The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-06-14 00:00:00

POPISH SLAVERY-REV. MR. MULHOLLAND'S

CASE.
( From the Dublin Evening Mail.)
The case of the Rev. Mr. Mulholland, which some
years ago attracted much notice, was brought forward in
the House of Lords on Tuesday evening, by Lord Lynd-
hurst, with circumstances of aggravated tyranny. As all
the facts will be found in his lordship's statement, we
shall not repeat them here, nor further revert to them as
a means of calling the attention of our countrymen—es-
pecially the Roman catholics—to the system of arbitrary
tyranny which. the Church of Rome has set up—and the
positive discountenance which she gives to the laws of the
land, A clergyman of her communion, though " zeal-
ous, pious, and of sound doctrine," is dismissed from his
cure of souls, simply because he appeals to the law of
the land. What are we to think of that religion—what
of the statesmen who encourage its spread and augment
its power—which thus bold up an example to the people
that the law of their sovereign, and their country, ought
to be pretermitted, and recourse be had for justice to a
foreign tribunal ? Nay, who punish an appeal to our
domestic courts, and reward an application to an external
judicature ?
Lord Holland's doctrine respecting the petition is such
as any Englishman, BUT A WHIG, would be ashamed of.
What! is not the petition of a British subject, aggrieved
by a jurisdiction essentially foreign, presentible to the
tribunals of his own country—is his complaint to be
scouted on the paltry technicality that the tribunal to
which he appeals has no jurisdiction in the case ? If the
case be a grievance—aA Lord Holland admits—why has
it not the power to adjudicate rightly between two or
more parties of the subjects of the realm, though they
may have their appeal also to a foreign authority ? This
shows manifestly that there is something still extremely
wrong and defective in the economy of our legislation—
which permits to a foreign court an authority in our do-
mestic matters that none of our own courts of judicature
possess; and this is a state of things now rendered so ob-
vious by the case before us, that it calls for remedy with
a voice that cannot be despised. In giving increased
powers to the Roman catholics, it were surely the height
of madness to leave them irresponsible to the laws of
the land ; and most unquestionably the recognition of
the Church of Rome which the Roman catholic relief bill
has given, and upon which the proposed reform of our
municipal corporations is professedly founded, implies
that Roman catholics are in all respects subjects of the
realm, and that they and their institutions are subject, or
should be so, to the laws of the land. If the case be, as
it unfortunately appears to be, that there is no redress
for a subject aggrieved by the Church of Rome, and that
the Church of Rome arrogates this itamunity to her
clergy—surely it must be admitted that this is a state of
things which cannot be endured in any free and inde-
pendent country, and which requires immediate legisla-
tive redress.

There is another point in which the contra-legal cha-
racter (we are obliged to coin a word to suit the anoma-
lous conduct of the popish clergy) and the monstrous
usurpations of the Romish churchmen are brought for-
ward in glaring colours—namely, their proven assump-
tion of those ecclesiastical titles which are expressly for-
bidden them by law. The fact was often asserted—we
have ourselves brought forward fifty instances, at least,
in which these titles were attributed to, and accepted by,
the Irish Roman catholic prelates and priests. But our
complaint was silenced by the assertion, that these titles
were attributed by others, and that the clergy could not
prevent the homage which They neither claimed nor
wished to receive. We have the fact itself now proven
under the handwriting of the Roman catholic bishops in
the correspondence carried on in Mr. Mulholland's case ;
and if the law officers of the crown receive not directions
to prosecute, and so put an end to the practice, it will be
evident that ministers intend to let those prohibitory
clauses to which we allude, of the relief bill, become a
dead letter. The Duke of Wellington seems to think
there is some defect in the statute—and he calls for a new
and more stringent enactment. We cannot agree in the
opinion. We think the law sufficiently powerful if it
were tried. At all events, trial should be first made—
and if, on experiment, the letter be found weak, let ano-
ther act of parliament provide the remedy, by enforcing
the spirit.

A pregnant example of how slavish a thing lay-popery
is may be seen in the conduct of Mr. O'Connell—the
liberator of his countrymen !—in this very business, as
stated by Lord Wicklow, from authentic documents. In
reply to a request from the wronged individual, that he
(Mr. O'Connell) would undertake his case, this free
slave—this decoy. duck of his countrymen into the meshes
of popish slavery—told the petitioner, in answer, that
"he ought rather to submit to any infliction which the
discipline of his church might impose, than appeal to the
lazes of his country !"
We have often said that the emancipation Roman Ca-
tholics truly wanted was emancipation of their minds—
deliverance from a spiritual yoke which bowed down
their understandings, and deprived them of the liberty
of thought. And is it not so ?
With what face can a subject of the Church of Rome
stand up and say, in the presence of his protestant coun-
trymen, I AM' A FREEMAN ? They know not what liberty
means. We say, with the rimes—" Look at the mark
of the collar upon their neck."