The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1868-01-18 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

ANOTHER LETTER ON FENIANISM. The Rev. Father Waterworn), 8.J., Roman Catholic priest of Worcester, has published • second letter In Berrotr's Worcester Journal, on Fenianism Its Causes and Its ktemedloa"  With respect to the language ascribed to the Rev. Father Lavelle and others, Father Waterworth says it proves "that the speakers looked upon the lawless aggressors at Mauchester as patriots using desperate remedies to liberate their country, but nothing more. They nowhere either advocate murder or justify Fernanism ; but they simply declare that the wouldbe-liberators of Allen and his companions had in all they did their country's interests at heart. You and may, and do indeed, form a different estimate of the unfortunate and fatal proceeding and its results. We take a very different stand-point and a different view both of the conduct of the criminals and of their executions and declare that the condemned were murderers and Fenians of the worst stamp, who well deserved the sentence passed upon them. If with our convictions we defended or extenuated their guilt, we should be inexcusable; for violence and murder, united, place the guilty beyond the reach of earthly pardon. But we must not judge of others by ourselves. We must concede much to other views and other judgments, and by those views and judgments interpret both words and actions." Father Waterford honestly owns his detestation of the language employed by Father Lavelle, and publicly declares "that nothing would or should have induced me solemnly to offer the mass for the repose of the souls of the Manchester murderers, especially if they were members of the detestable and soul -destroying association ycleped Fenianism. I would have prayed, indeed, for the deceased privately; have privately offered up the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of their souls; but this I would have done, not from a desire to seem to extenuate their crime, but from a conviction of their repentance and utter rejection of a condemned system, and of the mercy of God and His acceptance of our cuff rages and oblations in behalf of the sincere penitent." This view of the affair, says Father Waterworth, has the high sanction of "the illustrious Bishop of Kerry," who, though he forbids public religious demonstrations, yet "recommends private prayers and remembrances at the altar in behalf of the deceased." The writer asserts that Father Lavelle and other clergymen have "uniformly condemned that wretched society "—the Fenian Brotherhood. He thinks we are "at present on the brink of a precipice; we must see how we got there and how we can safely return thence." In fervent language Father Waterworth exalts the Irish as a nation. They are "bold, talented, generous, noble. They become the most energetic and eonservative of colonists. They earn, they hoard up, much; they are universal favourites. Clearly they are fitted to be the most useful and best of citizens." Father Water. worth then asks, "How comes it, then, that ia Ireland only they are wretched and naked, and poor and dirty, miserable and discontented and that there alone the land is a sad waste--a kind of aceldarra or field of blood—a Babel which is a ruin, and a Shitidim, which is a howling wilderness?"