The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-18 00:00:00

an arrangement for the better organization of the Roman
•• " '
deal with it, if they meant to preserve religious liberty and
toleration. What right had they to deny to the Roman
Ca holies that organization for their Church government ac-
cording to laws of their own communion, which they granted
to every other religious community? Was not epis-
copacy a part of ecclesiastical government ? Nay, was
not the!' episcopacy of the Church of England derived
from them ? The reason assigned was, the danger
that might ensue from the establishment of a Ro-
man Catholic hierarchy. He saw no danger on the
subject. If the canon law came into collision with the law
of the land, the canon law must bow before it. If they
found the canon law made superior to the civil and statute
law, then let them interfere by legislation and vindicate the
supremacy of the law, and he woud give them his support.
The Roman Catholics of this country themselves denied the
temporal supremacy of the Pope, an l they swore in their
oath at that table that the Pope neither had nor ought to
have any civil jurisdiction within these realms, and further,
that they would not distil' b the settlement of property as
established by law within the realm, and that they swore
in the terms of the oath, without mental reservation er equi-
vocation. Why then should they impugn the loyalty of the
Roman Catholics? He was indignant when he heard their
loyalty questioned. They had proved their loyalty in a
hundred fights by flood and field, and in every clime. To
whom was the suppression of the Irish rebellion Cue bat to
the priests and to the police. The Roman Catholics were
as loyal to the Constitution and the Crown as the Pro-,
testauts, and he believed there was in the Roman Catho-
lic Anglo-Saxons, as well as in the Protestants, the same
spirit of independence which would not suffer them to
bow down to any foreign potentate. He was opposed to
all legislation, because he believed their civil rights and
liberties were in no danger. He looked not to penal enact-
trlents, but to the spread of education and enlighten-
ment and the exertions of their clergy for the pre-
servation of their faith. A. distinguished statesman (Mr.
Wyndham) had said that if conversion to Popery was au
evil, the law was not the proper remedy, and that prosely-
tisp was a disgrace only to the clergymen in whose parish
itloccurred. When Hon. Gentlemen threatened them with
the chance of another Spanish Armada or French invasion,
he asked was not the period of the Armada one when the
bloody penal code disgraced the statute-book, when the
scaffold reeked with blood; and when the French invader
last trod the soil of this realm, was not the same penal code
still in force? They had little encouragement, then, in the
past to have recourse to penal enactments. They ought not,
however, to pass by the arrogant tone of the Popish brief;
they should pass a resolution marking their disapprobation
of it, but they ought at the same time to do away with the
absurdity of ignoring the Pope as a temporal Sovereign ;
they should establish diplomatic relations with his court;
they should reverse the statutes of mortmain, and guard
against abuses by passing measures for the inspection of
monasteries. This would be better than passing an Act
which would be a dead letter in operation. Although the
feeling of the country was aroused on the subject he was
certain the people would soon be convinced of the impolicy
of encumbering the statute-book with inoperative laws. For
if they would make their legislation effective, they must re-
enact the penal laws, but in that case they must interfere
with the free exercise of their religion by the Roman Ca-
tholics, and thus violate the sound principles of religious
toleration.

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL said, the pith and substance
of the arguments advanced by those who took what he
would call the Roman Catholic view of the question was
this :—that the establishment of a hierarchy was essential to
tl.eir religion— that therefore they were entitled to have it
—that they could obtain it only from the Roman Pontiff—
that therefore they were justified in having recourse to the
Pope to obtain it—and that the Pope was entitled to grant
it, and do all that was necessary for the purpose of establish-
ing it. From those premises the Roman Catholics drew an
egregious fallacy ; but before proceeding to deal with that
he would state the substance of the arguments used by mem-
bers of the Protestant communion, who were opposed to
legislation on this subject. The substance of their argu-
ment was this :—that the Legislature had conceded to the
Roman Catholics the free and unfettered exert se of their re-
ligion—that the establishment of a hierarchy was essential
to the free and unfettered exercise of their religion—and that
therefore we were bound to permit the establishment of their
hierarchy. Was it possible for any one to reflect for a
moment, and not see the fallacy which pervaded that ar-
gument? It did not follow that, because the thing desired
might be reasonable and just, the means taken to accomplish
it must necessarily be valid. He would assume, for the pur-
pose of argument (and he pledged himself to give battle to
all the argument4which had been advanced by the opponents
of the Bill, an& he believed he would be able to defeat
them), that an organized hierarchy was essential to
the interests of the Roman Catholic religion, and that the
see of Rome was the only quarter whence it could be
obtained ; but if the means adopted to establish the hierarchy
were illegal and unconstitutional—if they involved a
violation of our municipal and constitutional laws
if they were a violation of the public law of Europe if they
were an invasion of the sovereignty of the state—if they
were an outrage of the national independence—w ss it to be
said that the Government and Parliament of the country,
whose bounden duty it was to preserve the sovereignty of
these realms inviolate, to protect the national independence
and maintain the national honour untarnished, were to sub-
mit to the adoption of those means because soma persons
thought the Roman Catholic Church would be better go-
verned by archbishops and b shops than by vicars-apostolic? '
He for r ne would never concede so monstrous and untenable
a proposition.—(Hear, hear.) He wanted an answer to this
question, had the Roman Pontiff, in partitioning the realm '
of England into provinces and dioceses, and establishing
therein archbishops and bishops, and an organized hierarchy
for the government thereof, invaded the prerogative of the
Crown and outraged the independence of the country,
and had those subjects of her Majesty who had lent them-
-elves to carrying out this scheme, stood by it, and abetted
it, departed from the undivided allegiance which they owed
their Sovereign, violated the law of the land, and infringed
the- spirit of the Constitution ?—(No, no, and hear,
hear.) He hoped that Honourable Members would be kind
enough to listen to his arguments instead of interrupting
him with unseemly jeers. There had been abundance or de-
clamation and invective, the promoters of the Bill had been
reproached with intolerance and persecution, and, indeed, if
it had been the object of the measure to re-enact the penal
laws, and suppress the Roman Catholic religion altogether,
it could not have been more vehemently condemned; but he
now called upon the opponents of the Bill to meet him fairly
in argument, and he respectfully though fearlessly challenged
an answer to the question —were the proceedings of the See
of Rome, and of those who abetted him, consistent with the
law of this country, and with the law of nations ? There was
another question he would ask—when the Roman Catholic
religion was the established religi n of this country, and
when, therefore, the people owed, and paid obedience to the
Pope of Rome, in spiritual matters, as the head of the,r
hurch,would the Pope then have taken on himself to do as lie
had now done? To that question he would himself answer in
the most unhesitating and unqualified manner " no ;" and no
man would be bold enough to stand up in the House or else-
where, and assert the affirmative. From the earliest periods
of our his ory the Pope had never exerfrsed jurisdiCtiOn in. tUie,
country with respect to the appoint, of biAeopse;:ittetbe..
time of the Saxoas the power of dive rig• thee•deuieWlifft4"
dioceses was vested exclusively in the- King. • Edward. the
Confessor, finding the two bishops existing in his reign in-
sufficient for the spiritual wants of ihe people, created three
more, without • the authority of the Pope. This was the
course always.pursued in the earlier part of our history, nor
was it until the time of Henry I. that the slightest attempt
es;sas made on the part of the see of Rome to encroach on the
Oyer of the English Crown with respect to the appoint-
ment of Bishops. They were elected by the clergy and con-
firmed by the Crown. An able pamphlet, written by Mr.
Edward James, of the Chancery bar, pointed out very clearly
the course of legislation which had been adopted for the ex-
press purpose of l'ealating the pretensions advanced by the
Pope, from time to time, to interfere with the prerogative
'of the Crown in thiacountry. Lliere the Hon. and Lea-ned
Gentleman read an extract from the pamphlet in question.]
The state of things to which he had referred was not
peculiar to England alone. On the contrary, the practice
ire every Roman Catholic country in Europe before the Re-
formation, and it had continued almost down to the pre-
sent moment, was that no bishop could be appointed
except by the Sovereign or by the Pepe with the assent
and concurrence of the Sovereign.—(Hear, hear.) It was
incontestably established by the evidence given before
the Committee which sat in 1816 that the most pre-
eminently Roman Catholic countries in Europe, Austria,
Spain, and F
rance, would not permit the bulls of the Pope
tove
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se the
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when the Roman Catholic religion was established here, and
in the reign of Edward I. a man was sentenced to death
for introducing a Papal bull into England, and the sentence
was remitted only at the entreaty of the Chancellor and
"1 reasurer. It appeared to him, thee, that he had clearly
established the point, that the see of Rome had no right
to create dioceses in England without the consent of the
State; and if the Pope had not that power, when the Ro-
man Catholic religion was the religi ,n of the country,
whence did he derive the power of doing so now? The
argument of the Roman Catholics respecting the inter-
ference of temporal sovereigns in the appointment of arch-
bishops and bishops was that the only reason why the rati-
fication of the Sovereign could be thought necessary was
this, that in Roman Catholic times and in Roman Cabo-

lie countries bishops and archbishops possessed great tem-
poralities, and exercised power, authority, and jurisdic-
tion. Ile clearly saw the distinction, and he agreed with
those who held that a bishop might b© appointed for purely
spiritual purposes, for consecration, for ordination, for con-
firmation, for administering the sacraments of the church ;
and, if the Papal rescript had been confined to objects
1i ng was
s whatever
osforatheetihn pi something in
of purely spiritual jurisdiction, ho should be obliged
towbthl
ticthie
admitier
male was
sh nt
.e thereot
proceedingl
analogous to what had been done with regard to sending a
was
nothing
Protestant bishop to Jerusalem, there to exorcise spiritual
jurisdiction
over the subjects of her Majesty, or other Pro-
testants residing in that city. The Protestant bishop at'
Jerusalem was there without a see, without a diocese, and
would any one tell him that the Pope and the Roman Ca-
tholic clergy and laity meant no more than that with refe-
eitnihner thee
this argument;ca
s at a
l
niece to this country ? Did they not, on the contrary, find
that the Roman Catholics sought to establish a hierarchy in
this realm of England with a view to temporal sovereignty?
--(No, no.) When he turned to the rescript of the Pope
on this point he found, from the authorized translation of
that document issued by Cardinal Wiseman himself that the
Pope directed the erection of two sees to be presided over by
Dr. Wiseman, and those were Westminster and Southwark ;
that of the northern district, there was to be one see at Hex.
ham ; that for the see of 1 orke he provided that the seat of
the bishop should be at the city of Beverley; that of two
others, one should be at the city of Salford, and the other at
the city of Northampton. By what authority did the Pope
erect cities within the United Kingdom ? Was not that an act
of territorial sovereignty? If any town or place. was appointed
to be an episcopal see it becameapso facto a city. All towns
wore raised to the rank of cities by becoming the seats of
bishops—did any one deny that ?—(Hear, hear.) They would
find that every .sty derived its rank from being now or
having been in times past the seat of a bishop, and so in-
herent was this privilege or distinction that, though the
bishopric might be dissolved, the title of the city remained;
for instance, Westminster—there the bishopric was dissolved,
but the title of city remained. Surely, then, when the Pope
raised, or rather attempted to raise, English towns to the
rank of cities, he must have meant that civil consequences
were to ensue • civil consequences necessarily attached to
!such acts, and '
he did not see how any one could successfully
contend that such steps did not involve territorial jurisdic-
tion.
and sovereignty. It was said that the Pope did not in-
tend to assume territorial jurisdiction ; that he merely in-
tended to invest his bishops and clergy with a purely spi-
ritual character; but what did he find to be the words of the
rescript? They were these—" And in the spiritual govern-
ment of the clergy and people, and in all matters appertain-
ing to the pastoral office, the archbishops and bishops of
nigland shall henceforward enjoy all the rights and privileges
Iwhich the Catholic arubishops and bishops in other states
'have and use,, according to the common ordinances of the
sacred canons and apostolic constitutions." He desired to
know, was there, in that respect, any difference between this