Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-01-31
AS the People View 1t

-
rier the Cheviots may be said no +
longer to exist. Now Irish regi-
ments there have been many in
the British service. Perhaps no
more eloquent speech was ever
made in the British House of Com
mons than that in which She'll eX-
tolled the glories of the Irish bat
talions in the Peninsula. Yet.
though the Irish have fought for
England all across the world.
something very like civil war eX-
lists in the United Kingdom today,
and this because of the absolute
antagonism between, not the Eng
lish and the Irish, but the Protes-
tant and the Roman Catholic in
Ireland.
The simple truth is, then, that
when Mr.. Lloyd George, or any
other prime minister at Westmin-
ster, attempts to settle the Irish
question he is faced by the relig-
ious barrier which separates the
north from the south 1t is not
that the Protestant or the Roman
Catholic particularly desires to
perpetuate the issue or to maintain
the internecine strife. 1t is that.
the quarrel between the two is al
religious quarrel, and Of all quar-
rels a religious quarrel is the one
most difficult to compose. The
very fact that the leaders of the
so-called National movement have
frequently been Protesants, to give
two of the most conspicuous ex-
amples, Grattan and Parnell, only
proves the case more clearly. For
if the Protestant north would not
coalesce with the Roman Catholic
south, when the leader of the Ro-
man Catholic south was a profess
tant, what chance is there of a
coalition when the leader of the
south is a Roman Catholic? 1t is
just this that makes so regrettable
the publication, at the present
moment, of such an article as that
which has been printed in the Irish
Theological Quarterly, review
edited by five theological profess
sors of Maynooth, and issued with
the imprimatur of the Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Dublin.
For in passage, in one of it's ar
ticleS, the doctrine of Suarez, which
comes perilously near the Cavalier
teaching of killing no murder"
is deliberately put forth:-"So long
as a tyrant unjustly holds king
dom and rules by force" says
Suarez, "he is always actually us
ing force against the nation, and
thus the nation is always waging
against him an actual or virtual
war, and so long as a nation does
not declare the contrary, it is al
ways considered to wish to be de-
Tended by each of its citizens, in
deed even by any outsider. Hence
if it cannot be otherwise defended
save by staying the tyrant, any one
of the people may STAY him"
Suarez was a Spanish Jesuit,
born at Granada in 154S, who be-
came successfully professor of di-
Vinity at Valladolid, Rome, Alcala,
and Coimbra. Amongst his prin-
cipal works is his "Defensio Fidei
Catholicae," q treatise intended to
justify the reputation by English
Roman Catholics of their oath of
allegiance to James l. 1t is, there
fore, rather strange to find the
professors of Maynooth falling
back on such a champion in the
year 1920. as justification of the
condition of things existing in Ire
land today. So far as is known,
the Roman Catholic hierarchy in
Ireland has neither repudiated nor
expressed disagreement with this
article in the Irish Theological
Quarterly. The deduction is, there
fore, unacceptable that it is willing
that the readers of the Quarterly
and all those who come under
their influence, should accept the
doctrine of Suarez as legitimate
political advice today. >
This would be bad enough in
any country or in any conditions.
but in country like Ireland, in
which a religious war has been
waged for centuries, and in which
at the present moment, the theory
of killing no murder" seems to
meet with no denunciation, it is,
to put it mildly, particularly re-
grettable. The ordinary Irish
peasant is not blessed with the
ability to make the subtle distinc-
tons of the Maynooth professors;
and so it comes about that Ad-
miral of the Fleet Lord Walter
Kerr, himself one of the most
| loyal of Roman Catholics, is found
writing to Cardinal MERCER in
protest against the murder and
mutilation by expanding bullets,
of 152 policemen, so officers and
soldiers, and 2 officials. many of
| them themselves Roman. Catho-
! lies. The saddest part of all this,
| the admiral tells the cardinal. is
the fact that no corporate effort
| has been made by the spiritual
| leaders of Ireland to stamp out
the murderous spirit which is
reproach to their people and their
| faith 1t is really no argument
! to quote the reprisals, because the
reprisals, as their very name az
| firms, constitute a revenge for
| these murders. 1t is particularly
regrettable that these. murders
| should have led to an outburst or
passion in some way equaling It's
own cause. 1t is equally regrettable
that the discipline of the armed
| forces of the crown and the pollce
| should have given way to cam
paign of personal retaliation,
somewhat similar exhibition or
which, a century and a quarter
ago, led to the issuing or SIR
| Ralph Abercrombie's famous gen
eral order declaring that the mill
tia were more dangerous to their
friends than to their enemies.
Something approaching the sltua-
ton which Abercrombie was call
ed upon to face is the one OF the
Irish soldier, Lord French, is con-
fronted by today The situation
is, indeed, much more serious ana
much more difficult than that
which brought about Abercrom-
bie's resignation in 1898, and 1t IS