The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-04 00:00:00

PRO-PAPAL _MEETING IN LONDON.

Last night ",an indignation meeting" of Roman
Catholics, most numerously attended, convened at
the instance of the Catholic Aid Association, was
held in the Hanover-square Rooms, Mr. Richard
Keeley acting as chairman. There could not have
been less than 2,000 persons present. The
meeting was called for the purpose of affording the
Catholics of the metropolis an oppot tunity of pub-
licly expressing their feelings of devoted attach-
ment to the Pope, and their indignation, at the
attempt now in contemplation to despoil the Holy
Father of his temporal jurisdiction and power.
The greatest unanimity, approaching often to en.
thusiasm, was evinced by the audience, a consider-

able number of whom were women, throughout tho
whole proceedings, which lasted several hours. The
_

platform was alni'o;it as crowded as the body of the

hall, but there were few, if any, persons of note
among either the Roman Catholic clergy or laity

upon it. Some &man Catholic priests were preseni,
but they took no part in the proceedings so far
as speaking went. The admission to tho hall
was free, but by ticket, and to the platform and
some reserved seats by tickets, sold at ls. each. Let-
ters of apology, assigning various reasons for not
being able to attend the meeting, but all expressing
sympathy with its object, were read from the Roman
Catholic bishops of Birmingham and Shrewsbury,
and the Vicar-Apostolic of the northern; district of
Scotland ; also from the Rev. Canon Oakley, Lord
Fielding, the Hon. Charles Langdale, and Mr. M.
J. Rhodes. Mr. H. J. Prendergast, who said it was

his pride to have been, with Daniel O'Connell, one
of the original founders of the Catholic Association,
and to have stood by it to the last, moved the first
resolution :—" That the temporal power of the
Pope had been the source of numerous blessings to
mankind, by tno extension of the Catholic faith, the
diffusion of knowledge, and the promotion of the
arts and sciences." lie asked, amid the applause
of the meeting, who feared for the supremacy of the
Pope ? No true Catholic could do so. He should
doubt his own existence if he hesitated for a moment

to believe in the power of that supremacy to resist
all th© efforts of man and of hell to overthrow it,
based as it was on the eternal Word of God. It was

not for the Pope that the Catholics feared, but for
the injury which the great interests of Christianity
might sustain at this crisis from the violence
of wicked and the artifices of insidious men. After
criticising, in some detail, what he called " the most
flagitious pamphlet' of M. La Gucrronicre, whom
he designated as "an insignificant person, of no
weight in society," Mr. Prendergast asked why
that pamphlet had acquired all its significance ?
Because, said he, there was an identity of feeling
between the writer of it and the author of another
brochure which heralded one of the most atrocious

crimes by which society had ever been outraged—
namely, the Franco-Sardinian invasion of Austrian
Lombardy. lie was happy, however, to learn that
New Year's-day had passed at the Tuileries without
any foreign Minister there having been Hub-
nerised. It was impossible, he said, for any sane
person to come to any other conclusion than that
the sentiments embodied in the pamphlet in ques-
tion were those of the French Emperor. If that
were not, why did not the Emperor state explicitly,
in the face of the whole world, that he was not re-

sponsible for the sentiments contained in it?
Until he did that no Catholic would put trust in

him, and there would be no Congress. They (the
meeting) had assembled there as Catholics, having
no personal or anti-national feelings to indulge, but
simply to protest against a coercion which was
most injurious to their religion, pregnant with mis-
chief to society at large, and which. even Protest-
ants, if they understood their true interests, ought
to resist. The resolution was seconded by Dr. Hills
who complained of the cuckoo cry raised by the
public press, that the Government of the Pope was
a bad one, without any attempt being made to
prove it so by the evidence of facts. He contended
that the Pope had exercised his temporal power
most discreetly, religiously, and humanely, and that
his great fault in the eyes of English Protestants
was that be had, in fact, no fault at all. The motion
was put and carried by acclamation. Mr. Bre:t
moved a resolution to the effect that although, as
Catholics, they firmly believed the spiritual autho-
rity of the Pope not to be of necessity dependent on
his temporal power, they yet considered the diminu-
tion of such temporal power would be detrimental
to the established Government and injurious to the
best intertsts of religion. This motion he supported
in a long speech, contending that the question was
one that deserved to be discussed, fairly, loyally,
and in a manner superior to " the hackneyed diplo-
macy of a Palmerston, the placid insidiousness of a
Russell, and the strategy of Napoleon III." The
Pontifex Maximus of the press, and all the minor
stars, laboured in vain when they sought to disso-
ciate the temporal from the spiritual power of the
Pope—that temporal power being a divine adjunct
of the spirituality—and to rail at Catholicity, which
had given theta their laws, their institutions, and
all that they held dear in civilisation. The spiritual
power of the Pope was not a political system or a
floating idea ; it was an eternal and immoveable
principle, an article of faith, and the gift of God.
He asked, would Lord :Palmerston •or Lord John
Russell, the "pink" of the aristocracy and " the
luminaries of our moral system," become so degene-
rate, 60 lost to truth and honour, as to go to the
forthcoming Council of Princes and unscrupulously
devote the possession of the temporal power of the
Pope, Heaven-given as it was, to some usurious or
simoniacal destination ? Would they, he asked, in
conclusion, hand over to Victor Emmanuel, for-
merly the
~•entle Duke of Savoy, possessions which
had descended- from the Emperor Constantine to
the present Holy Father, through his illustrious
predeeessors in the chair of St. Peter, during a
long series of ages? The resolution was seconded
by Mr. Young, and carried, like its predecessor,
with the greatest unanimity. On the motion of
Mr. James Burke, it was resolved that, as London
was the source 'whence emanated so many attacks
on the Pope, they deemed it the special duty of
the Catholics residing there to express their sym-
pathy with his Holiness in an address. This re-
solution was supported by Signor Giannini, whom
Mr. Burke introduced to the meeting as " a real
live Italian from Rome," and who, in a speech of
very good English, defended the humane and en-
lightened manner in which the Pope dispensed his
temporal revenues in works of charity and in the
spread of religion and education. The meeting
was subsequently addressed by Mr. Harper, who
formerly held high preferment in the Established
Chinch, and during whose speech Mr. T. A. Malone
a lecturer on chemistry and a Catholic, who had
ventured to say the Pope would be freer in Ireland
than in Rome, received some very rough usage in-
deed at the hands of some violent partisans near
the door. He was struck violently in the eye,
forced from the room, and lost his hat in the melee.
It was subsequently resolvedlhat the address be
forwarded for presentation to the Pope to the care
-of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster. The
meeting did not break up till an unusually ad.
vanced hour.