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

RSV. 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 as
human observation is able to discern, from the errors and
Priesthood of the Church of Rome. He was assailed by Father
Toni 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
ft 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
for 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 or
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-
seat ur preceding priest having been unlawfully intimate with
i*.trs. or Miss such a person ? Do you want arguments, sir, in
proof of my assertion ? Look to Killucan, ndelvin,
Rahan, Kilbeggan, Mullifarnhain, and rather places
which it would be quite endless for me to enumerate, but all of
which, you know, would bear irrefragable 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-
- ties to he 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-1 Tinorthy, iii. 4.
• ~, In reply to Father Tom's accusation to Mr. Nolan's having
misrepresented the aaLure of the seal of confession, Mr. Nolan
~replies as follows:
". If I were, sir, to adopt your suggestion as a precedent, then
ter the same reason should I divulge the names of those different
,:cornbinators, Whiteboys, Blackfeet, Ribbonmen, and other
.Llegal-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 under my observation
in the capacity of a Romisit professor. Should I adopt your
suggestion, sir, then I ought to name the different Priests who
.•
_ at various times confessed to me their imposition, upon the
public, their many seductions of ungarded innocence, and their
numerous fornications 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 I-resent Majesty by
the Romish people, or against her House of Lords or Corn-
•
mans, and that you or any other Roman Catholic Priest were
made privy through the means of your confessional of the in-
.teaded bloodshed, will yogi attempt before your next congrega-
tion to deny this assertion. that you dare not, according to the
abominable principle of Rouranism, 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 Romanism 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
Romanist:a, that he never heard of said conspiracy. Reader,
remember that Dens has been approved 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-
.riaus attach falsehood to your assertion."