The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-22 00:00:00

ftam-
c&l -if 9 OCTOBER 2') 1850.

venient anger of our contemporary knows
Ino bounds, and his. well-leigned horror and
disgust no limit of vehement expression, when
he further learns that twelve Romish bishops
are designated for twelve new sees that his Holiness
deigns to erect for the edification of our most igno-
rant, most heathen, and most un-Popish people.
Alas ! poor Times! Our contemporary must have
indeed been sorely pressed, not merely from without,
but from within also, ere he consented to pen the
lines contaieed in his Saturday's article. For it is a
well- understood rule of law, " that he who wills the
means wills the end," and for now, nearly two years—in-
deed from that memorable night when protected un-
der the robe of Countess Spaur (formerly Mrs. Dod-
well) Pius IX. fled from the Vatican—the object of
the Times, at which our contemporary has striven
with might and with main, has been to get the well-
fed pontiff back again, with all his ecclesiastical,
clerical, and pontifical bag and baggage, with his
keys, with his crozier, and with his ring, with his
mummeries, with his monkeries and Agnus
Deis, with his scapularies, rosaries, and wonder-
ful moving-eyed virgins of Rimini —with every-
thing, in a word, but the Book of God and of life—
with everything but improved secular govern-
ment and constitutional institutions. And now,
having got the dear, fat, well-fed Pope back again
in his Palace of the Quirinal, backed up and sur-
rounded by his conclave of Italian-bred cardinals and
camerlingos, our contemporary is wonderfully sur-
prised that his Holiness plays the real Pope—that he
really pontificates—and seems in earnest, and desires
to pull down every other church than his own, and on
the ruins of each and all other churches to erect
the spiritual despotism and darkness •of Rome,
proudly predominant, persecutingly intolerant, and
arrogantly triumphant. This surprise on the part of
our contemporary indicates either the most ingenuous
simplicity or the most marvellous and utter unac-
quaintance with the history of the Papacy. As the
Papacy was, so it is, and ever must continue so long
as the religion of Rome endures. In all that Pius IX.
has done since he has been restored by French Re-
publican bayonets he has been perfectly consistent
—perfectly true to the instincts of priest and of Pope
—perfectly true to the traditions of Popery and of
the Papacy from the earliest time. The inconsistency
is not on the part of the Pope of Rome, but one the
part of those French and English politicians
who were purblind enough to believe that
in writing, in speaking, and in voting in
favour of an armed interference for the Pope,
they were writing, speaking, or voting in favour of
a Government of order, of liberty, or of rational pro.
gress—in favour of a Government that would not in-
termeddle with the domestic concerns of free and in-
dependent states. The Times, now. that we are
assailed in our hearths and homes, in the city of
Westminster, by the meddling Papacy, by the silly
fool of the Quirinal, and his crapulous conclave of
priests, has discovered that the Pope of Rome " has
maintained a dark superstition, and bred a constant
disaffection among a large portion of the Irish people."
It is a pity that the Times did not discover this in
November and December. 1848, and during every
month from January, 1849, down to the 19th Octo-
ber, 1850. When its priest and police-inspired cor-
respondent at Rome, at Milan, at Turin, at Genoa, at
Naples, and at Gaeta—for one individual, after all,
played a " monopologue," with as many changes
of dress and character as poor Charles Mathews—
when
its priest and police-inspired correspondent
at Paris—were writing up the Pope, and the cardi-
nals, and vituperating Gioberti, Mamtani, Armellini,
Saffi, Galetti, Mariani, Montecchi, Mazzini,
Cernuschi, D'Azeglio, Leopardi, and others, and
charging on them fabulous and unheard-of crimes—
when its Puseyite correspondent, Mr. Baillie Coch-
rane, with the five Christian names, commonly called,
for shortness, " Cochrane le Cinq," was inditing to the
Times, so late as last April, pompous, empty, and
meaningless eulogiums on the Pope for blessing the
French army, and announcing the nonsensical rig-
marole that " each soldier thought the blessing was
intended for himself"—it is a pity, we say, that the
Times did not then, or earlier, discover that the Pope-
dom " was a foreign usurpation, ludicrous and intoler-
able"—that " the Papacy was an edifice rotten to its
foundation"—" that it was a vitality declining at the
centre," as it fully admits on Saturday, Oct. 19, of the
present year. Such was the language held by us
from November, 1848, at a time when " our own
correspondent"—aye, and our own Times' leading
article writers too—vilipended every Italian looking
for constitutional reform, rejoiced at the French
expedition against the Roman Republic, and at the
restoration, by French Republican bayonets, of a
Pope, whose business the Times now—too late—dis-
covers to be " to sow division in our political society.
It is well, however, to welcome a repentant sinner,
even at the twelfth hour, and when the Times, in a
truly virtuous
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our National Church" in such a work, we shall not be
guilty of the cruelty of reminding our contemporary
of how he encouraged these renegades, when within
the Establishment, in their fantastic tricks, from 1841
to 1847, and thus prepared the way for these mons-
strous aberrations and backslidings which have had
the effect of giving even courage to the silly fool of
Rome, and which have induced him and his advisers to
think that England is prepared to receive Papal legates
and cardinals, as in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Now that the Times has at length dis-
covered the evil it loses no time in suggesting a
remedy. But a remedy more monstrous, snore silly,
and more wicked, never proceeded even from the
Vatican itself in it 3 worst days. The remedy is, that
the spiritual aggression of this silly and besotted Pope
"should be met. by the British Government with due
vigour, not in England, hut in Italy." A more naked,
abominable, and unwise incitement to interfere in the
domestic concerns of a foreign state, because a foreign
state has interfered in ours, never appeared even in
the Times. The Noble Lord at the head of the
Foreign Office, with all his faults of interference and
intermeddling, is not so silly or so insane as to follow
such evil and truly inimical counsel as this. We have
nothing to do with Rome, and we want to have
nothing to do with Rome. But if Rome meddles with
the prerogative of our Queen, or the rights or liber-
ties of the Protestants—eye, or of the Roman
Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland—the people
of these realms will know how to resist the impudent,
offensive, and intermeddling intrusion, without going
to the Vatican or to the Quirinal, as suggested by the
Times. There are other aspects of this subject which
we must regard more narrowly in a day or two.
DAILY NEWS.—We published on Friday a
letter, and a very important one, calling in question
the right of Cardinal Wiseman, now a prince of a
foreign temporal state, to exercise authority in this
country over the will, and over the property and con-
duct of a large number of her Msjesty's subjects.
This day we publish another letter, called forth by
the first one, and augmenting its importance—dis-
playing but too fully the spirit in which Cardinal
Wiseman is likely to exercise his new authority, and
the ends to which he is capable of turning and em-
ploying it. If we regret, and are disgusted by, the
aggressive attitude lately taken in Irelaud, and now
in England, by the ultra-zealot party in the Catholic
Church, it is really for the sake of our Catholic fel-
low-brethren, more than for ourselves. We should
have liked to see the great measure of Catholic
Emancipation completed by some fair mode of dealing
with the Irish Church, and by placing the Anglican
and the Roman, at least in that country, in such
juxtaposition as would take from both the character
of belligerent churches. But any such intolerance
or disaffection as that revealed in the letter ad-
dressed to us, and Published to-day,.. will . alarm
not merely the Protestants, but the friends of
the monarchy, and the assertors of constitu-
tional rights. We must say, however, in justice to
the Court of Rome, that, guided by the least sense,
common or uncommon, in its foreign relations, that
many things and symptoms have lately happened and
been manifested in England calculated to deceive it.
First of all, a certain portion of our own clergy, being
at the very centre of theological learning, have avowed
that the regeneration of the Church must be sought
in the revival of the authority, not merely of the
scriptures, but of tradition and of clergy. That such
a theory leads straight to Rome, has become as evi-
dent from itseffectE ai from its principles. But this prin-
ciple of authority-eafter being resuscitated of iteelfiu an
English cloister, has lately been caught at by the de-
spairing statesmen of -all the countries of Europe,
threatened by democratic ideas. These, even
Catholic countries, having long repudiated the au-
thority of the priest, whilst they respect that of reli-
gion, have fallen into anarchy and decay, from causes
no more connected with religion than with mathe-
tnatics. But statesmen have looked upon it as a kind
of divine infliction, to be propitiated, as barbarians
used to seek to avett the danger of an eclipse, by
sacerdotal pumps and human sacrifices. In France
and Austria, where the State, however, despotic, had
repudiated the Church, this same Church has been re-
stored to its supremacy. No wonder that the Pope
should consider as one the different kinds of reaction
in his favour. No wonder that be should buckle on
the armour of Julius the Second, and send forth his
fighting Prelates in new red hats, to drill and, arm his
old clergy in foreign parts, and lead them to the as-

sault of crumbling citadels. But whatever be the
purpose, the excuse, or the calculation of this new
crusade, the grand consideration for Protestants, and
for liberal Catholics also, is—how is it to
be met ? The writer of the letter we have re-
ferred to, and who signs himself " A Catholic,"
would question the right of the cardinal prince to
exercise authority in things temporal within this
realm, and he points out how much of his necessary
jurisdiction will be temporal. Our high Tory organs
seem less offended by any real power that a papal
legate may wield than by the overweening dignity
of his title. The claims of the Roman Catholic pre-
lates in Ireland to be allowed their titles, with the
rank and precedence attached, are assumed to be
equally valid in this country ; and Sir R. Inglis is
called upon to nip the budding honour of the new
hierarchy, by a motion in Parliament prohibiting all
honours and titles in this country which have not
emanated from the Crown. This, however, is but
fighting a shadow. The essence of rank lies in the
' deference paid to it, and if you prohibit by statute
that deference which men are willing to pay, the
dignity of persecution is added to that of right.
The most singular of all the modes proposed of
combating the power and encroachment of the new
legate is, however, that of the Times. It threatens ,
and recommends no less than for the English Govern.
ment to get up an insurrection in Italy against the
Pope, by way of retaliation for the ecclesiastical
emeute which has Holiness is getting up under
Cardinal Wiseman here. If our readers are
incredulous we must refer them to the first
leading article in Saturday's Times. " The spiritual
aggression," saith that journal, "is to be met with
due vigour by the British Government, not in
England, but in Italy." The Pope is represented as
too• weak to defend himself against a mob, and there•
fore presuming on his weakness as the screen of his
ambition. The Times concludes by declaring that
whatever " its reluctance to add fresh elements of
discord to the present agitated condition of Europe,"
it still is prepared to let loose Mazzini and Garibaldi on
the Pope, unless the Pope recall Condottiere Wiseman.
What a s'riking specimen of political morality in a
Government organ ! Here have the Times and its poli-
tical party been sacrificing with cannibal ferocity and
glee all that was liberal, and constitutional, and hope-
ful in Italy to the interest of Papal, of Neapolitan,
of Austrian despotism. Throughout two years not
one care or thought of Italian rights, freedom, or in-
terests crossed its mind or inspired its pen. The,
commercial classes of the Romagna, the feudal nobility
of Sicily, the constitutional rights of Naples, never
found mercy or consideration with the Times, who
applauded Austrian, Neapolitan, and French soldiers,
in crushing exiles and executing them. Not one
little finger would it allow to be raised on behalf of
Italy. How fiercely did it abuse Admiral Parker
and Lord Napier for their humanity. How was
Lord Minto's character lacerated for his having en-
tertained a hope of the constitutional freedom,of the
Peninsula. Nay, Consul Freeborn himself was de-
nounced for having saved the lives of some of the gal-
lant defenders of Rome, by giving them passports to
escape. And yet this very party amongst us, and their
organ,which exulted in the crushing of the last spark of
even constitutionalism, now gravely proposes that Eng-
land should stir up again the embers of these quenched
revolutions, and fan them into flames, not for the sake
of Italy, of freedom, of any generous or humane prin-
ciple—no—but merely to be avenged for the nomina-
tion of Cardinal Wiseman ! Can the annals of the
press and of party, through all the years of their
combined existence, display a more heinous specimen
of political scoundrelism ? No, please God, if English
love of peace and dislike of interference made the
Parliament and public feeling prevent Lord Palmer-
ston from indulging in any generous intervention for
Sicilians or for Romans, English honour would not
brook the idea of doing for selfish spite that which we
refused to do in the cause of freedom and humanity.
If we cannot aid in the emancipation of Italy for
Italy's own sake, we shall certainly not sanction the
employment of either intrigue or secret service
money to foment insurrection for the selfish pur-
poses or gratification of political or religious spleen.
The policy of the last two years, the policy forced
upon the Foreign-office in the latter period of
these years, by the Tory and Absolutist league, of
which the Times was the organ; this policy has flung
away Italy, and handed it over politically, commer-
cially, and religiously to its enemies. The day to
have combated them in Italy has gone by, and all that
remains now for us is to resist them at home. We
are to do this, we feel convinced, nut by persecution
or proscription, but by uniting the efforts of liberal
Protestants and liberal Catholics for maintaining the
local rights and independence of both Churches, and
for establishing and extending education and educa-
tional institutions, for the purpose not of inculcating
mere dogmas, but cf strengthening and enlightening
man's reasoning faculties and solid information. Me-
diteval Catholicity can only be revived amongst a ge-
neration socially divided and religiously instructed, as
were the people of the mediteval age, that is amongst
an ignorant lower class, a barbaious and feudal
noblesse, and a middle class ignorant and dependent.
11 e have few of these elements. But there remain
some scattered soils, where ignorance and pride lie
deep, and where the mediaeval seed may still produce
crops. Let us hasten to plough and to enrich them.
With careful cultivation we need not fear the nature
of the crop.
CHRONICLE.—It is difficult to understand what
advantage the rope can propose to himself from that
scheme of a diocesan partition of England which has
been already inagurated by the establishment of an
ontrusive Archbishopric at Westminster. If the
proceeding is not resented by the English nation, it
can only be on the ground of utter indifference to a
verbal and imaginary encroachment. The progress
of proselytism is not likely to be facilitated by in-
dignation, nor can it derive favourable auguries from
contempt. The fragmentary and individual suc-
ceases of Romanist propagandism are toe notorious,
from the exaggerated boasting of one party and the
hysterical lamentations of the other, to stand in need
of further advertising ; and yet we suspect that the
instinct of puffing has contributed its share to the an-
nouncement of the new titular Primacy. There
are, we presume, persons to be found who believe in
the pretensions of placarding coffee-dealers, and of
slop-shops which proclaim themselves to be the won-
ders of the world ; and the Court of Rome may have
hoped that similar credulity would lead to the recogni-
tion of an authority which assumed to be already re-
cognized. It may be true that the cheap tailor is
not really the arbiter of fashion, and it is certain
that the Cardinal Archbishop can only influence a few
scattered congregations ; but in each case the person
principally concerned deems it expedient to announce
himself ae being already in possession of the prosperity,
which he hopes to attain hereafter. Even if new cus-
tomers are not attracted by the self-complacent
advertiser, his old adherents are nevertheless comforted
and encouraged by assurances that their judgment is
confirmed by the suffrage of the community at large.
If this is not the object of the new appointment, we
are at a loss to reconcile it with the reputed sagacity
of the Roman Court. That such a measure should be
held out as a diplomatic threat, is perfectly natural
and intelligible. We may hope that English influence
is for once to be exerted on the side of justice, in the
contest between Rome and Sardinia; and it is not
unlikely that the Synod of Thurles may have been
originated, and that the proposal of establishing a ter-
ritorial episcopate in England may
have been adopted,
as menaces to an unwelcome mediator. But even it
Lord Palmerston could be supposed to be jealous of
the hierarchical pretensions of Rome, the threat be-
comes useless from the moment that it is accom
pushed, and we have now nothing more to fear
When Mr. Pitt was negotiating with the French
Directory, he offered, as a part of the convention, to
resign the claims of George 111. to the kingdom of
France. The Government of the Republic were so
unpatriotic as to decline to make any surrender of
territory in return for the royal concession ; but,
however small the value of the card might be,
at
least the English Minister had it to play. Pius IX.,
in a similar game, has played his card, and Dr.
Wiseman is now Archbishop .of Westminster exactly
in the same sense in which George 111. and his
predecessors had long been Kings of France. The
insult which is thus offered to the English nation
is aimed against both the Church and the State.
The immediate purport of the new appointment is,
of course, to denounce the Bishop of London
and the PriMate as schismatic intruders. Two
bishops ‘-r keep not their motion in one course,"
and a legitimate territorial title excludes all
local co-ordinate authority. It is true that the
Protestant Establishment was always schismatical
and heretical in the eyes of Rome ; but there are
many unpleasant relations in society which it is not
necessary publicly to express. It were more polite,
as well as more consonant with the actual state of
things, to manage the ecclesiastical affairs of the
English Roman Catholics without an ostentatious col-
lision with the Church which is actually in possession.
The Sovereign of the Ecclesiastical States has often
.
been beholden to the friendly interfere.nceoflangland
and it might have been well to avoid insultg.U4
could be effectually injured. It. is an innova so
'f' not in the pretensions rf Rome,to di
the pyactice,
vide a territory into provinces and dioceses without
the consent of the Government of the countss.
most conservative party in the State, at least titl.l tole
.n