The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-21 00:00:00

pardon him if he informed them of the nature of the office
and functions Dr. Wiseman came here to exercise, and
showed them that from the earliest periods of our history it
had been contrary to the constitutions and common law of the
country that a legate of the Pope, and especial a cardinal,
should come into this country without the leave of the So-
vereign, and without an oath taken that he would attempt
nothing against the realm and liberties of the people. If he
could prove this, as he thought he could, he should have con-
tributed his mite to a better understanding of the question,
and to relieve the measures that were required to repel this
aggression frem the invidious imputation of religious per-
secution.-(Hear, hear.) He found that there was a meet-
ing of the clergy of the Established Church a few days
ago at Sion College, at which Pr. M.Caul, quoting from
a recognised authority of the Catholic Church, stated that
the order of cardinals was literally a part of the Papacy
and constitution-the privy council, which was the body
corporate of the Pope, and then gave an account of how
the office and power of the cardinal was wielded throughout.
From that account it appeared that the office of cardinal,
when the Pope assumed the temporal attributes of the Em-
peror, was converted into that of privy councillor, and that
the cardinals ought not to be absent from the Papal
Court except by reason of being sent out as legates. Car-
dinal Wiseman, then, could only be here as a legate. Tan
Espin, whose works were recognised at Maynooth, alto said
that whatever might be the case with other legates, cardinal
legates were called legates a latere, because they era taken
from the side of the Pope. He believed that Dr. Wiseman
had been asked whether he had taken the oath of privy
councillor, and that his answer was, that he had rot. But
he had taken the oath of archbishop in full, and that would
be an excuse far not taking the oath of privy councillor;
but he (Mr. Newdegate) could find no possible authority
for the omission. However, the oath of archbishop was
strictly the oath of privy councillor, binding the party to
discharge temporal functions, and with this remarkable
addition, that for the recovery of such rights and property
as had been alienated from the Romish Church
he would do his utmost. He wanted to show that
Cardinal Wiseman, by his own act as cardinal priest, ad-
verted to that very function of labouring to the utmost for
the recovery of the goods of the Church. It was a very long
time since there had been a cardinal legate in England, and
for this good reason, that it was contrary to the ancient
statute law of this realm that those temporal officers of a
foreign potentate should reside among us. Even Cardinal
Beaufort, the brother of Henry VI., had found it necessary
to have a special statute enacted in his favour before he
could reside in England as cardinal legate; Cardinal WoLey
was appointed legate at the express instance of Henry
-VI I. ' • and Cardinal Pole, after he had been compelled to
leave England because he resisted Henry VIII.'s proceed-
ings with the temporalities of the Church, was ap-
pointed legate in England, not upon the motion of the
Pope, but at the desire of Queen Mary. In the time of
Elizabeth, the cardinal whom the reigning Pope had sent
to England as nuncio received, in the Netherlands, whence
he had sent to request permission to enter England, a
prohibition from entering the realm, on the distinct ground
that the ancient statutes of the realm declared that no
legate from the Papal Court might reside in England.
Happy would it have been for this country had the advisers
of the present Queen emulated the firmness of those of Queen
Elizabeth. Had but the Noble Lord opposite acted up to
the professions of his letter. he would by this time have been
at the head of one of the most powerful Governments ever
known in this country, and the opposition in Parliament
would have been extinguished altogether, instead of occupy-
ing the position they had now attained. The Noble Lord
had described the manner in which various foreign countries
had guarded against Papal sggression. Of these Prussia was
the country in which the latest attempt of the kind had been
merle. In 1829 Cardinal A_ bani was appointed by the Pope
Roman Catholic Bishop of Konigsberg. Upon his re-
fusal to take the oath r f allegiance to the Prussian Crown
he was, by order of the Government, at once conducted to
the frontier, under an escort, and sent home. So again, in
1837, when the Archbishop of Cologne had committed vari-
ous acts inconsistent with the civil rule of Prussia, he
was at once placed under surveillance, until he should be re-
moved by the Pope. But here, in Engl 'ad, a cardinal legate
was allowed at full liberty to machinate, at the head of an
organized conspiracy of priests, agitating the whole country,
and exciting a struggle painful to contemplate. The Noble
Lord said he was anxious to prevent synodical action ; all he
need to do was to prevent the presence here of any legate
a latere, for, unless by such an official, no synod could be ca-
nonically summoned, and without his presidency the pro-
ceedings of no synod were valid. Cardinal Wiseman had
stated that the late aggression was based upon four conside-
rations-', that previous to 1847 the Catholics were still un-
der the pressure of the penal law, and enjoyed no liberty of
conscience; 2. that the religious orders had previously no
houses in England; 3, that previous to that period there was
nothing approaching parochial divisions; and 4, that the in-
crease of their chapels and ministers had induced the aggres-
sion. After briefly alluding to the Bi 1 which had been in-
troduced by the Hon. Member for Youghal in 1847, for regu-
lating charitable Roman Catholic bequests, which had been
commented upon and objected to by the Law Committee of
the Association of St. Thomas of Canterbury, because it
made Roman Catholic bishops liable to be examined before
a lay tribunal, and which, being opposed by all the Roman
Catholic Members of Parliament on similar grounds, was
subsequently abandoned, the Honourable Member pro-
ceeded to observe, that Cardinal Wiseman relied upon the
religious orders as the instruments of his tyranny. Now,
let the House look at the increase of these establish-
ments within the last few years, and he had an especial
object in directing attention to this portion of the sub-
ject. In 1847 there were 31 convents in this country ;in
1848 there were 38, and in 1851 they had increased to 53.
He did not know that there was anything so pe-uliarly at-
tractive about these establishments in the eyes of Protestants
that they should rejoice at this increase, but he rather
thought that that House would not show a due regard to the
liberty of the subjects of this country if they did not pass
some law for the inspection cf those places.- (Loud cries of
" Hear, hear.") It could not be out of the recollection of
the House that the Hon. Baronet the Member for the Uni-
versa), of Oxford (Sir R. H. Inglis) had a few nights since
presented a petition from the stepfather of a young lady
who was now immured in one of those prisons. Since
that occasion the Honourable Member for Dublin had risen
in his place and stated that Miss Talbot was not in
that place as a postulant.- (" Hear, hear," from Mr.
Fagan.) The Hon. Member said " Hear, hear." He
(Mr. Newdegate) had the authority of Mr. Craven Berkeley
for stating that he had been distinctly informed by Miss
Jerningham, who was the head of that religious house, that
Miss Talbot was retained there as a postulant.-(" No, no,"
from Mr. Fagan.) Well ;he had the authority of Miss
Jerningham, or Mrs. Jerningham, or Mother Jerningham,
for making that statement, and she was the head of that
establishment, and ought to know. (Hear.) He must say
that when he listened to that petition I e could not help in-
quiring what was the Lord Chancellor about?-(Hear, hear. )
Were his wards, as minors, to be placed, against the will of
their nearest relatives, in convents, secluded from the world?
It appeared that the powers of that high functionary must
be strangely crippled if such things were allowed with im-
punity. Let the House consider the case of a young girl
separated from the nearest and tenderest ties which nature
had interwoven with the best feelings of mankind, and
plunged into the cold seclusion of that place of imprison-
men-, while the keeper of the Queen's conscience, the highest
functionary of the land, her legal father, sat impotently by
and saw every insidious art made use of to wring from that
unhappy girl the means of aggrandizing the order to which
she belonged.- (Hear, hear.) It was absurd to talk of reli-
gious liberty while such things existed. In his own neigh-
bourhood there were coevents-too many. From one of
them some years ago a nun escaped. Unfortunately, she
was taken back. What did they know further of that
woman? Nothing; except that within a week afterwards
15 cwt. of iron stanchions were put up to barricade the win-
dows, and to convert the place into a perfect prison.-(Hear,
hear.) Women entered there. They died. There was no
account of their illness or their death. No coroner's in-
quest was held. They were utterly shut out from light
and life, and, he would add, from the protection of the law,
He did heartily trust, that whatever the opposition might be
that House would insist upon an enactment for looking into
transactions which were thus carefully hidden from the
public eye.-(Hear, hear.) Then be came next to the
monasteries. In 1847 there were 8 in England, in 1848
there were 11, and in 1851 they had increased to 17. He
wanted to know why the Noble Lord, as he was about to
enact a statute to give effect to some of the clauses of the
Act of 1829, had totally omitted all the clauses with refer-
ence to these regular orders. He asserted that we ha a
right to claim the registration and surveillance which the
Act of 1829 imposed, and he could not understand why,
when the Noble Lord had had four months to consider what
was to be done, he had so totally forgotten those provisions
of an Act to which he was for ever expressing his attach-
ment. He had seen it stated that there had been of late a
great decrease of the order of Jesuits, particularly in this
town. Now, he had no great admiration of that order, bet
he rather entertained the opinion which had been so ably ex'-
pressed in a most manly and straightforward speech by the
Hon. Member for Tamworth- (Hear, hear)-and it must be
remembered that that Hon. Baronet spoke with the know-
ledge of a witness-that he had seen their working in a re-
public, in a free country with a population of two-thirds
Protestants and one-third Roman Catholics, and that he had
seen the happy results of Jesuit intrigue.-(Hear, hear.) He
( Mr. Newdegate) warned the Noble Lord to listen to that
opinion, and he begged also to tender him this information -
that there were ris Jesuit missions in London until Cardinal
Wiseman became vicar-apostolic; that he recommended
them and sanctioned their functions; and that they had
enormously increased since he had presided over this district.
Cardinal Wiseman stated, in his appeal, that the increase of
the Jesuits,
sJee smu tgsh,
that order was to enable him to enforce the decrees of his
t were
e ly,
master. If so, it was time we looked to those whom in-
tended to be his instruments. The fact was that the regular
had not been withioluetar,thheeiarr.)sharreheiinr
the very teeth of this aggression. They were the head and
orders of the Church
ionr
s tjilgi:aimontloietrE'ys ,tiwraointphde especially
:themselves, which set
nsaation to them as subjects. To them
ufrpoonnt-itt,hethpartiacthipeayl
allaper
aside
techp tit
ehlsae
weretrei
gdhi
ts
thesetuo rf disturbances
fe
all institutions were alike in their application to the people,
the only difference beinmg which could best serve their pur-
pose. If they saw amonarchy which they could not con-
trol, that order laboured like slaves that they might
overturn it. It was just the same with a republic. History
showed that they would not stop at any crime, from
parricide to simple murder, to serve their purpose. There
agreat increase of this order, and for that reason
said the Protestant subjects of her Majesty had a
expect that some account should be taken of these
wrastigggaaeshinnttths tblenO f aggression.-(Hear.) With reference to this
mustph t
a b
dated
bl table
looked
khtel e
dne
November
rot theuls6b
e,0,1th841 heada7icin
ewoaafhi
driFec, orh:rg, ei,hriogahundes
b ordereen Affairs,
Society ol ioiJdnfe suaujpicdotsisnus, tttahsht eceNoble
and in a political point of view. In its religious cha-
racter it is a society avowedly established to make war
upon the Protestant religion. What wonder, then, that in
a small country like Switzerland, where two-thirds of the
people are Protestants, the introduction of such a society
should give rise to dissensions between Catholic and Pro-
testant, and should be viewed with aversion by the majority
of the nation? In its ecclesiastical character the Society of
Jesuits is known to be exclusive and encroaching. Can it
be surprising, then that in Switzerland, as in other countries,
a great portion even of the Catholic . population should look
upon the Jesuits with jealousy and dislike?" Those were
the sentiments of the Noble Lord at the head of Foreign
Affairs in reference to the Jesuits in Switzerland, and he
(Mr. Newdegate) asked whether they were not equally ap-
plicable to this country? - (Hear, hear.) He wished to ask
whether the Noble Lord intended to permit the residence
and accredited action in this country of a person intrusted,
a 4 Cardinal Wiseman was, with full legatine powers? The
powers of a legate were to manage all the affairs-civil, eco-
nomical, and political-of the nation committed to his
charge. 1,. was true no legate could manage or control the
affairs of this country, but that lie might and would interfere
with them there could be no doubt.-( Hear, hear.) Ile
spoke the voice of the Protestants of England, and he spoke
from communications made to nina by peaceful and orderly
men, when he told the Noble Lord that they were content
to b 3 protected from these aggressions by law, but that if
they were not protected by law, they would take the matter
into their own hands.-(Hear, and a cry of " Oh.")
Mr. KNOX (Dungannon) wished to express his indigna-
tion and that of the people of Ulster at the conduct of the