The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-10 00:00:00

THE IRISH CHURCH.

The Irish Church Establishment is now one
of the most prominent topics of the day. The
Catholics of England and Ireland, whether they
be Conservatives or Whigs in politics, are
unanimous in demanding its suppression ; and
in this demand they are joined by every Eng-
lish statesman who professes to be a Liberal,
and by many of the most staunch Conserva-
tives. In 1844, Mr. Disraeli, then one of the
most prominent members in the ranks of the
Conservatives, now their leader and the Prime
Minister of England, when discussing Lord
John Russell's motion for a committee of the
whole House, "to take into consideration the
state of Ireland," expressed his desire to see a
public man come forward and say what the
Irish question really was. He drew for the
contemplation of the House this picture of
Ireland. " A dense population in extreme
distress, inhabiting an island where there was
an Established Church that was not their
Church, and a territorial, the richest of whom
lived in distant capitals; a starving population,
an absentee aristocracy, an alien Church, and,
in addition, the weakest executive in the world.
" What, then," he asked, " was the duty of an
English Minister ? To effect by his policy
all the changes that a revolution would do by
force. The moment they had a strong execu-
tive, a just administration, and ecclesiastical
equality, they would have order in Ireland."
Thus spoke Mr. Disraeli in 1844, and we have
now to see whether the Premier will carry out
the ideas of the political cadet. Putting aside
for the present the starving population, the
absentee landlords, and the weak Executive,
we will take into consideration the question of
the alien Church. We will first glance at its
past history, then in greater detail at its pre-
sent position, and we will afterwards speculate
upon its future.
The advocates and supporters of the Church
by Law Established in Ireland have no reason
to be proud of its past ; in fact, if they have
any respect for its reputation and honour, they
would strive to obliterate its records from the
page of history. But that cannot be done.
For although every honest Protestant would
now be ashamed to approve of, much less to
participate in, such events as marked the foun-
dation of the Irish Protestant Church, its real
founders were, on the contrary, proud of their
actions, and ever ready to blazon them forth to
the world. They boasted of their persecutions
and their tyrannies ; but at the same time they
lamented that they could not supply the places
of the priests with ministers worthy of their
name and calling. Sir John Perrot, Lord-
Deputy of Ireland, writing to Walsingham,
says, " I have apprehended three priests of
late—notorious, practising Papists. By their
apprehension, and upon the examination of
them and some others, there is a great nest of
Mass-mongers discovered, with whom I mean
to deal shortly, as is meet with such kind of
men."

The Act of Supremacy was passed by the
united efforts of George Browne, Archbishop
of Dublin, and Justice Brabagon, and the oath
of supremacy was enforced under the paia,of
the recusant being adjudged guilty of high
treason. The confiscation of all the Church
property in the island—the torturing of bishops
by toasting their feet " against the fire " in
tin boots—the hanging and disembowelling
while yet alive of prelates and priests—the
confiscation of the broad-lands of the Catholic
chiefs of Ulster and the plantations thereon of
imported Anglicans, had no better results than
ministers " below all degrees of contempt "
grasping, avaricious prelates, who thought of
nothing but founding families—Christ's Church
in part hired out as a drinking tavern, and
the Communion Table in the choir, though
" used for the administration of the Blessed
Sacrament," used also as a primitive ottoman
lounger for maids and apprentices."
The scandals of the new clergy were even
more disgraceful than the persecutions of the
executive.
Spencer, secretary to the Lord-Deputy, de-
scribes the condition of the Anglican Church
in 1593 in terms which Dr. Mant feels con-
strained to admit bore but " too close a re-
semblance to the original." He says :--
" Whatever disorder you see in the Church
of England ye may find in Ireland, and many
more, namely, gross Simony, greedy covet-
ousness, fleshly incontinency, careless sloth,
and generally all disordered life in the common
clergymen. And, besides all these, they have
their particular enormities; for all Irish priests
which now enjoy Church livings are in a man-
ner mere laymen, saving that they have taken
holy orders; but otherwise they do go and, like
laymen, follow all kinds of husbandry and other
worldly affairs as other Irishmen do. They
neither read the Scriptures nor preach to the
people, but baptism they do, for they christen
after the Popish fashion. Only they take
tythes and offerings, and gather what fruit
else they may of their livings, the which they
convert as badly."
Of the bishops he says :--
" Some of them whose dioceses are in remote
parts, somewhat out of the world's eye, do not
at all bestow the benefices which are in their
own donation upon any, but keep them in
their own hands, and set their own servants
and horseboys to take up the tythes and fruits
of them, with the which some of them pur-
chase great lands, and build fair castles upon
the same."

It was with the greatest difficulty that the
pulpits could be filled at all ; and such as
offered themselves were " dissolute men—the
scum of English society," who floated over to
Ireland as needy adventurers. Even if an
Irishman did conform he was excluded from
the profits of conformity by the law, which
provided that incumbents, preachers, &c.,
should not only conform to the English religion,
but speak the English tongue. Under such
men what became of the churches ?

Dr. Bramhall, who was afterwards Bishop
of Derry and Archbishop of Armagh, was ap-
pointed on a royal visitation to examine into
the condition of the " Church " in Ireland.
The details he gives of the state of that insti-
tution would be amusing if they were not too
deplorable to be looked on in a light spirit. He
says : •
" First of the Fabricks. It is hard to say
whether the churches be more ruinous and
sordid or the people irreverent even in Dublin,
the metropolis of this kingdom and seat of
justice. To begin the inquisition where the
Reformation will begin,
we find our parochial
church converted into the Lord Deputy's stable
—a second to a nobleman's dwelling-house--
the choir of a third to a tenis-court, and the
vicar the keeper. In Christ's Church, the
principal church in Ireland, whither the Lord
Deputy and council repair every Sunday, the
vaults from one end of the minster to the other
are made into tippling rooms for beer, wine
and tobacco, demised all to Popish recusants,
and by them and others so much frequented
in time of divine service, that though there
is no danger of blowing up the assembly about
their heads, yet there is of poisoning them
with the fumes. The table used for the admini-
stration of the Blessed Sacrament in the midst
of the choir made an ordinary seat for maids
and apprentices. . . This being the
case in Dublin, your lordship will judge what
we may expect in the country."
Of the clergy--the men procured as Gospel-
preachers by the ring of the town-bell--he
says :—" The inferior sort of ministers are be-
low all degrees of contempt." The bishops
partook of the grasping spirit of Loftus. After
detailing their corruptions, he says :—" It is
affirmed that by all or some of these means
one bishop in the remoter parts of the king-
dom doth hold three-and-twenty benefices with
cure."

The bishops were but little better than the
parsons. Archbishop Browne made it a capital
offence to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy
of the Pope. Archbishop Loftus tolerated Dr.
O'Hurley, and then illegally put him to death.
Jones, who was the persecuting ally, confede-
rate, and successor of Loftus (this Jones was
not only Archbishop of Dublin, but also Lord

Chancellor, and twice Chief Justice ; and, as
Ware says :—" He laid the foundation of a
fair estate !"), and Bulkeley, who headed the
musketeers in their raid upon a Catholic
chapel, these were the first four ecclesiastical
chiefs of the Church Establishment in Ireland.
And yet there are men, sensible men, who are
not ashamed to become the champions of the
edifice built upon such a rotten foundation.
The spirit of Loftus still remains, and occa-
sionally finds vent in English periodicals. In
the current number of Blackwood, a writer
calmly and coolly says :
" As far as we can see, there is only one thing
to be done for Ireland ; and that is to hold her
with a strong hand till Protestant immigration
and Catholic emigration have gradually left the
Celtic population in the minority, and so, by
degrees, improved the priests off the face of the
land."

Whilst there are such men in England, we
cannot expect that the difficulty will easily be
solved ; but if we can only shame them by the
history of the past, and the picture of the
present, we shall have done something towards
remedying the evil.—Westminster Gazette.

GLEANINGS FROM THE GERMAN

PAPERS.

The Archbishop of Munich, the Bishop of
Passau, and the Bishop of Augsburg have
presented to the King of Bavaria addresses,
signed by nearly 72,000 men, in favour of the
temporal sovereignty of the Pope.
The students of the University of Bonn pro-
posed a short time ago to hold a meeting in
the university in favour of the Pope ; but the
Rector, Herr von Sybel, interfered, and for-
bade the meeting on the ground that such a
meeting would be political in its character. As
was to be foreseen, the Catholic students were
not to be put off by such a pretext; and ac-
cordingly they despatched a complaint, bearing
400 signatures, of this interference, on insuffi-
cient grounds, with their rights on the part of
the Rector, to the Minister of Public Worship
at Berlin. The lists of signatures, numer-
ous as they are, would have been still much
larger had it been permitted to have them
signed in the university hall ; as it was they
had to be circulated from hand to hand. Under
the circumstances everything has been done
on the part of the students of Bonn that was
possible to identify themselves with the de-
monstrations which are taking place all over
Germany in support of the just cause of the
Holy Father. And it is to be hoped, says
the Kiilnische Blotter, an influential Catholic
paper of Cologne, that the Minister of Public
Worship, out of regard to the just demands
of the students of Bonn, will cause the Rector
to withdraw his uncalled-for prohibition.

On the occasion of his silver wedding, the
King of Hanover has given 10,000 thalers to
the poor of the province, 2,000 of which is
devoted to the poor of the city of Hanover
itself. A North German paper, commenting
on the King of Hanover's speech, which has
made no small stir in Prussia, remarks that
King George, in his hopes of a restoration,
does 'not stand alone among the recently
deposed monarchs, for, according to the four-
nal of Paris, there is circulating in the diplo-
matic circles of Rome the copy of a letter of
the ex-King of Naples to his cousin, the Prin-
cess Alice of Parma, on the occasion of her
marriage with her cousin, the ex-Grand Duke
Ferdinand of Tuscany. In this letter King
Francis expresses his firm conviction that he
will shortly see his young cousin, with her hus-
band, reinstalled again in the Pitti Palace at
Florence.

According to the Siidcleutsche Presse, the
State library of Paris possesses 1,100,000
volumes, and 80,000 manuscripts ; the St.
Genevieve library 155,000 volumes, and 2,000
manuscripts ; the Mazarin library 150,000
volumes, and 4,000 manuscripts ; the Sorbonne
80,000 volumes, and 900 manuscripts ; the
library of the Hotel de Ville 65,000 volumes.
The number of volumes in the public libraries
in France is 6,233,000; in England, 1,772,000 ;
in Italy, 4,150,000 ; in Austria, 2,488,000 ; in
Prussia, 2,040,000 ; in Russia, 852,000 ; in
Bavaria, 1,268,500; in Belgium, 510,000.
Taken altogether, the public libraries of Europe
possess over twenty millions of volumes.