The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-06-14
THE IRISH CHURCH AND AMERICA.


1t is certain that thirty years ago. fifty
years ago, the foremost intellects Of the
country had passed sentence upon the Irish
Church. Sharp things were said of that
Church in the recent debate; but they were
honeyed compliments compared with the
language IN which Macaulay and Sydney
smith 4eScy1Red it-nay, in which before
1nelr n@e Edmund Burke described it. Nor
dld lsodin minds ever since fail to condemn
a a 1en0l.ce it. When, during one of the
ansi Es1cn maniasy or panics some years
ago, speaker in the House of Commons
nercely lnvelghed against the tyranny of
Louis Napoleon, Mr.. Golden remarked that.
WIN al ms tyranny, he would not ventur1
70 impose inc church of q small and alien
france. AT no time have we wanted the
testimony and the el0quence of able men
against the monstr0us injustice and the Sc
rlous danger of retaining the Irish Church
rs STATE establlshment But the House of
Commons never needed. Just as before the
Indian mutiny, the raising or any Indian
discussion always meant the temporary
emptying of the House, If not an actual
count out, 80 before the Fenian instruction
the subject of the Irish Church was regarded
of bores, the dreamy theme Of impractieahie
and futile Nonconformist eloquence. We
are quite ready to join with the SATURDAY.
Kerier in asking why this was 80, and in
thinking it little to the credit of the House
OF Commons that such questions should ever
have to be asked.
1t required a Fenian instruction. q
chronic suspension of the habeas corpus
act, and several executions, to arouse the
attention OF the House of Commons to the
necessity OF abolishing the Irish Church,
This is decidedly a heavy. sin to lie at the
ton moved only in obedience to the 5res-
sure OF revolution. The worst of all avowed
democracles ever known never set up 40
dangerous and demoralizing a principle of
action as did the aristocratic peer-goyerned
Parliament OF Great Britain. For ourselves,
this was the distance at which the Parlia
ment stood removed from the people. A
few thousand electors in England q mere
handful of voters in Ireland, returned the
representatives who were to be the law
makers. The electors did not and could
not themselves repre sent the popular feel
ing; how could the elected of these electors
be expected to understand, much less to
guide or anticipate it I? Many great aues-
tons lately arose-take the question of the
civil war, for instance-on which
the general opinion of the vast majority of
the people, when in a rough and ready ex
piosive fashion it came out, literally amazed
and dumb-fOundered the upper and legisla-
ting classes, who had not the faintest notion
that the current of national feeling was set
IihS IhaC way we CONFESS that we look
for something very different from the new
and Reformed Parliament, with it's electoral
element permeating all classes everywhere
down to the very poorest. We db not be-
lieve that, in the future, great national in
justices and evils will be passed over un-
or, if abstractly condemned,
allowed to remain for generations unre-
dressed and unhealed. The fact that the
Irish Church, tried, condemned, and SEN
fenced generation ago, is found alive and
pugracious to-day, is, indeed, the fault of
the House of Commons, but it is even more
the fault OF our old electoral system. A
good heiorm bill ten years ago would have
meant the disestablishment of the Irish
Church a year after.-London Morning Star.