The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-20 00:00:00

BY THE CROWN.

Down to the year 1829 Catholics were excluded
from both Houses of Parliament, and from many other
offices and dignities. Or it may be more correct to say
that' were only enabled to attain these distinctions by
taking an oath, entitled the Oath of Supremacy. There
was also a declaration required against several Catholic
doctrines: but any Catholic who would have acknow-
ledged the Sovereign's supremacy would easily have de-
nied those doctrines, and so have taken the entire oath.

" What was meant by the King's supremacy was, that
in him was vested the headship of the Church in all the
British empire, so that he had supreme power in ec-
clesiastical and spiritual' matters, as well as in ' civil
and temporal;' and every one was held to be as subject
to the one as to the other. The acknowledgment of,
and the subjection to. this spiritual supremacy was in-
compatible with the doctrine and belief of Catholics all
over the world; namely, that there are no such things
as national or separate churches; but only one true
Catholic or universal church, under one head, the Bishop
of Rome, otherwise called the Pope.
" The Catholic who believed in this doctrine could not,
without giving the lie to his faith, swear or admit that
the temporal Sovereign is head of the Church, nor
of any church that claimed his obedience.
" And because he would not admit that Royal su-
premacy, or, what is the same, he admitted the Papal su-
premacy in spirituals, the Catholic was excluded from
partaking of the privileges of the Constitution.
" At an earlier period Catholics used to be put to
death for their denial of the kingly ecclesiastical su-
premacy. The best and greatest of English judges, the
Chancellor Sir Thomas More, was beheaded for denying
that supremacy and maintaining the Pope's.
"In the year above mentioned, 1829, an Act was
passed and became law, which is familiarly known as
the Catholic Emancipation Act. By this Catholics
were freed from all obligation of swearing to, and con-
sequently acknowledging, the royal ecclesiastical supre-
macy, and an oath of allegiance was framed peculiarly
for them which excluded all declaration of belief in that
principle.
" A Catholic, therefore, before 1829, in the eye of the
law, was a person who did not admit the royal supre-
macy, and therefore was excluded from full enjoyment
of civil privileges. A Catholic after 1829, and there-
fore in 1850, is a person who still continues not to admit
the royal supremacy, and nevertheless is admitted to full
enjoyment of those privileges.
" The royal supremacy is no more admitted by the
Scotch Kirk, by Baptists. Methodist., Quakers, Inde-
pendents, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and other Dissen-
ters, than by the Catholics. None of these recognise
in the Queen any authority to interfere in their religious
concerns, to appoint their ministers for them, or to mark
the limits of the separate districts in which authority has

to be exercised.
" None of these, any more than Catholics, recognise in
the Bishops appointed by our gracious Queen, in virtue
of her supremacy, any authority to teach them or rule
there. The real sway, therefore, of this spiritual pre-
rogative is confined to that body of Christians who volun-
tlrily remain subject to the ecclesiastical establishment
called the Church of England. Any one can, when be
pleases, separate himself from this body, and from that
moment he ceases to consider the bishop appointed by
the Crown as his pastor, superior in spirituals, or master
in faith.
" While the State reserves for that establishment,
within the limits of which the royal supremacy is strictly
and fully exercised, all dignity, honour, pre-eminence,
god endowment, it freely grants to all who choose to
?rye out of its domination, as their equivalent, perfect
toleration, complete freedom to practice their religion,
whether new or old, according to its principles and to its

* " Lord Chief Justice Campbell, I understand, really said,
that ' there seemed to be only one topic on which any one
could speak ; but that, for his part, if the high dignitaries
alluded to were to come before him, they should, at least,
have an impartial trial.'"

- _
" The Act of Catholic Emancipation was considered,
not only by those whom it benefited, but by all who
consented to it, as an act of justice rather than of favour.
It was deemed unjust to exclude from fair participation
in constitutional rights any Englishman on account of
his religious opinions. By this Act, therefore, preceded
and followed by many others of lesser magnitude, the
Catholics of the British empire were admitted to com-
plete toleration—that is, were made as free as any other
class of persons to profess and practise their religion in
every respect. The law made a few exceptions, but the
enumeration of these only served to prove that in every
other respect but these the law recognized no restrictions.
If the law,' observed Lord Lyndhurst, ' allowed the
doctrines and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church,
it should be allowed to be carried on perfectly and pro-
perly.l
" Hence, to have told Catholics ' You have perfect
religious liberty, but you shall not teach that the Church
cannot err; or, you have complete toleration, but you
must not presume to believe holy orders to Le> a sacra-
ment.' would have been nugatory and tyrannical.
" Now, holy orders require bishops to administer
them, consequently a succession of bishops to keep up a
succession of persons in orders.
" Hence the Catholic Church is essentially episcopal;

and to say, You Catholics shall have complete ieligious
toleration, but ycu shall not have bishops among )ou to
govern you,' would have been a complete contradiction
in terms—it would have amounted to a total denial of
religious toleration.
" When, therefore, emancipation was granted to the
Catholics, full power was given them to have an epis-
copate—that is, a boby of bishops to rule them in com-
munion with the Pope, the avowed head of the Church.
Now, government by bishops in the Catholic Church

may be of two kinds.
" First, the regular, ordinary, proper, and perfect
form of episcopal government consists of a local heir-
archy—that is, a body of bishops having their sees in
the country, with an archbishop similarly holding his
see. Such is the episcopacy where constituted in its
ordinary form.
" Secondly, where this proper form is not attainable,
a temporary and less perfect mode of providing bishops
for a country is adopted. The Pope names bishops to
ancient sees situated now in infidel countries, as Turkey
or Barbary, and gives them jurisdiction in the country
to be provided for, as his own immediate vicars. Hence
such bishops are called vicars apostolic.
" When emancipation or full religious freedom was
granted to Catholics, if in this was included full liberty
to be governed by bishops according to the constitution
and ordinances of their own Church, it follows that they
were at perfect liberty to have it governed according to
the regular and ordinary form of their constitution, as
much as by the temporary and irregular; and that is by
a hierarchy of local bishops.
"To have said to Catholics, You are perfectly free
to practise your religion and to have your own Church
government, but you shall not be free to have it in its
" proper and perfect" form, but only in the imperfect
form in which it has been tolerated while you had not
liberty of conscience,' would have been a tyranny, and,
in fact, a denial of that very liberty of conscience.
" But the fact is a simple and plain one, that the law
did not say so, and did not put on any such restriction;
and we are to be governed by law, and not by assertions.
If the Catholics are at liberty by law to have
bishops at all, they are as much at liberty to have local
bishops as to have vicars apostolic.
" Nay, more than this, the law plainly foresaw and
provided for our having regular bishops one day instead
of vicars.
"First, as Lord Lyndhurst, already quoted, has ob-
served, if the law allowed the doctrines and the difei-
pline of the Roman Catholic Church, it should be allowed
to be carried out perfectly and properly.' This is in the
spirit of every legislation. Our Church system would
not be allowed to be carried out perfectly and properly
if it was understood (where not expressed) that it was
only to be allowed to be carried out in its imperfect add
less proper form. Suppose a man has kept possession for
years of a house which he had built for himself on my
land without my p.rmission, and then we had come to an
amicable arrangement, and I give him leave, without any
restriction to have a house there, could I complain if,
when his old one required rebuilding, he made it of brick
or stone, and say that I always meant he was only to
keep up a wooden or temporary house? If any Sove-
reign- granted to any distant country its independence,
and power to rule itself by a monarchical government,
would it be just. when that form of jurisdiction was

* Hansard, vol. Ixxxiv. p. 310.
t Speech in the Lords, April 20, 1846, lignsard, To'
1i v. g. 1,261.

" 3. Nor is an attempt made to diminish any of the
moral and religious safeguards of that Establishment,
which views our new measure with such watchful
jealousy. Whatever that institution has possessed
or done, to influence the people or attach its
affections, .it will still possess, and may con-
tinue to do. That clear, definite, and accordant
teaching of the doctrines of their Church, that fami-
liarity of intercourse and facility of access, that close
and personal mutual acquaintance, that face to face know
ledge of each other, that affectionate confidence and
warm sympathy, which form the truest, and strongest,
and most name( bonds between a pastor and his flock,
a bishop and his people, you will enjoy, to the full, as
much as you have done till now. The new bishops will
not have occasion to cross the path of the prelates of the
Anglican establishment in their sphere of duty; they
will find plenty to du, besides their official dune+, in at-
tending to the wants of their poor spiritual children, es-
pecially the multitudes of poor Irish, whose peac..ful and
truly Catholic conduct, under the whirlwind of contumely
which has just assailed thew, proves that they have not
forgotten the teaching of their Church—not to revile
when reviled, and when they suffer, not to threaten.

"4. Bur, in truth, when I read the frequent boasting
of the papers, and the exulting replies of bishops, that
this movement in the Catholic Church, instead of weak-
ening, has strengthened the Established Church, by
rousing the national Protestantism, and awakening
dormant sympathies for its ecclesiastical organizaton,
I cannot but wonder at the alarm which is ex-
pressed. The late measure is ridiculed as powerless,
as effete, as tending only to the overthrow of Popery in
England. Then act on this conviction; show that you
believe in it; give us the little odds of a title which be-
stows no power, rank, wealth, or influence, on him that
bears it, and keep undisturbed those other realities, and
let the issue be tried on these terms, so much in your
favour. Let it be a fair contention, with theological
weapons and fair arguments. If you prevail, and Ca,
tholicity is extingutsbed in the islead, it will be a vic-
tory without remorse. It will have been achieved by
the power of the Spirit, and not by the arm of flesh; it
will prove your cause to be divine. But if, in spite of all
your present advantage, our religion does advance, does
win over to it the learned, the devout, and the charit-
able—does spread itself widely among the poor and
simple—then you will not check its progress by forbid-
ding a Catholic bishop to take the title of liexham or of
Clifton.

" But it will be no doubt said, that many who do not
greatly sympathise with the Establishment are indig-
nant at the late measure, not because Catholics have oh-
tained a hierarchy, but because its appointment is the
work of the P.pe. This interference of Rome has
aroused so much public feeling. Let us then inquire into
this point.
" SEC. 111-HOW COULD CATHOLICS OBTAIN THEIR