The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1851-09-23 00:00:00

Etberpoot :tattbarb.

TUESDAY MORNING, SEPT. 23, 1851
BEQUESTS TO ROMANISM.

IF the absurd folly of the clerical agitators in
Ireland has done nothing for the Romish Church,
it has done a great deal to bring the people of this
country to a common-sense consideration of the
state of their own laws on that particular subject.
We have been long accustomed to a cry that the
obsolete lawsagainstßomanism ought to berepealed,
and it has resulted in the inquiry as to whether
the laws that favour it should not rather meet a
similar fate. The chief of these is the power of be-
queathing money to the uses of the Church, or of
making at all or in any case clerical legatees. The
number of instances in which not only the old and
infirm, who were without issue, have been induced
to bequeath their property for the purposes of the
Romish Church, but also where families needy and
even desolate have: been disinherited, (we use the
word in place of a stronger,) have become so great
since the attempted revival of Popery in this
country, that the legislature is called upon to pro-
tect the public from any further plunder. It is,
indeed, a proof of the boasted unchangeableness of
the Romish Church, at least in this particular, that a
Parliament of Queen Victoria should be called upon
to take the same stand against Popish priests as
was taken by a Parliament of Richard 11. Yet
such appeared to be before Mr. Headlam's com-
mittee the opinion of all Roman Catholic witnesses
not exactly or directly interested in the plunder in
question. They were unanimous in advising that
there should be no more Roman Catholic legatees,
of the order of priests. The exact form of restric-

tion was not particularly pointed out by any one,
but it was clear that ecclesiastical legatees were
either to be wholly prohibited, or the amount left
to the Church carefully restricted. The lay wit-
nesses desired, in fact, that some legislation, with
objects similar to those of the statutes of Mort-
main, should be attempted. One of them, Mr.
Riddell, a Roman Catholic barrister, says, in reply
to the committee, about bequests to priests,

" People who are not actuated by very warm religious
feelings will ascribe undue influence to the party who
takes the benefit, and prevent access to a dying person b 3
his spiritual director. It prevents the very object for
which the money is given, viz., the increase and support
of the Roman Catholic religion, which in many cases is
very much injured by that circumstance." Ile therefore
" knows no reason why Roman Catholics should regard
the proposed incapacitating laws as being aimed against
the Roman Catholic religion, and thinks that they are de-
sirable for the priest's own character, and for the protec-
tion of the laity. It is only carrying out a principle
which already exists."

Cardinal Wiseman, however, thinks quite the con.
trary. He is not particular about the " priest's
own character ;" and as to the " protection of the
laity," that is not all amongst his calculations. He
dismisses the matter by saying that " these are
ecclesiastical questions, which we cannot conceive
to be proper matter for discussion in Parliament."
Really we could be disposed to fancy we were back
in the days when A'Beckett

" Did with his rebel crozier bruise the crown."
Restrain parliament from dealing with the law of
property where Popery is concerned, and next you
must restrain it from dealing with the criminal law
where priests are concerned. Dr. Wiseman's no-
tions are as far at variance with modern law as his
pomp is at variance with modern etiquette. There
is, however, one Romish priest who has spoken out
far more honestly on the subject before the com-
mittee—the Reverend Francis Trappes, described
as a "Roman Catholic cleryman doing duty at
Hull." He declares candidly that

" There is a passage in the canons of Trent which com.
pletely condemns the abuses in question. It admits that
great abuses had arisen in the Church, especially from
avarice with regard to masses, and it decrees that for the
future no bargains, or conditions, or rewards for saying
BMWs shell eYer be entord ip.o3. Li will be feud in the