The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-07 00:00:00

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, SATURDAY MORNING
THE PRIESTS AND THE POPE.

Ten columns of the _Freeman of this morning
groan under the pressure of priestly oratory poured
oat on Thursday at the meeting of the clergy of
the diocese of Dublin, presided over by the Aposto-
lic delegate in Ireland. The chairman was of course
the star of the day's performance, and he played
Lis part to the unqualified satisfaction of his cleri-
cal audience. Dr. Cullen, in fact, left nothing for
his followers to say, and therefore, passing over the
speeches of' Canons and Vicars-General and parish
priests, and the dii minores generally, it will be
necessary, even at the sacrifice of valuable space,
to " hear the Church" at this perilous crisis of her
temporal existence. The subjoined abridgement
even is wofully long, but there is no help for it.
After some prefatory remarks Archbishop Cullen
proceeded as follows :
" While, last winter, thousands of the nobility and
gentry, and some of the highest personages of Eng-
land, were enjoying hospitality and protection in
Rome, and were obliged to admire the good order
and peaceable disposition of the population—while
an English accredited agent was assuring the autho-
rities of the country of the friendly dispositions of the
British Cabinet--Lord Malmesbury was drawing up
his despatches, sincepublished by order of Parliament
in which he instructed his foreign agents to propose
to France and Austria a new arrangement, or rather
dismemberment of the _Pope's States, though the
proposal was so manifestly unfair that he himself
was ashamed to take a direct part in its execution.
Lord Loftus and Sir J. Hudson were too happy to
re-echo the sentiments of their master in Vienna
and Turin, and Count Cavour, the revolutionary
Minister of Piedmont, was so much influenced in
his proceedings by their authority that he did not
hesitate to declare to Lord Cowley that 'England
was mainly responsible for the present position of
Sardinia, and that her statesmen, her orators, her
agents, and her press had excited the passions of
Italy.'—(Letter of Lord Cowley, Paris, March 28,
1859.) For the.credit of Austria it must be men-
tioned that we learn from a despatch of Lord
Loftus, of the 20th of January last, that she rejected
with indignation the projected dismemberment of
the Pope's States in which Lord Malmesbury in-
vited her to take part, promising to uphold by English
influence any arrangement that might be made to
deprive the Pope of the government of his territory.
The facts I have referred to are a matter of history
given to the world in a Parliamentary return. Pro-
bably next year some other blue-book will furnish
us with the despatches of the present Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, which undoubtedly will not be
more favourable to the interests of the Holy See
than those of Lord Malmesbury. The only differ-
ence between the two secretaries appears to be,
that the former openly avows his enmity and hos-
tility, while the latter, publicly professing kindly
feeling, endeavours to deal a fatal blow through
the hands of others. But leaving rival statesmen
to justify their conduct to posterity, to their own
conscience, and to God, we cannot but regret that
the example given by them had a most baneful
influence and has given a great impetus to the
spirit of sedition and anarchy. The agents of the
Bible Society, as we are informed by the Times of
last Monday, have spread like locusts over a great
part of Italy, and are making every exertion to
undermine the attachment of the people to the
Catholic religion ; while the Evangelical Alliance
and the evangelical Lord Shaftesbury, for-
getting the maxims of the Gospel, under whose
name they disguise their undertakings, encourage
committees to collect money for the purpose of arm-
ing outlaws, and rebels, and banditti of the worst
description, against a peace-loving, and humane
Sovereign, who has never given to England, or to
any of her subjects, the least ground of complaint,
but, on the contrary, has always acted towards them
a kind and friendly part. Encouraged by diploma-
tists and statesmen, supplied with money by Evan-
gelical Committees, and poisoned with a fell hatred
of Catholicity by agents of Bible Societies, we are
not to be surprised that the enemies of the Pope
should have undertaken their work of destruction
with great energy and have occasioned great evils
in a short time. We cannot read, without horror
and indignation, the misdeeds of the men who are
favoured and protected by Biblicals and Evangeli-
cals. Those misdeeds are described in a late Allo-
cution by the Pope himself. 'The leaders of the
faction,' says he, do not cease to use all their cun-
nuing in corrupting the morals of the people, espe-
cially by ;books and newspapers published at Bo-
logna and elsewhere, in which every license is en-
couraged, the Vicar of Christ here on earth is lashed
with insults, the practices of religion and piety are
mocked, and the prayers used to the Immaculate
and Most Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and
to implore her most powerful patronage, are held up
to scorn. Moreover, in the theatres public decency.
modesty, and virtue are attacked; and persons con-
secrated to God are exposed to the common contempt
and derision of all.' It is known, also, that every
honest man is at the mercy of the assassin's dagger,
that many distinguished personages have been mur-
dered or insulted merely because they were at-
tached to the Pope—that religious communities
have been dispersed, and that the pretended friends
of liberty have polluted the sacred name by
their crimes, and especially by desecrating the
house of God and stabling eheir horses in
public churches. To perpetuate and to trans-
mit to posterity the spirit by which they are ani-
mated, these same men are endeavouring to draw to
themselves the education of' the people, and they
publicly prohibited the learned and venerable Car-
dinal Archbishop of Boulogne to preside at the distri-
bution of prizes in the schools of that excellent body
of men, the Christian Brothers. The crimes and
outrages to which we have referred have filled the
paternal heart of his Holiness with grief and sor-
row, and in a few month he has been obliged to
drink the chalice of affliction to the very dregs.
While the rope is thus assailed by the perfidy of
Evangelicals and the treacherous ingratitude of some
few of his own subjects on whom he had conferred
innumerable benefits, is it not meet and just for his
faithful children to raise their voices in his favour,
and to endeavour to console him by manifesting
their sentiments of respect and veneration ? It is
in this spirit that you have assembled to-day; you
are anxious to show how strongly you condemn the
insults that have been offered to the head of the
holy Catholic Church, and how deeply you feel and
resent the injuries that have been done to our lov-
ing and loved father, the father of the faithful, and
Christ's Vicar on earth. While it is in this spirit
alone that we fulfil, the truly Catholic and filial
duty which we have assembled to discharge, I know
that our feelings will be misrepresented, and that it
will be said that we are trembling for the fate of
Catholicity, and that we aro endeavouring to prop
tip a system now doomed to final destruction.
- Many fanatical preachers will make this announce-
ment to their congregations, dancing with frantic
delight in their pulpits at the prospect of the fulfil-
ment of prophecies regarding the downfall of Rome,
Which have been repeated 10,000 times, from the
days of Martin Luther to the present, and as often
found to be the offspring of deluded imaginations.
. But what is the fact ? No Catholic is in the
slightest alarm about the permanent existence of
the spiritual authority of the Pope. Tfie experi-
ence of past ages would be sufficient to remove
every doubt from the minds of the most timid.
For three centuries the Popes were persecuted by
all the power of the Roman Empire. They were
cast into prison and driven into exile, and during
that period all the holy men who filled the chair of
St. Peter, with the exception of four or five, died
martyrs for their faith. Yet, whether in prison or
in exile, or concealed in the recesses of the cata-
combs, they continued to rule the Church, and
their prayers, and their patience, and their suf-
ferings were more powerful than the arms of Rome.
Idolatry and superstition yielded to the humility
~of the Cross, which was planted by the triumphant
Pontiffson the proudest monuments of Paganism,
the Pantheon, the Capitol, and the Colisseum.
Before the end of the eighth century the whole of
the Papal States were recognised by all Europe
as the patrimony of St. Peter, and from that time
to , the present, with trifling interruptions, the
Popes have continued to enjoy its dominion. Even
Protestant statesmen admit that it is a work
of
extreme difficulty to contend with the successor of
St. 'Peter. In a despatch of Lord Cowley, English
Ambassador in Paris, of the 19th of January last,
p!tbli..,hed by Parliam, nt, we find the following re-
i4iarpko
ebol
Tie ord words_,' It was a saying of the first
somewhat paradoxical, no doubt, in his
mouth, that the Pope
be treated with as if
he had 300,000 menat his b sa-j ins , how-
ever`,-showed the difficulty which flint firm,
mind" had to contend whentinieoneinrreheatd.
li.l of the Roman
Catholic Church was his or
.on and Andin-
if such
was the case those daya'
or
irreligion what must it now be when' the Roman
COliolic Church his recovered so much of its then
lost authority ? In truth, the Pope's strength
lies'in his weakness, and we may ask, what can
you do with a man who, the moment the pressure
. is put upon him, exclaims ' Do with me what you
Will—drive me from Rome, both remember that
I am as much the Pope, wheer seated on a
barren rock, or on the throne of St. Peter.'
So far Lord Cowley, who writes like a man
who had not shut his eyes to great passing events,
and wlao speaks very differently from fanatical
preachers and evangelical supporters of treason and
sedition. The noble and generous Emperor of
Austria has boldly broken the chains which bound
the Church in his vast empire, and given a death-

blow to the tyrannical innovations of Joseph 11.
France, too, is cordially devoted to Pius IX., and
we may be confident that Napoleon 111., wbo sent
his victorious legions to drive sedition and anarchy
from the walls of Rome, will be always faithful to
his antecedents, and persevere in the course on
which he entered in the year 1848. Spain, Portu-
gal, Brazil, Belgium, are all now sincerely attached
to Rome. Sardinia is the only plague-spot on the
Catholic map of Europe; but that unhappy coun-
try is groaning under a military despotism, and the
people are ground to the earth by enormous taxa-
tion, and suffering from the misdeeds of their ex-
communicated rulers. As to the mixed Powers,
they, or at least many of them, are friendly, or must
find it their interest to act in conformity with the
feelings of their Catholic subjects. In a speech de-
livered some years ago by Lord Lansdowne, in the
House of Lords, he proclaimed the principle that it
would be most impolitic for any English Ministry
to insult the Pope, or to assail his rights while there
are, perhaps, 15,000,000 Catholics depending on
the British Crown who look up and venerate him
as the head of the Catholic Church. Though the
present Secretary for Foreign Affairs may not be of
this way of thinking, yet I hope that a regard for
the welfare of the empire and for the feelings of so
many millions of Catholics will compel him and
other statesmen to discountenance all attacks on
the Pope, or at least to abstain from giving en-
couragement to the treason and sedition of the
Pope's rebellious subjects. Undoubtedly all
Catholics of influence, and especially our mem-
bers of Parliament, will not fail to resist any
attacks that may be made on his Holiness.
But to return from this digression. What shall
I say of the love and affection which are every day
manifested towards the Pope by all Christian
nations, and nowhere more than in Ireland, Eng-
land, and America, where in the last century either
there were no bishops, or religion was groaning
under the weight of cruel penal laws ? What shall
I say of the feelings of the Catholic clergy through-
out the world ? Never was there a Pope so much
loved and respected by all as his Holiness Pius IX.
How edifying also the conduct of the Catholic
bishops in every country. Jansenism, and Zebro-
nanism, and even Gallicanism, have completey dis-
appeared ; there is no prelate in the church at pre-
sent who would walk in the footsteps of a Zebromus
or a Ricci; there is no jealousy or rivalry; all are
devotedly attached to the common father of the
faithful, and all appear to vie one with the other in
their anxiety to defend him, and to protest against
the insults which have been offered to him by his
enemies. While the Church presents to us so cheer-
ing a picture, while so favourable a feeling pervades
200,000,000 of Catholics and their spiritual heads,
may we not be confident that the present storms
will pass away, that the clouds now darkening the
horizon will soon be dispersed, and that our glori-
ous Pontiff will have happiness and sunshine to
brighten the evening of his days ? But at present
he is in sorrow and affliction, and it is the part of
dutiful children to console, as far as possible, their
loving father, and especially a father invested with
such spiritual powers, intrusted by Christ himself
with the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. It is in
this spirit, I repeat it, that we have assembled; we
entertain no fear for the permanency of the Pontifi-
cal authority, which is founded on Christ himself;
we are confident that even the temporal power of
the Popes will rise more glorious from its present
difficulties, but at the same time we feel deeply
the affiictioss of his Holiness, and we are anxious to
express our sympathy with him. This is the highly
commendable and truly Catholic object of our
meeting. When our youth was menaced with the
dangers inherent to mixed education, he raised his
warning voice, and excited the vigilance of the pas-
tors of the Irish Church, teaching them to uphold
the necessity of a truly Catholic education, and
never to sacrifice principles for expediency or utility.
The eye of the Pontiff is ever watchful over the in-
terest of the Universal- Church ; he is anxious to
promote all its interests and to provide for all its
wants. With the scanty means at his disposal, he
has done more for religion and for literature and
the arts than many rich and powerful sovereigns.
In Rome he has founded a noble college for all the
dioceses of his States, and under his fostering care,
colleges for France, Spain, South and North Ame-
rica, have_been called into existence. Encouraged
by his patronage, the learned Father Thenier has
commenced the continuation of the " Annals of the
Church of Baronius " and the publication of the
Acts of the Council of Trent, as ;well as the cor-
respondence between the Emperors of Russia and
the Popes, and an account of the assistance granted
by Pius VI. to 24,000 exiles, French bishops, noble.
men, and others, whom he supported for several
years. It would be impossible to describe all that
the Pope has done to repair, or complete, or orna-
ment the churches of Rome, as well as to promote
the works of public utility and Christian charity.
AlI I shall say is, that his Holiness's life is altogether
devoted to the good of the Church, and that all those
who had the happiness of approaching him were in-
structed and edified by his meekness, his humility,
and all the virtues which should shine forth in
Christ's Vicar on earth; for I learned last Lent from
one of his chaplains, that after saying mass, his
Efoliness heard another mass each morning, and then
joined in reciting the Litany of the Saints, the
prayers for peace and any other public prayers
which were prescribed. so that he devoted nearly
two hours each day to prayer snd to communing
with his Creator before he entered on the usual
routine of business. The character of the Pope is
impressed upon all his ministers, and his whole
court breathes, like their master, a true spirit of
Christian virtue. Is it not a glory for us, and a
consolation, to have such a head for our Church,
and may we not expect that, as his predecessors in
the early ages of Christianity, by their patience and
suffering, defeated the enemies of the Cross, so he,
by his prayers, his humility, and his meekness, will
draw down upon himself and the Church the bless-
ings and protection of Heaven, and obtain all that
assistance that will be necessary to vindicate the
rights of religion and maintain the independence
of spiritual power? If the titles upon which the
Pope holds his territory be set at nought now will
the nobility or gentry of this country be able to
maintain their rights ? Besides, the enemies of the
Pope—the agents of evangelical and Bible societies
—are teaching continually that in Italy there is no
obligation of obedience to established authorities,
that the people at every whim can resist their law-
ful sovereign, and they loudly proclaim that trea-
son, treachery, and rebellion are great and noble
virtues in the subjects of the Pope. Let their prin-
ciples be widely spread, indoctrinate the inhabitants
of the colonies and dependencies of Great Britain

with such dangerous teaching, and may we not fear
that treason, and sedition, and rebellion will soon
rule throughout the land ? He that sows the wind
will reap the tempest. ForPatholics, rev, brethren,
the course is clear. Though we have often reason
to complain of grievance, yet, when complaining
and insisting on redress, we never can forget the
teaching of the Scripture, and the Church which
commands submission to established authorities for
conscience sake—we are to condemn secret societies
of every kind, illegal combinations, and especially
all publications tending to promote treason and se-
dition. The anti-Catholics, while impugning the
authority of the Pope, may propagate the most
baneful and destructive principles—they may
assail the foundations of civil society. We can-
not prevent them ; but let us, as far as we can,
counteract their evil tendencies by teaching patience
under suffering, obedience, submission, and respect
to every just law. By acting in this way we shall
show that we are truly imbued with the spirit of
the Apostolic See and the Catholic Church, always
the enemy of sedition and insubordination; and we
shall be better able to secure the assistance and co-
operation of all reasonable and liberal men, and to
obtain the redress of the grievances which we
suffer. But it is now time to hear the resolutions

that arc to be proposed."
The oratory having been fairly exhausted, the
following Address to the Pope was adopted nent.con.
" Most Holy Father,—We, the undersigned
Archbishop and clergy, secular and regular, of the
diocese of Dublin, beg to approach your Holiness,
and to testify our sincere attachment and profound
veneration for your Holiness's most sacred person
and throne.

" The devotion to your Holiness and to the
Chair of St. Peter, which we have always cherished,
and cease not to instil into the willing hearts of our
faithful, we feel it our duty to manifest in an espe-
cial manner under circumstances like the present
of peculiar trials and difficulties which menace our
hcloved father and Pontiff, as members of one body,
solhitous each for the other, so that the humblest
cannot suffer without occasioning pain to all
(1 Cor. xii ), how can we not feel the most acute
anguish when the head itself is afflicted ?

" Portion, too, of the Church of a nation which
God in llis inscrutable designs has permitted to be
severely tried for its constancy and unswerving
attachment to the Holy Catholic Faith, we owe an
especial debt of gratitude to the Apostolic See.
" During long ages of persecution, the voice
of Peter sp3aking to his successors directed and
supported us—their benediction consoled and en-
couraged us, their boundless munificence aided
us in the necessities of our Churches ;
finally, when, at a still later period the horrors of
i famine and a devastating pestilence swept over the
entire face of our island, it is in the remembrance
of all, how, among the earliest acts of your ever
memorable and glorious Pontificate your voice was
raised to enlist in our behalf the sympathies of the
entire Christian world, and you even contributed
munificently to the relief of our misery from your
slender and over-taxed resources.

" With unspeakable horror, therefore, and regret