The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-11-19 00:00:00

HER MAJESTY

The following address, which is understood to be from
the pen of Cardinal Wiseman—a fact which gives ad.
ditional importance to it—will, we understand, lie at the
various Catholic churches and chapels on Sunday next,
and will be otherwise circulated, with the view of ob-
taining signatures to it, to tes.ify to Ow va:ty of the
Catholics of England to " Her lthjesty's R ,yai person,
crown, and dignity" :
"To THE QUEEN'S MOST FXCLLLE.NT AJESTY,
"May it please your Majesty,—NN r, the undersigned subjects
of your Majesty, residing in England, and professing the
Roman Catholic religion, beg to approach your Majesty's
throne, there to express our sentiments of unimpaired and
unalterable fidelity to your Majesty's Royal person, crown, and
dignity.

"At a moment when attempts are being made to impeach
our loyalty, we consider it a duty to give fresh utterance to
these our feelings.

" During centuries of exclusion from the privileges of ti►e
constitution, and from the rights enjoyed by their fellow-
subjects, the Catholics of England, remained true to their
allegiance to the Crown of this realm, and yielded to none
their readiness, at all times, to defend its rights and its pre-
rogatives against every foe. And now that, under your Ma•
jesty's wise rule, we enjoy equal participation with others in
the benefits of the constitution, we are more than ever
animated with the same sentiments of fidelity and attach-
ment, and are equally ready to give proof, whenever occasion
may present itself, of the sincerity of our loyal professions.
"The dearest of the privileges to which we have thus been
admitted by the wisdom of the British Legislature, is that of
openly professing and practising the religion of our fathers,
in communion with the see of Rome. Under its teaching we
have learned, as a most sacred lesson, to give to °tsar the
things that are of Cwsar, as we give to God the things that are
of God. In whatever, therefore our church has at any time
done for establishing its regular system of government amongst
its members in this island, we beg most fervently and most
sincerely to assure your Majesty that the organization granted
to us is entirely ecclesias' ical, and its authority purely spiritual.
But it leaves untouched every tittle of your Majesty's rights,
authority, power, jurisdiction, and prerogative, as our Sove-
reign, and as Sovereign of these realms, and does not in the
leastwise diminish or impair our profound reverence, our
loyalty, fidelity, and attachment to your Majesty's august per-
son and throne; and we humbly assure your Majesty, that
among your Majesty's subjects there exists no class who more
solemnly, more continually, or more fervently pray for the
stability of your Majesty's throne, for the preservation of
your Majesty's life, and for the prosperity of your Majesty's
empire, than the Catholics of England, in whose religion loyalty
is a sacred deity, and obedience a Christian virtue."

PAPISTICAL CASUISTRY.--From a correspondence
which appeared in the Times of Friday, it appears that a
district called Pantasaph, forming a portion of the
parishes of Holywell and Whitford, in North Wales, is
in a state of the greatest spiritual destitution, and that it
was the earnest request of the late Lady Emma Pennant,
mother of Viscountess Feiking, to her -daughter that a
church might be built there. In furtherance of this view
this excellent lady left £3,000 for such spiritual and
church purposes in the parishes of Whitford and Holy-
well as her executors should think proper. In the mean-
time Viscount Feilding promised to the Bishop of St.
Asaph to build the church at St. Pantasaph, the founda-
tion-stone was laid by the Bishop, and the sacrament was
taken by those present at the ceremony. Lord Feilding
went on with the building of the church, and during its
erection became, as our readers are no doubt aware, a
Roman Catholic. Under these circumstances, Lord
Feilding, " fearing to act upon his own unassisted judg-
tnent, took time to obtain the opinions of many whom he
considered capable of giving sound arid just advice."
We cannot doubt to whom the convert applied for coun-
sel ; nor will it surprise those who are conversant with
the dark annals of Romish casuistry, and who are there-
fore aware that in no single instance where the interests
of the Church are at stake has the Romish priesthood
scrupled to enjoin the violation of the clearest moral
duties, to hear that the solemn promise of a nobleman,
the honourable feelings of a gentleman, the sacred duty
of a child to the last wishes of a deceased parent, were
swept aside as idle and futile when they stood in the way of
the acquisition of a certain quantity of brick and mortar
to the Roman Catholic Church. It is humiliating to be
obliged to notice the arguments by which an English
nobleman has not blushed to excuse his breach of faith.
His Lordship condescends to plead that he is not
legally bound to perform his promise. No doubt the
Statute of Frauds has been brought to his Lordship's
notice, and we admit the validity of the plea, though it
sounds new and strange in the mouth of an English peer.
The next argument is a logical curiosity. If I were bound
at all, says Lord Fielding. by my promise, I should be
bound even if you (the Bishop) were to turn Socinian ;
ergo, although you have not turned Socinian, 1 am not
bound. That is, to put a parallel case, if I am bound to
repay you the money which you have lent me, I am bound
to pay it even if you should use it for the most immoral
purpose ' • ergo, although you are not going to use it, I
am not bound to pay it. Not, as it seems, quite satisfied
with this comprehensive reduclio od absurdum, his Lord-
ship has next recourse to Scripture (we should have
thought the dispensing power would have served him bet-
ter) to prove that there may be promises which to fulfil,
under certain circumstances, is sin. The example is not
a happy one—" Paul did not, after his conversion, con-
sider himself bound by the promise which he had made
to the Jews to prosecute the Church, because he had made
it in ignorance." We do not find anywhere that Paul
did make any promise at all, but that he desired a com-
mission to prosecute, which was given him. The argu-
ment is, therefore, that every one who re eives a com-
mission is bound to act under it for ever ; so that a
judge who resigns his office breaks his promise to
administer justice to her Majesty's subjects. Then we
are told that if the nation had a right to apply the places
of national worship to the national religion when reform-
ed, although the founders of those buildings did not and
could not belong to the reformed faith, so the reformed
Viscount Fielding has aright toapply toihis reformed church
the building which he had solemly promised and devoted
to the worship of the Church of England—an argument
just as valid as the inference that because a nation may
lawfully declare war an individual may commit murder.
But enough, or rather too much, of this transparent and
miserable sophistry, which we have only cited to show
how naturally those in whose hands this young nobleman
has in an evil hour placed his conscience can distort fact,
reason—Lay, the word of God itself, when a promise is to be
frittered away, and a solid advantage to be clutched. We
possess no casuistical dexterity to disturb our perceptions,
and we are well content with the liberal text which tells
us that he is acceptable to God " who promises to his
neighbour, and deceiveth him not, though it be to his own
loss." Lord Fielding did not, as he pretends, make this
promise in ignorance. The claims of the Church of Rome
were before him then as now ; but he made it when he
held one set of tenets, he is called upon to perform it when
he has adopted another.

IS THE POPE'S PARTITION OF ENGLAND
INTO BISHOPRICS LEGAL ?

As considerable discussion bas taken place relative to
the legality or illegality of the late measures adopted by
the Pope for dividing this country into different dioceses
to be under his own jurisdiction, it may not be uninterest-
ing to our readers to learn the opinions of two of our
leading law journals ( the Law Times and the Jurist) on
this point. We may say that, essentially, the opinions
given by these two journals are the same ; and as'it is not
desirable that we should follow them into their historic
inquiry into the various laws affecting Roman Catholics in
this country, probably the following brief summary of
their view of the law as it now stands will be deemed
sufficient.*

The Act of 1 Eliz.. c. 1, enacts in its 16th section ' that
no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate,
spiritual or temporal, shall at any time afterlhe last day
of I his session of Parliament, use, enjoy, or exercise any
manner of power, jurisdiction, superiority, authority, pre-
eminence, or privilege, spiritual or ecclesiastical, within
this realm, or within any other your Majesty's dominions
and countries that now be or hereafter shall be ! but from
thenceforth the same shall be cl early abolished out of this
realm, and all other your Highness's dominions for ever;
any statute, ordinance, custom, constitutions, or any
other matter or cause whatsoever to the contrary in any-
wise notwithstanding." By a subsequent section offend-
ers under this statute are said to be persons who maintain
any foreign jurisdiction or authority here ; and by sections
27, 28, 29, and 30, certain penalties for a breach of this
law are laid down.

This act,—or at least so much of it as we have quoted—.
remained in force till the 7 h and Bth Victoria, c. 102.
By this latter act a considerable number of anti-Catholic
statutes were repealed, and among others so much of
Statute 1 Elizabeth, as provided for the punishment of the
second and third offence under the statute, but left sub-
sisting the punishments provided for the first offence,
namely, forfeiture of goods and chattels.
The last act relating to Roman Catholics was that of
9th and 10th Vic. c. 69' This act repealed so much of
Eliz., c. 1, as makes it punishable to affirm and maintain
the spiritual or ecclesiastical authority of any foreign po-
tentate, &c., " provided always, and be it declared, that
nothing in this enactment contained shall authorise or
render it lawful for any person or persons to affirm, hold,
stand with, set forth, maintain or defend any such foreign
power, pre-eminence, jurisdiction, or authority; nor shall
the same extend further than to the repeal of the particu-
lar penalties and punishments therein referred to, but in
all other respects the law shall continue the same as if
this enactment had not been made."

So that, although the particular punishments laid down
in the 1 Eliz.,c. 1, for affirming and upholding the spiritual
or ecclesiastical authority of foreign potentates is abo-
lished, yet the undauyielness of such a procedure remains
undoubted. So far as that is concerned the statute of 1
Eliz. remains in full force. And, to quote the Jurist, "in
a case of tins kind it is more material to ascertain whether
the act i 3 unlawful, than what is the remedy. The reme-
dy in thi 3 case rah ht be trifling, almost ridiculous ; for as
a breach of an act of Parliament, not prescribing a special
punishment, is merely a misdemeanour, we suppose, that
if his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman should think fit to as-
sert publicly in this country his authority, as derived
from
the Pope, of Archbishop of Westminster, he would not be
liable to any very severe measure of actual punishment.
Dot if it be clear' that to carry Jut() effect We remit mou.