The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-04-17 00:00:00

REV. MR. NOLAN-FATHER TOM MAGUIRE

Our space at present will not permit us to transfer to our.
columns an admirable letter of the Rev. Mr. Nolan, the fearless
champion of Divine Truth, and a genuine seceder, as far a,
human observation is able to discern, from the errors and
Priesthood of the Church of Rome. He was assailed by Father
Tom in his Lent Lecture in Dublin, on Sunday night last, and
had no other mode of defending himself than through the me-
dium of the press; and it is a duty incumbent on us to give a
few extracts.

Father Tom, it appears, alluded to the supposition of Mr.
Nolan's having broken his vows of celibacy since he left the
Church of Rome, to which Mr. Nolan replies as follows :

" You next entertained your audience on Sunday night, with
a long dissertation upon my marriage, Pray, Sir, is there any
novel introduction in your church so universally broken through
as the pretended celibacy of your clergy ? Does not the long
list of feigned nieces and comely housekeepers act as substitutes
tor wives to nearly all of your clerical celibants ? Aye, sir, have
you not known even some of what poor Roman Catholics would
call your blessed and spotless bishops, to have frequently out-
stepped your laws of celibacy ? Without referring to the his-
toric page to prove the truth of my remark, have not You your-
self known a certain bishop, in one of the adjacent dioceses of
Meath, to entertain his guests with champagne in one room,
and his two concubines with claret in the other? Where is the
parish in Ireland that does not bear a record of either the pre-
sent or preceding priest having been unlawfully intimate with
Mrs. or Miss such a person ? Do you want arguments, sir, in
proof of my assertion ? Look to Killucan, Cast letowndelvm,
Kilskeen, Rahan, Kilbeggan, Mullifarnhani, and other places
which it would be quite endless for me to enumerate, but all of
which, you know, would bear irrefragahle testimony, to the cor-
rectness of my statement. Yes, sir, and were the Roman Ca-
tholic laity as free in disclosing the crimes of the Romish Priest-
hood as they are in revealing the faults of others, it would be
shortly found that but few of them could have annexed to their
character the epithet of celibacy. Would it not, then, sir, as
the Apostle Paul says—" Be better (for your clergy) to marry
than burn." If the Lord Jesus had an objection for his Apos-
tles to be in a married state, why did he select Peter, and so
many married persons in the world? But, sir, your church
comes under the denomination of those false teachers, " for-
bidding to marry," and against whom the Apostle Paul warns
the Christians—l Timothy, iii. 4.
In reply to Father Tom's accusation to Mr. Nolan's having
misrepresented the nature of the seal of confession, Mr. Nolan
replies as follows:
"If I were, sir, to adopt your suggestion as a precedent. then
for the same reason should I divulge the names of those different
combinatory, Whiteboys, Blackfeet, Ribbonmen, and other
illegal bodies, many of whose members confessed to me from
time to time. Then, sir, should I tell of the perpetrators and
accomplices of each illegal act that came tinder my observation
in the capacity of a Romish professor. Should I adopt your
suggestion, sir, then I ought to uaine the different Priests who
at various times confessed to me their impositions upon the
public, their many seductions of ungarded innocence, and their
numerous fornication and adulteries. But I shall now conclude
with one observation more. Will you, sir, as awful as public
opinion may be of your veracity, attempt to deny that if a most
brutal conspiracy were formed against her present Majesty by
the R 01121511 people, or against tier House of Lords or Com-
mons, and that you or any other Roman Catholic Priest were
made privy through the means of your confessional of the in-
tended bloodshed, will you attempt before your next congrega-
tion to deny this assertion, that you dare not, according to the
abominable principle of Romanism, apprize either her Majesty
or her ministers of their intended assassination. Does not Dens
say in the 6th vol. of his works, and in page 219, that if even
the destruction of the commonwealth be impending, and that
the Priest hears of it in confession, he dare not, according to
tha abominations of Romanisin reveal it; nay, even if the
Priests were to be sworn as to whether he heard of the conspi-
racy or not, he is obliged to swear according to the principles of
Romanism, that he never heard of said conspiracy. Reader,
remember that Dens has been appro'ved of by the Roman Ca-
tholic Archbishop Murray and the other Bishops of Ireland.
But this is the opinion of all the other approved moralists in
Romish theology. As to the fact of your saying that murders
are not beard of in the confessional previous to their committal,
how could you attempt to speak in such a manner when you are
not only convinced of the contrary, but that even Romish histo-
rians attach falsehood to your assertion."