The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-06-21
A HEAVY O

1t is announced upon he authority of a ca.
BILE dispatch to the New York World, that
Pope Leo has instructed the sacred college to
take action at once against Archbishop Croke
and those priests in Ireland who have identi-
fed themselves with agrarianism, and have
been instrumental in fomenting the disturb
ances and encouraging the resistance that have
resulted in so much excitement and loss of
life in that country. If this be true it is the
heaviest blow the Land League has yet re-
ceived. This step on the part of his Holiness,
it is stated, has discounted the Leaguers and
a large number of them are advocating the
preparation of a memorial urging the Holy
pears, a precedent for his interference. Dur
ing the Fenian disturbances of 1866 and 81,
Pius TX, more than once denounced the op-
erations of the brotherhood as a secret sOcie-
ty. Again on January 3rd, 1S4S, the sacred
congregation addressed a note to the Irish
prelates instr acting them to admOnish the
clergy moi to miX up in the agitation of that
period, and requesting them to report on the
current rumOIs that certain priests had melted
the people to resistance and outrage.
DR.. Croke, it is said. will be requested to
report himself at Rome at his earliest con-
v%enieuce and the Bishop of Limerick will be
Instructed to suspend, if not silence, Father
Shelby on his release. In this matter the
Pope has been advised by Cardinal Manning
and the leading Catholic mobiles of England,
and by Archbishop McCabe. of Dublin. 1t
is furthermore stated that the tenants and
peasantry will recede from the League or
ganization, and that the leaders will have to
rely for funds and moral support solely upon
the Irish Catholics upon thiss side OF the At
lantic. We are inclined to believe that no
foundation in fact exists for much of the
above information and that nearly all if not
all of it must be taken with many grains of
allowance, for it does not appear possible
that the high dlgnitaries of the Catholic
Church would permit the Land
Leaguers to proceed in a
course which has brought the
Irish people to a point from which they
cannot recede without sacrificing all tlley
have gained in prestige and in the solution of
the problem which they have been forced to
face. If The church was not in sympathy
with its people it should have interdicted the
formation of Land Leagues long ago. 1t
should have mpped the agitation of tenants
right in the bud and have counselled the
Irish people to submit quietly and uncom-
plainingly to the order of things as it eN-
listed before the present move was started.
have been ignorant of the inevitable termin-
alton of this agrarian movement. They had
before them the history Of previous move
ments begun by the irish people, having in
view the same object the present movement
has-the amelioration of the condition of the
masses. They knew the temper Of the peo-
pie, their objects and aims, and they wei,
not blind to the fact that they were in
deadly earnest to compass those euds.
1t seems like knocking them in their extrem-
tiles to command them to halt now and cast
aside their ambition and their hopes. There
fore, we can scarcely credit the report that at
the best Is only semi-officially confirmed. If
it be true, however, that the Pope proposes to
reprimand Archbishop Crokc and suspend
those priests who have counseled the people
in the course which they have been pursuing
then indeed has ? blow been struck at the
realization of the dreams OF the Irish leaders
that may prove fatal.