The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-03-22

So8@E, ~ PeAe.n, s,Tst1ys SAAsxto1 DaSAoR D1a
Moore, Murphy, O'Beirne, O'Reiliy, O'togh.
len, Power, O'Conor, Don, O'Donoghue,
Rearden, and synan. The total list OF
. names number. nearly thousand. These
publicly the assertions that they do not
feel aggrieved by the present Ecclesiastical
Settlement of Ireland" They feel with
reference thereto, "as their Protestant fell
low-countrymen in England, Ireland, and
Scotland, would feel if they were subjected
to like injustice" They add, 1.-THE dig
nifty Of the religion and Of the people Of
Ireland demands religious equality; and we
are convinced that without religious equa-
lily there cannot be generated and secured
that respect for law, and those relations Of
mutual goodwill which constitute the true
foundation for national prosperity.
In publishing the very long list of sigma
lures, the Dublin Freeman says of this do
cument;
The declaration of the Catholic nobility
one of the most important national mani
festoes that has been promulgated since the
passing of the Relief Act of 20. Thirty
nine years have elapsed since the atrocious
laws were repealed, which excluded the
majority of Irish citizens form the Constitu-
ton because of their religious creed, and
though the Catholic people of this country
outnumber the dominant creed by ten to
one, religious equality is yet desideratum
in Ireland. The law no longer, tits true,
sends its officers to the house of the Catho-
lie to drag him to attend form of worship
of which his conscience does not approve.
He is no longer denied the right to own
property, to practice a profession, to carry
arms, to vote at an election, or to sit in the
Senate House. But while the law toLerates
it does not recognize him. He enjoys his
religious status on suffrance, and not by the
protection of the laws. The Catholic pre-
lates are ignored, the regular clergy are
subject to banishment; to receive and sup
port them is a misdemeanor to which the
Attorney General may shut his eyes," as
PigOt at his side in court, or may not, ac-
c0rding to the temper of the times. But the
law will not allow their claims to property,
for in law they are non existent. The ma
nifesto of the peers and lay Catholic gentry,
to which we advert, is the reply of spirited
and awakened class to the Insulting taunt
that they neither love freedom nor deserve
1T, and that they are content with the infe-
riority assigned to them by the laws as they
now stand. That taunt they bore with long
to the domination Of an ascendant party
who, after having possessed themselves of
the lands of the Catholic chiefs, imprudent-
ly boast that nineteenth of the landed prop
erty of the kingdom is theirs, and use that
boast as a plea why all the Church prop
Yet, had these men not endeavored to add
insult to wrong by representing the Catho |
lie gentry as advocates and supporters of
their own degradation, the Catholic peers
might have submitted in silence yet longer |
to the legal inequalities under which they |
suffer, and which stamp them as the interiors
of their Protestant fellow countrymen.
Aroused to a sense of self-respect, they |
have broken the silence observed by their
order for whole generation and having |
broken it, we promise those who provoked
them to speak, that silence will not again |
reign until every vestige of ascendancy shall |
be obliterated in Ireland. This declaration
asks for the Catholics of this country "reli-
gious equality" With that the Catholics
vii! be content-without, never. Every
one, has signed it. Nearly every Catholic
baronet in ireland has signed it. Every
Catholic representative for Ireland, save
one, has signed it. Fifty-si Catholic depu-
ty-Ieutenants have signed it. More than
threes hundred Catholic magistrates have
signed it. still larger number of the
Catholic landowners have signed it. The
demand is simple-it admits of no evasions
no subterfuge. They ask not for restitution
OF the ancient property of the Irish Church.
They do ask, however, and they will admit
OF no denial, that. whatever the statutes of
the Protestant Church may henceforth be,
that the Catholic. Church shall be the same.
The Catholic peoI,s and Catholic gentry will
no longer submit to inequality-they de-
mand that they shall be in law the equals in
every respect of their Protestant fellow
citizens: How different is the justice and
The equity of their demand from the AFRO
CANT injustice and iniquity of the demand
MADE by the "hinder endn of the old as {
,endancy party who assembled in the Round
Room Of the Rotunda the week before last.
In Paris there is collection of thirteen
hundred newspapers, published in all parts