The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-07-08
POPE Plus K FOR IRISH HOME
RULE

Pope Plus \ received John Red
mond chairman of the Irish political
party in private audience on Thurs
day, April p, enquired into the relig-
ious. political an industrial condi-
ton of Ireland and expressed his COM
plete sympathy with the Irish National
party.
This is not the first time that Pope
has encouraged the national aspirations
of the Irish people, instead of simply
praising their fidelity to the faith and
their well-tried loyalty to the Holy See
We need but briefly refer here to Eng
lands cruel attempt to set Ireland's
religious loyalty against her nation
alism. Ever from the evil day of the
Act of Union, England, bitterly Pro-
testant as she then was, stood ready
to make some slight concessions to
Rome, if Rome, in turn, would ban the
Irish cause. AS time went by, Eng
land grew more and more conciliatory,
till, with the waxing of the Irish Par
liamentary party under Parnell, in the
SOS, she would willingly have estab-
lished an English legation at Rome if
Pope Leo XIII. on his part would OPP
pose Irish home rule. But the Pope
rejected the offer with disdain.
He put himself on record on the
Home Rule movement in a letter to
the Irish bishops dated August l, 1882,
as follows: THE Irish are free to seek
remedy for their rights. 1t must not
be thought that what is permitted to
every other nation is forbidden to Ire
land"
Further, on the death of Cardinal
McCabe, Archbishop of Dublin, who,
like his immediate predecessor. Car
n H. e
the Bishops of Ireland politically, be-
ing cold to the Home Rule cause, the
Pope appointed a Nationalist Bishop
to the vacancy in the person of the
Most Rev. William Walsh. and later
gave the Cardinals hat to Archbishop
Logue of Armagh, another Nationalist.
The British Government was an
swered. 1t was clear that it must
abandon all hope of ruling Ireland
through Rome; and. after a little, the
Norfolks and the Erringtons. repre-
senting that group of English Catho
lies who have so ungratefully and
fatuously opposed Irish Home Rule.
turned their assumed diplomatic gifts
to wOrthier ends than interfering in
the name of religion with the temporal
rights of their Irish co-religionists.
From the advent of Plus x. it was
clear that the Irish cause had another
lTISHO III the cnair OIL Peter. not less
sympathetic than was Leo XIII. When
Sir Henry Grattan Esmonde, of the
Irish Parliamentary party, went with
an Irish pilgrimage of homage to the
new Pope. and sought audience of his
Holiness as representing his party and
his people. he was received by Plus Y.
with the honor of an ambassador. The
Pope would not suffer the representa-
tive of Ireland to kneel but made him
sit beside him and set forth the hopes
of his beloved land.
At the conservation of the great
Cathedral of the Primatial See of Ar
magh, last year. the Pope sent thither
as his own representative, Cardinal
Vincenzo Vannutelli; who, after the
historic religious event for which he
was commissioned. made tour
through the country, visiting its chief
churches and institutions. and also
receiving and addressing such dis
tinctly politically bodies as the county
councillors. personality of the initial
stage of Home Rule. local self-gov-
eminent, and getting evidence on every
side not only of Ireland's incorruptible
Catholicity. but of her unalterable de-
termaination to win her legislative indie
pendence,-The Pilot.