The Sun.
London, England, 1828-12-25 00:00:00

try. The French have not forgotten that Belgium
formed a part of France for many years, and
they are aware of the weakness of a King-
dom which can be overrun by them in a few
days, and of which one half is Protestant,
and the other Catholic, with old animosities
to brood over. Before the French Revolution,
the Priests of the Austrian Netherlands pos-
sessed great influence ; and the people, though
certainly moral and_ industrious, , were more
under the controul of their spiritual guides than
most Govermnents would wish their subjects to
be. In fact, it is no easy matter to conceive a
state of more opaque
.stupidity than the Theo.
cracy QC the Austrian Provinces had succeeded
io establishing in a country, once the first iu
Europe in point of manufacturing industry and
as it still is perhaps in several im-
the fine arts,
portant branches of agriculture. The Nether-
lands (government, aware of the difficulty of its
position, is anxious.to amalgamate as much as
possible the two divisions of the kingdom ; and
knowing how extensive the influence of the
Priesthood is, and experiencing considerable op-
position from the Catholic Clergy in its plans of
instructing the people, it has endeavoured to
mould the Clergy by making a liberal course of
studies an accompaniment of theology. No man
who Knows what the studies were which the Ne-
therlands Clergy patronized down to the time ofthe
French Revolution--who knows the cart-loads of
casuistry with Which the Presses of Louvain, Ant-
werp, &c.
,exclusively teemed—theological rub-
bish, sufficient to overlay the understandings of
whole quarters of the world—will wonder that the
Netherlands Government should be anxious to
let a little light in upon the seats of learning.
The change is now in progress ; and no import-
ant change can take place, especially among a
people so completely Priest-ridden as the Bel-
gians, without producing dissatisfaction. A
new generation, however, both of Priests and
people, will reward the Government for its well-
meant exertions. Mr. O'Dwyer views the pro-
ceedings in the Netherlands merely as a Catho-
lic, without making allowance for the difficulty
in the position of the Sovereign. He does not
accuse the Sovereign, or any of his Ministers,
of a- wish to proselytise the Catholics. We have
never heard that a suspicion of this sort was en-
tertained. Me thinks that the Corporation of
Catholic Priests should be allowed to de-
termine for themselves the degree of knowledge
they ought to possess ; that the Sovereign
ought to he perfectly indifferent as to their
qualifications as teachers of the people ; and
that, when they issue from their Semina-
ries, the people ought, as a matter of course,
to be abandoned to their guidance. But be-
cause allowance ought to be made for the Govern-
ment ofthe IS7etherlands, on account of the peculiar
difficulty .of its position, there is no reason why
the Government of this country, which is hi
no such difficult position, should embroil itself
with the Clergy of its Catholic subjects. No
foreign country is so mad as to conceive the
possibility of taking Ireland. We are secure
from without, if we can only remain at peace
within. The Netherlands Government is neutral
with respect to religion, the religion of the King
being merely his own private concern, and not
connected with the State, which consults only
the spiritual wants of the people in paying the
Clergy. But the English Government is not
neutral, but mixed up with the Anglican Church,
and it is quite impossible that it can interfere
in any way with the Catholic Clergy without
exciting the well-founded suspicions of the Catho-
lics-as to its sinister designs. For the English Go-
vernment and the English and Irish Protestant
Churches being identitied,_ to claim a sight of
interference with the Catholic Church, is merely
saying that the Protestant Clergy are to he
judges of the Catholic Clergy. Any payment to
be made to the Catholic Clergy by the State,
would be like a party in a lawsuit paying the
Counsel of his adversary. The Catholics have
a right to say, Timeo Danaos. The English
Government can hold out no security to the !
Catholics that unfair advantage will not be taken
pi the slightest concession of a right to interfere
with their. Clergy. On the other hand, as they
derived nothing from the State, the State has no
right to demand any thing from them. They
have a common interest with their fellow-subjects
in the prosperity of their common country ;
and the Very circumstance, which has made
them powerful—namely, their acquisition of
property--ehas given to the Government the
very best security that can be conceived
for their good conduct as subjects. Secu-
rity in any other sense is either an absurdity, or a
cover for destroying the efficacy of their clergy.
—As to Mr. O'Dwyer's notions respecting the
peculiar -tendency of the Catholic religion to
favour the liberty of the press, which he proves
by a recent motion in. favour of the press in the
States-General having been supported by the
Catholic Deputies and opposed by the Calvinist
Deputies, it can hardly be expected that we
should e,avely answer them. During the middle
ages, the Popes were opposed to the Empe-
rors, and supported the Guelph or Republican
party from policy. The Church was then ge-
nerally in collision with the State, and did
favour freedom. But there has long- been an
excellent understanding in Catholic countries
between Church and State, and the former has
been everywhere found an admirable tool for
the purposes of Government. Mr. O'Con-
nell, Mr. Shiel, and other Irish Catholics,
avail themselves of the ambiguity of lan-
guage to persuade the world that liberty and
Catholicism love to dwell together. They talk
of Prussian Despotism—of Danish aad Swedish
Despotism—of Swiss Democracies, and so forth.
Down to the period of the French Revolution,
the Liberty of the Press existed only in Pro-
testant countries ; and at this day, in the few
Catholic countries where it exists, it has to
struggle with the opposition of the Catholic
Church. Books of great learning and research
have been published in Catholic countries ; but
as to freedom of discussion or inquiry, the ex-
periment is now making for the first time. Books
on all subjects, and advocating all manner of
opinions, appear every day in all the Protestant
COO n tries ; but in no exclusively Catholic country,
France excepted. Mr. O'Dwyer deceives him-
self very much if he supposes the Deputies of
the Southern States who supported the motion
he alludes to, are favourites of the Catholic ;
Clergy of the Netherlands, or that the Clergy !
are not hostile in the extreme to freedom of dis-
cussion. The Catholic Clergy of every country in
Europe, with the
.exception perhaps .of some
parts of Germany, where Catholics and Pro-
testants
are educated together, are decidedly
hostile to freedom of inquiry ; and do we not
see even in France, notwithstanding all the agi-
tation of the Revolution, that the Priests are ;
almost to a man the patrons of ignorance ? We
do not urge this in justification of the abuse of
the Catholics, nor as an apology for withholding
from them their just rights; hut because the
cause of the Catholics can only be injured by