The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-12-13
ULsTER's ATTITUDE DUE TO TWO
CAUSE S-ENGLISH LIBERALS
BETWEEN TWO FIRES-PROT-
ESTANT MINISTER'S HOWL
AGAINST ROME.
written for The Catholic Bulletin by
Rev. p. Forde.)

Rev. p. Forde.)
The last decade of the eighteenth
century found Belfast the center of
the strongest, deepest, most compre-
hensive movement of Irish national
ism since the fall of Limerick. The
movement was intensely revolutionary
in spirit and in principle: witness the
vote which Belfast was the first of
European cities to send to Paris to
congratulate Frenchmen upon the
fall Of the Bastile Yet it was not
un-C Christian or anti Christian: witness
the part Belfast took in furthering
the cause of Catholic Emancipation.
Nor was it the fruit of dry, abstract,
cosmopolitan or philosophic liberal
ism: witness Belfast's intense interest
at that date in all Irish arts and
studies, her gathering of the last of
the old Irish harpers, her devotion
to Irish language and literature
And now what change! Today
Belfast seems incapable of dwell
| ing upon any idea except that of
Luther and Knox, namely, that the
Pope is anti-Christ-and it's corollary
inferred by Sir Edward Carson and
many a militant parson-John Red
mond is anti -Christs Prime Minister.
Cause of listers Buster.
The change, in so far as it is real, is
due to two causes. First, Belfast
any more than the rest of Ireland
has had no real national education
up to the very recent date when the
Gaelic League began it's operations.
Secondly, the whole mental outlook
of Belfast is twisted and colored by
the professional envy of the parsons.
Every minister of every sect sees and
realizes the plain fact that he cannot
win from his flock the reverence and
the love which the priest wins from
his people. The parsons cannot under
stand it, because faith alone can un.
derstand it. And the battling mys.
terry of it does not subdue them to
humble inquiry and prayer: it rouses
them rather to the raucous outcries
of bigotry and fanaticism which are
all that remain of the argument
against Home Rule. Home Rule is
Rome Rule, quotha: Popery is
, priestcraft! This is no more than
the death-cry of the old regime where
in British rule was only form of
parson-craft. Emancipation, Disestab-
J lishment of the Protestant Church, Re
. | nP +1n
the Local Government Acts-more
dangerous to Professionalism than Home
} Rule itself according to that most
arrogant of English Protestant aristo-
Gratis, Lord Salisbury-each of these
was blow to parson-craft in Ireland.
Each of them provoked the same dour,
} grim threats and grumblings, all of
} which ended in smoke. That the
present growing will end in anything
more serious than an exhibition of
drunken ferocity and foul play wher-
ever in Ireland Protestants outnumber
Catholics in the ratio of 10 to mo
body in Ireland believes for moment.
Position of English Liberals.
4, Meanwhile the English Liberals are
in corner. The Orangemen appeal
to English bigotry against the Cath
olic Church and even today it is hard
to see how that appeal must be wholly
in vain. The Liberals have got to
show that the Orangemen are merely
dreaming about imaginary changes at
the hands of their Catholic fellow
countrymen. And Irish Catholics find
! it hard to do more than treat the
slander with the silent contempt 1t
deserves. But again, Orangemen pro-
claim that they are not one nation
with us-that they are Britishers, the
English garrison that holds ireland
for England's empire. This proclama-
, ton of national shame is their boast
and many decent Englishmen of all
) creeds scorn them for it. But there
are other Englishmen who profess at
all events as part of their political
game to honor them for their self
abasement. And so Asquith dare not
punish Carson for mere disloyalty to
Ireland, while Carson uses the par
rot cry of loyalty to England, for
Asquith dare not sacrifice English
votes. True, Asquith honestly tries
to raise the question to the high clean
air of international and imperial poll
tics and to show that Home Rule is
best for England and her empire, just
as it is best for Ireland But he dare
not enforce that lofty view against
Carson in the same way as he enforces
the English law against Jim Larkin.
Again, when he attacks Larkin, goad-
ed on by the respectable elements of
his Party, he has to reckon with
British Socialists, Secularists and all
other logical supporters of the sacred
Protestant principle of private judg-
ment. So Asquith is in a corner.
Many Home Rulers think he does
well to bide his time till the party
of the wooden guns collapses merely
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