The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-29 00:00:00

IRELAND.

ARCHBISHOP M‘HALE cm THE IRISH CHURCH.
l)unLite, JAN. 25.—The Evening Freeman's Journal
contains the following letter:---
"io THE RIQItT lioN qiR ROEiETT PEEL, riARt
St. Jarlath's, Tuain, Feast of St. Timidly, 1845.
"Sir,—Whilst you survey with singular satisfaction
the wide extent of spiritual bondage over Great Britain,
you are, doubtless, mortified by the painful contrast of
the spiritual freedom of Ireland, And anxious for the
diffusion of this religious thraldom, you fear that its
reign cannot be.permatient or sedufd Until the light of its
Catholic faith is extinguished in a country so conti-
guous as to be likely to become contagious. It is not the
first time that Ireland, an eAception to the surrounding
servitude, roused the envy of the despots Who doomed
its liberty to destruction. Such was the policy, which
, we are told by Tacitus, Agrippa had in contemplation.
He despaired of establishing the dominion of the impe-
rial arms over Britain and Caledonia as long as Irish
freedom was, in the language of the ancient historian,
within view. And you, too, improving on his policy,
despair of perpetuating the worst despothrn cf heresy,
under which the once favoured land of England groans,
as long as the light and freedom of the Roman Catholic
faith burns with such steady strength and lustre in the
neighbouring island.
" Hence the untiring exertions of that Protestant
ascendancy, still so hostile, to extinguish a religion which
is a living reproach to the revolting errors that disfigure
the face of England. Witness the lamentable fruit of
those errors in the entire disorganisation of what is
termed the Church of England, and in the hideous in-
testine discord by which its crazy frame is falling
asunder. Witness, too, the dreadful immorality which
is their offspring, and the prevalence of those unpro-
voked and gratuitous crimes which, in despite of the
insolence of its journalists and the homage which wealthy
nations are sure to extol, even unto the palliation of their
vices, have made the moral condition of England a word
of warning over the civilised world. Are you ambitious
to sink Ireland to the level of the same degrading social
I materialism ? Should you succeed, instead of the occa-
sional outbreaks of revenge which humanity abhors, and
which would have been frequent were it not for the in-
cessant influence of religion and its priesthood, you
would witness a fierce spirit of national indignation
which not two, nor all the spare legions within your
command, could repress. So much is the tranquillity of
the country and the stability of the throne beholden to
the pious and disinterested exertions of its calumniated
priesthood.
" The lamentable state of social disorganisation to
which I have alluded is felt and deplored by many of the
English prelates, who confess they are unable to apply a
remedy: witness, for example, the ludicrous embarrass-
ment of his Lordship of Exeter—to day issuing his
episcopal mandates for ecclesiastical uniformity, and re-
voking them again, it is said, at the imperious requisi-
tion of the Minister of the Crown. Such of the members

of that body as possess a tolerable share of learning,
whose intellect ranges beyond the small pale of the An-
glican Establishment, and the brief period of its disastrous
schism, surveying the social happiness enjoyed by the
nations when the Church was not the chained handmaid
of the Crown, are in a condition the most pitiable. While
their zeal is animated by the heroic fortitude of the an-
cient champions of the freedom of the Church they fancy
for a time that they can imitate their example. No
sooner, however, do they engage in the attempt than
they are obliged to own that from the Establishment,
though retaining some of the material features of a
church, the spirit that animated and informed it is gone;
and instead of the holy vigour of an Ambrose .or an
Anselm, who arraigned the cruel delinquencies of royalty
itself, they are silent on the crimes of the nation, because
they must regulate, by the nod of a political minister,
the nature of the pastoral instructions.
" No doubt you are anxious to bring about a similar
reform in the Catholic Church in Ireland. If so, you
must expect it will be productive of the same disastrous
results upon morality and order. It is as a step to this
complete subjection of the Catholic Church to the State,
which, no doubt, is your aim, you have introduced the
fatal measure of the Beque is Bill, and by its fruit you
may judge of the wisdom of the policy which, in an evil
hour, you have adopted. You have avowed that your
difficulty was Ireland. Have you not increased and
thickened those difficulties by this disastrous measure ?
Never, within the memory of the oldest of its inhabi-
tants, was Ireland in a state of more frightful excitement.
And why ? From the encroachment you have striven,
but I hope in vain, to make on the freedom of the Ca-
tholic religion. And allow me to tell you, in all since-
rity, that, as you are now about meeting the Parliament,
your first measure must be the repeal, the total repeal
of that penal law, root and branch, if you wish to restore
tranquillity to Ireland. I will not fatigue you or the
public attention with the detail of any of the arguments
against this iniquitous law that are now as fami-
liar as they are forcible. Whoever can resist the
evidence adduced by Sergeant Shee, and principally by
Mr. O'Connell, of the ruinous effects of that law, if un-
repealed, on the hest interests of the Catholic religion,
must have an understanding steeled by prejudices which
no argument can approach. The question has been so
argued that persons the most illiterate, as well as the
most enlightened, are in possession of those arguments,
and hence an intellectual and religious opposition to that
measure, deep, wide—embracing all orders and all
classes—laity, clergy, priests and bishops, gentry and
peasantry ; in short, spread over the entire cour.try, and
fast as the hold which their faith has on its people.
" When it was announced that three estimable and
venerable pi elates were associated to the Commission to
carry this odious act into effect, the public mind was
stunned, and a sudden grief fell on the heart of the na-
tion. Their sorrow was intense ; they felt by the novel
connection that the freedom of their Church was in mani-
fest danger, and the appointment, like edam chafing and
fretting the current which it was intended to check,
raised it still higher and gave it further force.
" There are not in the world a people who feel more
veneration for their prelates than the Irish people, and,
therefore, you must suspect that the measure must be
bad which could produce dissensions in a body, the
members of which the spirit of Catholic faith and con-
Onerfil; so closely 'cog -acted. It.';,re-;
gaire'd nU extr4ordinarY. 4,tacity, to leraeiy4 that you,
in looking for theaid,of Catholic bishops, sought net to,
suplioxithe.OatholiC religia, tif'Wexalt its priesthood,
but rather:to buttresti the.tOtteiing fabrib of -Protestant
ascendancy. If you meant, as in policy` as 'will: as juS,
tice you should have to legislate on; a principle
of common fairness;,tcowtirds {,be Catholics, not
recognise in law those ~caponical rights and apostolical
jurisdiction on which..:lhis.,pentil law inContestibly en-
croaches ? Yet, with -till _atimppt to injure and _de-
grade, you, and a few hollOWeceriornists, take credit to
yourselves for acknowledink, for the first tithe, the
rights and titles of the episcopacy in Ireland ? Yes, you,
acknowledge to insult them, and even, the honotir
you show has in it all the bitterness of scornful derision.
How do you honour even those venerable prelates whom
you have made members of your ministerial board? By
giving them the titles of bishops without sees, and em-
blazoning over their heads the sole and exclusively legi-
timate titles of others to the same sees which their sainted
and heroic predecessors would never have consented to
acknowledge.

"There cannot be two lawful bishops of the same see.
The respective epithets of Catholic and Protestant might,
if compromise could be at all admitted, intwit the distinct
sources of their Apostolical or Parliamentary jurisdic-
tion. But instead of this, the.. Protestant prelates are
blazoned forth as the Archbishops of Armagh and Dub-
lin, without any qualification, while, in insulting and sub-
ordinate contrast, the Catholic prelates are announced as
archbishops of—nowhere. But you give them a prece-
dence, a rank in society ! Yes, you strip them of their
rights, as far as in you lies. You amuse them with the sha-
dow of ceremony, which is unmeaning but us far as it is
significant of substantial rights and duties. And you
humble them with the condescension of your insulting
patronage, such as you would exhibit to some exiled and
fallen dynasty, fixing on them more strongly the gaze of
pity by the mockery of a homage of which you disown
the legitimate foundation. What would her Prime Minister
think of the respect of any individual for royalty who
would allow her Majesty the name of Queen, withholding
her rightful titles of Great Britain and Ireland, on which

it is founded ? Surely, the recognition of her name
could not disguise the want of fidelity necessarily included
in any such omission of her rightful title. Of what in-
consistency and confusion is not bigotry productive ?
You would fain confer on some of our bishops a Parlia-
mentary jurisdiction which you are incompetent to give,
and deprive others of their apostolical jurisdiction, which
you are as incompetent to take away. And, by way of
indemnifying the one for the indignity of master slaves,
to which you labour to degrade them, you give them a
ministerial licence of making a similar invasion on
the apostolical rights of their brethren. You expect

hat You will do—all this to prolong the existence of
'et anti-national and odious Establishment, some of

•
whose prelates, their fellow-benchers, poured forth but
the other day their usual contributions of orthodox
hatred on the idolatry and tyranny of the Church of
Rome. But, no; more valuable by far than the d.igrad-

ing honours of the oppressors of the faith are the confi-
dence, the attachment, and affection of the devoted
Catholics of Ireland, who, instead of denying the titles,
the jurisdiction of their beloved bishops, will revere th.em
as the only legitimate occupants of the thrones which
some of the most eminent of the successors of the Apostles
have adorned.

" Immediately connected with this subject is the

iffectstion of a new-born reverence !monk. the here-

ditary enemies of Ireland for the rights of the Thanan
Pontiff. If you really revere the centre of Catholic
unity, why endeavour to strip the Catholic bishops
of their titles, which his Holiness has conferred, and
without which, and the spiritual iufluence they
confer,
_none of those bishops wduld be deemed
worth a moment's negtitiation to relieve the embar-
rassments of a Prime Minister. Perhaps this feeling is
like the prodigal's appreciation of virtue, from the habit
of sinful courses, springing from the evidence of the
disorders into which a privation of that light which issues
from the Apostolic See has so long plunged the popula,
tion of England. If so, then we should bail such a
feeling, and help their faint and tottering steps in re-
turning to the light and merciful consolations of that
paternal home from which they have been so long stray-
ing. Oh ! no, it is the envious feeling of the fallen
spirit at the happiness springing from truth and union ;
and their tongue, like his, strives to dart forth in glazing
flattery the venom of destruction. They may spare
themselves their officious solicitude about the conduct of
the Catholics of Ireland. In the fight for their faith the
Irish Catholics are no raw recruits. Thanks to the per-
secuting policy of England, and the atrocious code of
her sanguinary edicts, the Irish Catholics, in defend-
ing their faith, have been made the most prac-
tised champions upon earth ; and they have not com-
bated so triumphantly and so long without the convic-
tion that they owe their signal triumphs to their unex-
ampled fidelity to that holy chief whom the Master
placed over the Church for their guidance. They will
then clingu—as their pious ancestors have done—cling to.
$h rocket Peter ; they slp,llloour, too, for the peace-.