The Irish standard., 1890-05-03
THE IRISH STANDARD: oA rURDAY. NAY g. J72o

matte intercourse between the British
Government and the Holy See, that de-
mands the Intervention of Parliament,
the abrogation Of the law of promieuire
passed by the Tudors, and the enact
ment of a new law regulating and sane
tioning such intercourse. What l know
Great Britain makes me question very
seriously whether even the Salisbury
Ministry with it's large majority in
both houses, could carry such law,
and carry at the same time the anti
Catholic opinion of the country, SO
deep-seated and so bitter.
It would be, if successful, sudden
and surprising change.
Certainly Liberal Government under
Gladstone, or under any leader inherit
ing his power and policy, would never
in the present century at least, dream
of establishing diplomatic intercourse
with the Papacy. This would be in
direct antagonism to the oft-ex-
pressed views of the party Tt would,
Parnel and his followers to man. It
would have against it the entire, or
almost entire body of Irish Bishops.
could count on my five fingers all the
prelates now living who would in any
way be likely to favor it, for as Cardi-
nal Cullen, during the long years he
was rector of the Irish College in Rome,
never ceased to write in his letters to
Bishops in Ireland, and to declare to
Gregory XVI. and Plus TX, an English
Ambassador in Rome would mean man
always meddling with Irish ecclesias-
tical affairs, opposing tooth and nail
every person proposed for bishopric
unless that person were known to be a
plant tool of the British Government.
These utterances Of DR.. Cullen will
appear in the forthcoming life of the
great Archbishop of Tuam. True, un
happily, is it that DR.. Cullen totally
changed his opinions and his policy
when he became Archbishop of Dublin,
But this baneful influence on Irish affairs
reversed by Leo Kills appointment of
Dr.. Walsh to the same See of Dublin, is
not less fact of contemporary history.
The overwhelming majority of the Irish
prelates, with the four Archbishops,
are now pledged to the national cause,
and would consider the appointment of
British Ambassador in Rome and
Papel Nuncio in London as an unmiti-
gated calamity. So, for that matter,
would the great Cardinal Manning and
more than one Of the other Catholic
prelates in Great Britain
The restoration of such diplomatic
relations would be the death Of eccles,-
astical independence in the three king.
doms, if not throughout the British en-
pire.
Leo XIII. is not the man to close his
ears to the representations of the entire
episcopal body in any country, espec-
tally in country SO long tried by re.
ligious persecution as Ireland. Nor
when shown where the liberty of the
Church is imperilled, or the attachment
the utmost tension, is he one TO adopt
8 measure repugnant to q whole nation
and its religious and political guides.
In no place on this globe of ours is
the Holy See so free to do and undo as
in Ireland, the United States, and all
over the English-speaking world. We
who belong to that world are only anx-
ious to look up to the Pope in our flial
relations with him, without having am
bassadors or State Governments ap-
pointing our Bishops, or exercising over
the Church IL protectorate which history
proves to have been, and to be still, an
oppressive tyranny.
Let Irish Catholics in America have
no fear that Leo XIII is about to give
over the Church of their fathers, bound
hand and foot, to the mercies of q Sails
bury and a Balfour. OF all living men
he is the least likely to wrong or to
offend nation he loves and admires.