tb,..,em'
In Malta there were a Catholic population, U 4•
tholic laws, and Catholic prelates. In Australia
there were Catholic congregations and Catleolie
bishops. Why, therefore, in Ireland, should there net
also be Catholic bishops to Catholic flocks? Eby "I
also in England ?—(Hear.) What the Pope bad really
done in this country was to accord territorial title with
no territorial government. Cardinal Wiseman had no-
thing more than the title of Archbishop of Westminster.
He no more posse.sed the territorial government of
Westminster than the King of Sardinia and the Two Si'
cilies possessed Cyprus and Jerusalem. Although ho
had the title of King of Cyprus and Jerusalem, the sing
of Sardinia could not govern them without umbrage to
the Grand Turk, who de facto governed both, ands n a
sense far different from that in which Cardinal Ar n:1
is 81!
proposed to govern Westminster. In fact, Cardinal
Wiseman would no more govern Westminster than th
three Electors of Hanover, who were constitutional
th ey
mo-
narchs of this country, governed France, though
took the title of King of France—no more than Janice
111., Charles 111., or Henry IX. governed this country,
Never-
though they took the title of King of England. they
thelese, though these princes had only the title,
were still Dei gratia et voluntate hominum Kings of Eng-
land to the consciences of all who believed in their right.
If they were to proscribe Dr. Wiseman, still be would
be, in the same manner, Dei gratin et voluntate hominum
Primate of all England to conscientious Roman Catho-
lics.—(Hear.) The distinction was one which defied
and eluded legislation, because it was in foro conscienticr•
and between man arid his God. Is reminded him of the
old doggrel of the Jacobites:—
" God bless the King, God bless the faith's defender,
God bless—there is no harm in blessing—the Pretender;
But who is that, and who the King,
God bless us all,—that's quite another thing."
—(A laugh.) It had been said that the Pope by his
se.cclewsieasretictableyr,igthbtesn7ganniontgbetr name
furl tespiritual act
cfarce au ti et
ice!
legis-
e itorial rights,
late against spiritual faculties—not directly, but against
territorial
on account of spiritual faculties?---
(ear, hear.) It would, in his opinion have been quite
as H
competent for the Emperor Julian to have engaged
in,
apersecution of the Christians for their doctrine 01
original sin, or for any other of their doctrines—or for
L.o us XIV. to have undertaken a dragoons& against
his
__ subjects on account of Cartesian ideas.—(Hear.)
Was the Government of this country about to run amuck
against spiritual faculties beyond man's volition and hu-
man control? Or if, as some held, the belief in those
depended on free will, was not that precisely
why they should not legislate, because every man iP
case possessed within himself the power of
afsiclnation
ledging or nullifying them?—(Hear.) No leg
audio-
would make those who believed in the spiritt]ll3
would it
rity of Dr. Wiseman abnegate that belief, Noble Lord
compel the mecreans to believe in it. Thee as
a blunder
opposite had spoken of the bull of the Pope
sudden; but if it were so, he was sure the
machinery by which the Pope sought to carry out the
bull would be the blunder slow. Was it possible this
a reatsbs7
any statesman in the nineteenth century could dream
of
laying the foundations of spiritual unity in England, TI;
less it was the same statesman who in the same period
dreamt of establishing political unity in Italy? If t _
Pope was earnest in his aggression, he had an army of
troops far mare formidable than Cardinal Wiseman and
his suffragans. It was by the monastic orders that
everything of any practical use to Rome bad been
gained. He spoke in particular of one order, which__
od..
been lavishly abused, but which had survived the rlos
vinciel Letters of Pascal and the provincial speecliesoket
the winter of 1850 in England—(A sr.
of the order of Jesus, of whom the wisest of 3 nit g
philosophers, Bacon, was not afraid to say,
they are, would they were ours." In the reign
If
other
organization was not complete. Thumbscrews
If it were
bath and James they were in this country, thou% their
means of torture could not repress them.
said that the Jesuits were already in
of them, he should
that there had been no persecution
his favour, for it
claim that as en argument in
of their
this country, and
would expose the monstrous hypocrisy egise
1803, that they
that the Jesuits were in this country in
vinces—that they had
lation on this point. If—as he believed it to be true—
had divided Great Britain into pro
the increasedinstrn
ni nt
ni great part of
as it not monstrous that
in the hands of that order--w
they should seek to strain at a gnat while they had
rinfloufetteCsaitnhcoeliicBc-rldrtileiltoaf England was
In the present case the
swallows the camel?—(Hear.)
Pope had preferred to send seculars, and in one respect
Pr or
and a n examle and
be
For the first time in historpy, t his act was et once se
Established Church, had .
pwoaprnetinbgytetshoeusrist e(s)i.
an
reading speech of Sir g.
a
con-
nected thee grandeur of a hierarchy with the voluntary
principle. He remembered
Deering, the Member for East Kent, in the Long Par-
liament, in which he alluded to the legend that when
Christianity exchanged the persecution of the r.g,
esl
Emperors for the support of Constantine, an ting
was heard to cry out—" Hodie in ecclesiass venentim
jiinditis."—(flear, hear.) But what was now mekil
that Church so powerful—so powerful that the °W.3