New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-11-14
Which IL Right

We have already referred to two recent
public occasions when Archbishop Hughes
formally declared himselfin favor of liberty
of conscience. The first was at public
dinner given in his honor at Liverpool on
June 10, last, when, if we apprehend the
meaning of language, he most explicitly
commended the absolute freedom Of reli-
gious belief and worship enjoyed in the
United States, as good thing, and con-
demned the legal restrictions on such belief
and worship in Great Britain, as very bad
and perncious thing. The second occasion
was at the Astor House dinner, on July 81,
when contrasting the United States with
Great Britain, he said that the Catholic
clergy ofIreiand would feel solaced at the
assurance that there was a country where
cirH and religious liberty icere established.
The Archbishop is, then, upon the record
as believing in religious liberty, that is to
say, in the absolute right Of individuals to
hold their faith, and of denominations to
establish their organizations and perform
their worship, without legal restraint, or any
forcibe interference whatever.
Now, we find in late number of The
Freemon's Journal, document purporting
to be an Allocution, or Address, recently de-
livered by the Pope to the Conslstory, or
private assembly of the highest clergy In
that Church whereof DR.. Hughes is an
Archbishop. In this Allocution, his Holt
ness speaks of treaty just concluded with
the Government of Spain as follows
This, indeed, We have had, above all things, at
heart-most anxously TO consult for the security OF
our most holy religion and the spiritual affairs OF the
Church And, therefore you will perceive that the
Catholic religion with all it's rights which enjoys
BY It's divine institution and the sanctions Of the sa.
cred CanOns, Is singly as heretofore TO flourish
and be dominant in that kingdom, that eroy Other
,corship IS altogether remored and interd,eted"
Here, then, we have the Pope and the
Consistorv upon record against religious
liberty, and as rejoicing in an arrangement
for putting down by the strong hand, and
furnishing, every attempt to exercise it.
The question then arises, which is right,
and which is the most truly Catholic Is
it the Pope and the Cardinals at Rome, or
Archbishop Hughes at Liverpool and New
York, with the Bishops Of Ireland, who
Twill feel solaced that there is a country
where civil and religious liberty is estab-
lished "
Or is it possible that Archbishop Hughes
means by liberty only liberty for Catholics
and the Catholic Church and that, if the
mass of the American people were sufficient
ly intelligent and religious, and if it were in
his power, he would so arrange matters,
with due provision of soldiers, and police
men, and prisons, and other similar persua-
sives. as that the Catholic religion should
singly flourish and be dominant in this coun-
try, every other worship being altogether
remored and mterdlctedl Would he re-
gard that as still higher stage of religious
liberty, and would it be still greater solace
to the prosecuted clergy of Ireland
The question is thus two-fold. Did the
Archbishop, in his declarations in faver of
religious liberty, mean what the ordinary
sense of his words made him seem to
mean and, if he did, which is right, he or
the Pope Or is the Allocutien not genu-
Inc document These mysteries need to be
cleared up.