Letters of an Irish Catholic layman : being an examination of the present state of the Irish affairs in relation to the Irish Church and the Holy See (1883-4)

LETTEES

OF AN

IKISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

LETTEES

OF AN

IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN

BEING AN EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE

OF IRISH AFFAIRS IN RELATION TO THE

IRISH CHURCH AND THE HOLY SEE.

(1883-4.)

SHOWING

That the Home Rule, Land, and Education Movements, with which

the Irish people are identified, are in perfect conformity with

natural justice and Catholic principles, and are in essence

a struggle between a Christian and a non-Christian

Civilisation.

SEVENTH THOUSAND. REVISED AND ENLARGED.

[REPRINTED FROM THE "NATION."

PRINTED FOR AND PUBLISHED BY
J. J. LALOR, NORTH EARL STREET, DUBLIN;

AND SOLD BY

JOHN HEYWOOD, MANCHESTER ; CAMERON AND FERGUSON, GLASGOW ; AND
WILLIAMS AND BUTLAND, 47, WHITECHAPEL, LONDON.

Price One Shilling. Handsomely bound in Cloth, Two Shillings.

"I want an intelligent and well-instructed laity — a laity not arrogant, nor'rash
in speech, nor disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who
know just where they stand. I want you to rouse yourselves, to understand where
you are, and to know yourselves. I would aim primarily at organisation, edification,
cultivation of mind, growth of the reason. It is a moral force, not a material, which
will vindicate your profession and secure your triumph." — Cardinal Newman.

" The great triumph of Satan is to produce a ' Liberal Catholic.' Such a man as
Pius IX. lately proclaimed a worse enemy than a heretic or infidel. 'It is,' says
Brownson, 'the liberalism which has penetrated the Catholic camp which renders
Catholics throughout Europe so imbecile in defence of Catholic interests. ... It is
all the work of liberal Catholics, without whom Agnostics and infidels would be
reduced to impotence.' " — Tablet, 31st January, 1875.

" A man's life-blood is frozen in its current, his intellect deadened, and his very
soul annihilated by the everlasting dinning into his ears by the 'wise' and 'prudent,'
more properly the timid and selfish, of the admonition to be politic, to take care not
to compromise one's cause or one's friends. My soul revolted, and revolts even to-day,
at this admonition. Almost the only blunders I ever committed were made when I
studied to be politic, and prided myself on my diplomacy." — 0. A. Brownson.

TO

THE IRISH PEOPLE

AT HOME AND ABROAD,
ARDENT PROFESSORS AND TRUE DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH,

BEST EXAMPLES OF ITS POWER

IN GUARDING PURITY OF MORALS,

INSPIRING THE SPIRIT OF SACRIFICE,

AND ENFORCING INVIOLABLE FIDELITY TO CONSCIENCE,

BEARING BEFORE THE WORLD FOR THREE CENTURIES

THE STANDARD OF THE CROSS,

AND BY IT TRIUMPHING,
THE FOLLOWING LETTERS,

ILLUSTRATING THEIR PRINCIPLES AND ADVOCATING THEIR RIGHTS,

ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

BY

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

January, 1884.

PREFACE.

THE argument running through the following pages may be usefully
stated in almost self-evident propositions : —

1. That man, in virtue of his creation, is bound to certain duties and
acquires certain rights.

2. Chief among these is the duty of conserving his existence and
developing his being to the highest perfection his nature and conditions
allow.

3. This includes (1st) right of defence, and (2nd) freedom to do all
that in fulfilment of his duty nature and circumstances entitle him
to do.

4. That these duties and rights in the individual of necessity attach
to the family, which is the completion and perpetuation of the individual.

5. That in the order of God's providence mankind is divided into
aggregations of families called nations, to each of which is assigned its
geographical place and boundaries.

6. That these are distinguished by differences of origin, of charac
teristics, idiosyncrasies, feelings, and interests; and that each has a
natural right to develop its national life, and to seek its perfection and
its end in its own way.

7. That one of these nations, marked by a national character and life
of the most distinct and robust kind, has dwelt in Ireland from time
immemorial.

8. That for centuries the common right of this people to live its own
life in its own land has been denied it by a more powerful people, and
that in the enforcing of this denial the stronger nation has committed
against the weaker every crime of which humanity is capable.

9. That while the hostility of the stronger race has in later years
been mitigated by the liberalising of ideas, the general softening of
manners, and the growth of a more active and enlightened public
opinion, it has never yet granted the slightest concession to any principle
of justice, nor acquired any equitable right to govern, by seeking or
desiring the welfare of the Irish people.

10. That the later connection of the two countries has been complicated
and embittered by religious persecution. Sectarian malice on the side
of the Government, and suffering for conscience sake on that of the people

X PREFACE.

have rendered the struggle rather as between Catholic and non-Catholic
than as between England and Ireland.

11. That when Emancipation gave the Irish people power to organise
and combine, they could, by using the means at their command, at any
time have compelled the granting of every measure they were entitled
to ask.

1 2. That such combination and organisation were, for many years,
impossible by reason of the unworthiness of the Catholic aristocracy and
gentry — their natural leaders.

1 3. That when the people have for good and all pushed these aside,
and have combined and organised themselves with such astonishing
results, their progress is retarded, their final triumph delayed, their very
existence as a Catholic nation menaced by the unnatural, "stone"
blind," suicidal alliance of a section of the Catholic Hierarchy with their
avowed enemies ; and —

14. That this alliance bears its condemnation on its front by its
betrayal of every Irish and Catholic interest. It violates Catholic
principles in education. It contravenes the spirit of the Church in
taking sides with the rich against the poor, with the proud against the
humble, with the strong against the weak, with lawless tyranny against
helpless innocence, with class privilege and sectarian ascendancy against
popular freedom ; and in doing all this it supports a power showing in all
its actions every evidence of diabolic inspiration.

The conclusion naturally flowing from these premises is this : That
while the Irish people will go on, as they have every natural and Divine
right to do, to conquer the freedom to live in their own way in their own
country, the Castle ecclesiastic who has abandoned and opposed them,
who in the hour of supreme struggle has taken sides with the enemy,
will have in the new Ireland rapidly being made a very different position
from that which he held in the old. At best he may find, as the French
ecclesiastic of to-day, his ministrations accepted, but himself extruded
from the social movements and political life of a country where he might
have enjoyed the fulness of his proper influence and authority.

Whatever effect these letters may have in urging those who have the
power to exert it in preventing the decay of the Catholic feeling of our
people — to whatever extent they may help to introduce into Irish affairs
a more disinterested, intelligent, and courageous Catholic spirit — the
greater part, if not the whole, of the merit is due to the proprietor of the
Nation. No other man in Ireland would have dared to print them, and

PREFACE. XI

in no other journal could they have properly appeared; for the
Nation has ever been, under its present direction, as Catholic
as Irish, and as Irish as Catholic. Nothing has more amazed the writer
than the deep and widespread interest they have excited. They have
travelled far on special journeys, and in more than one instance under
distinguished auspices — to the States and Canada, to far California, to
farther Australia — and from every place without one exception has
come back assurance of interest and sympathy. It may not be
presumptuous to hope that they may even penetrate to Rome itself, and
perchance give the Sacred College some more reliable ideas about Irish
persons and things than they have been receiving from the Castle bishop
and the emissaries of the English Government, who must necessarily
be slanderers of the Irish people.

Treating respectfully — at least in intention — but with very uncommon
freedom, of the policy and action of ecclesiastics of high rank, they have
been received by other ecclesiastics with a remarkable warmth of
approval. This is not due to any newness of matter or merit of
treatment Desultory and fragmentary from the circumstances of their
composition, wanting in close-knit argument and logical evolution, they
are so far from the ideal projected in the writer's mind that he is more
inclined to apologise for forestalling the work of some more competent
hand than to accept praise for its execution. What is most strongly
present to him is this : that if one of our literary chiefs — a Sullivan
or a Duffy — had undertaken the task, he might have struck such a
smashing blow at Irish ecclesiastical Whiggery as would have swept it
out of sight for ever. One merit the letters may claim, they photograph
(as regards the subjects they embrace) the mind of Catholic Ireland, and
of Irish Catholics everywhere. They give articulate expression to thoughts
and feelings which are powerfully moving a million of hearts. They say
what multitudes of people desire to say, and which many could say far
better, but are prevented from saying at all, and they are made to do
this under the conviction that it is better to give those thoughts and
feelings voice than to allow them to rankle and inflame till they issue in
deadly injury to the Church.

One only criticism of any weight has reached me. It is from an
English layman ; and it goes to point out that, however true the letters
may be, there is a radical incongruity in the situation. One cannot, he
says, teach one's teacher, or rule one's ruler ; while the public criticism
of prelates by name shocks his feelings as a Catholic. And with my

Xl PKEFACB.

friend so far I entirely agree. It is incongruous, anomalous, abnormal,
but so is the state of things which is the subject of discussion. It is
contrary to the practice proper to Catholics in ordinary circumstances,
but so is the policy of the personages whose public action is criticised.
In a word, the justification of the letters is in their necessity, and of that
the writer has not permitted himself to be the judge. He has accepted
a direction, not undertaken a responsibility.

Though the letters were begun on the spur of a great anxiety, it
must not be supposed that they are mere hasty or shallow thoughts
strung together without consideration. They are, in truth, the outcome
of an observation of society in the three kingdoms at once so minute
and so general as to be necessarily rare, of information drawn from most
varied sources, and of long reflection on the two truths which the writer
takes to lie at the very root, or rather to form the foundation of, all true
and healthy civilisation — the one, that " Godliness is profitable ; " the
other, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all things
shall be added unto you " — that is, that to the individual or the people
seeking before all their spiritual good, such measure of temporal
prosperity and happiness is added, under ordinary conditions, as the
wisdom of God sees to be consistent therewith. The tracing of the laws
which always and everywhere operate in society results in proving to
demonstration the truth of these texts. Well would it be for the empire
if some master-hand were employed in showing to the practical English
people the one only way by which the pauperism, misery, and crime, which
now threaten to uproot their social state from its foundations, can be
attacked and overcome.

They are not in the way of learning these truths or putting
these laws into operation ; for on two questions, the Irish and
the Catholic, they seem incapable, in the general, of any right
exercise of reason, or, indeed, of keeping within the bounds of
sanity. Assuming it to be historically true, as Cardinal Manning*
has frequently pointed out, that the English people did not
apostatise, but were robbed of their faith, so well has the ceaseless
stream of slander begun at the Reformation done its work, that no
matter what causes led to the lamentable revolt, the English mind
could not be more blind than it is to those things which make for its
peace. But suppose England ready to listen, there is no one in the
Senate to speak. There are in the Upper House many Catholic
noblemen ; they might as well be dummies, for any mark they make in

PREFACE. Xlll

the order of Catholic ideas or interests. There are many Catholic
members in the Lower House of a very different stamp ; but up to this
these men have had to struggle unceasingly for the barest elements of
justice: the mere right to live on the part of the bulk of their
constituents. There are members in the Commons eminently Catholic,
but no Catholic party: nor can such be formed from the present
elements. The Irish members will have, for some time to come, too
much to do in other ways to undertake many of the duties which would
properly fall to such a party ; and for the present, at all events, its
principal constituents must be looked for elsewhere. Though the feeling
at present in Ireland is strongly — and, it must be confessed, justly—
against again entrusting English Catholics with interests they have so
frequently neglected or betrayed, I have the strongest conviction,
founded on personal knowledge, that there are in that body several men
who would render to the Irish cause inestimable service, and whose
presence in the Irish Party would draw together the Catholics of the
two nations, and do away with the exasperation now fostered by the
anti-Irish Catholic faction in England. And this union would make for
our interests, secular as well as religious. No matter where feeling or
sentiment may lead us, we have to aim at the possible as well as the
right. No man outside Bedlam — no one who is not either a fool or
^ « re(j » — contemplates separation. Against this, no matter how right
in the abstract or defensible in theory, seven-eighths of the Catholics of
Ireland and all the non-Catholics would join, while behind both would
be the enormous Conservative force of the Church. The matter is not
discussible, and may be relegated to debating societies, or anywhere
out of the range of practical politics.

One thing, therefore, above all, should be in the minds of men of good
will in both countries, namely, to bring about an intelligent, intimate
cordial union. Spite of many appearances to the contrary, the ground
work is being laid, for this. Some English politicians and several
members of the press have mastered the Irish question, and are leavening
others with their knowledge. Little by little the aristocratic governing
class is losing its hold; and this class forms the real, the greatest
obstacle, to the union of the peoples, since that would sound the knell of
their monopoly. At this moment the presence of half-a-dozen honest,
sensible Englishmen in the Irish representation would hasten this
union more than any other means, and gain for our arguments
admittance and support in quarters they are now not so much as heard

XIV PREFACE.

of. No prudent statesman, no great general, omits any precaution or
any aid which can secure victory. And as it must be conceded that the
welfare of the two countries goes for a practical unity of idea and aim —
not the present hateful, unnatural union of force — the sooner we begin
to prepare for this consummation, the sooner it will be reached.

More than once in the course of these letters I have been compelled,
from certain points of view, to speak of the English people with great
severity. It would be unfair to them and myself if these opinions were
permitted to appear as a final or complete judgment. In such case they
would be the reverse of exact. Nothing can be gained by disparaging
your adversary unjustly. And any conclusion which denied to the
English people some of the grandest qualities of human nature — a
foremost place amongst the nations of the world — would be manifestly
untrue.* Unhappily, their worst side has been always turned to us ;
and they are so misled by prejudice, and blinded by the malice of their
enemies and ours, that they are for the most part rendered incapable of
seeing the most obvious truth, or doing the commonest justice, when
things Irish or Catholic are concerned. We want more intercourse of
the friendly sort. Half a dozen men of the stamp of the late Frederick
Lucas (it is impossible to keep him out of one's mind through all this
long discussion) would do more, naturally and necessarily, to bring about
a thorough understanding between the two countries than six times the
number of Irish members, however able. And this end seems to the
writer, save one other, the very noblest and best which can engage the
attention or stimulate the action of our best citizens on either side. On
our part it would be the truest policy, as well as the noblest revenge,
not only to meet half-way all approaches to amity, but to use our
better judgment and more generous and elevated views to hasten the
approach of a perfect understanding.

* In the appendix will be found a masterly analysis of the English character
which I adopt almost in its entirety.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

THE first issue (of several thousands) of this little book was exhausted in
a few weeks, and after an interval of four years it is still continually
called for.

I refrained from reprinting till now for two reasons — one, that I had
the hope, not yet abandoned, of presenting an essay on the "Relations of
the Church and the World," which should have more of scientific method
and proportion, and therefore of permanent value. Travelling discursively
over a practically illimitable field, the letters want that concentration
and point so desirable in any work that aims at public enlightenment.
And the other reason was a natural dislike to keep alive a discussion in
which the names and actions of distinguished persons were somewhat
roughly handled.

This demand for such a fugitive production is extraordinary, if not
unprecedented; and one naturally looks for its cause. It must be
sought not in the style or matter of the book itself—for in either, if
there be any merit, there is nothing new — but in the crisis in which
it appeared, and in the society to which it appealed. The simple state
ment of Catholic principles in respect of the constitution of the Church,
and her duties and powers in the external order; the endeavour to show,
in a manner however jejune and imperfect, the connection between the
domination of the Christian idea and the progress and happiness of
human society, were things so strange and unusual that they drew
public attention as if they were discoveries, or at least things so out of
the common as to have the character of originality. Not that the root
of the matter was not inchoate in the public mind ; the prompt and wide
acceptance of the letters, both in premiss and conclusion, is evidence of
that fact, and evidence also of the just claim of Ireland to be held pro
foundly and essentially Catholic. But it is proof also that Catholic
ideas are so overlaid in our midst with others not Iribh, but foreign and
false, that when the former are presented in their logical order, as
applied to public affairs, they have all the freshness and charm of
novelty. The condition of mind in what are called educated circles —
the current and aim of their intellectual life are not Catholic. And this
must also be taken as a proof that our ecclesiastical chiefs have not been
sufficiently awake to the fact that modern civilisation is apostate ; and

Xvi PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

that what is called the modern spirit, of which we see sadly too much
even in Catholic Ireland, is intensely hostile to Christianity.

From the Irish Church the Irish people had a right to demand that
the bottom facts of their history and their struggle should be taught
constantly and with authority. They did not get this teaching. On
the contrary, for three-quarters of a century a considerable number of
Irish bishops were apparently, themselves wanting in true knowledge of,
and were and are openly or secretly hostile to, the popular claims ; and
at this day I have absolute proof that no small number would still vote,
if they could — if a vigilant public opinion did not constrain them — against
their own and their people's best interests. Catholic emancipation was
got in spite of them, for they were always willing to exchange open
oppression, of late neither dangerous nor deadly, for the secret chain of
the veto. Now, thanks to the " grace of God and the favour of the
Apostolic see," united with the prayers and desires of the Irish people
expressed in no hesitating fashion, we have a Metropolitan who is slowly
drawing the Irish Church into line with the people. In our day no
appointment more clearly Providential has been made in the Universal
Church. The career of this great High Priest, since his occupation of the
See of Dublin, the versatility, ability, and courage he has shown in
defence of his nation, are at once the highest evidence of his fitness, and
the strongest proof of the true nature of the policy followed by his
predecessors for more than a century. I may venture to point to it also
as a justification of the view taken in these letters of the public conduct
of these venerable men.

We are dealing now with paramount interests — the very existence of
the Irish Church and nation — and we must not hesitate to say that to
the policy followed by a large proportion of Irish ecclesiastics (so large
that it would be incredible in the absence of absolute proof) is
answerable in the second place (the first of course being the
foreign and hostile rule which is destroying us) for most of the
evils we have suffered for half a century; that numbers of
these have been concussed into the present movement ; that they
still retain their anti-Irish opinions, and would go Castle wards
to-morrow if they had a chance. And clearly it cannot be other
wise. The political conversion of aged men is impossible without a
miracle, and this we have no right to expect. The Castle bishop of
yesterday is the Castle bishop of to-day, no matter how appearances vary.
He is what he is, not for want of judgment or knowledge, but from want of

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. Xvfl

heart ; and with age that vital organ of thought as well as feeling grows
seared and dull. With age, also, the intellect gets as fixed and set as
the body, and as incapable of renewal or transformation. Nearly all the
chiefs of the Irish Church were born serfs ; and the youth who saw the
scourge wielded — who saw his father tremble before the bailiff or kneel
to the agent* — thinks in his old age that it is a great thing to be
permitted to live without fear.

Certain it is that the men of this evil past, no matter how personally
excellent, are quite unfit to guide a vigorous nation within one hour of
its final emancipation. The Irish people have always been in advance of
the majority of the Irish Church, not only in public spirit, but I dare
to say it, in Catholic feeling. Prudence would seem to dictate to the
party which cannot range itself with the Irish people in their struggle
for God's justice and truth, to carefully conceal its secret desires, lest a
multitude of evils should follow their manifestation. But it is not so.
The last example of the Castle Bishop is unhappily the most pronounced
and the most dangerous. The appointment has one advantage, namely,
that it shows what manner of man would get promotion under a veto ; the
kind that would be made by English intrigue, and the favour of Irish
Whig Catholic aristocrats, and that it puts beyond the possibility of
repetition such another creation.

The necessity which dictated these letters, and which with their
simple truthfulness has been held to be their justification, compels me
to name the most Rev. Dr. Healy, coadjutor of Clonfert, as the latest
and most unaccountable example of the Castle Bishop. This able
prelate, to his honour, be it said, has risen from the humblest ranks.
In his youth he touched in his own person the evils which sprung
from English rule and Irish landlordism. He saw around him
the hunger and cold and nakedness, bred of these diabolical agencies —
the ignorance, the squalor, the misery of which they are the parents.
And from these experiences he acquired the usual feeling of men of his
class. He was a patriot while serving the curacies of Ballygar and
Cliffony. It was only when he got to the neighbourhood of Dublin and
was made free of Carton House that he saw in the Irish the outcome of
the French revolution, and in the just claims of the Irish people to good
government the overturning of society. There is want of candour in the
use of the great revolution as a name of terror by certain enemies of the

* A common practice in Mayo up to a very few years ago.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

people. If they were honest they would tell the causes of that fearful
outbreak. They would show them to have been bred in a corrupt court
by a selfish and vicious aristocracy, and a compliant and wordly body of
ecclesiastics, strongly tinged with Erastianism. But the Court Bishop of
the Regency would too closely resemble the Castle Bishop of to-day to
make these historical truths suitable for the latter's purposes. He has,
therefore, carefully avoided telling us that all the essential motors of the
French Revolution — the corruption and tyranny of the Government ; tne
suffering and decay of the people ; the weakness of a portion of the
Church — have been and are in active existence in Ireland during this
century. He has not told this, for the people would be prompt to draw
from the facts conclusions which could only end in his ruin.

Of Dr. Healy's anti-Irish feeling he has given in public and private a
multitude of proofs. I will here content myself with one so recent
and patent that it will suffice. His name (nor those of the five
priests subject to his quasi immediate control) was not affixed to the
recent protest of the Diocese of Clonfert against the infamous Coercion
Act. Now Dr. Healy may not say to Lord Salisbury: "Quite right
my lord — those Irish savages are no more worthy of the franchise than
Hottentots ; they are a scandal to civilisation, a disgrace to humanity,
and your intended extermination of a million of them has my blessing. "
The Bishop does not say it, but he acts as if he thought it, and his
Castle friends take heart of grace accordingly. Now we dare not even
think that Dr. Healy is not honest in his change of view. But what a
contempt for human reason does not this change suggest ! Here is a
Bishop, not born in slavery, nor fixed with old ideas, but young, of
conspicuous ability and strength of character, with all the light that
experience of the present struggle throws on the nature of the principles
involved — here, I say, is an Irish ecclesiastic deliberately entering Dublin
Castle, which he knows, or ought to know, is an antechamber of Hell,
and, in the sight of his outraged flock, making peace and alliance with
Antichrist seated therein. Whatever be the Bishop's motive, by what
unaccountable process he has wiped out his earlier experience and blinded
his reason, one thing is clear — he has mistaken his day.* Time was when

* When writing above I knew indeed that the Nemesis was inevitable, but did not
think it would come so quickly and so decisively as the following, extracted from the
Times, discloses : —

"BOYCOTTING A ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP.— ' Catholicus ' writes from Woodford on the 16th:
The Most Rev. Dr. Healy, Coadjutor Bishop of this diocese, is in this instance the victim against

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. XIX

he could have found his account in such a turning of his back on himself.
That time is no longer. He should take warning by the fate of Dr,
Scarisbrick, who conspired with the most detested tool of English tyranny,
Clifford Lloyd, against Sir J. P. Hennessy. He should well know that
when a Bishop has made void the faith and confidence of his people, the
Holy See is constrained, by its first duty — the salvation of souls — to make
other arrangements. He should ponder the words of the wise and able
Prelate of Meath : " Popularity in itself is in my eyes of no more value
than chaff. Popularity, as an aid in my work, I value exceedingly.
While I never courted popularity, I dread exceedingly unpopularity,
either with priests or people. I know that the Bishop who is not liked,
whose sympathies are not with his people, politically as well as religiously,
will fail in his work. . , , No matter what his ability, no matter what
his eloquence and zeal, all will be literally thrown away and his power
for the salvation of souls destroyed." Another prelate equally eminent
for patriotism and ability writes : " The influence of ecclesiastics over
the people is and will be in direct proportion with their real and practical
sympathy with their suffering flocks. When that is wanting there is
danger."

Much more could be said on this head which must remain for a
more convenient opportunity. I will content myself by quoting an
English writer* on the present movement — not at all as intending
it to have any individual application, but as showing how the West
British Irishman is viewed from the other side : " It is one of the
greatest honours you can pay a people to call them rebels when their

whom the League has employed its infamous and spiteful decrees. Wednesday and Thursday of
last week were the days appointed by his Lordship to hold confirmations at Cloncoe. It was
announced from the altar that it was his Lordship's wish that as many of the parishioners as
possible should attend on those days in order that he might address them. But what is the
result? Two of the League's magnates busy themselves visiting th« houses, warning the people
not to go, but to send 'the children to be confirmed, and none else.' . . . Why is all this?
Because this distinguished prelate chooses to differ as to the plans and methods pursued by the
Leaguers, and is a staunch Unionist."

This occurrence at Cloncoe, and a similar threatened a short time since at a
neighbouring parish, could be foretold with perfect certainty. Dr. Healy would state
for his people principles true in the abstract, and reason from these in a way strictly
logical to show that the Irish movement is destructive of society, &c., &c. But his
people, by a truer method, see for certain that his specious syllogisms issue in their
ruin, and their sense of justice and of right is more than a match for his logic. This
is the way in which he has made an end of his authority, of all his power for good,
and by consequence of his right to reign in Clonfert ; and this is what has brought
into contempt what is called by his class " scientific theology." Correct it may be in
statement, utterly false and detestable it usually is in application and conclusion.

* Mr. Reid.

XX PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

Government is alien and oppressive : while the most odious name you
can give them in such circumstances is 'Loyalists.' I can conceive
no creature to be a more loathsome leper than he who, sitting
in the midst of such a history as that of Ireland — wet with blood —
while hovering over him is the glorious cloud of martyrs and witnesses,
is yet loyal to the slayer of his countrymen, and ready to kiss
his red, dripping hand. I am no more an Irishman than John
Bright, but I refuse to desecrate language by giving such a vile
thing a human name."

So much for the latest example of the Castle Bishop. Unhappily I
am compelled to go back on a former one, but certain later proceedings
of the Bishop of Elphin demand the reference. By every means in his
power he has crossed the Irish movement, and in season and out of
season, in ways which may be excused and which may not, endeavoured
to bring it to failure. He publicly subscribes to the defence of the
plan of campaign, while he warns his priests that if they aid it even
privately he will inflict on them the severest punishment. He professes
to go with the people, but he will allow no priest of his to take
public action in their defence ; not even to the extent of presiding or
speaking at a public meeting. He says he sympathises with them, but
his actions go to show that he is more concerned for the collection of Lord
de Freyne's rents than for their interests, their sufferings, or even their
lives. One would imagine that the flagrant mistake of backing a man,
whom a Dublin paper lately called "a drunken and obscene bully," for
the representation of his county, would teach prudence for evermore ; yet
we see him quite recently running successfully, for an office of trust, an
Orange Freemason against one of his own subjects, whom he had
complimented for his public-spirited and courageous conduct ! Dr.
Gillooly is consistent only in being inconsistent. It is impossible
for him to go right in anything touching public affairs. It seems
natural in him to go wrong in everything not immediately concerned
with his spiritual duties : and to enable him to compel his priests
to follow his thrice unhappy example he has made void in their regard
the constitution of the Church herself. He effectually provides that
they shall not stand between their people and the oppressor by refusing
collation to benefices, and making them curates or administrators —
tenants at will — that is to say, serfs of an imperious despotism. He
lives in a palace in Sligo, built with, I presume, the offerings of his flock.
I do not reclaim against this ; on the contrary, I would surround every

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. XXI

ecclesiastic with all the state and dignity becoming his sacred office ;
but in his magnificent surroundings he should not appear insensible to
the wants of his people. There are tens of thousands of Dr. Gillooly's
flock living in the bogs and mountains of Sligo and Roscommon under
conditions dangerous to health and morals, and disgraceful to civilisation.
For them he has no word of sympathy or defence ; for the rack-renters
and exterminators, or the Government their accomplice, he has no
sentence of condemnation or reproach.

Other examples equally flagrant of the Castle Bishop might be
adduced if occasion required and space permitted. For the present let
him be, remarking again that he has mistaken his day. The conditions
of life in Ireland have hitherto secured him immunity. When the
Irish people have secured the right to live they will turn their attention
on him, and by means thoroughly effective and thoroughly Catholic they
will procure that justice be done. We are taught that our Divine
Lord would have died for the least soul on whom His image was
stamped ; and His Vicar, whose glory it is to be instinct with His
Spirit while invested with His power, has more regard for the salvation
of that soul than for the feelings and positions of a thousand ecclesiastics
who have brought their great office to naught. The Castle Bishop, in
allying with the enemies of his people and of God, has forfeited the
confidence of his subjects, and violated one of the first duties of his
office. The blame will be ours if his ruinous and shameful policy be
not made known to our Common Father, and the occasion made for
ending him for ever. Our present position is one of mortal conflict
with all the powers of evil. The Catholic ecclesiastic who stands against
us, who stabs us in the back, who opens the citadel to the enemy, may
be no worse in motive and intention than a misguided friend ; but we
have to deal not with motives, but results — not with intentions, but
with actions ; and if these be evil, if those be the acts of a traitor, he
must, by the very necessity of the situation, be made to suffer the fate
he has provoked.

I say, again, an anti-Scotch or anti-English bishop in either of the
sister countries is impossible. If by accident he got appointed, his reign
would be short. An anti-national French or Spanish, German or Italian
bishop is not conceivable. Shall such a one be tolerated in Ireland
alone, where the union of patriotism with religion is essential to the
salvation of the people ?

CONTENTS.

PAGE
The Roman Circular ...

The Roman Letter 2,5

The Irish Church and Iri.sh Politics... A. 8,12,16

The Reign of Cardinal Cullen 20

Cardinal Cullen and Cardinal MuCabe

The Archbishop of Tuam

Cardinal McCabe and the Papal Circular

Galway and Elphin ............ 34

Neglected Duties

The Castle Bishop as a Patriot

The Castle Bishop as Educator 49, 60, 63, 69, 74, SO

Genesis of the Castle Bishop ... 85

The Castle Bishop : his Allies and his End

The Castle Bishop and the English Catholic Faction 96

Some Notes on English Catholicism ...

Postscript 109

APPENDIX.

Letter of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide to the Bishops of Ireland 117
The Roman Letter

"The Veto" 121

The Veto and the Circular 127

Facts for the Propaganda

Extract of Letter to Count Montalembert, by G. H. Moore, late M.P. for Mayo... 131

LETTERS.

THE ROMAN CIRCULAR.

SIR, — It is little thought of in this generation how much of the
present energetic and hopeful condition of the Irish cause is due to the
Nation. Thirty years ago, when Smith O'Brien and Mitchell were in
banishment, Gavan Duffy in voluntary exile, the other trusted leaders
of the people dead or scattered, A. M. Sullivan, with a courage and
constancy never surpassed, undertook, almost alone,, the hopeless and
aoandoned cause of Catholic Ireland, and sustained it with such
versatility and power as to inspire fresh hope into hearts given up to
despair, and to lay the foundations for the wonderful success our own
day has witnessed.

But it may be doubted if, by any of the Nations of the past thirty
years, any such service has been done as by that of last Saturday. In a
situation unexampled, in a crisis of gravest danger, you have struck a
note which will resound through the world, wherever men of the Irish
race are found. On reading this paper my first feeling was one of
profound gratitude to the good providence of God, which, I truly believe,
inspired the words you have written ; and next, sir, I felt deeply grateful
to you for so courageously and efficiently obeying the inspiration.

A frightful mistake has been made. Propaganda has changed sides
and gone over to our enemies. We do not know by what pressure of
influence, by what enormous and persistent slander, such a portentous
perversion has been wrought. Our course is clear. It is carefully to
consider our duty and do it, and with equal care to examine what are
our rights, and maintain them. We will have against us prescription
and the utmost dialectic skill ; but we have on our side the common
inheritance of Catholic truth, and reason and justice added. By the aid
of these I propose, sir, to examine the situation in the following letters ;
and, as the questions involved are of the highest importance, I will
take more time for them than is presently at my command. For the
present I repel and reject the Circular of Propaganda — respectfully,,
considering the august body from which it comes ; firmly and energeti
cally, as being opposed to facts as well as to my reason and conscience,,
and, in my opinion, calculated to ruin the best interests of Ireland and
the Church. To apply a sentence of a great lawyer, " It has come forth
without authority, and will go back without effect." As a practical

2 THE ROMAN LETTER.

mode of proving my sincerity, I repeat a subscription already paid, a
course which is being followed by numbers. Meanwhile I remain, sir,
yours, AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

P.S. — It may be useful to inquire here, what has become of the first
portion of this Circular. I am told by Latinists of skill that it could
not have been commenced as it is given to us. Did it begin with a
denunciation of the Land League, or what1? — I. C. L.

THE ROMAN LETTER.

SIR, — In the letter to which you gave the unlooked-for honour of a
place in your leading columns, I proposed to examine the nature and
scope of the Papal authority, and, in the light of this inquiry, the value
of the document presented for our acceptance by Propaganda.

No man can so well defend his own rights as he who is ready to
yield prompt and full obedience to lawful authority. I declare myself,
then, an Ultramontane of extremest type — if "extreme" can be
correctly predicated of anything relating to the absolute. To the Holy
Father I willingly grant all the power he claims, arid this not more as
a matter of faith than a conclusion of reason. For to him was given
the command to "go and teach all nations," the power of Christ
Himself to enforce and defend that teaching, and the inerrancy of which
the Holy Spirit is the source and guard. Now, our Lord did not come
on earth to form a school of philosophy or a sect among sects, but a
spiritual kingdom, of which He is the real though unseen Sovereign.

The Church, in claiming such rights and franchises as are necessary
for her action in the world, has not only the support of eighteen
centuries of beneficence, but the right and authority of Christ dwelling
within her, and whose practical providence she is.

In constitution and essence the Church is a Divine and perfect
society, sole remaining example in the world of the perfection with
which its Creator originally endowed it. By this society God reveals
Himself and his law to men; and of this revelation she is the
depositary, guardian, and expounder. Her infallibility is a necessary
corollary of these offices, since it would be contrary to the wisdom of
God to reveal Himself for man's salvation without providing a means by
which that knowledge could be certainly gained, and contrary to His
justice to impose a law binding under the weightiest sanction without
making that law patent to all who desired to live by it.

Of this perfect and Divine society the Pope is chief : not merely her
executive, but in a special manner her head. For Christ being one

THE ROMAN LETTER. 3

Person, his Vicar must also be one. He must be entitled to present
himself to the world as inheriting the princedom of Peter. Assembling
the councils of the Church, he dictates the matters of discussion, closes
the debates, and gives authority and force to their decrees. All this
goes to show that the plenitude of apostolic power is in the Papacy, and
demonstrates, as De Maistre long ago pointed out, that it would be
utterly irrational and preposterous to predicate a fallible head of an
infallible body.

Not only do I gladly and thankfully embrace the doctrine of Papal

infallibility in respect of the matter denned, but I assert for the Pope the

right of declaring the range of subjects within the scope of definition.

That is to say, the Pope, in imposing on us the duty of implicit obedience,

is prevented by the Holy Spirit from transcending his own powers. He

cannot declare as necessary to be believed any matter not contained in

the deposit of the Faith. Non-Catholics commonly misapprehend the

mental attitude of those within the fold to the Pope in the exercise of

his chief office. For any such who may read those lines it may be useful

to say that the revelation of God, as taught by the Church, is not a

burden to be carried or a yoke endured with pain, but a priceless gift, a

perennial source of intellectual delectation and spiritual joy — the one

possession which never palls nor wearies, without which the world would

be a howling wilderness, and life "not worth living." When this

possession of inestimable value is increased by the Pope, rendering any

truth from the abstract of the original but undefined deposit to the

concrete of defined and certain dogma, the true faithful, so far from

feeling any increase of the burden, are animated by a feeling of deepest

gratitude. Surely no act of the late Pope's reign, long and glorious as

it was, caused more universal joy than the definition of the Immaculate

Conception. This, it may be observed, was an exercise of Papal

authority which decided the question of infallibity long before it was

voted by the Vatican Council. Such acts of the Pope are tests by which

the spirit of Catholic obedience or its contrary are manifested. After

this great act, and, still more, after the promulgation of the Papal

nfallibility, many in Germany and some in England left the Church,

showing that they were Catholics only in name, or held Catholic principles

after a Protestant fashion. Like the Jews of old, who found our Lord's

teaching hard, "they walked no more with him" — not that there was

anything contrary to reason in the accents of Divine Wisdom, but that

they themselves, hard-hearted and stiff-necked, would not bow to the

humility of the Gospel.

But this perfect and grateful obedience is rendered to the Pontiff in
the spiritual order only. In this he, like his Master, has the word of

4 THE EOMAN LETTER.

Eternal Life, and to whom should we go but to him 1 As Doctor of the
Universal Church and Vicar of Christ, we listen with profound veneration,
and accept ex animo all he teaches. But just in proportion to our prompt
docility, when he has right to command, we claim the fuller liberty
without the boundary of that right. The Pope has many characters and
offices besides that which places him alone on earth. He is the Sovereign
of the States of the Church ; he is private Doctor ; he is Ordinary of the
diocese of Rome j he is Patriarch of the West ; and in any of these capa
cities he is no more infallible than he is impeccable. Again, in the
exercise of his office of teacher he speaks in many ways and with many
degrees of authority — to individual prelates in private audience, in con
sistory by allocution, to provinces and peoples by brief and rescript, to
the Universal Church by Bull. The style of each of these utterances is
distinct, and the weight to be attached to them varied. All, indeed, are
to be received with deepest respect ; but to one alone is to be given the
homage of entire and implicit obedience. Finally, this absolute and
unconditional authority is confined to the definition of matters of faith
and morals alone, and to such matters of order and discipline as neces
sarily issue from them.

Besides the matters of moment in which the Pope personally inter
venes, a vast amount of business is transacted by the various Con
gregations and by Propaganda ; and this naturally brings us to the
present circular, which, I am deeply thankful to say, does not seem to
be, in any true sense, a Papal utterance at all. Probably the Pope knew
of some disciplinary circular being in preparation ; more probably he was
not aware of its terms ; and most certainly he was not cognisant of its
true nature. It is clear that a vast mass of business must pass through
the courts which cannot possibly come under the personal observation
of his Holiness. And we will best consult for his dignity by assuming
that this document, as it has reached us, was never seen by him. Surely
never before did anything so injurious and unfounded issue from the
Roman Chancery. The style, so rash and violent, is unwholly unlike
that of a Roman circular, and is much more nearly allied to what we are
used to from the London Times or from Dublin Castle. Putting aside
" Mr. Parnell and his objects " (as if these did not include the cause of
Ireland and all that that implies), we are told that "some of his followers
adopted a line of conduct different from instructions sent to the Irish
bishops." We would like to know, first, in what sense the persons
alluded to were "Mr. Parnell's followers," and what was "the line of
conduct" they adopted. In a document of this gravity we want not
vague assertions nor railing accusations, but the ipsissima verba of the
peccant matter condemned. Further, we would like to be informed how

THE ROMAN LETTER. O

instructions to the Irish bishops for their own guidance could be held to
bind Mr. Parnell and his followers, to whom these instructions were not
conveyed ; and why he or they were to be stigmatised and punished for
not obeying instructions they never saw, and which were not meant for
them.

It is difficult to analyse fully this extraordinary paper and preserve
the respect due to Propaganda. Even now it is hard to believe
it ever came from Rome. The most offensive and injurious thing
about it is the implication underlying it all, that "Mr. Parnell and
his tollowers" (the nine bishops and hundreds of priests who go to
make up his committee included) are answerable for the crimes
which are the natural and almost necessary outcome of English rule in
Ireland! And then what are we to think of the insults "offered to
distinguished persons?" Is it wrong to believe that Forster, when he
ravaged Ireland, filling the gaols with men a thousand times better
than himself, was possessed by not one but many of the evil spirits
who have their home in Dublin Castle 1

In respect of the judicial character of Propaganda, this document
commits the unpardonable fault of deciding a cause not properly before
it, in the absence of one of the parties and on ex parte evidence.

It is too much. In the language of the circular, "it is not to be
tolerated " that the bitterest enemies of the Irish people and the Church
of God shall with impunity poison the mind of the Sacred College, or
that a recreant politician,* who is utterly discredited even with his own
constituency, shall prevail against the eminent dignity, the splendid
abilities, and priceless services of the Archbishop of Cashel.

With your permission, sir, in another letter I shall proceed to
examine the causes which have led up to so dangerous a crisis in Irish
politico-ecclesiastical affairs, and remain,

Ax IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE ROMAN LETTER.

SIR, — Before entering on the grave and delicate question of the
relations of the Irish Church with the various movements of the Irish
people for the past half-century, it may be useful to enlarge somewhat
on the circular ; and, in particular, on the use being made of it by our
adversaries. By one mark this thrice unhappy document is judged and
characterised, and that is the universal chorus of approval with which it
has been received by the mortal enemies of the Papacy and of Ireland.

* Sir George Errington.

THE KOMAN LETTER.

It may be that jibes and flouts and sneers have mingled with their
approbation, but it is manifest all the same. Now, we know that " the
children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of
light." Their instinct as to what makes for their cause is unerring; and
we may hold it to be impossible that that which elicits unanimous
approval from the impure and Godless press of England— true incarnation
of all that is signified by "the world, the flesh, and the devil"— should
further the interests of the Irish people or the Church of God. Leaving
this argument, which will be found difficult to answer, let us observe
more in detail the dangerous uses to which, as you point out so forcibly,
the circular is being turned. A rev. canon of Achonry, in a letter to
the Freeman, which, though short, is a model of illogical confusion,
declares, by implication, the " Pope's Circular " to be binding, that he
(the Holy Father) is above " criticism," and that we are to "obey God
rather than man ! " What is true in this letter is not new, and what is
new we are happily not bound to accept as true. He ventures to speak
for "all" his brethren in the ministry. I dare to say, from personal
knowledge, that a majority of these, if they spoke at all, would give a
very different account of their opinions.

Then Dean O'Brien "learns with dismay'' that his people are about
to do what they have a perfect right to do (is not this intimidation under
the statute?), and tells them that such a course is "infidel," and that it
must end "in the perpetual enslavement of your country;" moreover,
that they are not to say or do anything in relation to the circular until
their bishop has spoken. There is here, on one side or the other, a
mibdirection of the graved kind. The organs of Propaganda tell us the
circular is a purely ecclesiastical document, addressed to the bishops for
their guidance and that of the clergy, and that it has no political or
secular significance whatever. The dean, on the contrary, declares it to
be urgently political and practical, so much so that the people are bound
by it before it ever reaches them, or indeed himself, in authentic and
authoritative form. What class of teaching does this belong to ? The
dean is fond of declaring himself "the Church." So we may grant him
to be when he teaches his people true Catholic doctrine. So he surely is
not when attempting by his spiritual power to destroy their lawful and
salutary freedom. This, too, in presence of the fact that his venerated
bishop wrote one of the most powerful and effective letters given to the
press in support of the present movement.

Then at the head of the English Catholic press comes the Tablet,
declaring to us wretched Irish that " the Pope has spoken," and the
cause is at an end. No, 0 false and sophistical Tablet! the Pope has not
so spoken, nor spoken at all. Would it not be well, 0 Tablet! when

THE ROMAN LETTER. /

proceeding to lecture the Irish people on their duty to the Holy Father,
to remember that the progenitors of those whom you represent permitted
the most beastly tyrant of all history to proclaim himself their spiritual
chief, and to oust the jurisdiction of the Vicar of Christ 1 If this is too
long to remember, the present position of the Catholic body in England,
without a single representative in the public life of their country, should
inspire some reserve and modesty in their organ when addressing those
whose courage and sacrifices gained them Emancipation.

A holy priest, speaking to the writer a few days ago, said:
" We are tied ; now is your time. The Irish laity saved the faith
of Ireland before ; with the help of God they will do it again." And
they will do it, God and St. Patrick helping. The expression is
consonant with historical fact, and not so presumptuous as would
at first seem. For while there is the infallibility of the Pope, and
the infallibility of the Ecclesia Docens, there is also in the body*
the multitude of the true faithful, a practical infallibility. Illumined
by the True Light, " which enlighteneth every man who cometh into
the world," grasping the verities of the faith with a certainty
surpassing, if it were possible, that of their own existence, prizing
them above fortune and life itself, they are jealous of their possession
with a holy jealousy, and repel with alarm and indignation any attempt
to connect them with the changing forms of error or bend them to the
exigencies of human affairs. Let any ecclesiastic, as unhappily
ecclesiastics have done in the past, speak heresy or quasi-heresy from a
pulpit where the faith is living and practical, at once the Catholic instinct
of his hearers is alarmed — without perhaps always knowing the reason
why they detect the fallacy lurking in the strange word. Their ears,
accustomed to the sound of truth, detect the ring of the base metal, and
they hasten to their and his spiritual chief to save them from the snares
of error.

It is a remarkable fact, sir, that no reply on any side has been made,
or even attempted, to the powerful and conclusive arguments drawn out
by you from the wonderfully close analogy of the Veto. We are treated
to all sorts of cloudy, irrelevant advices and exhortations ; not in any
one case has there been an attempt, successful or otherwise, to deal with
your argument. Perhaps our adversaries are wiser in letting it alone.
They would have been wiser still if they had not obtained by guile and
fraud the intervention of the Sacred College. For they have now shown
their hand ; they have discovered to the world to what depths of slander
and infamy they are prepared to go to gain even a momentary triumph
over the people and the cause they hate with a preternatural and
diabolical hatred. It will be our blame if we do not take the opportunity

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.

of tearing from the West-British, Whig-Liberal, Cawtholic faction the
last shred of hypocritical pretence and falsehood, and exhibiting it to
the Holy See and the world as a thing made up of self-seeking and
corruption. In this way we may turn evil into good, and hail the
circular, when all emotions of amazement and indignation are allayed, as
the cause of a new , and most salutary departure in Irish politico-
ecclesiastical affairs.

I have, sir, the strongest conviction that all, or nearly all, of our
later troubles have arisen from the alliance of certain of our chief
ecclesiastics with the Whig-Liberal faction. To trace the rise and
consequences of this treaty, and the causes which have led to its partial
but, we may hope, short-lived triumph, will be the aim of my next
letter. — I am, sir, yours,

Ax IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.

" The religion and nationality of Ireland are inseparable." — Archbishop Croke.

" They (the Irish) mingle religion with their patriotism, and patriotism with
their religion." — Cardinal Newman.

" I have never, for myself or others, directly or indirectly, sought or accepted a
favour from the English Government." — Dr. Mcffale.

11 If ever the Irish people fall away from the Irish Church it will not be the fault
of the people." — Dr. McHale.

SIR, — In the course of what must needs be a historical retrospect, it
will be useful to keep the above weighty and pregnant quotations in
mind, since they go to show that what follows is not mere opinion, but
fact written on the very face of our annals.

It is impossible for an unskilled writer to approach such a subject as
the relations of the Irish Church with Irish politics without a most
depressing feeling of incompetence. For though one may have a cer
tainty that the clear statement of the Irish question must carry convic
tion to all unprejudiced minds, that statement, embracing centuries of
struggle, so many principles, so many facts, requires mental power and
literary skill of the first order to do it justice. The matter is in the
minds of thousands : the power to crystallise it in lucid sentences, in
orderly and harmonious sequence, belongs only to masters of style.

Nevertheless, feeling that the moment is opportune, and that the
examination had better be made imperfectly than not at all, I will now
proceed to lay bare what I conceive to be the causes of the present con
dition of Ireland. We must seek these in antiquity, for what is seen
around us is not the product of dead facts past and gone, but is the
outcome of living and energising principles, as active now as at any
period of our chequered history.

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS. 9

For nigh eight centuries two national ideas — two opposing sets of
feelings, interests, and idiosyncracies — have struggled for supremacy on
Irish soil These are represented on the one side by a Government
powerful, unscrupulous, ruthless ; on the other, by a nation weak, disor
ganised, enslaved — opposing to absolute power invincible patience, to
the most hideous and shameful injustice an indomitable though passive
resistance. The first Anglo-Norman landed at Waterford, a hypocrite,
a slanderer, a thief, and an assassin, and in these four characters his
descendants and representatives remain to this day. He was a hypocrite,
because (with or without Papal authority, it matters not) he came on
pretence of reforming the Irish Church, while he had enslaved and
corrupted his own ; a slanderer, employing hireling pens to defame the
people whose ruin he contemplated ; opening the gates of that flood of
venemous falsehood which still flows at high water mark, covering truth
with a deposit which can only be penetrated with great labour by true
judicial minds. Of all the things we have had to bear surely the cruellest
is that " persecution of slander" begun by Gerald Barry, and continued
to our own day, when it finds worthy organs in the Macaulays, the
Frondes, and the reptile anti-Irish press of England and of our own
capital.

Like his chief progenitor, the Northern pirate, this Anglo-Norman was
a robber. He coveted the lands of the natives, and never forbore to
seize them when he had the power. Three times generally, a hundred
times in detail, under one pretence or another, the whole surface of the
country has been confiscated ; and, in the last change of owners, the
principle of absolute personal property in the soil was introduced, which
enabled the alien, finally settled in possession, to confiscate perennially
all the gains the labour of his serfs wrung from the laud. So atrocious
has been the conduct of the Irish landowner that his own Par
liament has been compelled to declare him unworthy to exercise any
longer the rights of proprietorship, and has reduced him to the condition
of rent-charger or annuitant where he lately ruled with power as
absolute as a Turkish pasha or an American slaveowner. Finally, the
Anglo-Norman adventurer was a murderer, since the life of a native was
in his eyes as that of a wild beast ; and he never shrank from taking it
when it stood between him and the object of his greed or ambition.
The old brutal way being rather opposed to the spirit of the present
day, his representative does his extermination now by less violent but
equally sure methods. The great famine killed off or expatriated its
millions. The little famine of 1879-1883 has quietly "removed" more
than ever will be known till the bar of Eternal Justice is reached, and
is still, with its various aids, emigrating its thousands and tens of
c

10 THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS. '

thousands. And so the ancient race — which will not be West-Britonised
nor Protestantised, nor corrupted — is being done to death by all the arts
discoverable by malice, and with a skill gained by centuries of experience.
The English Government in Ireland has never gained the moral
right to exist, since it never aimed, nor, to do it justice, pretended to
aim, at the well-being of the people it ruled.* Said the Times, " The
Irish are gone with a vengeance." The Times was wrong. Enough
remain to gain all the rights of freemen and citizens. Says Lord Derby,
" It would pay us to spend some millions in emigrating this people."
This cold-blooded and wooden-headed aristocrat passes for a statesman
in England. Yet it needs little capacity to see that every healthy worker
expatriated (and this is the only class which is going) weakens the
strength of the Empire, lessens its productive power, and tarnishes the
glory of the Sovereign's reign. Again Mr. Trevelyan goes down to
Donegal and sees with his own eyes the misery of thousands of the
best people in Ireland. Does he authorise outdoor relief? Does he set
going public works, of which half-a-dozen of a remunerative and
reproductive kind are possible in the West 1 Oh, no ; this would be
true statesmanship, to which the Government of this country never rose.
His remedy for imminent famine was the emigrant ship, which was not
there, and the workhouse, which would not contain a twentieth part of
the starving people needing aid. What everyone who speaks or writes
for Ireland would need to proclaim and urge without ceasing is the fact
—patent by its own confession — that the English Government in
Ireland is actively and intensely hostile to every Irish interest, and
never loses an opportunity of adding insult to the injuries it inflicts.
This spirit pervades every function of Government from the least to
the greatest. The English people have absolute power in Ireland, and
they use it in a way inspired by national prejudice, which is intensified
by centuries of falsehood, by trade jealousy, and by heretical malice.
In its ultimate effect English rule means the domination of a powerless,
but conspicuously Catholic people, by the chief Protestant power in the
world. Emancipation was not granted to any principle of justice, but
was compelled by other well-known causes. The ascendancy, the
exclusiveness of the governing class, nominally displaced and destroyed,
only drew itself together in secret league, and finds its suitable expres
sion in the Orange Freemason ring in Dublin Castle. Long before

* Only yesterday Lord Salisbury said, in relation to Ireland, " We don't give
representative institutions to Hottentots. We intend to exterminate another
million of Irish, to give them twenty years of coercion ; and by that time they will
be glad to take any favours we choose to offer." The twenty years' coercion has since
expanded to coercion for ever and ever.

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS. 11

"boycotting" was publicly known by that name the ascendancy class
practised it with eminent success. An Irish Catholic of the best stamp
- — that is, a good man and a good citizen — has no more chance of
obtaining employment or honour, power, or indeed justice at the hands of
this ring than he would have in China. Some Irish Catholics indeed are
admitted within its narrow circle ; and it may hereafter be useful to
inquire what is the purpose of their adoption, what kind of work they
do, and what manner of men they become. But they do not leaven the
governing class nor change its spirit. They are employed to do its
work and to give a colouring of fairness to the most bitter, the most
comprehensive, and the most relentless tyranny the world ever saw.

But the fulness of time came, and the Providence of God raised up
a man who to the rare union of qualities which make a leader of men
added that active, absorbing passion of patriotism which has led him to
devote his life to the emancipation of Ireland. Nothing of its kind in
the world's history is comparable in deep and abiding interest to the
revolution now proceeding under our eyes ; the culmination of a
struggle of centuries issuing in the proximate triumph of justice and
of right ; the reconquest by its true owners of a land in which but
three years ago they had no root — a conquest achieved by force of ideas
against absolute power arbitrarily exercised ; by the peaceful legal
combination of the humblest classes, aided by indomitable patience and
a self-sacrifice often reaching the heroic degree.

A radical change is taking place in our social conditions which can
neither be evaded nor stopped. The alien landlord, deprived of the
power to work his will, good or evil as it might be, is departing to
return no more. His (late) serf is lifting up his head and acquiring
the carriage of a free man. A true reformation is taking place, and
whether the " new order " be more or less perfect depends on the
action of the Catholic Church, and on that alone.

With the exultation which fills every true Irish heart at the resur
gence of the national life one painful, anxious thought mingles. It
regards the conduct of a certain portion of the hierarchy — the dangers
to faith and morals to which their action gives rise, and its probable
effect in retarding or disfiguring the social edifice now in process of
reconstruction. The treatment of this part of my subject I will ask your
leave to reserve for another letter.

Yours, ttc.j

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LATMAN.

12 THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.
SIR, — When O'Connell wrung from an unwilling Legislature the Act
which made him one of the most beneficent as he was himself one of the
greatest of men, he emancipated a people who were in many ways as
unfit for as they were unused to freedom. Their slavish submission to
their former masters was continued long after it ceased to be imperative.
The habit of association for the conduct of affairs, the noble and disin
terested public spirit developed in free communities, were almost wholly
wanting. The various orders of the social hierarchy had either no
cohesion or wrere at deadly enmity' with each other. Emancipation itself
was mainly theoretical. It gave the Irish a nominal freedom — permission
to follow their own destiny on their own soil, the governing classes taking
care to retain the shaping of that destiny and the ownership of that soil.
*" Catholics," said Sir Robert Peel to the old Tory who reproached him
with raising Papists to the magistracy, " will be eligible, but they won't
be appointed ; " and they are not appointed to this day, save on condi
tion of attorning to the English interest and doing their master's work.

Two classes there were who were capable of completing the social,
industrial, and political emancipation of Ireland, the Catholic aristocracy
and the Catholic Church. The people were always ready. The strength
and courage, the virtue and self-sacrifice of the Irish race are in the
masses, and they grow stronger as the lowest stratum (in rank) is
approached. There is no possible height of patriotism, of religion, of
devotion to every great and noble end, to which they are not willing and
ready to be led, if leading there be but unhappily "light and leading "
have long been wanting in the quarters from which they might have been
expected.

Taking first the Catholic aristocracy, the natural leaders of the
people in the public order, it may well be doubted if the world's history
shows anything more thoroughly contemptible than the character and
conduct of this class. Instead of " using their newly-found liberty to
raise their fellow-Catholics from poverty and ignorance, they rushed to
seize the fruits of a victory in the gaining of which they had no part.
O'Connell's action was paralysed and thwarted by the selfishness and
corruption of his surroundings. The nobles voted him " vulgar " and
" violent." They went with their class and order, and so far from con
cerning themselves with the welfare of the people, they would not
acknowledge the man who gave them the freedom of which they were
unworthy. The Catholic landowners were so much engaged in following,
ftnd often surpassing the rack-renting and evicting practices of their
Protestant fellows that they had neither time nor inclination to attempt
i he oundation of a better order of things. And so the unhappy country

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS. 13

struggled on from famine to famine, from convulsion to conviilsion, till
Davitt and Parnell and the Land League came to raise it to renewed
hope and a higher aim and life. This contemptible and emasculate
Catholic landocracy had their opportunity. They might have led the
people in the paths of justice and right, of peace and progress : they
preferred to go over to the enemy ; they also preferred to stand by their
class and order, though the majority of these were descendants of
Cromwell's troopers, who despised them while they accepted their aid to
trample on the people. Their profound selfishness and meanness, their
want of self-respect and Catholic spirit, were in nothing so well seen as
in their joining in numbers the Orange Emergency Eviction Committee,
which had for its avowed object the extermination of Catholics and the
replanting of the country with "loyal " Protestants ! *0ne of the very
few personally respectable men among them chose the height of Forster's
muck-running to get sworn in of the Privy Council and to join the
Kildare Street Club. tAnother has joined worthy companions in pro
ducing an elaborate scheme for the further development of emigration.
Hardly one can be named who gave evidence of any desire to do his
duty to Ireland. The great famine ended a multitude of Catholic
" shoneens," ignorant and insolent, corrupt and corrupting, swearing,
drinking, fox-hunting boors, a curse to the country and a disgrace to the
Church within whose borders they barely came. The land courts and the
land movement may be trusted to end the remainder.

There remained that great institution, the Church of God, set by
Divine Wisdom to repair the defects of human society and restore it, as far
as the loss of man's integrity permits, to its original condition. The spirit
of the Catholic Church, however it may be occasionally deflected by human
weakness, is the spirit of justice. It emancipated the slave, and made the
poor in all times and countries the object of its tenderest concern. It stood
for legitimate freedom against German emperor and Tudor king, defending
human liberty as the surest foundation of religion. The history of the
Middle Ages, from the eighth to the fourteenth century, is mainly com
posed of the struggles of the Popes to preserve it from the attacks of
tyrants. In various times and places it is true that ecclesiastics
have been found on the wrong side, but this was when the
State had intruded its baneful influence. The nomination to
benefices on the part of the Sovereign led to the gradual decay of Catholic
spirit among the clergy. The Church in France is now suffering martyr
dom because a section of its members allied itself with a corrupt court
and a worthless aristocracy ; and whenever she loses her influence and

* The O'Conur Don.

t Christopher Talbot Redington.

14 THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.

fails in her Divine work, it is because of this unnatural connection with
her and our enemies. To her it might be held to fall, with special
suitability, to reform and refound society in Ireland. For to her it is
due that the Irish nation exists as it is, or exists at all in any condition
above savage life. To the strict morality she imposes are due the
wonderful vitality and recuperative power of the Irish race ; to her
humanising influence the amenity and courtesy of manner which
distinguish the Irish peasant above all his fellows. To the Church,
which sustained him in a struggle of unrivalled intensity and duration,
he might naturally have looked to complete his triumph ; and in happier
circumstances he would not have looked in vain.

But while nation and Church emerged victorious from the conflict,
they bore, and long must continue to bear, the scars and wounds of that
mortal strife. It would be preposterous to expect the arts of peace to
flourish in times of war. It would be still more absurd to expect that
the Irish Church should display, when the time of combat was over, the
beauteous developments which adorn her in times of peace — the flowers
and fruit of the counsels of perfection which, where the fulness of her
power prevails, make the earth itself a paradise and give her children
a foretaste of heaven.

Frankly, the Church was unequal to the task before her when
Emancipation struck the fetters from her limbs. A later " discipline of
the secret " had tied, as it still ties, her tongue. Though she has at her
command the pulpit, the press, and the platform, though of a race one
of whose gifts is oratory, she is rarely heard, and her eminent speakers
may be numbered by units instead of hundreds. This is one of the
results of the repression of her natural life and the paralysis which falls
on the noblest faculties when unused.

Those who form their opinion of the Church's power from her action
in this country, thwarted on all sides and depressed as she has been, have
little notion of the effect she produces when her Divine powers have free
play. * The least acquaintance with the centuries succeeding the fall of the
Roman Empire suffices to show that she everywhere displayed an
amazing vigour and resource in laying the foundations of the Christian

* Such astonishing progress has been made since this was written that it is now a
simple matter of duty to point to the short career of the present Archbishop of
Dublin as an example of the beneficence of the Church's action. In a few years he
has done a life's work. The poor, the sick, the erring, the orphan — every phase of
human want and suffering — are by him sought out and relieved. No week passes in
which he does not lay a foundation stone or open some house of religion or charity —
no day that he does not visit, encourage, and reorganise some one of the numbers of
beneficent institutions in our midst. Nor do his proper labours, multiplied as they
are, prevent him from striking many a stout blow for justice and truth, and showing
in defence of his people a courage, versatility, and power as rare in the metropolitan
see as they are beyond any praise of mine.

THE IRISH CHURCH ASD IRISH POLITICS. 15

order of society, from wheDce has come to us everything of value iu
modern civilisation. The action of the secular power in the social and
moral orders was little more than a disturbance or perversion of the
beneficent work of the Church. In the religious orders, pre-eminently
in the Benedictine, were contained the most fruitful and active principles
of true civilisation ; while their government gave the best example of the
union of freedom with authority. To impute to the Church then the
power to reform society and place it on a sound -and progressive basis is
simply to declare what she has done before, and may at any time do
again. Her canon law embraces the principles of natural equity and
the higher law revealed by the Gospel ; and on these must all just secular
legislation proceed.

We are contemplating what the Irish Hierarchy might have done.
What it did do was unhappily very different. And this makes it necessary
in the present exigency, to declare that, while the Irish Church has
succeeded magnificently in the spiritual order, she has failed signally, if
not utterly, in the temporal. Not without a grave sense of responsibility
is this charge made; and some distinctions and reservations should
properly precede it. When using the word Hierarchy then, I do so only
collectively, and as regards the Church's corporate action. The Providence
of God has always provided that the Hierarchy in this country should
include prelates as truly and ardently Irish, as they are Catholic. It is
clear that, whatever may be said of the failure of the Church to use its
enormous power for the public good, no blame can attach to the bishops
who would have done their duty if permitted. Neither do I presume to
impute to the policy followed by any bishop the slightest shade of moral
wrong. Such an imputation wouTd be as abhorrent to niy sense of duty
and of fitness, as it is wholly unnecessary for the effect of the argument.
It is no just reproach to a good and zealous bishop that he is not also a
wise politician or a sagacious statesman. It is my happiness and
advantage to know some of the prelates whose public conduct will be
most severely arraigned. They are one and all men of simple and most
edifying lives, exemplary in the discharge of the essential duties of their
great office, and of such personal holiness that we may well believe they
would not shrink from the striking of

"A deeper, darker dye,

In purple of their dignity,"

did country or faith require the sacrifice of their lives. Again, in
estimating the public action of our prelates, it cannot be overlooked that
they have to view questions from all sides ; that they are charged with
the salvation of every baptised Christian within the bounds of their
jurisdiction ; and that prudence, one of the first of episcopal virtues, ia

16 THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.

from its very nature exceedingly apt to degenerate into timidity, and
to ally itself with the selfishness from which the human heart is seldom
entirely free. In reviewing their political action, as I intend doing with
the utmost freedom consistent with due respect, I again declare that I
am Catholic before all and beyond all. As, with God's help, I am ready
to sacrifice everything, even life itself, rather than yield one jot or tittle
of the inestimable treasure of the faith — supposing that the indivisible
could be divided — so for Ireland I can desire no less than the good I
claim for myself, and would rather see her remain a martyr till the crack
of doom than she should lose the glorious distinction of being the most
Catholic of nations.

But martyrdom is not the normal condition of a nation's life ; nor is
it desirable save when inevitable.

Ireland has had a long spell of it, and her children may now
hope that in the councils of Divine Wisdom a brighter and happier
day is approaching. It is to hasten that day that I dare point out the
gravest obstacles to its advent, and to declare that these exist not in the
machinations of our enemies so much as in the errors of our friends. " A
man's enemies shall be those of his own household ; " and in the anti-
Irish part taken by some of our prelates, in the dry rot of Whiggery of
the Irish Church, lie the chiefest obstacles to our onward course. Now,
I do not mean to charge any Irish bishop with being a Whig. That
would be, in my view, a scandalous libel, as I believe Dr. Johnson was
right in declaring that a certain nameless personage was the first of the
race. But that the action of many has been and is pro- Whig unhappily
needs no proof. As this letter has already reached its proper limit, the
opening of what has always seemed to me the most melancholy and
dangerous chapter in recent Irish history must be reserved till next.
I am, sir, yours, &c.,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.
SIR, — It is surely an evil day for Ireland when it has become neces
sary to arraign at the bar of public opinion the action of a considerable
portion of her hierarchy. The creation of this necessity is not the work
of the Irish people, but of their enemies ; and on them be the blame,
if such there be. Assuming it to exist, as we are amply justified in
doing, the gravity of the facts, and the importance of the principles
involved, require that the indictment should be drawn with the utmost
frankness. In the crisis which exists at this moment in Irish affairs,
polite euphemisms would be wholly out of place.

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS. IT

Again declaring that I do not presume to judge the moral nature of
the action in question, I have nevertheless to charge that portion of the
hierarchy which has made and makes common cause with the English
Government in Ireland with the violation of several of the gravest obliga
tions belonging to the episcopal office. Their action has been in many
respects a practical abandonment of their duty as guardians of faith and
morals. As publicists they have failed to vindicate the principles of the
Christian order, as patriots they sided with the open and avowed enemies
of their country.

Short of the charge of heresy no weightier could be brought. It
is not done without reflection, nor without the sanction and approval
of many whose characters, training, and sacred office satisfy the
writer that the task he has undertaken is not only justifiable but
meritorious. Individual examples and detailed proofs of the truth
of the indictment will be forthcoming. Meanwhile, it will be
useful to point out that as on Irish soil two hostile and mutually
destructive principles have combated for centuries, so within the circle
of the Irish hierarchy the two have always found advocates and defenders.
In old times we have had bishops of the Pale ; now we have bishops
of the Castle ; formerly the statute of Kilkenny, now the " suppres
sion " in many dioceses of any priest brave enough to show any feeling
of patriotism. It is clear that if the policy with which the late Dr.
McHale was identified represented every Irish and Catholic interest, that
identified with the late Cardinal Cullen was subversive and destructive
of all embraced by these words. If Dr. McHale truly represented, as we
know he did, the Irish people and the Church of God, the Cardinal on
every point where the two prelates were in opposition represented the
enemies of both. No good end can' be served by hiding or paltering with
this clear issue — namely, that if in the present the Archbishop of Cashel
and the Bishop of Meath be right in standing boldly in defence of the
spiritual and temporal interests of the Irish race, the Cardinal McCabe
and the present Archbishop of Tuam must be wholly and ruinously
wrong.

"Pontius Pilate," wrote the Bishop of Orleans to Napoleon III., when
charging him with betraying the Pope, " has been placed in the pillory
of our creed, not for commanding, or even desiring, the commission of
the greatest crime of all history, but for not preventing it when in his
power." In like manner, by no straining of argument, but by direct
consequence of his action or inaction, the Castle Bishop is in a great
degree answerable for the suffering and crime, the untold misery and sin,
arising from our condition for the past fifty years ; for he it was who broke
he unity of the Irish Church and paralysed its action — he it was who,

18 THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS.

abandoning the straight and noble paths of Irish nationality and Catholic
principle, allied himself with the basest forms of heretical pravity, and
imperilled the very faith of Ireland in return for places for corrupt Whig
lawyers. When prompt and decided action was needed, he temporised ;
when strict adherence to principle wras nesessary, he compromised; and
in these two words, "temporise" and "compromise," are found the
unhappy source of all our more recent sufferings. The proof unhappily
is on the face of our history. At one of the first meetings of the hierarchy
after emancipation, Dr. McHale proposed, as the Church's first duty in
the public order, to formulate, with aid of jurist and canonist, the claim
of the Irish people. 1st, to the most elementary of all rights, the right
of existence by their labour on the soil of their country. 2nd, to the
just and impartial administration of the law — such as it was; and 3rd,
the right of the Irish Catholic people to Irish and Catholic education.
He was withstood in this as in many another proposal, the carrying of
which would have begun, if not wrought out, our real emancipation. His
sagacity, courage, and patriotism was brought to nought by the incon
sistent, the timid, and time serving. Some provision for Irish Catholic
education was the necessary complement of emancipation. Some con
sistency, courage, and adherence to principle were all that were wanting
to provide that the Irish Catholic people should have Irish Catholic
schools. The hierarchy were wanting in all three, and, with a blindness
which amazes us yet, consented to a compromise condemned by Catholic
principles, and issuing in a system neither Irish nor Catholic — save by
accident. From this compromise have issued, in congruous and mon
strous series, the Model Schools, the Godless Colleges, and the Queen's
(and now the Royal) University. From this has also arisen the
destruction of thousands of young men whom a Catholic education
would have saved, and the absence of a truly educated class of Irish
gentry, who would have long ere this led the' country to freedom
and peace. John of Tuam, indeed, strove like a hero, as he was,
for freedom and purity in education ; but he strove almost alone, and
the most powerful external agency of the Church — the Christian School —
was given up to our enemies by the sworn defenders of the Christian
order. When treating, as I hope to do separately, the subject of
education, some hints will be given of the later conduct of this all-
important matter. I now declare the first fatal compromise by Dr.
Murray to be the most unjustifiable and ruinous violation of
parental and national right ever perpetrated by a Catholic prelate or
accepted by a national hierarchy. Suffice it now to say, that on a
subject peculiarly its own the Irish Church utterly broke down, and, as
a last and worst result, we have now the scandalous compromise of

THE IRISH CHURCH AND IRISH POLITICS. 19

the "Royal" University — the same university, be it noted, which spends
twice as much on the entertainment of its senate as it does on the en
couragement of the unfortunate students confided to its care.

If I were writing a history of Ireland, many chapters could be given
to the action of ecclesiastics from 1830 to 1850. As it is, I can only
point out that our Churchmen were incapable, or at all events did not
attempt, to undertake the work of which the Catholic aristocracy was
not worthy. The first necessity after political emancipation was
industrial. The first duty was to bring the law of the land into con
formity with justice and the law of God. Three- fourths of the people
•of Ireland dwelt on its soil strangers in their own country, subject to be
deprived of land and life at the will of an alien and too often hostile
proprietary. That they were so deprived in hundreds of thousands, we
know too well. To this evil condition may be traced two of the principal
defects in the national character. The serf deceives his master to escape
the lash, and drinks t< > drown the feeling of degradation. Our later history,
that of a people declining in numbers and wealth, acquiring little by
little, by force of quasi insurrection, the commonest rights of citizens, is
proof of the absurdity of endeavouring to found a new order on such
conditions as were present in Ireland fifty years ago. Now, all the
bishops had mastered the tract "of justice." They knew the labourer
was worthy of his hire ; they knew that what a man made was justly
his ; and they looked on and saw their people rack-rented and evicted,
scourged and decimated, and they made no combined or effective effort
for their protection.

Had the Irish Church formulated the Irish claim fifty-four years ago-
had it done this most urgent and necessary duty any time since, it
would have discharged some part of its responsibility ; for the demon
stration of the justice of the claim would have gone far to make its
realisation actual. Every man, patriot or self-seeker, true or false, who
entered public life would have it as a standard by which his conduct
was to be directed and judged. And the interposing of the sanction of
the Irish Church to a State paper, demonstrably true in its propositions,
and indefeasible in its conclusions, would have silenced then as now the
monstrous falsehoods and calumny with which we are assailed.

In the organisation of the Church of Ireland exists a power never
yet used for Ireland. It is a power co-extensive with the island, touching
iind controlling all within it, Catholic and non-Catholic. Did the Irish
bishops unite at any time on the attainment of any Irish or Catholic
measure, their organisation would make them irresistible. The land
question could have been settled half a century ago, and the strife of
classes prevented by the stoppage of landgrabbing, the erection in every

20 THE REIGN OF CARDINAL CULLEtf.

parish of a tenants' defence association, with the parish priest for
president, and the assertion of the principle, now happily in force, that
no man should take a farm evicted for non-payment of an unjust rent.
This would have been a land law making the inequitable and, as
events have too well proved, inefficient operation of the present Land
Courts unnecessary. The first duty incumbent on the leaders of the
Irish people, either in the lay or ecclesiastical orders, was the protection
by law of their lives and properties. Neither one nor other was equal
to the task. Once, indeed, in the pastoral of the Synod of Thurles, a
note was struck which looked like the awakening of the Church to a
sense of the duty before it. Like every pronouncement of the kind —
whether as regards the right of the Irish people to regulate their own
affairs according to the spirit of the constitution, the land question, or
education — it was a theory only, never rendered into fact. Since then,
many times over, the hierarchy has assembled, and with like result. It
never meets now without inspiring a feeling of pain and fear — of pain
that another opportunity be added to the many already wasted ; of fear
lest some mistake more egregious than the last be added to a list
already too long. Our bishops meet and discuss, resolve and memorialise
with something worse than nothing for result — namely, the general
conviction that their fatal want of unity is prolonging indefinitely the
nation's decadence, and endangering its very existence. A real union
on any of the questions now agitating the country would insure by the
very fact the attainment of the end proposed. On the last occasion
their lordships addressed the country they declared they would " lead "
the people. We have not heard since in what direction. It may save
some mistakes to declare now that if th'e people are to be led it will not
be through the mire of Whiggery, nor into the shadow of Dublin Castle.
In my next letter I propose to examine the effect of Cardinal Cullen's
administration on Irish affairs, and then that of the prelates who have
succeeded to his policy and traditions.

Yours,

AN. IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE REIGN OF CARDINAL CULLEN.

SIR, — The singularly able and thoughtful letter of "Lux Sit," in
your last number, dealing with one of the most dangerous elements of
the anti-Irish conspiracy, induces me to diverge for a moment from the
principal subject of this letter to press a portion of his argument into
service here.

THE REIGN OF CARDINAL CULLEN. 21

The Irish question is eminently historical. It is also essentially
Catholic. Therefore, the power which aims at the extermination or
corruption of the Irish people, excludes history and religion from the
National Schools. This is the position of " Lux Sit," and it is
incontrovertible. It is evident he knows more about the subject
than he cares to tell; and he apologises for a warmth of language
which some may think unseemly. Now, will you permit me to
suggest to him with the respect inspired by the excellent work he
is doing, that the time has passed for reticence 1 When the faith and
very existence of Ireland are threatened forbearance, no matter who is in
question, where frankness is necessary, may well be deemed inexcusable
timidity. When a man's life and honour are assailed, he is justified in
taking the strongest measures in defence. We are at this moment
threatened by'an unnatural and monstrous combination. Our hereditary
enemies and some of our spiritual chiefs have invaded the Vatican. They
threaten us in the very centre of our spiritual life. The former have ex
hausted against us the whole catalogue of human crime, and in conjunction
with the latter they have succeeded for the moment in imposing on some
members of the Sacred College the belief that the Irish people are
thieves and murderers.

Taking the single weapon of truth, our duty is to expose that
unhappy delusion ; to say to the Sacred College, or — if our adversaries
will insist on the circular being his own act — to the Holy Father, with
the utmost respect, but with unalterable firmness : " You have been
shamefully deceived and betrayed by your enemies and ours. We are
still the law-abiding, justice-loving Catholic and Irish people we have
always been ; and those who would make us answerable for the crimes
bred of their own savage tyranny add slander of the basest sort to their
other iniquities." I say, then, to "Lux Sit," go on and tell all that
needs to be told of the sickening story of Irish Catholic education.
Archbishop Murray justly bears the largest portion of the blame due
for the wretched muddle into which this question of primary importance
has fallen. A true bishop of the Pale, he thought the Irish race should
be content with toleration, and grovel at the feet of their taskmasters.
When an Irish prelate takes suit and service with Dublin Castle he
does not always succeed in keeping his orthodoxy from suspicion.
When Dr. Murray undertook the defence of the Queen's Colleges, and
publicly rebuked Frederick Lucas for calling them " Godless," if he did
not pass the line which separates Catholic principle from its opposite, he
went perilously near doing so.

Not he, however, but one still more eminent, must bear the charge
of causing the decadence into which a portion of the Church in Ireland

22 THE REIGN OF CARDINAL CULLEN.

has fallen in these later days. To many who only knew the late
Cardinal in his office of Churchman it would look like " flat blasphemy "
to say it. Yet those who are familiar with the history of the last thirty-
five years will have no difficulty in assenting to this portentous
conclusion, that since Oliver Cromwell landed on her shores no greater
calamity befell Ireland than the advent of Cardinal Cullen.

The sword of the regicide endangered her physical life ; the policy of
the Cardinal, aptly called "stone blind," struck a deadlier blow
at her faith, although nothing was farther from his Eminence's
intention. Worse than the famine which sent its tens of thousands
to Paradise by the road of patient suffering, his policy, by destroying
the national organisation, and begetting Fenianism as clearly as
any cause ever begot a consequence, has sent its thousands to the other
place. It paralysed the national life of Ireland, and . retarded her
advancement for thirty years. Helping to fasten upon the country for
a whole generation the deadly incubus of landlordism, it is, in part,
answerable for the misery, ruin, and crime that iniquitous system
brought forth. To use the words of Michael Davitt — words as true as
they are forcible — the very damned cry out from the midst of their
torments, invoking justice not only on their oppressors but on the policy
which maintained the land laws for half a century longer than they
would otherwise have existed.

At another time it may be desirable to inquire as to the special
purposes of the Cardinal's mission and its general effect on Irish eccle
siastical affairs. For the present we must hasten on to the relation of
the most lamentable chapter of Irish history since the Union. The
famine was past. Though walking skeletons, emaciated creatures half
alive, still horrified the stranger on the public ways, the wonderful
recuperative powers of the race, their buoyant energies, were beginning
to reassert themselves. Then it was that Frederick Lucas and Gavan
Duffy, * and others as earnest, if less eminent, came together and vowed
that landlordism should never in Ireland create another famine. They
organised a formidable party — so formidable that it threatened the
existence of the Government. They went on the lines of independent
opposition, the very same as those which two years ago led Parnell to
victory — the only one which can by any possibility lead to the achieve
ment of any good for Ireland. Had the party of 1851 been as honest
as that of 1881 all that has been gained in the latter year would have
been gained in the former.

Now Sir Charles Gavan Duffy.

CARDINAL CULLEN AND CARDINAL M'CABE. 23

But, unhappily, the Irish party had its dishonest and corrupt section.
At the critical moment, when everything depended on the maintenance
of its unity, the baser part opened secret negotiations with the enemy,
and, despite of pledge and oath, openly and flagrantly sold themselves
for place. The treachery might have been overcome ; the true men
met the false on the hustings and through the country, and would have
beaten them — oh, shame and horror to have it to say! — if the Cardinal
had not interposed, and entered into secret alliance with the suicide-
swindler Sadleir, and the perjured apostate Keogh. Dr. Brown, of
'Elphin, " gave poor Billy a chance ;" and though the Cardinal did not
openly enter into the fray, his uncle, Father Mahcr, and others, directly
inspired by him or under his authority, defended the traitors in the
public press. The crosier of St. Laurence O'Toole fell with crushing
weight on any priest who had the courage and principle to stand by
the right. The cry of "No priests in politic^" was raised — meaning
none save those who undertook the defence of political corruption. It
was a sad and sickening spectacle then, it is sad and sickening to
day ; for its consequences remain, and its example is being followed,
in less flagrant fashion it may be, for public opinion is now more
powerful, and political intelligence more widely diffused. We kno\v
what followed. Duffy abandoned the struggle, and found fame and
fortune under the Southern Cross. More fortunate in many minds,
Lucas gave his life for the cause, and died a true martyr, not so much
of the Roman miasma as of a broken heart. It may well be doubted if
the faith of any other people on the face of the earth would have borne
without revolt the spectacle of a Cardinal leagued in politics with some
of the most infamous characters in Irish history — men as void of religion
as they were corrupt in politics. There is some compensation in the
thought that this vile faction was struck, as if by a thunderbolt, in the
very hour of its triumph. Its members, with one notable exception,
became fugitives from justice, and Keogh alone remained to bite the
hand that raised him, and pour out his venom on the Church and the
people he disgraced.

Since the Union it is the saddest page of Irish history. One single
consolation it has — it can never be repeated.

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

CARDINAL CULLEN AND CARDINAL McCABE.

SIR, — In an unhappy hour for his own reputation, for Ireland, and

the Church, Cardinal Cullen was drawn from his retirement in Rome to

do here a work which was in itself one of capital importance, namely, to

tighten the bonds of discipline, relaxed by centuries of warfare, and

24 CARDINAL GULDEN AND CARDINAL MUGABE.

repair breaches in the sacred walls made by many a desperate assault.
Admirably fitted for this work by great abilities and acquirements, by
strength of will and inflexible adherence to what he thought right, and
'by the true ecclesiastical spirit, he failed because he was profoundly
ignorant of the people he had to govern and the enemies with whom he
had to contend. With the latter he entered into alliance ; from the
former his separation became wider and more hopeless to the end. . All
of Irish that remained of him was his name. Had he stayed in Armagh
he might have acquired some knowledge of Irish affairs. In Dublin the
Cawtholic Whigs surrounded and possessed him and used his vast
influence for their own ends, to his destruction as a patriot bishop.
Clothed as Papal delegate, with enormous powers, he ruled supreme in
ecclesiastical affairs, with the effect of deepening differences into irre
concilable antagonisms, dividing still more definitely the Church into two
parties, and destroying her unity of action. Coming from a country honey
combed by secret societies of the anti-social and anti-Christian type he
brought with him such a dread of societies of any kind that he would not
permit the introduction into the archdiocese of the most useful and
admirable Young Men's Society, founded by Dean O'Brien, although its
primary rule is monthly confession, and the spiritual director of each
branch has a veto on all its proceedings. Accustomed, in fine, to the
Italian character, he did not know, nor trust, the loyalty and constancy
of his own countrymen to every person or cause rightly claiming their
allegiance. The English Government exhausted the resources of
•diplomacy in the Veto struggle. When it was over in external form it
•continued in secret, the diplomatists on the English side being the Castle
bishops and the Catholic aristocracy. It continued with varying success
till Cardinal Cullen removed to Dublin, when the English won "all along
the line." They would have given millions for its concession ; they got
it for nothing. It is at this moment eating into the vitals of the Irish
Church and reducing her to impotence. In many dioceses the patriot
priest is a mark for episcopal disfavour. One would imagine from the
action of some bishops that it was their intention to let the Irish people
work out their deliverance by aid of any guidance but that of the Church.
With one or two conspicuous exceptions, all the appointments made by
the Cardinal during his long reign were either anti-Irish or non-Irish. It
is possible that many of the venerable personages included in either
category may repel the classification as unjust. Unhappily the facts
are against them. In a struggle like the present, for very life,
neutrality is opposition. "A priest without politics is a Whig in
disguise." As if made to confirm the argument, the Maynooth meeting
and the resolutions of last week appear. These exhibit the bishops

CARDINAL CULLEN AND CARDINAL M'CABE. 25

signing them in the position of persons who proclaim that they ardently
desire certain things, while, though they have ample power, they do not
take one step to attain them. To people at a distance the resolutions
may look well. To people nearer home they seem only one other
intimation to the Government that in pursuing their policy they have
nothing to fear from the majority of the Hierarchy. They were made
under a Veto no less real because not expressed in any former treaty,
and they act according to their kind. Like the Bourbons, many bishops
seem to learn and forget nothing. For them the wonderful conquest of
the Irish party during the last three years are non-existent ; to them
the Monaghan election appeals in vain. They will go on resolving and
memorialling till the battle is won, and they Avill then look on an Irish
nation constituted without their aid, and in which their influence will
hardly be felt. Is it too much to hope that even now, at the last
moment, putting aside timid counsels, they will join frankly and
thoroughly with their people in completing in its best and highest sense
the victory already half gained ?

A French journalist, misinterpreting Mr. Parnell in one of his
visits to Paris, made him declare that the Archbishopric of Dublin was
in the nomination of the English Government. The meaning,
of course, was clear : that the Metropolitan See was always filled
by a West British — that is, anti-Irish — prelate. The fact, un
fortunate enough at all times, became disastrous when in filling it
Cardinal Cullen wielded, in addition to his own, the Papal authority.
Trusted implicitly in Rome, intimately acquainted with the whole
entourage of the Papal Court, himself one of the chief members of the
Sacred College, no cause could succeed which he did not favour — none,
however just, could prevail when he stood against it. To his repre
sentation of the Irish question the Errington Mission and the Circular
are due ; nor would the miserable race of English Catholic backbiters
gain a hearing in Rome did not the great Cardinal's views give a colour
to their slanders. Peace be to him ! In the midst of his disastrous
mistakes the Irish people gave to his splendid abilities the homage of
their respect ; nor with so much to forgive him will they forget the
noble appearance he made in the O'Keeffe trial, nor the calm dignity
with which he rebuked the "ascendency" spirit of Chief Justice
Whiteside.

For many a day the influence of Cardinal Cullen will be felt in the
Church in Ireland. We see its effect day after day in the enforced
absence from the popular ranks of the best of the priesthood, and the
growing power of the pro-Whig faction. From the bishops he appointed
it has gone to the second order of the clergy, and we can only look to
D

26 CARDINAL CULLEN AND CARDINAL M'CABE.

time and to the wisdom inspired by the Holy Spirit to eradicate it. For
the present we have to leave him, to examine the policy of his eminent
successor.

For this there is not the palliation of long residence abroad.
Living all his life in Ireland, Cardinal McCabe has bettered the
example of Cardinal Cullen in its most anti-Irish features. Under his
administration the See of Dublin has got further estranged from the
Irish cause, and the chain of Castle servitude more firmly bound on
priests and people. The Cardinal seems to have lost all idea of Irish
feeling, and to have got quite across with the current of public opinion.
The spirit now prevailing has had some astonishing manifestations. In
1875, Ireland celebrated the centenary of her greatest son. To the
public rejoicing religion added the dignity of her holiest services ; and
the Archbishop of Cashel spoke the panegyric of the Liberator, with
Cardinals Franchi and Cullen amongst his auditors. Seven years later,
Ireland celebrated the unveiling of his statue. Alas ! no religious
ceremonial added its ineffable charm to the public rejoicing. Daniel
O'Connell might have been a Turk, Jew, or Pagan for all the Church in
Ireland did on that day in honour of his remembrance. Again, in the
most creditable effort Ireland made to revive her crushed industries, the
Church in Dublin lent no aid ; and the reason given for its being with
held was at least as extraordinary as the withholding.

But these are trivial matters in comparison with what follow?.
Four years ago Ireland was threatened with one of her periodical
law-made famines. Government got full warning of the impending
calamity. As usual, inspectors were sent who saw what their masters
wanted them to see, and no more. The peril became imminent,
Davitt inaugurated the Land League, and Parnell crossed the Atlantic
in mid-winter to seek aid for the starving people of Mayo and Donegal.
What did Cardinal M'Cabe in the emergency? He assures us he felt
for the people ! I am not concerned to deny the sympathy, but was it
not like the faith from which no works follow ? What he did in the
course of the struggle with famine and evil laws was to issue two
pastorals condemning the action taken on the popular side. These, no
doubt, contained excellent Catholic doctrine, but had they had the
royal arms at the top, and been dated from Dublin Castle, they could
not have been in effect more truly Government proclamations.

Wherever, the world over, English influence penetrates, the man of
Irish name and faith is confronted by that " persecution of slander"
which has ever been one of England's most potent weapons. In one of
his journeys to Paris, Mr. Parnell met the leading French journalists,
and put before them the truth of the Irish question. Amongst others,

CARDINAL CULLEN AND CARDINAL M(CABE, 27

Rochefort came, and forthwith Mr. Parnell was accused of seeking to
ally the Irish cause with the Red Republic. Again the accusation was
repeated, although it had been shown that Rochefort came as the editor
of the Express might come with the editor of the Freeman to wait oil a
distinguished foreign statesman. How true it is that one' man may
steal the horse, while another may not look over the hedge, although he
may have no intention to steal. Were there no other alliances in which
the honour of Ireland was besmirched and Catholic interests sacrificed*
We shall see.

The late Pope, of happy and glorious memory, had in Europe three
deadly enemies — Count Cavour, Napoleon III., and Lord Palmerston.
Against Catholic principles and legitimacy everywhere, the chief aim of
this confederacy of brigand statesmen was the destruction of the
Temporal Power. For this end the aid of England wras necessary. Lord
Palmerston, who gave that aid, was kept in powrer by the votes of
Catholic Whig-Liberals. These again were mainly returned to Parlia
ment by the exertions of Cardinal Cullen and the Castle bishops. So
that we have here an open, undeniable direct connection between the
Iri*h Castle prelates, and the spoliation of the Pope ! Was ever such
conjunction seen or heard of since Christianity began ? Nor can it be
alleged that the Cardinal and the pro-Whig bishops were ignorant of the
facts. We learn the contrary from their own confession. When the
first attack was made on the Pope, there was a great commotion, and
much fine speaking and general make-believe. In Kerry, in particular,
a great meeting was held, at which the bishop (Dr. Moriarty), after
proving Lord Palmerston's complicity with the revolution, declared :
" If our members don't give up Lord Palmerston we shall have to give
them up." Alas for Dr. Moriarty's consistency ! The members did not
give up Lord Palmerston, and the bishop never carried his threat
beyond words. The Whig alliance continued and continues active and
operative. The interests of the Irish people and the Catholic Church
are still bartered for places for Whig lawyers. The Cardinal has never
retracted the charge of the Rochefort alliance, though twice explained
and denied. Can the alliance of the Castle Bishop be denied or
defended ?

This it is which has ruined Ireland in our day. This it is which
must be for once and for ever ended if the Church in Ireland is
to take her rightful place and do the work she only can do in the salva
tion of the people and the reconstitution of society. Much more has to
be said on this point. Much more also on the condition to which the
elimination of the national idea from Catholic affairs has reduced
religion in Dublin. For the present we must leave the east, and

28 TUB ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM.

hastening westwards, see to what a state of demoralisation the Catholic
Whig-Liberal confederacy is reducing Connaught.

I am, sir, yours,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM.

SIR, — The precedence due to his rank having been given to his
Eminence of Dublin, the great western archdiocese — long associated
with everything Catholic and patriotic in Irish affairs— now imperatively
claims attention : for there a conspiracy against Ireland is being woven ;
there an attempt is being made, the most audacious our day has seen,
to restrict, if not to destroy popular liberty.

In the famous letter to Lord Shrewsbury, by which O'Connell
relegated that nobleman to private life, he quotes a Jesuit proverb to
the effect that " there is no enemy so dangerous to religion as a very
pious fool." With a slight change in the terms, we may declare with
equal truth that there is no enemy more dangerous to Ireland than a
learned, able, astute, pro-Whig bishop. If he be. in addition active,
zealous and edifying in the discharge of his religious functions, all the
worse ; since he gains so much more weight, the better his character.

When dissecting a question of the hour, when the knife at every
stroke may wound susceptibilities entitled to respect, or touch elevated
persons, the utmost caution is required in the operator. He must be
perfectly sure of his ground, that while presuming to censure others,
no matter with what excellence of motive, he may not subject himself
to merited blame. To this end it is necessary to make anew certain
distinctions and provisions.

The Catholic Church, divine in her origin, perfect in her structure,
immutable in her principles, immaculate in her life, never stands in need
of reformation ; never can be reformed. She is unchangeable, because
she is perfect. On the other hand the human element through which
and by which she operates in the world has a constant tendency — because
it is human, and therefore imperfect — to run into excess, to suffer decay.
When reforms are mentioned in relation to the Church, they are not of
her essence, but of her accidents. These changes she herself alone can
make. They are wrought in His own good time by the Holy Spirit within
her. She can never be reformed from without. The laity, whether
sovereigns or peoples, cannot have the necessary knowledge, nor have they
the right, save in so far as she herself may require their assistance.
When, therefore, Catholics observe, as sometimes they must, anything

THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM. 29

abnormal in the internal condition of the Church, their place is to wait —
it may be in pain, certainly in patience — till the providential order is
manifested, and the necessary changes are effected from within. In this,
as in many other matters, God's providence is inscrutable, and not to be
probed or fathomed by the slender intelligence of man. With the
internal affairs of the archdiocese of Tuam, therefore, the public have no
right to interfere. The Ordinary may practise his priests in the virtue
of detachment, if he judge it good for their spiritual health ; he may
multiply in their regard the seven deadly sins to seventy, and make ipso
facto suspensions by the score ; he may create a class of " migratory
curates " (as his organ in the press lately called them), and circulate
them from the mountains to the islands — from the Twelve Pins to Clare
and Boffin and the Arrans. With all this the public has nothing to
do, and, if it take a humble advice, it will not concern itself.

Very different should be the conduct of the people when the secular
order is unjustly invaded, and the attempt made to strain the spiritual
authority to the destruction *of their lawful freedom. In secular things
they are the judges. The Circular of Propaganda itself declares it has
no intention of dominating in that order. The clergy of the archdiocese
of Tuam may be tongue-tied, and manacled, and fettered. The laity
may lament the loss of their guidance and co-operation — for the priest
is not less but more of a citizen because he is a priest. This they cannot
exclaim against nor help. But when in aid of an infamous Government
and a vicious oligarchy the spiritual power intervenes, to reduce them,
as well as its immediate subjects, to abject silence and ungrateful inaction,
then they are bound to stand forward, not less as Catholics than as
Irishmen, to defend their liberties and meet with stern opposition such a
perversion of authority. To leave abstractions, the Archbishop of Tuam
has not only imposed submission to the Circular on his clergy under the
severest penalties, but he has endeavoured to force it on his people.
During his recent visitations he has put it forward everywhere, declaring
to his people that they are bound to obey the Pope in spirituals and in
temporals. Now, on the face of it, this is being more Papal than the
Pope : that is, it is anti-Papal. Excess in teaching may be as harmful
as defect. The Pope, as we know, teaches the supremacy of the spiritual
and temporal orders each in its own sphere. But he by reason of his
spiritual supremacy is judge of the limits of both, and, as a necessary
consequence, is guardian of the freedom of the temporal order as well as
the spiritual. The assertion that he is supreme in both orders is, if it
be seriously maintained, more akin to the orthodoxy of Moscow than of
Rome. Is not this the ground of the charge of the Archbishop's friend
and ally, the author of "Vaticanism," that Catholics can hold no true

30 THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM.

allegiance to the Queen because of the prior claim of the Pope 1 Is this
not also making ground for the chief objections so often urged against
Emancipation ? The assertion of this supremacy in both orders for the
Pope will seem incredible to many, but it rests on evidence too strong to
admit of doubt.

It may be said that the Archbishop only "advised," or "was not
properly understood." There is no misunderstanding what follows : In
one place at least the Circular, " which only concerned the bishops, and
had no political bearing " — it was only meant to smother Parnell and all
he represents, and bury them out of sight — has not only been used
against the rights of the clergy as citizens, but forced on the people
with a violence nothing short of scandalous. In one of the principal
towns of the archdiocese, on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the incum
bent, a dignitary of the chapter, after Mass in place of the Gospel of the
day inveighed against the " busybodies," the " venal scribblers," who
attempted to seduce his people to subscribe to the Parnell Tribute.
They were by the canon's declaration taking the part of the adversaries
of the Church and of the enemy of man against God, &c., &c. The men
thus stigmatised are some of the best Irishmen and Catholics in Con-
Daught. One in particular is widely known. His character, as Christian
and citizen, it would not be easy to match. His voice, and pen, and
purse have ever been at the service of his country, and never has he in
much or in little sought praise or reward therefor. This too was in a
town distinguished for its Catholic spirit, whose people of all others are
prompt to respond to their pastor's call for every good and religious
purpose. Does he imagine his legitimate influence will be increased by
this exhibition of spiritual tyranny 1 Are they not justified in calling it
a grave abuse of his sacred trust — a desecration of God's altar for a
political purpose as vain as it is base 1 This must be taken as the work
of the Archbishop, for no priest within his jurisdiction would dare to take
action of the kind without his approval, expressed or implied.

Now what was in question to provoke this unlawful proceeding 1 No
public meeting, no agitation of any kind, nothing but a whisper, as it

were, among two or three of the principal people of B , that there

should be some steps taken to fall into line with the rest of the country.
The movement could have been, and in fact was, suppressed by a hint
from the presbytery. This however was not sufficient, and what is here
related followed. It is only one more example of many that, when an
Irish ecclesiastic goes over to the enemy, he loses moderation and judg
ment with all feeling of sacerdotal propriety.

What has this man Parnell done that his very name should enrage
the West Britons 1 He did what they did not do — stood between the

THE ARCIIBISHOP OF TUAM.

31

people and the workhouse, the emigrant ship and death by famine.
Aristocratic by birth and connections— English, or at least non-Irish, in
breeding, in mental constitution, in everything .in fact but his passionate,
absorbing, consuming patriotism— he left his class and order, all the
pleasures and ambitions of life, the certain success and distinction his
abilities would have won him, to give, like our first Liberator, " the
years of his buoyant youth and cheerful manhood " to the service of the
Irish people. And this is his reward from Catholic ecclesiastics !

Whatever of gratitude Ireland owes to him is quadrupled in Mayo ;
and under the " nervous pressure of corruption" Mayo makes no sign.
Barely four years ago he went to Westport and spoke the words which
broke the neck of landlordism before ever land law bound it— words
which will be emblazoned yet in Irish history as those which formulated
the emancipation of Irish industry :— "The famine is on you. Do not,
as you did before, pay rent in November to die of starvation in February.
Keep a grip of the homestead. Pay the people who have fed and clothed
you ; keep provision for the hungry mouths ; if any surplus remain,
give it to the landlord, for it is his." Noble words ! As catholic and
orthodox in the moral order, as they were wise and statesmanlike in
the political, they flashed through Mayo as lightning does; unlike
lightning, they remained. The serf heard them as a revelation, he stood
upright, and for the first time in his history confronted his tyrant. This
is Paruell's inexpiable sin, "the head and front of his offending."

Time was when Ireland, in doubt, or difficulty, or danger, turned to
the chair of St. Jarlath to hear the word of "light and leading"— the
trumpet sound, always certain. Ireland turns no longer to that venerable
seat. No more is the trumpet heard— happily perhaps, for the only
thing certain about it is that the sound, if it came, would be uncertain.
I do not presume to allege this as a wilful defect. It arises from the
unfortunate fact that the present occupant of that ancient see is
entirely innocent of the science of politics. His ideas thereon vary
with the day or the hour. They are for him matter of the purest
expediency. The only principle he holds in this order, if principle
it be, is that he should be always on the winning side. Of this it may
be remarked that if the Apostles held the same there would be no Chris
tianity in the world to-day. Unhappily for the present Archbishop,
he succeeds a prelate as pre-eminent as a statesman and patriot as
he was a Churchman. For anyone of average merit or capacity the
contrast is crushing. Still more unhappily, the present Administration—
I refer to it only as touching the public order— seems to have one
dominating idea, namely, the reversal of all that during nigh half a
century made Tuam illustrious. Dr. Mac Hale had first in view after

32 THE ARCHBISHOP OF TUAM.

his obligatory duties the preservation and development of the Irish,
national spirit, and all that constitutes Irishmen as a distinct family
among the nations. Dr. M 'Evilly seems bent on making his people
West Britons. On Good Friday the ancient tongue tells no longer to the
people, in such pathetic way as no other could, the tragic story of
Redemption. The Irish-English catechism is banished from the schools ;
the vicious principle of the National system is being intruded on the
convents, to the exclusion, it must be supposed, of holy symbol and
pious ejaculation. It is not an extravagant idea that the Christian
Brothers, being intensely Irish and Catholic, may find their position
untenable in the archdiocese, as they have found it elsewhere, and take
wing to a more genial atmosphere, leaving the popular schools void of
the history and religion of the people, to rear a new generation neither
Irish nor Catholic.

In other ways, which it would not be proper to mention here, the
ancient order is being reversed in the archdiocese. We may imagine
how, under Dr. Mac Hale's sway, the generosity of the West would be>
stimulated to pay some portion of the debt due to Mr. Parnell. We
may imagine how the West would press forward in its newly-found
liberty to emulate more favoured regions in doing its duty. Now, alas !
there is shame and disorganisation on one hand, on the other the apathy
and stagnation which result in corruption or in secret societies. If the
Archbishop deigns to cast his eye over these lines, and perchance be
struck with the possibility of their being a true representation of the
state of the archdiocese, if he want further confirmation, let him
assemble his clergy in their deaneries ; let him put them to the issue for
or against his present policy ; let the vote be by ballot, and I will stake
my life he will be astonished at the result.

In any event so astute a prelate cannot remain much longer in doubt
of the situation. He loves to be on the winning side. He is now
assuredly on the losing one. Let us state the position once more. If
the policy of Dr. Mac Hale was, as Ireland thinks it was, wise and
sagacious, magnanimous and disinterested, Irish and Catholic before all,
the policy of Dr. M 'Evilly, which is the contrary of all these, cannot be
other than destructive of the best interests of "faith and fatherland."

He will perchance yet awaken to the fact that archbishops, no more
than humbler people, cannot sit on two stools without the inevitable
catastrophe ensuing ; that it is not in the nature of things to be able to
run with the hare and hunt with the hounds; and that no Irish
ecclesiastic of high or low degree can exchange confidences and favours
with Dublin Castle and preserve the love and respect of his people.
All Ireland is coming in to join heart and hand in the common intent.

CARDINAL M'CABE AND THE PAPAL CIRCULAR. 33

To use again the language of the famous Circular, " it is not to be
tolerated " that a new Ulster be made of Connaught, when the old
is breaking down on all sides the barrier of prejudice and hate which so
long estranged it. The Archbishop may seem to succeed for the moment ;
he may depend on it, ultimate success in this disastrous way will mean
ruin equally for himself and Ireland,

I am, sir, yours,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

CARDINAL M'CABE AND THE PAPAL CIRCULAR.

SIR, — With what appears a strange infelicity, his Eminence Cardinal
M'Cabe, in replying to the address presented on Sunday, passes from its
subject to a defence of the Papal authority and the recent Circular. The
address was in itself a perfectly proper and laudable thing, in which his
spiritual subjects of all shades of opinion could join. The reply must
have given pain to very many present. With some portions of it \vo
may quite agree ; others are merely truisms known to- every Catholic,
and about which there can be no dispute. What is alone worthy of
remark is that the Cardinal claims, by implication rather than openly,
for the Circular of Propaganda the submission due to a Papal utterance,
ex cathedrd.

To his Eminence we willingly pay the homage due to his person and
office, second to one only in power and dignity ; to his teaching, in the
Catholic order, prompt and full acceptance. This is our duty to him.
On the other hand, we are entitled, by this very submission, to claim
that the teaching shall bear the stamp of infallibility, or be representative
of the soundest tradition of Catholic doctrine. We fail to find these
notes in some things for which his Eminence contends. Before the
Circular can be urged upon our acceptance it must be considerably
altered in form. It must show who are the persons — followers of Mr.
Parnell — and what the acts condemned. It must take the programme of
the Land League and that of the National League, and extract from
them the passages asserted to be contrary to Catholic doctrine and
Christian morals. In a word, on this all-important matter we require,
and we have a right to demand, clear, precise, scientific teaching. When
this is offered us we will know our position and our duty. Until then it
is perfectly vain to charge men with heresy to whom the barest thought
of that sin of sins is abhorrent.

Concluding a hurried letter, I may observe that the Cardinal does
not seem to be well served by his Chapter. Is there no member of it

34 GAL WAY AND ELPHIN.

\vith courage enough to tell him that there are thousands of Catholics
in Dublin, who, God aiding them, would die for the faith, who will not
enter a church when he presides or read a line that he writes 1 What
can the Castle give to make up for the danger to faith : this state of
things which must eventuate in loss of souls? He asserts a unanimity
amongst the clergy of Dublin which no more obtains than it exists in
the Church in Ireland ; and if his Eminence take the methods humbly
suggested to the Archbishop of Tuam, he will ascertain the fact with a
completeness which, I venture to say, will rival the western archdiocese.

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

GALWAY AND ELPHIN.

SIR, — So many "highways, paths, and byways" (to quote poor
Mangan's ringing line) open from the road we are travelling, that there
is some danger of the guide losing himself, or at least wearying his
followers by straying into their tempting though not flowery ways. At
some risk of the latter contingency, I must return to Gal way, as the
picture (at best necessarily an imperfect one) drawn in a previous letter
would otherwise be wanting in some of its strongest tints.

History is made rapidly nowadays. Events of the first magnitude
crowd quickly on each other. The wonder of to-day is forgotten to
morrow. But as the highest mountain, eclipsed by the nearness of its
lesser fellows, stands out as we recede in distance, so the cardinal facts
of human history, as time flows on, take their true place and become the
landmarks of succeeding ages. One of these facts I take to be the late
Ladies' Land League. Appearing at a crisis of greatest peril, it did its
intended work with wonderful success, and — this ended — as became its
constituents, disappeared as modestly and quietly as it rose.

The most thorough advocate of English rule must now confess that
the suppression of the Land League was an unlawful, as time has proved
it to be an impolitic, measure. We may not wonder at this, for Govern
ment cares as little for law or justice as a Castle bishop cares for the
canons when he has some personal end in view. In this connection how
often are we reminded of what this dignitary seems careful to forget —
the injunction of the Apostle, that "Bishops should not lord it over
Christ's heritage." But this by the way. Ministers had shortly before
declared in Parliament that the L.L. was a lawful organization. It had
not changed its programme or principles or methods in any way when it
was proclaimed. The conclusion therefore is inevitable — that the high-

GALWAY AND ELPHIX. 35

handed act was not due to any fault of the League, but to the intrigues
of the landlords and the brutal temper of the Chief Secretary.

It suited the latter to charge it with inciting to crime. He will
never be able to justify his arrest of Michael Davitt, when the latter
returned from America for the avowed purpose of preaching a crusade
against violence of all kinds.

The foundation of the Ladies' Land League on the suppression
of the other bears all the marks of a providential inspiration. The
movement was in a most critical state. If the land monopolists suc
ceeded in breaking down the popular spirit they might have prevented
even the present sham settlement operating. Like their sisters at the
Siege of Limerick, the women of the League rushed to the breach and
defended the walls when the men were struck down. For nigh two
years they bore the brunt of the struggle with virile strength and
womanly tact. Nothing more singular, more effectual, more beneficent
has been seen in our day than the work of those women. Wholly with
out training in business or public affairs, they administered an enormous
fund with wonderfully few mistakes. Penetrating everywhere, they
sustained the popular spirit ; really, though not nominally, carried on
the movement ; and in thousands of cases prevented or relieved the
ravages of landlordism.

One of the tests of the success of the L. L. L. was the virulence with
which it was assailed. All the organs and influences of landlordism did
their worst- in invective and denunciation. To aid his friends came his
Eminence of Dublin, who fulminated against the League in such fashion
as to compel the unexampled return of a public rebuke from a brother
prelate. Nor here should be omitted a note of gratitude to A. M.
Sullivan, who took the Irish Catholic side with a power entirely his
own.

Perhaps the very worst examples of Irish landlordism are to be found
in the county of Galway ; and the three which should be placed first in
bad pre-eminence have women for actors. With one of these the name
of Carraroe will be associated till the doomed institution with its
iniquities and consequent crimes will be forgotten in the prosperity of a
new Ireland.

To cope with the evils bred by the devilish system, a strong branch
of the L. L. L. was formed in Galway. It had not time to begin its
work when, following the example of Cardinal M'Cabe, Dr. M'Evilly
invjighed against it with such force as to scatter it beyond recall. I will
not ask you, sir, to record the epithets — more derogatory to his own
dignity and the holy place from which he spoke than injurious to them —
which he applied to women who were at least respectable, and who

36 GALWAY AND ELPH1N.

certainly meant well. Two only had the courage to stand against the
storm, and on these fell the local work of the League, besides the attend
ing to the wants of nigh one hundred suspects whom the genial
"Buckshot" had immured in Galway jail. The external work of the branch
was not heavy, for, so great was the terrorism exercised, that the clergy
with one or two noble exceptions declined to co-operate, nor would they
even answer inquiries as to cases of distress in their respective parishes.

Meanwhile the land war in Carraroe went on. To understand what
this meant Carraroe itself must be known, or rather seen. A sterile
waste of rock and sand, with spaces of bog between, if any farmer in
the world, besides a native, were offered 500 acres in fee, he would fly
from the fatal gift, for on it he would starve. On this barren territory
hundreds of persons were in the course of the struggle threatened with
death by famine or exposure. Literally to save life, Michael Davitt and
Ada Yeates went down : the former with money and experience, the
latter with skill and devotion. They not only succeeded in averting the
threatened horrors, but they laid the foundation of an industry which
promises to raise the people from perennial want to something like
comfort. This is not the place to write the history of Carraroe. When
it is written, Miss Yeates's name will be honoured as few can be ; for few
indeed there are whose self-sacrifice would be equal to living in a mud
hut, not for days or months, but years, to lift out of misery Connemara
peasants. And this, and much more, this gently-nurtured, highly-
educated lady has done.

The point of the example is this. For the wealthy owner claiming
a rent never earned from the land,* and using the utmost rigour of the

* For the benefit of those who do not know the western seaboard from Donegal
to Kerry it may be well to say that the rents exacted are rarely (if ever) for value in
land, but are made up by fishing, kelp-making, and any other industry open to the
people. They are in reality serfs, whose labour is taxed by their owners. One
notorious landlady in Galway exacts first the highest rent for the mountain and bog which
she lets her slaves ; she then taxes the sand of the shore (which is common property),.
the shellfish they gather, the sea-wrack they risk life to collect, and the turbary, which
was formerly free. She would tax also the light and air of heaven and the running
streams, if they were not beyond her. And to enforce these monstrous exactions the
Government granted her, free, the forces of the Crown, with police and Emergency
men ! And her tenants are not happy ! Stupid tenants ! ungrateful Irish ! Within
sight of Carraroe an extensive eviction took place at the same time as the attempted
evictions in that place. A large number, I think as many as eighty families, were put
out of their wretched homes. Their united possessions in food and furniture would
not, supposing them saleable at all, bring £5. Their condition was so utterly
wretched, so hopelessly destitute, that the officers of the marines, the sub-inspectors,
the men engaged, to the last of the constabulary, made a collection, which amounted
to £10, for the temporary relief of the starving people. This eviction, from the
remoteness of the locality (it can only be approached by sea) was not known to the
public, nor commented on in the press, and the perpetrator of the fearful tragedy
escaped the reprobation which he deserved. He has not, however, escaped the land
courts, which in many instances have cut down his rents sixty per cent.

GALWAY AND ELPHIN. 37

law to enforce it, Dr. M'Evilly had no word of public remonstrance or
censure, though she lives in his immediate neighbourhood and is subject
in every respect to his jurisdiction. For the people of Carraroe no
public manifestation of sympathy or call for aid. For those who
assisted them in the hour of sorest need nothing but hard words. The
wretched Carraroe peasant and his wife and children might go to the
poorhouse (as they did go to Oughterard), and get mocked for their
pains ; or they might take to the emigrant ship, which was not there ;
or they might starve quietly, as they did before ; or end suffering and
life together in Galway Bay — let what might happen to the miserables,

the serene tranquillity of Mrs. , of , must not be disturbed.

To put it in plainest language, what does this mean 1 It is not only the
abandonment of the flock by the shepherd to worse than lupine ravage,
but the assailing of those who took up and performed the lapsed duty
with the most undeserved and unjust reproaches.

So much for Tuam. If any person who may have read these letters
be still incredulous, enough remains behind to prove to demonstration
that the policy followed by the present Archbishop most efficiently
seconds the Government in its efforts to ruin the Irish nation.

Not without reluctance do I approach the last individual example
it is necessary at present to give of the " stone-blind " or Castle or
West-British policy ; for it is impossible to approach the Bishop of Elphin
without a feeling of personal respect. Dr. Gillooly is no common man.
On other lines he is capable of doing a work for Ireland only second to
that of Dr. McHale in the past and Dr. Croke in the present. Un
fortunately for himself and country he goes in every public matter
hopelessly wrong. Of great abilities and attainments, of austere virtues,
of uncommon energy of character and strength of will — in fine, with
most of the qualities, the aggregate of which justly entitles their
possessor to be called " great " — he could have taken a foremost part and
done invaluable work in building up the national autonomy on true and
enduring lines. As it is, he has frittered away on most worthless objects,
a character which would have ranked him with the foremost of Irish
Churchmen, and opportunities for good which will never return. It is
a thousand pities, for there is something sterling and honest in his
nature which does not allow him to appear other than he is. No claim
makes he to patriotism. He is with the aristocracy and the Government,
and he does not deny it. He moves amongst his priests and people with
as (apparently) profound an indifference to their feelings, opinions, and
interests, as if he were Emperor of China or Mikado of Japan. Conse
quently he has lost, and it must be confessed justly, all political influence
with both. He makes mistakes which the least acquaintance with his

38 GALWAY AND ELPHIN.

people would enable him to avoid, and brings his authority to naught
by commanding when they will not obey. For example, at the last
election of Roscommon he issued a circular to the clergy obliging them
to recommend the O'Conor Don to the electors. It was said at the time
that one of the most efficient causes of the Don's rejection was this
circular. At the last Sligo election the bishop's selections were D. M.
O'Conor and Colonel King-Harman. The former has passed from the-
judgment of men. With a sincere prayer for his soul's repose I will
say only of him what duty requires. He was a man who utterly belied
all the expectations formed of him — and they were high. He was capable
of much ; he did nothing : and he failed because he was a West-British
Whig. If a wooden image had been placed on the bench of the
House of Commons and labelled " Sligo," it would have done as good
service as Denis M. O'Conor during the present Parliament, It-
has been said he was long ill. Why did he not resign and permit
another to do the duty he could not fulfil 1 The Don of course
wanted his vote to force his own claims on the Ministry. As to the
colonel, the bishop's other candidate, it is enough to say that, if you
reproduced his portrait as painted by himself during the recent contest
in Dublin, you would run a good chance of being indicted for libel.
These are the men for whom the Bishop of Elphin turned his back on
Thomas Sexton.

One more example of the bishop's "loss of touch" of his people.
When the Land Act was passed through, he contributed nothing towards
its passing, but rather the reverse ; he came out with a scheme for its
working through parish committees. A circular was road embodying
the proposal, and the priests were directed to hold meetings and begin
the organisation. Not one single committee was formed. One priest
put it before his people in this fashion : " Here is a circular the bishop
commands me to read. I do so under obedience. You can act as you
like regarding it." And the people did so, and let it alone. The fact is
there is not a bogtrotter in Sligo or Roscommon will cross the road
(political) at his bishop's bidding.

There is a peculiar suitability in recalling the position just now.
The bishop confidently predicted the triumph of the Don in Wexford. If
the latter is not taught by defeat, he will predict with equal confidence
his victory in Sligo, with a still more disastrous result. Castle bishops
never learn ; nor do I think there is on record a single instance of their
conversion to Irish ideas.

There is something exceedingly fortunate in the Wexford election.
The Don went down in piebald fashion — not black and white, but blue and
orange. In this contest he got so plucked and bedraggled that hi*

NEGLECTED DUTIES. 39

cousin, the jackdaw of Rheims, would not acknowledge him. It is
impossible that a constituency which is favoured with Sexton's priceless
services will tolerate the address of "the last of the Whigs," sent back
from Wexforcl in such scarecrow fashion.

With this I leave, sir, the ungracious though necessary task or
declaiming against the hostility of those who should be neutral, if not
with us ; and, returning to the general question, will endeavour to point
out the causes which have led to the present situation, with such hints
as these may suggest for its amelioration.

Yours truly,
AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

NEGLECTED DUTIES.

SIR, — If my humble voice could reach every man within our bounds
capable of thinking and acting as an Irishman and a Catholic, the
question I would put to him is this : " How long shall the Castle bishop
be permitted to traverse every public movement, and aid our adversaries
in preventing the fruition of the nation's hopes ? " The enemy before
us we can guard against and overcome ; the mistaken or false friend in
our camp makes our chief danger. This is a question not to be lightly
considered or carelessly answered. Leaving my readers to ponder it
well, satisfied that a proper solution will be found in good time, I will
now proceed to substantiate the three counts of the indictment stated
in a former letter.

These were : That the West-British bishop failed in his duty as a
guardian of Catholic education, as a patriot, and as a Catholic publicist.
Taking the last count first, we must revert to the real starting-point of
the present situation.

It has been said before, it cannot be too often insisted on, that the
work before the Church in Ireland, when the Act of Emancipation struck
the fetters from her limbs, was second only to that presented to the
infant Church on its emergence from the Catacombs. Leaving for the
moment the remoter object of the restoration of the empire to the unity of
Christendom — now alas ! little more than the " shadow of a great name "-
she had here to reform and refound society on a just and Christian basis ;
she had to bring the law of the land in the particulars most essential to
the well-being of society into conformity with the law of God. For
Ireland, then as now intensely Catholic as regards the faith of the
masses of the people, is Protestant, Pagan, anti-Christian, or anything

40 NEGLECTED DUTIES.

you like but Catholic, as regards the constitution of society, and the set
-and current of public opinion. At this day, two generations after
Emancipation, there is hardly any Catholic public opinion properly so
called. There is no Catholic society — that is, there is in the centres of
population no number of people of various classes drawn together by
Catholic principles for Catholic objects, which I take to be the body and
essence of Catholic social life. There is, indeed, something in the larger
cities which is called " Catholic" society, but it is dominated by a
vulgar, snobbish, non-Catholic spirit. It is full of worldliness and
ostentation. It is wholly wanting in the simplicity, good sense, and
charity, of really Catholic society. It is essentially anti-Irish, or, at
least, West-British, and in Dublin has the "Castle" for the chief object
of its devotion. Those who know anything of our principal cities will
grant the truth of this description. The barest acquaintance with what
are called the "better classes" elsewhere — the country gentry and
professional people — discloses a still lower state. Their nearly
total want of literary culture, the poverty and tenuity of
their intellectual life, their want of robust Catholic spirit,
make any union for Irish or Catholic objects impossible. The
conversation of the men is confined to the price of cattle, the betting
on the next race, or some grand jury or poor law jobbery ; their reading
does not extend beyond the daily paper. The women talk of the fashions
or the latest scandal, and read " Ouida's" novels. Of such is better class
Catholic society in Catholic Ireland. But this is digressing. The first
duty of the Catholic hierarchy, when its action was free, was to enforce
on the Government the primal law of any society which aims at progress,
namely, the protection of industry from unjust spoliation. That "the
labourer is worthy of his hire," that "the husbandman shall first partake
of the fruits," are conclusions of reason as well as first principles of justice.
For if the labourer be not paid his hire he cannot labour long ; if the
husbandman do not eat he cannot live. So far, the Irish landlord yielded
to necessity; he permitted his serfs to retain as much as kept them
living, and enabled them to work for him ; beyond that, not, if he could
help it, a shilling nor a meal. We talk of periodical famines, and the
great famine ; in vast tracts of Ireland, famine is perennial. To end this
infamy — this sin of the governing class calling to heaven for vengeance —
was clearly the most urgent work before the bishops. For if their first
duty was to teach their people the way to heaven, their second was to
prevent their being sent on the way before their time. If the bishop
have no flock to teach he may be bishop no longer. St. Paul himself
could found no Christian State on a horde of half-starved serfs. The Irish
landlord, having the legislative and executive powers in his hands, framed

NEGLECTED DUTIES. 41

a code of laws, which made rack-renting and evicting the normal condi
tions of Irish agricultural industry. His ally, the English Government,
had previously stamped out nearly every other ; so that the people,
nominally emancipated, were practically condemned to an industrial
serfdom which made progress and contentment impossible. So
scandalously unjust, so utterly indefensible, was the Irish land system,
that, although it was regarded as the outwork of the land monopoly of
Great Britain, and had the force of the empire at its back, it went down,
at the stern challenge of the " ex-convict " (as his enemies delight to call
the founder of the League), with hardly a show of resistance.

Were it not for the Castle bishop, the Irish Church would have done
fifty years ago, what the League did but yesterday, and we would have
now a flourishing, highly organised society of ten or twelve millions,,
instead of a disorganised and perishing one of half the number. He saw,
or might have seen, the rackrenting and evicting. He saw his people, and
he sees them yet, condemned to conditions of food and clothing and
lodging, unfit for the beasts that perish ; he saw the law-made famines
and exterminations, and he not only did nothing himself, but he opposed
the action of those who would have done everything, for the good provi
dence of God has provided that in the Irish Church there should be at
every period bishops as conspicuous for their patriotism as for the highest
episcopal virtues. Let us, however, be just to this thrice-unhappy
personage, the Castle bishop. He is the outcome and evidence of an
evil time. He was probably born a serf, or is certainly the son of one ;
and the servile strain is not eliminated in one generation. Then mark
the temptation to which he was subjected. One day the despised head
of a persecuted sect ; the next the chief of an emancipated people — a
peer among peers, with vastly greater influence than any peer of them
all. No wonder some bishops lost their heads ; no wonder they abused
powers to which they were wholly unused ; no wonder they forgot that
Ireland was a missionary country, in which the Christian order had to be
created from the foundation, and entered at once into the state and mode
of life proper to prelates of countries where it had existed for centuries.
Nor did they always escape the taint of the uon-Catholic, anti-Irish
feeling, common to the aristocratic society of which they were made free.
The late Dr. Moriarty was one of the most accomplished prelates who
ever adorned the Irish Church ; from him everything of good might have
been anticipated ; but when he entered the salons of Kenmare House he
was lost to Ireland and the Church ; and did and said things which, io
charity to his memory, we may not recall. In another way it is remem
bered with bitterness in Tipperary how, during the reign of Dr. Leahy,
the elections for the county were made at the Palace in Thurles in total
E

42 NEGLECTED DUTIES.

indifference to the rights of the electors. Usurping popular power, he
made himself sole elector. Happily we may refer to this as a thing of
the past, for the great spiritual chief of Munster to-day is not only of
one mind and heart with his people, but is scrupulously regardful of
their rights.

" But," the Castle bishop may object, " it is not my business to
interfere in secular matters ; I could not inaugurate a movement to effect
a change in the laws." With great respect, the duty of the bishop as
regards the good of his charge in the temporal as well as the spiritual
order is only bounded by his power. Besides, the right of the people to
live by their industry is not merely a secular matter : it is essentially a
moral one, coming quite within episcopal duty and power to secure.
Then as to enforcing reform, the means were entirely in his own hand.
I have pointed them out before. It was simply making the unwritten
and manifestly just law of the League operative through every parish
of his diocese — namely, that no one should take a farm evicted for non
payment of an unjust rent, and that no one should speak to or have any
transaction with anyone who did. A Tenants' Defence Association in every
parish, with the parochus for president or secretary, enforcing these simple
laws, would have made an end of landlordism long before it had time
to reduce Ireland to its present state of impoverishment and degradation.

It is only when we take the highest view of the great office to which
he is called that we see how utterly the Castle bishop has failed
in his duty as publicist — that is, as one who connects Catholic principles
with the external order. Once more let it be declared that the Catholic
Church is no sect among the sects, no school of philosophy, but
a power, a kingdom, with a sovereignty of its own, no less real and true
because unseen. It is the practical providence of God to men, for when
its action is free, and its human elements worthy, its effect is to establish
a condition of society in which the ordinary evils and miseries which
afflict mankind are unknown. Though the immediate mission of the
Church is to the souls of men, it embraces mediately their temporal
interests. It is at once general and particular, spiritual and material.
Its effect is to show forth in society the Divine sentence, " Seek ye first
the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all things shall be added to
you." In raising the individual to the primal integrity and perfection
of his nature, it restores society to that happy condition which we know
to be possible, but which is so rare in the world's history. Under the
Jewish theocracy we read of the people dwelling in peace, " each man
under his own vine and fig-tree, no one daring to make him afraid." For
three centuries Ireland presented a still more beautiful picture, in as far
as the Christian order surpassed the Jewish. The legend embodied by

NEGLECTED DUTIES. 43

the poet in graceful song,* if not historically exact, is evidence of a
condition of society in the highest degree honourable to the Ireland of
that time ; while the reception and support of thousands of students in
quest of the learning which had found its chief refuge here, proves that
abundance dwelt with peace and virtue in our isle. Under Alfred
England likewise showed the power of Catholic principles in creating
a society approaching perfection. So likewise under St. Louis in France*,
and Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; while it was reserved for the
great Society of Jesus in the missions of Paraguay to exhibit the
highest state which human society is capable of attaining. There the
law of charity reigned supreme, there the sacred tribunal of penance
was the only one known ; and human law with its rude methods and
practical injustices was wholly superseded by the divine.

It is the highest praise which can be given our people to declare
that never before was fairer field offered for the exhibition of the power
and beneficence of Catholic principles. The faith through centuries of
persecution had become, as it were, ingrained in the national life. The
organisation of the Church remained almost complete ; she had only to
frame the necessary laws for the establishment of justice in the public
order, and the whole framework of injustice melted away before it, as,

" When torches that have burned all night
At some impure and Godless rite
Encounter morning's glorious rays."

The late Land League is evidence. It was improvised in a chance,
haphazard way ; its methods were untried, and some of its instru
ments unworthy. Yet, as Forster bitterly confessed, its unwritten
law superseded the law of the land. It did so because it was
the reflection of eternal justice, and had a true and loyal people for its
subjects. In truth and fact it cannot be too often repeated there is no
height of devotion and self-sacrifice to which this people cannot be raised
for Irish and Catholic objects if the leading be honest and capable. In
spite of much to try it their faith is still a living and zealous faith.
Missionaries of widest experience are filled with admiration of it. I
have been many times told by these masters of the spiritual life that
they have frequently found the people more willing to follow than their
chiefs to lead. If anyone wants evidence of this, let him go to the
nearest country church and see in the rapt, profound devotion of the
people, their utter absence of human respect, and freedom from any
thought but of the one tremendous action passing — a sight more
edifying than the most eloquent discourse — a proof of their undying,
invincible attachment to the principles by which nations as well as

* " Rich and rare were the gems she wore."

44 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS A PATRIOT.

individuals live. The Irish people are willing and eager to be led on
Irish and Catholic lines. The Castle bishop cannot retire under the
question asked of old, "Am I my people's keeper?" He had the
power and the right, he had the material to work with, he had the
duty upon him. The first he did not use, the second he permitted to
be wasted and abused, the last he wholly neglected.

It is not yet too late, while the advance of political intelligence and
the growth of a certain independence of spirit make delays dangerous.
The Irish people will gladly be led by their spiritual chiefs, but the
leading must be on the old lines, and for public objects. Once more :
they will not be led through the mire of Whiggery, nor into the shadow
of Dublin Castle.

I am, sir, yours, &c.,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS A PATRIOT.

SIR, — When this series of letters was projected I expected in
return, not argument — for in answer to the statement of the Irish
position nothing is thinkable which could be justified by that name —
but a good deal of obloquy. Writing anonymously and with one single
aim, this would not have touched me ; but I am nevertheless obliged
to your correspondent, "An Irish Catholic Clergyman," for experience
of a pleasanter kind. The answer to his courteous letter comes within
the scope of the present, and I beg leave to assure him that he curiously
mistakes my relations with bishops. It has been my happiness during
a third of a century to have known many, to be intimate with several,
and to be honoured with the friendship of more than one. Never once
have I approached one of the rulers of God's Church without experiencing
courtesy and kindness beyond deserving, nor asked favour which was
refused. As to the graver charge of lessening the popular respect for
ecclesiastics, my design is to increase it by stigmatising a course of
action on the part of some which can have only that unhappy result.

One of the most beautiful traits in the Irish character is its profound
instinctive reverence for the priestly office. It is ingrained in the
national life, the outcome of a vivid faith, and rooted in true and deep
theology. The Great Briton jeers and mocks at this feeling. He loves
to scoff' at " Paddy and his priest." It could not be otherwise. The
Saxon lout with his grossness of temperament and swinish habit is
incapable of understanding the mingled respect and affection which bind
in one the Irish Church and people. This is no outcome of slavish fear
or abject superstition, but of life-long benefits on one side, and loyal

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS A PATRIOT. 45

support and obedience springing from an intimate sense of the value and
dignity of the priestly office on the other. The Irish peasant sees in the
priest his sole friend, his defence against injustice, his protector against
the multiplied oppressions to which he was subject. More, he sees in
him the representative of Jesus Christ, " whose mouth opens in benedic
tion," whose hand is extended to raise and to save. Instead of lessening,
I would make this feeling dominant in Irish affairs. I would restore to
the Church her mediaeval power, but I would have it used for the
purpose for which it was conferred. I would make her in the most
potent manner the shield of the oppressed, the father of the poor. I
would have her withstand the tyrant, and smite him with the anathema
•which has never lost its force. I would have her stand for justice and
right against fraud and falsehood and wrong, no matter whether
practised by nobles or governments. I would that the Pope were, as of
old, chief of a Christian world, arbiter between sovereigns, and that
bishop and parochus, each in his own place, were, as he often is and
always might be, for his people the practical Providence of God.

When the first principles of the Christian order have become so
obscured that bishops and revolutionists join in crying, " No priests in
politics," it may be useful to state them here, though it looks like
copying a page of the catechism.

When in the fulness of t:me the Creator willed the salvation of His
creatures and the restoration of human society to its primal perfection,
He took to Himself our human nature, and declared that His delight
was to be with the children of men. It was necessary that this
stupendous fact, this ineffable desire, should have a home and an
expression adequate and worthy ; and the result was the creation of the
Catholic Church. Its ultimate meaning is the dwelling of God amongst
men — His being perpetually exposed for their adoration, and His com
munication to them in the form He has assumed.

Sole perfection in a world of imperfection — sole unimpaired structure
in a wilderness of ruins — shrine of her Creator, destined to co-operate
with Him in a work greater than creation itself— it was fitting that she
should be endowed with all the immunities, privileges, and powers
necessary to the fulfilment of her mission. Well may she declare, to
apply in another sense the words of one of her noblest sons —

" To raise me was the task of Power Divine,
Supremest Wisdom, and Primeval Love,"

for in this grandest manifestation of the omnipotence of God the power
of the Father, the wisdom of the Sou, and the charity of he Holy
Spirit are displayed in their highest perfection. To her has been con
fided the guardianship of the Incarnate Word, with the fortunes and the

46 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS A PATRIOT.

happiness of men ; and with these sublime trusts were given correspond
ing powers. "All power," says our Lord, "is given to Me" — that is,
as man, since as God He was always Omnipotent. " As my Father sent
Me, so I send you." That is, all the power He received as Saviour He
delegated to His Church. It could not be otherwise, since it would be
contrary to the wisdom of God to impose duties without enabling their
fulfilment, Granting therefore that the mission of the Church extends
to the creation and development of the Christian order in society, I
claim for its chiefs the powers and rights recessary for its fullest
performance, and for the Pope the definition of the point when they
begin and end ; I claim them by reason of the mission she has received,
by the principles she embodies, and by the work she has done and still
does. If any further definitions be asked for, I claim for the Church the
duty and right of doing all the good in her power. In this direction her
action has the possible for its boundary.

What we call Christendom was purely the work of the Church —
the outcome of her teaching and the fruit of her labour. Not only has
she over this the natural rights of creator and the delegated authority
of God, but to a certain extent the very rights of God Himself living
and reigning within her. These rights and powers are not the less but
the more real that they mostly spring from and operate in the super
natural order, have conscience for their domain, and act in ways different
from the secular power. When the Church and the secular power are in
harmony society is happy and progressive. When they are in antagonism —
that is, when the temporal order oppresses or degrades the spiritual — •
then public order is broken, and society inevitably declines.

This digression, however tedious, is necessary to show the position
held of right by the Catholic bishop. He is set for the raising of human
society to the Christian ideal. His noble task is to make truth and
justice prevail in human affairs. His office is in the highest degree
fiduciary, and the trusts are the chief interests not only of men but of
God. He does not exist for himself. The purple he wears is not only
the emblem of his dignity but the memento of the sacrifice — of
his life if necessary — to which he is bound. Writing of Catholics
to Catholics there is in this nothing of my own but the state
ment, as short as I could make it, of what I have received
as the Church's teaching, or understand as the outcome of her
principles. Now, my objection to the Castle bishop* is this, that he

* My kindly critic takes exception to the phrase " Castle " bishop. I beg leave to
remind him that the epithet does not make but only denotes the fact. If it be that
the title is felt to be a discredit and a reproach, why does the bishop go to the Castle ?
I sometimes wonder if he knows how this is regarded by his people. They may con
tinue to respect his person and reverence his office ; they all the more regard his

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS A PATRIOT. 47

seems to forget or put aside all such considerations. His beneficent
powers are not only unused for their proper ends, but perverted, as far
as may be without wholly abandoning his position, to the service of the
enemy. The danger and the evil of this is not in the frank declaration
of it, but in the doing. Better far say out what is in people's minds
than let such feelings rankle and fester till they make a schism, as often
they have made in other times and places. Let not the " Irish Catholic
Clergyman " be afraid. My ardent desire is to make Catholic principles
dominate in Irish affairs, and, going by far higher sanction than my own
poor judgment, I am doing what one humble man — not, as you know,
" experienced or able," but rather the contrary — may do to hasten that
consummation.

I proceed, then, to show that lamentable as has been the defect of
the Catholic bishop as a Catholic publicist, his failure as a patriot has
been still more conspicuous and complete. However strictly the bishop
may be bound in other times and places to take the side of justice and
right, his obligation in Ireland was intensified beyond comparison. Of
old, when warring Europe went to fight, wherever the quarrel began, it
was sure to be ended in Flanders. So in the ceaseless struggle of
principles which goes on in the world Ireland seems to be the chosen
battle-ground for those most strongly opposed. Here are antagonised in
a way seen nowhere else the strife of truth and falsehood, justice and
injustice, right and wrong, good and evil. The two sides are divided
with a clearness seen nowhere else ; and the parties to the struggle are
each worthy of their cause.

On one side is the Irish nation ; on the other that malific power
which for seven centuries has compassed its ruin. Nothing can be
more clear, definite, and emphatic than the position of the parties
in this contest of eight centuries. So many interests go to obscure
the facts underlying the whole position that it is necessary to restate
it constantly. One of the most strongly marked of the families of
peoples into which Providence has cast mankind exists on Irish
soil, and has existed from time immemorial. They have a right to
live their own life within their own borders. This right has been
always denied them ; and not only have they not been governed for

policy with indignation and abhorrence. Here is a description of his class which I
would not venture to make, but which is of far higher, even episcopal, authority :
"An English Whig is bad, an Irish Whig is worse, an Irish Catholic Whig is worst of

all ; but an Irish ecclesiastical Catholic Whig is itself." Let the reader fill the

blank for himself — he can't err on the side of strength — and the quotation will be
complete. The " I. C. C." reproaches me with not writing on secret societies, the
payment of trade debts, &c. It is no just objection to a man who sets before himself
a definite task of clear and urgent necessity that he does not undertake to do several
other things quite beside his purpose.

48 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS A PATRIOT.

their own benefit, but their rulers have been engaged in one ceaseless
conspiracy for their corruption or extermination. The whole catalogue
of crime has been exhausted by the English Government in Ireland ; and
its guilt is intensified by the hypocritical pretences with which it is
carried on. Beginning in fraud and hypocrisy ; concealed for long by
enormous and systematic lying, the facts are now being laid bare to the
world. The population reduced to one half, and that half, in temper at
least, always within "measurable distance of rebellion;" the rich plains
covered with cattle, and bleak mountain sides dotted with huts not fit
for savages ; the poverty constantly increasing with the decrease of the
population; on all sides the roofless cottage, the ruined villa, the deserted
mansion ; and with these every feature of neglect, dilapidation, and
decay. This is the outcome of foreign government, and this is what the
Castle bishop calls on us to endure. Then there is Lord Derby's
famous declaration that " it would pay us to spend millions in emigrating
this people." Let us hope he will be "emigrated" before his plan is
reduced to practice. Again, there is Mr. Trevelyan's "pinch of hunger"
policy, which was to force the sufferers to vacate the cottage they could
re-enter never more. These and ten thousand other facts prove to
demonstration that the English Government never acquired an equitable
right to govern us, for it never sought our good. They prove too that
this Government in administration or executive never touches us save
in an adverse or hostile manner. The English Government never
intended that a prosperous, powerful, Irish Catholic people should
flourish on Irish soil, and they are as far from intending it now as one
or three or seven centuries ago.

They would not if they could, and they could not if they would,
govern us justly. There are three invincible obstacles to their right
government of this country : first, natural prejudice, massed and intensi
fied by generations of slanderers ; secondly, trade jealousy, which has
led England to the commission of some of its greatest crimes ; and,
thirdly, sectarian malice, the spirit of the world, and diabolism energising
in these. Dublin Castle, their representative here, is a ring of
Orangeism and Freemasonry, which is Antichrist in the concrete; and it
can no more act justly or fairly or honestly by us than the Enemy of
man can desire our spiritual good.

With this Godless tyranny — the incarnation of everything infamous
in government — the Castle bishop has allied himself. He has done what
Pius the Ninth emphatically and indignantly declined to do — "come to
terms with modern civilisation." He has done this in open violation of
his duty as a patriot, for to the episcopal office belongs' specially this noblest
of natural virtues. The quality of paternity is the highest the Creator

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 49

can share with the creature ; and the bishop is father above all. Especially
is he the guardian and protector of the poor, the weak, and the suffering;
and wherever their interests or claims call him he is bound to go. In a
time of imminent peril the Castle bishop has not stirred hand or foot, voice
or pen, in aiding the struggles of millions of his countrymen for bare life.
Nay, he has gone with their enemies, and justified and praised the most
vicious Government this century has seen. With exceeding appropriate
ness of time and place, Dr. McCormack, of Anchonry, on Sunday last, in
Galway, drew, with masterly hand, the portrait of the patriot bishop.
Well he might, for he was unconsciously painting his own. He hackonly
to look — if such a thought was possible to him — on his own character
and career, his intense patriotism and constant readiness to sacrifice
himself for his people, to find there what he was putting in words before
the newly-consecrated prelate. Well may we hope that this new father
of the Church, great as he is in every sense, will surpass in word and
work the admirable model placed before him.

Much more might be added, if need was, to show that the West-
British bishop utterly fails in his duty in the public order. The
enormous powers — and they can hardly be exaggerated — inherent in his
great office, are either unused, or used against his people, to the detri
ment of religion and the imminent danger of the faith. He had the
opportunity of founding in Ireland a Christian democracy which would
be a wonder and a model to the world. He preferred to lend his powers
to sustain an effete aristocracy perishing through its utter worthlessness,
and the most infamous Government the civilised world has known. For
the' present we will leave this view of his lapses to consider what has
been his conduct in the all-important matter of education.

I am, sir, yours, etc.,

Ax IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

SIR, — Conspicuous and disastrous as has been the failure of the
Castle bishop as publicist and patriot, it does not compare in nature or
magnitude with his lapse as guardian and representative of Catholic
education. To repeat, this man of temporise and compromise, wanting
in courage, consistency, and principle, intervened in the Irish movement,
after Emancipation, to barter away the better half of its fruits. Entering
on a field of victory which he rather retarded than helped to gain, he
deprived it, by his unpardonable weakness, of its chief result. Grateful

50 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

for toleration — most odious of words when applied to Irish affairs —
oblivious of or indifferent to the nature of the matter in question, he
hastened to make the most favourable terms for his friends of the Pale,
and condemned Ireland to another half century of martyrdom.

In this, as we shall see further on, he touched, if he did not
pass, the very verge of heresy — at least, he whittled away Catholic
principles on this momentous question until they became obscured or
perverted. It is owing to him that the Irish people is not now showing
the world the incomparable results of Catholic education. It is his fault
that the moment they have secured the right to live on their own soil
without being subject to being robbed or imprisoned, starved or
"emigrated," at the caprice of their masters, they will have still before
them the weighty task of reconstructing their whole educational system?-
from National school to Royal University, and waiting for a generation
for the results. It is wholly due to the confusion of thought, even
amongst Catholics, his defection has caused, that it has become necessary
to recite the very alphabet of a science which should be patent to everyone
who can claim the Catholic name, and be in operation here for more than.
half a century.

The Catholic Church, in reconstructing human society in the
Christian order, founds it on the family, the priest, and the school^
Each of these is necessary to the other ; without the active co-operation
of the three, Christian society cannot progress, nor, indeed, continue to
exist. The first, on which so much might be said, we must dismiss with
the remark, that our Lord, in dealing with it, only restored it to its
original unity, while, by sanctifying it, and comparing it with His own
mystic union with His Church, He made it worthy to be the corner-stone
of Christian civilisation.

The priest ! How shall we who know him speak of him as we feel
without appearing to exaggerate ? The Saviour of our nation, our pride,
our hope, the teacher of doctrine, the example of morals, the standard
of conduct, the salt of society — wanting His devotion and self-sacrifice
the Irish people would long ere this have perished off the face of the earth
sunk into the condition of a horde of savages more degraded than Kaffir
or Zulu. To those who accept his mission, his very presence is a sermon.
He diffuses around him an aroma of holiness ; like his Master, he blesses
as he passes by. Among ourselves we sometimes give him the " hard'
word," but it is because our ideal of his character is so high that nothing
less than the angelic could reach it. Anyone in the world living the
ordinary life of a priest would be considered a saint. With the exception
of a few (becoming fewer every day) ancient pro-Whigs — born serfs, and
reared in an atmosphere of slavery — the Irish priest is now more than

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 51

ever zealous, self-sacrificing, patriotic, ready to lead his people to victory.
He holds them in the hollow of his hand, and is able to acquire for them
every concession of justice and right — if he were allowed.

There remains the school. Here I should pause, and, with well-
founded distrust, desire that some more suitable and more competent
hand should deal with this question of questions, this subject of vital
and pressing interest. At this moment, the world over, the conflict of
civilisation with barbarism, of Christianity with paganism, of virtue and
vice, good and evil, rages round the school. Both sides (everyone,
apparently, but the Castle bishop) recognise the fact, that to him who
dominates in the school the future of the world belongs ; that as this is
Christian or pagan, so will society necessarily be.

Now, the Catholic Church asserts — has always asserted— her right
to dominate in the school. After the necessary dogmas of religion there
is no part of her teaching more clear and peremptory than this. Unlike
the mysteries of the faith, the reasons of her claim are cognisable by
human reason ; and this proclaims them indefeasible. It is true that
her divine right to " teach all nations " has reference to spiritual truth
only ; but this embraces of necessity the right to exclude from the Catholic
school everything different from or contrary to the faith of which she is
the depository, guardian, and expounder. Every baptised Christian is
in her charge. For every soul on which the Christian character has been
impressed she has to answer before God ; and never can she, without
direst necessity, permit an influence other than, or hostile to, her own to
warp or colour the young souls given to her charge.

How, then, it may be asked, do we see everywhere non-Catholic
influences allowed to enter the Catholic school, and Catholic ecclesiastics
engaged in making transactions of this kind? The answer is — it is one
thing to lay down Catholic principles, another to reduce them to practice.
The Church is bound by her duty as teacher to declare the truth fully,
clearly, inexorably. On the other hand, in dealing with the secular
power she is constantly engaged in making terms — giving away some
portion of her right — either because she cannot help it, some Bismarck of
the day compelling her by brute force ; or to gain some advantage she
thinks worthy of the sacrifice.

We distinguish in the Church, and especially in the Pope, two
duties, two powers. One, to teach the Catholic faith in the clearest
and fullest manner ; the other, to administer Catholic affairs. As teacher,
the Pope acts dogmatically and inflexibly ; as administrator, he acts
diplomatically, conditioning that the compromise never extends to any
first principle of the faith, nor to any violation of the moral law. For
example, the Pope elected to allow England to fall into schism rather

52 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR,

than permit Henry to repudiate his lawful wife. It is well known that
Pius the Ninth incurred the active hatred of the Jews, and preferred to
brave the calamities thus brought on him rather than surrender the
child Mortara, although only baptised clandestinely, to be taught to
blaspheme his Saviour. To preserve the natural right of the Jewish
parent, the Popes made a law forbidding Jews to employ Christian
servants. When the Mortara family violated this law, and the Christian
servant baptised the child, the Pope was bound to enforce the higher
right of our Lord to that soul, although his throne was endangered by it.
These examples show sufficiently the inflexibility of the Holy See when
it is a question of first principles in faith or morals. Speaking broadly,
it is not open to us to question the wisdom of the Holy See in making
concordats with Csesar. In these the Pope acts as chief ruler of the
Church, and as guardian of the moral law. His decisions are, therefore,
irreformable, and in any case they are taken on facts and motives,
mostly outside the cognisance of the world. Moreover, these great acts
are done with exhaustive care and deliberation, and are marked with
certain forms which assure their authenticity and authority.* Very
different is such action to that of the majority of the Irish hierarchy in
consenting to the fatal compromise in Catholic education. This we are
free to denounce as a betrayal of their highest trust, not only because
the National system has a non-Catholic (that is, in this connection, an
anti-Catholic) principle for its foundation, but because the compromise
was unnecessary, and therefore unjustifiable.

In this matter of education there are, speaking broadly, four
interests — four rights — namely : the Church's right, the child's right,
the parent's right, the national right, Oae of these, his own, may for
the moment be held to be within the bishop's province to make void.
But what earthly right had he, without commission or delegation, to
make away with the other three1? It is impossible just yet to come at
any certain record of the negotiations between Dr. Murray and Sir
Thomas Wise which resulted in the foundation of the so-called National
System ; all that is certain on the matter is that Dr. Murray held no
proxy for the Irish Church, and certainly Sir Thomas did not represent
the Irish people.

Was the Castle bishop justified in consenting to it, and forcing it on
his brother prelates, who were wiser than he 1 . It seems to me he was
not. He was clothed with certain great trusts. Their guardianship
was an intimate, essential portion of his duty. They had regard to the
highest interests of his people. Surely he should not have been their

* This definition will show that the late unhappy Propaganda Circular cannot be
included in the category of authentic or authoritative Papal pronouncements.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 53

betrayer ? The establishment of a system of Irish Catholic education
was the corollary and complement of Emancipation. The battle had
been fought and won. The victory meant the full equality of Catholics
before the law. There was only necessary to complete it some courage,
some consistency, some patriotism, some Catholic spirit. The Castle
bishop was wanting in these qualities, and he weakly and ignominiously
yielded — nay, forced on the Holy See compliance with a proposition false
in principle and impossible in practice. I am not insensible to the
valuable results of the National system ; but they have come, not
because of but in violation of its first principle — because the majority of
the schools are denominational and not mixed. It must be said, too*
that the system owes its partial success to the fact that it has had,
especially of late, in its administration, several highly accomplished and
very able men — the only examples, it may be said, in the whole range of
the Irish executive, of men who loyally and faithfully served the
Government, and preserved unstained and undimmed their faith and
character as Catholics and Irishmen.

Still, the system could not evade the law of its being, nor escape the-
multiplied defects and perversions to which its constitution Liid it open.
These are familial* to all who have made a study of educational matters,
and to the general public are partially known by the indiscreet revela
tions of Miss Whateley. To demonstrate how far it is from being a
satisfactory provision for our educational needs, I will now proceed to
define the nature and scope of Catholic education.

Education, in the broadest sense, is the development of the pupil

physically, intellectually, and morally — to the highest perfection of
which his nature is capable. To reach this ideal, the operations should
be coincident ; for if you develop the physical nature of man to the
neglect of the others, you make a powerful brute ; if his intellectual to-
the neglect of the moral, a clever devil ; if his moral to the neglect of
the other two, a pious fool ; if altogether in the way most suited to the
subject, you gain the great end — " a sound mind in a healthy body " and:
make a good citizen and a good man. To use the words of a great
authority, you attain the result " which enables a man to fulfil justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, public and private, of
peace and war."

In a more restricted sense, education has for object the formation of the
judgment and the direction of the will — the teaching of the child to discern;
and love what should be loved and to hate what should be hated. What
does a sensible parent most desire to find in the child just finished
school life? Surely, such knowledge and accomplishments as become
his or her station in life and future occupation ; but far beyond and

54 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

above these, a judgment quick to sift truth from falsehood, clear in
analysis, sagacious and broad in view; and before even this, a will
strongly and firmly bent towards everything right and good.

Education is essentially a spiritual matter. As man's soul is his
noblest part, what concerns it must take precedence of all else. Now,
we cannot communicate with non-Catholics in spiritual things ; and the
Castle bishop, in consenting to the mixed system, violated a clear
principle of Catholic theology. " All knowledge is one, springing from
the eternal unity of God," says Cardinal Manning. Its communication,
therefore, must be one, as the pupil is one. It is a unique work,
beginning at the mother's .knee, continued in the primary and inter
mediate schools, and finishing at the university. To be a complete it
must be a harmonious work, springing from one root, and developing
logically through all its stages. No part of it can contradict or thwart
the other without producing confusion, and failing in its chief object.
The mere statement of those principles makes an end of the " mixed"
system. It is impossible to regard it, with its detestable jargon of
"time-table" and "conscience clause," without indignation, for it
conceals the denial of the first right of a people to a school which
represents their religion and history ; it is the mutilation of the intel
lectual life of the nation, and the endeavour to deprive it of its true
and natural development It would be just as easy to separate the
child's soul and body and unite them again as to provide that at a
certain moment the religious element shall enter or be excluded from
the school. It is in effect an attempt to shut out the Almighty for a
time from his rightful domain, and to admit his enemy thereto.

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

SIR, — I repeat — knowledge is one, the pupil is one, the school which
deals with them should likewise be one. One in idea, one in operation,
beginning with the greatest of professions : " Credo in unum Deum"
and developing from that root harmoniously to the end. This work,
moreover, of Catholic education is mainly spiritual, and essentially
positive and objective. It is the superimposition of the supernatural on
the natural; or, rather, the informing of the latter by the former as
intimately as the soul of man informs his body. Compromise, therefore,
and negation are abhorrent to its principles and fatal to its results.
They mar its completeness and perfection, no matter how slightly they

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 55

intervene in its working. If for only the shortest space the " mixed "
principle is introduced into a Catholic school, it destroys its character,
since it is an admission of the condemned principle that the name or
idea of God can or ought to be excluded from the work of education.
It is in little, and for the time being, precisely the same theory as is
written large in the model school and Godless college. All these
ingenious contrivances which we see in convent schools for displaying
the Holy Rood and other religious emblems, and putting them out of
sight, at certain hours, or in presence of the inspector, are so many
practical denials of the faith, though nothing may be farther from the
intention of those using them. And these things are done in schools
not one pupil of which is non-Catholic.

But it is only when we raise our eyes to the highest end of Catholic
education that we perceive how indefensible and even detestable is
everything hostile to its principles. This chief end is the carrying on in
the intellect the work begun by the Church in the Christian soul. It is
the expansion in the world of the Christian idea and making it prevail,
not in the conscience of the individual only, but in the family, in
society, in business, in science, in politics, in legislation, in government,
in every concern of life, nay, even in the battle-field, when deadliest
passions rage : when the priest fulfils his Godlike task amidst the iron
hail, and the Sister of Charity with calm heroism offers her life to aid
the dying. The Christian idea ! What mind that has ever truly seized it
can contemplate it without emotion? — that wonderful thought, the
barest suggestion of which moves the faithful heart and suffuses the
eye with the dew of love ; the beginning and end of all things ; the sweet
savour which preserves and sanctifies human society, and opens to man
the possibility of regaining the Eden he had lost. The Christian idea !
The perpetual dwelling of Jesus Christ in the world He has created
amidst the people He has redeemed. The assertion of His supreme
and sovereign rights in the conscience and intellect of man, and of
His power in the external order — exercised through His Church and
bounded only by the limits He has Himself set — in the freedom of
the human will. It is the displacing this grand central thought from
its pre-eminence which makes the modern world sick nigh to death, and
sends our boasted civilisation staggering blindly, viciously, brutally back
to paganism. Sad necessity it is which obliges the re-statement of what
should be in the minds of all from the dawning intelligence of youth
to the extremity of age, but which the world, and those who go with it,
seek to forget or put out of sight.

The fulness of time had come ; the miracle of miracles was to be
wrought ; the one transcendent fact of human experience was to occur.

56 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

All creation stood expectant — waiting that which was to radically
modify its relations with its Creator. It came, and became for us the
law of our life, the light of our intellect, and the means of our salvation.
This fact is the Incarnation. Two thousand years has not dimmed
the glory of its brightness nor lessened ils value by the shadow of a
shade. It stands amidst the centuries of man's history alone and
unapproachable. To it all antiquity looked forward ; and if posterity
regard it with less eager and yearning gaze, it is because for us it
remains living and energising in our midst. It is still, as of old, set, for
the fall and the resurrection of men. Those who are called to know it
in its fulness it transforms and raises to the practice of heroic virtue.
The multitudes to whom in all their wanderings it is an object of
deepest reverence and humble hope it saves. Those to whom it is a
hard saying, who will not receive it, who turn away and walk with their
Saviour no more — those who reject it, or scoff, or mock — it is not for
them a source of life but of death. Human reason itself declares the
absolute, all-embracing, all-absorbing, nature of this ineffable event.
As God is the Sovereign Good, the sole self-subsisting, infinite, eternal
Being, it necessarily follows that all things must begin and end in Him.
Everything relating directly to Him or to His manifestation to His
creatures must, in the Eternal Mind, take precedence of all other
motives. The whole scheme of creation, therefore, must have been
framed in relation to the Incarnation ; nor, as far as human prescience
can discern, would anything of which we have cognisance been created
save to serve as a preparation and a shrine for this stupendous mystery.*
Again, I repeat, this fact is not dead, nor merely historical, but
living, energising, vivifying : the first cause and principle of all
created things. It cart neither be put aside nor let alone. It would be
more possible and more wise to shut out the sun from the material
universe than to close the moral order, or, indeed, the sum of
human existence, against it — to extrude the Saviour of Men from
the world He has redeemed. To imprint in ineffaceable characters
the knowledge of Jesus Christ on the youthful mind is the noblest
office of the Christian school, as it is that of the Church to make
his love prevail in the heart. They are indissolubly associated in
this glorious work, and to divide them is to strike as deadly a blow
at Christianity as would be the sundering of the man and woman whom
the sacred bond of Christian marriage had made one.

* A learned friend points out that I have here stated the Scotist theory, which
though permitted, is opposed by the Thomists. Whichever be theologically strongest,
it would seem that the former is most conformable to human reason, and certainly
most attractive.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 57

This event altered the whole relations of human society with its
Creator. Whatever of right or authority the natural order possessed
vanished in presence of Jesus Christ, reigning in and through the society
He founded. No longer Creator only, He became our Kedeemer, and
more, our Brother and Lover and Friend. So infinitely attractive is this
thought, so irresistibly does it appeal to everything that is best in man-
to his reason as well as to his heart— that the Apostle pronounces
anathema on those who close their understandings or harden their hearts
against it. " If anyone love not the Lord Jesus let him be accursed."
Henceforth mankind is segregated into two classes: those who know and
receive this Divine fact, with all it implies, and those who know it not,
or, still worse, reject it. Between these two an unfathomable gulf is
fixed, to be bridged over indeed by God's grace for those who respond to
its inspirations, to remain impassable to all who lift themselves above
the humility of the Gospel. Of the former the Catholic bishop is the
chief. It is his highest duty to guard and magnify this first of principles
and make it prevail, and this the Castle bishop fails to do, because he
has compromised his independence.

In this mystery of mysteries is the sum of human knowledge. It
reaches from end to end, and enables us, as far as our present condition
permits, "to know even as we are known." The ascetic spirit, the love
of the Cross, the desire of self-sacrifice born of it, is necessary to the
well-being — in the long run, to the very existence— of human society in
any state above the savage. The office of the Catholic bishop is to guard
and teach the truths of the faith ; his chief duty is to render these from
the abstract to the concrete, to reform and build up human society on
the Christian basis, to make the Christian idea the informing and
dominating principle of life. In this creative and Godlike office his chief
external instrument is the school. In consenting to its degradation the
Castle bishop has cut off his own right hand. It is not because of, but
in despite of, the late Archbishop Murray, and his following in the
Episcopacy, that the " mixed " system is not dominant in Ireland, with
the Godless Queen's University for its apex, spreading on all sides intel
lectual confusion and moral corruption.

The first right of a people is to live ; the second to fulfil the end of
their existence by serving God in the way He has commanded, and by
developing their national life on the lines of its genius. Both these
rights have been denied the Irish nation until their concession could
be no longer withheld. With the connivance and co-operation of the Castle
bishop the latter has been granted in such mutilated form as to rob it of
half its value. I claim as a primary right, a right both natural and super
natural, the presentation by my religious guides of the Christian idea in

68 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

its fullest and most objective form. I claim from those whose duty it
is to teach and defend it that they shall make it operative through
out, and most of all in the school ; * that they shall see that it pervades
and dominates the whole work of education, in books, statues,
pictures, music, pious ejaculation — in everything by wThich the all-
important work of education can be coloured and directed. This is the
claim we, as Christians, have a clear right to make. This is the claim
the Castle bishop practically denies. He says, in effect, you are well
enough off with a crumb in place of the loaf which should be yours.
Knowledge deprived of its best quality is good enough tor you.
There is something most cruel as well as unjust in this denial. Ireland has
given everything the world holds valuable to retain intact the Christian
faith ; and a portion of her hierarchy so act as to deprive her of a great share
of the fruits of her sacrifice. It is a mystery not to be solved by human
intelligence — how this nation, faithful above all, has been abandoned by
some of its spiritual chiefs to the grievous prolongation of its suffering.
Like Him whom she has enshrined in her heart of hearts, Ireland struggles
towards her salvation by the way of the cross. The object of the scorn
and hatred of the world, reviled and mocked by her enemies, abandoned
and betrayed by her friends, buffeted and scourged by tyrants, she falls,
but she rises again, and goes on her painful way to the victory now,
thank God ! all but assured. Weak and spent to the worldly eye, she is
strong by the Divine power which dwells within her, and by that she
will assuredly triumph over her enemies, and enter on the full enjoyment
of her rights. If Christianity be true, the Christian order of society
should by right obtain. Let its guardians begin by making it dominate
in the school. If Christ reigns there He will soon reign in the external
order ; and wre will have again in the island, once of saints, a reproduction
of its earlier glories.

I am, sir, yours, &c.,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

p.S. — It being undesirable to interrupt the sequence of the letters,
I will ask you to find room in a postscript for a further word to the
" I. C. Clergyman." He does not believe in a Castle bishop. How, then,
will he characterise the Cardinal's denunciations of the Land Leagues,
and his praises of the Forster regime ? What will he call the Bishop of
Elphin's support of The O'Conor Don, after the latter had been sworn of
the Privy Council (to assist in imprisoning far better men than himself)
and had joined the Orange Emergency Club in Kildare Street1? What
will he call the action of a prelate playing detective on his own priests
in the Castle interest ? or that of the one who presented a most estimable

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 59

priest with a Forster lettre de cachet in one hand, and in the other a
-suspension, to force him to commit political suicide? If the "I. C, C."
is as innocent as he seems to be of knowledge of this kind, I can give
him in private, if he wishes, further examples proving beyond doubt that
there are " Castle bishops," and that they do now and again things that
in less exalted persons would be called by very ugly names.

The "I. C. C." is delighted that I should record my humble
admiration of the Bishop of Achonry. I was proud of the opportunity,
and would be glad to offer an equal homage to the patriotic and benign
prelate who rules Killala with truly paternal spirit, regretting that the
well-known patriotism of both is not permitted freer play. But, then,
the " I. C. C." proceeds to make me answerable for something said by an
unnamed American paper of a most objectionable nature, and in exactly
the opposite sense of what I said !

The " I. C. C." having lived in Ireland for the last three years,
insinuates a defence of " law and order ! " Would it not be well for him
to remember that in the mouths of those who use the phrase it means
the violation of law and the provocation of disorder ?

It is when he deals with the duty of obedience that he seems to
forget the first principles of government and social order. There is no
analogy between the time in which St. Paul wrote and ours. That was
of the Pagan order, this of the Christian. St. Paul did not mean that
we should be subject to any authority but to a rightful authority. He
•did not mean that we should obey every command, but only lawful
commands. For instance, if the " firm and gentle " Spencer proclaimed
that every Papist in Ireland should eat beef on Fridays, I presume tho
*'I. C. C." would not hold we were bound to obey. Neither, probably,
does he hold that because St. Paul sent back the slave to his master ho
thereby meant to uphold or defend the assertion of property in human
beings. St. Paul himself was no serf. He withstood the unjust judge,
and stood on his rights as a Roman citizen.

Finally let me assure the " I. C. C." that Catholicism is not a religion
of slavery, but of freedom. We are free through the truth ; we are free
with the freedom by which Christ makes free. We are free interiorly
because we know our duties and are willing to fulfil them ; our rights,
and are determined to maintain them. We are free because we are
inspired by our faith with the love of freedom, and with the courage and
self-sacrifice necessary to win and defend it. It was a Catholic
archbishop who wrung the great charter of English freedom from a
tyrannical prince. It was St. Thomas a Becket — the grandest figure in
English history — who worsted, with the sacrifice of his life, one much
more dangerous, and retarded the reformation by four centuries. St

60 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

Laurence O'Tool also gave his life for the freedom of his nation. In
about half a century Ireland will begin to understand how much of its
newly-conquered liberty it owes to the noble, magnanimous independence
of spirit of John McHale, Archbishop of Tuam. If the "I. C. C.'; will
go back on his earlier studies he will find all the conditions laid down
which not only justify but require resistance to authority when it has
violated the law of its own existence.

P.S. 2. — Since writing the foregoing, a fact worth recording has
reached me. In a southern town a spacious convent school was built
some years ago. A large cross in bas relief adorned its front. The
National Board Inspector refused to certify the school until this was
removed ; and the parochus had it covered over. This act of quasi
apostasy, in the midst of a purely Catholic people, still remains an
outrage and a danger to the faith.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

SIR, — To many it may seem a wearisome and useless iteration to
insist on the claim of the Irish people to Irish and Catholic education ;
yet when it is remembered that we have half a century of wrong-doing
to overcome, and many false principles ingrained in our present condition
to expose, no pains will appear too great.

The natural, even in the most Christian society, resists the super
natural. Man craves his original freedom, though by the fall he lost the
faculty of using it reasonably. Nature resists grace, and dislikes, when
it does not hate, the cross. Not only inclination and passion, but all the
power of the senses, the daily habit of life, tend to make the ascetic5
spirit as difficult of retention as of creation. The most important part,
therefore, of the work of the Christian school is that of moral discipline,,
in filling the minds of its pupils with a sense of the value and nobility
of sacrifice as the root of everything meritorious in the individual or
valuable in society.

If this be a necessary part of the work of the school where the
Christian idea dominates, how incomparably more so must it be in a
society where it struggles for existence 1 Now, the Castle bishop, by
destroying the unity of the Christian school (by the admission of the
" mixed " principle), has made its highest work impossible. The true
order and sequence of ideas — the union of reason and conscience, the
harmony of the intellect and will — above all, the constant, abiding sense
of the unseen and the supernatural — of the one thing necessary — these
are never to be found in schools tainted by the " mixed " or " secular "
principle, and but rarely, and in slender form, in those into which the
State or secular authority enters as the director of studies or distributor

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 61

of rewards. The constant tendency of every Government, whether it
consist of one man or of many, is towards extending its own power at
the cost of the liberty of its subjects — that is to say, all Governments
naturally move towards despotism. The State being of right supreme in
the natural order, but not having the faculty or power of denning its
bounds, constantly strays beyond them, and seeks to make the spiritual
power subservient to its own ends. In this country we know too well
how despotic a practically-irresponsible bureaucracy may become. The
natural counterpoise of this evil is to be found only in the Christian
school, and, therefore, it is a misfortune for society when the State
interferes with its management or leavens its spirit with its own. The
robust and manly Catholic spirit which hates oppression, and resists it
by every lawful means ; the exact knowledge of one's own rights, and
respect for those of others ; these are only to be found where the
Christian idea raises and tempers the natural man, and teaches him to
live for other interests than those of time or sense. I re-assert, then,
for every soul on whicli the baptismal waters have conferred the Christian
character, the first of all rights, that of having the Christian idea pre
sented to it in all its beauty and holiness, in all its fulness and power.
I claim that the Christian character shall be as strongly impressed on
the intellect by the school as it is on the soul by the Church. And if
this first of rights be common to all who profess the Christian faith, how
much more is it the due of that nation which has sacrificed all for its
sake ?

The supremacy and absolute and universal nature of the Christian
idea being set forth, let us now see how the Castle bishop dealt with it.
Having consented to its obscuration in the National school, he went on
to consent to its obliteration in the Model school, Godless College, and
Queen's University. In this basest of betrayals of the highest interests
of his people he was foiled mainly by Frederick Lucas and Dr. McHale,
while Pius the Ninth made further advance on his downward course
impossible. No doubt there will be urged in his favour his good
intentions. Well, in this connection they are clearly of the order with
which a certain place is paved. It seems to me also that in matters of
this kind no one has a right to think wrongly. Opinion, surely, is not
free as to whether or not a Christian people shall or shall not have
Christian schools. Opinion is not free as to the right of the existence or
non-existence of one of the three bases on which the Church raises the
structure of Christian civilisation. If we look across the Channel we see
the Cardinal of Westminster fighting the battle of the Christian school,
with all the wealth and resource of a splendid intellect, against odds
which would bring despair to the heart of any but a genius and a saint,

62 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

while here the Castle bishop, without a struggle, abandons the key of
the position and aids the enemy in effecting a lodgment from which it
will be difficult to expel him.

In the struggle between the Church and the world the Castle bishop
has tied his right hand behind his back. In the reconstitution of the
Irish nation he has spoiled — he could not entirely destroy — one of the
main elements of the work. A great genius might possibly estimate all
the evils to which his errors have given rise — God alone knows all the
good he has prevented. The schools of Ireland would probably by this
time have become as renowned as they were in the centuries when
Europe nocked to Bangor and Lismore and Armagh, to learn of Irish
saints and doctors the wisdom not only of this world but of the next.
The success, even in the intellectual order, of the Irish Christian schools
would, if fully known, furnish the strongest argument against the
extension through the empire, and even abroad, of the agnostic principle
in education, and turn the tide now so strongly setting in this ruinous
direction.

It may be said that all this is matter of the past — that whatever
mistakes have been made have been condoned, and no good end can be
regained by reviving their memory Did the Castle bishop show any
sign of repentance and amendment Ireland would hail the return with
joy and remember the danger and injury no more. But this is precisely
what he does not do. The present condition of education in Ireland —
scandalous in every sense — is a proof that he still breaks the unity of the
Irish Church and paralyses its action in this all-important particular.
We have an equally strong proof in the dealing of some of the bishops
with the Order of the Christian Brothers, that the old " stoneblind "
policy is as active and as dangerous as ever. Repeated attempts on the
integrity of the order have been made. Perhaps in the whole range of
attempted confiscations none more extraordinary has been seen than in
that resolution of the Synod of Maynooth which calmly passed over all
the property of the order to the bishops. Barring the difference of
intention, it was as flagrant an invasion of rightful ownership as any
carried by the eighth Henry, or the later robberies of France or Sardinia.
We do not forget the expulsion from Mallow ; and one Catholic prelate
has quite recently declared that the attack on the order will be renewed
on the first opportunity.

Yet the work of this self-sacrificing and most meritorious body is the
only part of our educational system on which we can dwell with satis
faction. The writer has it on the authority of Sir John Lentaigne, the
highest probably which can be quoted in this connection, that the work
done at Artane is unrivalled throughout the world in extent and

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 63

excellence, while the fame of the Christian schools of Cork and Limerick
has penetrated everywhere. As good work, in proportion, has been and
is being done in their smaller schools. In the thoroughness of this work
they illustrate some ®f the highest qualities of Catholic education, namely,
truth of conception and logical coherence of ideas, continuity and
harmonious development of intellectual life, and from these consistency
of character and elevation of aim and purpose. Nor are the finer
developments of educational science wanting. The play of fancy, the
far-reaching knowledge, the keen analysis, the luminous view embracing
all the qualities and accidents of a subject, the bringing together of
" new things and old " to illustrate the present : these qualities and
acquirements are far from being uncommon in those who have been
fortunate enough to follow the Brothers' higher course. The publication
of the intermediate lists shows how solid and general is the instruction
they give, though the cramming of clever boys for passing in special
subjects is certainly far below their high educational ideal. What is it
in this noble body of men which excites the hostility of the Castle
bishop ? Really it is hard to say, except that they be too Irish and too
Catholic. Having accepted a system antagonistic to the Christian, he
cannot abide an Order which is for him a perpetual reproach, and in which
not only the superiority of the theory but the highest results of Catholic
education are most clearly seen. Surely it is nothing less than a
manifest provision of Providence that amidst the general confusion a
standard such as this should be preserved to form the foundation stone
of the re-constructed edifice of Irish education.

I am, sir,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

SIR, — In the emasculation of the Irish Catholic school two chief
rights, two paramount interests, were sacrificed, namely, the right of the
child to have the Christian idea stamped on his mind in ineffaceable
characters, and the sovereign right of Jesus Christ to reign supreme in
the intellects as well as in the souls He has redeemed.

So dangerous is it to palter with first principles, so difficult is it to
retrace the first false step, to regain lost ground in the face of a powerful
enemy, that the Irish Church has never since the first fatal compromise
been able to take its rightful position or formulate a scheme for the
settlement of Irish Catholic education. Having got off the king's high
way into a crooked and muddy bypath, our chiefs do not seem to have

64 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

the power to get back again. The question is dealt with piecemeal —
now one part, now another, taken up. Compromise follows compromise
until the confusion becomes worse confounded, and we are landed in a
muddle as scandalous as it is detrimental to the nation's intellectual
life.

One effect of all this is that the Irish mind has got into a state of
profound distrust of the members of the hierarchy who have had the
conduct of the matter. If it be alleged that there has been guile and
deceit on the part of the Government, it is just as clear that there have
been 011 the Catholic side weakness, inconsistency, and vacillation. The
negotiations have dragged on in an aimless, intermittent way, which
shows there was before the minds of those who had charge of the subject
no clear, intelligent purpose, no real knowledge of the wants of the
country, nor any firm determination to supply them. Some provision
had been made for the instruction (one cannot call it education) of the
humbler sort. To ordinary minds it would occur that the next thing
would be to provide suitable education for the middle class — that class
which has the same relation to society in general as the backbone has
to the human body, and which, being formed and strengthened properly,
keeps in health and order the classes above and below. For this great
class — the backbone of the nation — no suitable provision has been made
nor attempted, nor apparently even so much as imagined. Until this
was done, the long abortive struggle over the University would seem like
providing a roof for a building not yet raised above the foundations.
Yet, as certainly as that we can have no Christian order of society without
Christian education, we can have no middle class informed of its duties
and able to fulfil them without ample provision of middle-class schools.
This brings us to the distinction of the three, or rather four, classes into
whieh education is naturally divided. First, the primary school. For this
the three "R's," with some exercise of the reasoning faculty — some means
by which boys of special aptitude shall be enabled to go on to a higher
course — are sufficient. More in our circumstances would be too much.
Awakening the fancy or cultivating the sensibilities of a man who has to
live in an Irish cabin, and earn scantiest subsistence by severest toil,
would be adding hardship to a lot already all but intolerable, and pre
paring disturbance for the community. For the child of the middle
classes, the large farmer, the thriving shopkeeper, the skilled tradesman,
the smaller manufacturer, a very different provision has to be made, for
on him the chief work of all civilised communities falls. He has to take
up and develop all the arts of life. He touches the labourer on one hand
and reaches the professional classes and even the aristocracy (though
this is neither necessary nor desirable) on the other. The one class he

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR, 65

has to lead, the other to restrain. On him depends greatly the condition
of the toiler, and, if he be a true man, he will keep from the excess and
corruption, into which they are so prone to fall those who by an abuse of
terms are called the "better classes." This catalogue of duties, which might
be enlarged, shows how essential to the welfare of society is the proper
training of the middle-class, and how destructive of all progress must
be its absence. The root and primary cause of all our trouble is in the
fact that we are not allowed to provide for our own wants in our own
way. But all the secondary causes which have led to the decay of society
in Ireland do not equal in evil effect the want of the middle-class schools.
It cannot be said that our system of middle-class education is defective
or insufficient ; it does not exist at all. We have the primary school for
the labourer, the colleges (too many perhaps) for the professional man,
and nothing between. Now, it may be seen at a glance that neither the
primary school nor the college is fitted for the work to be done. To put
a middle-class lad into a National school is like putting a watchmaker
into a forge to learn his art. To put him into a college is to waste his
best years and unfit him for business. Neither of these schools can by
any possibility give what is wanted, neither can properly train him for
his place in life.

For this there is needed what may be called, for want of a better
name, a thorough grammar school education— a full knowledge of
English, and a fair acquaintance with one other language — French, for
choice. I hope that day may come when Irish will be added, since no
one can properly understand the country in its nomenclature or history
without knowing the language. Add to these mathematics, a knowledge
of the elements of logic, or the art of thinking in a straight line and
avoiding irrelevancy, and as much science as will enable the boy to
understand and take an interest in the material world around him.
Above all, I would insist on a full knowledge of the philosophy of history,
which will open for him the book of human life; and the philosophy of
religion, which will bind in one all his other knowledge, and give him a
clear view of God's dealings with his creatures, and his own highest duty.
There is nothing impossible or redundant in this curriculum ; and if it
have the further conditions of being imparted at the boy's own door, or
while he is under his father's roof, growing up in the atmosphere of the
family and the business, and that it shall be at such a price as will not
be beyond a moderate income, we have all necessary elements of a sound
middle-class education. In the total absence of any such provision, what
do we see ? The youth of the country growing up in want of almost all
the instruments of thought and means of advancement, or sent to schools
quite unsuited to their wants.

66 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

A well-to-do trader has a son to whom he wishes to give an education
superior to what he had a chance of getting himself. He looks around
and finds the only place open is the college. At a cost often too great
for his means he places his boy in one of these institutions, excellent, it
may be, in its way for its own purpose. The boy grinds away at classics
for three or six years. His father, innocent man, imagines he will repay
the cost, and be a help to him in his business affairs; but, when "finished,"
he discovers too late that his money is worse than wasted for the purpose
he had in view. The lad, most likely, can't write a decent letter, nor do
a simple sum in figures. Bat, far worse than these deficiencies, he has
acquired what is unfortunately so common in Ireland, a vulgar, snobbish
contempt for honest labour. Probably he is ashamed of the shop, possibly
of his humble parents. He wants to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a walking
gentleman, professions all over-stocked in Ireland. The father goes over
to the majority, the business falls into strange hands, its continuity and
development are lost ; often the trade leaves the town, and imported
rubbish takes the place of sound home manufacture. Nothing is more
palpable throughout the country than the decay of all the trades, and
the importation of the commonest necessaries of life. For example,
there are many important towns in Ireland dependent on London for
household furniture, for no young man, whose father could give him the
few thousand pounds necessary, will condescend to become a cabinet maker.
The depletion begun by the withdrawal of taxes, carried on by absentee
rents and interest charges, is tenfold aggravated by the business com
petition which this country is utterly unable to withstand, and so day
by day we decline to extinction as a civilised, prosperous community, and
every interest of life perishes from poverty and ignorance.

Supposing that to-morrow we were re-invested in our inalienable
rights, no progress would be possible without the foundation of middle-
class schools. This first necessary provision for the beginning of a
better order has one formidable obstacle in its way, namely, the
quiescence of the only persons able to take the initiative. No one
can found a Catholic proprietary school without the sanction of the
Ordinary,* and this is not so easily obtained as might be supposed.
But, supposing that a sufficient number of qualified persons could be
found to-morrow to place a school in every suitable locality, the difficulty
would be nearly as great as ever ; for no really good middle school can
be carried on without the assistance of competent masters, and no one

* In a considerable town in the south of Ireland a wealthy proprietor offered to
build, equip, and endow a middle-class school, and failed to get the sanction of the
Ordinary. The reason given was that it might interfere with a diocesan college
twenty-four miles distant !

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 67

with sufficient capital will invest it in schools and wait perhaps for years
for the result. The most feasible plan, perhaps, would be the formation
of an educational union analogous to the English Poor School Com
mittee, but having the promotion of middle-class education for object.
Now, it may be strongly asserted that the principal difficulty in founding
middle schools is with the ecclesiastical chief in the various localities.
In no considerable town will the incumbent have any great trouble in
raising funds for a foundation, which must be provided if the school is to
be permanent. Why he does not do so is a mystery no one can explain
but himself. The want is there; the people are only too willing to
provide for it ; the way to do so is not opened to them. This requires
no Government charter, no external aid. All that is needed is organisa
tion, and abundant means of support will be at once forthcoming. To
give a single illustration. Some years ago the bishop of a midland
diocese visited a town within its borders. It was of considerable size,
with a large district around, and the only educational facilities were two
National schools of average merit. The bishop expressed himself very
emphatically on the inadequacy of this provision, and declared that a
middle school should be at once established. He looked round the town,
and, finding a house of regular priests rather larger than needed for the
community, he directed them to open at once a grammar school. It did
not lie in the good fathers' way, it did not fall in with their ordinary
work, but in obedience they complied. The school was opened, and over
sixty pupils, paying full middle-class fees, at once attended. But the
provision for their instruction was wholly inadequate. The school
struggled on for two years, and, the pupils having fallen to one-third of
the opening number, the school was closed.*

Two things are specially noticeable here. First, the demand. The
pupils would have been doubled in a year if the school were what was
wanted. Next, the bishop contented himself with directing what was to
be done, and never took the least trouble about the means or the result.
In point of fact, he never inquired about nor put his foot within the
school from the day of its opening till its close. In this he followed the
example of the Maynooth meetings before referred to. A discussion is
held, resolutions are adopted, great promises are made, and expectations
excited. Then the bishops retire to their own districts, and nothing is
done. It is perfectly obvious that had the hierarchy resolved on a
definite course on the education question — worthy of themselves, of the
subject, and of the people they represented — they could have at any
time for the last fifty years combined the Irish popular representation

* Several of the pupils of this middle school have since gone to one of Erasmufr
Smith's foundations, in defiance of the ecclesiastical authorities.

68 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

on this point, and forced from the English Government full satisfaction
of their demands. The bishops are in the position of people who loudly
assert their wish that a certain thing should be done, while, having it in
their power, they don't take a single step towards the doing of it. In
this relation many of them hold a position so inconsistent that it would
become their dignity and authority to quit it as quickly as possible.
They permitted in the National school the introduction of the secular
system. The model school is only an amplification of that system. It
provides, in almost every case, an excellent course of instruction for
middle-class boys. But these schools are almost exclusively maintained
for the benefit of non-Catholics, since they are prohibited to Catholic
children. Discussing the disability with a distinguished official of the
Education Board some time since, he said: "I do not challenge the
right of the bishops to bar these schools to Catholic children ; but I do
assert that, having done so, they were bound to provide, or stimulate
others to provide, a proper substitute." To this position there seems no
sufficient answer.

Nothing can be more disadvantageous, nothing more trying to the
loyalty and obedience of those who suffer, than the disability thus
imposed. In a great northern town lives a friend, a good Irishman and
Catholic. Providence has blessed him with seven sons, the eldest not
yet twelve years old. Of limited means and modest ideas, he destines
them all for business. The educational facilities open to him in the
Catholic order are a National school and a college. In the former his
children would learn so much not included in the school course that to
send them there is out of the question. The college is quite above his
means, and, besides, does not provide the education required. At his
very door is a model school, one of the masters of which is a Catholic,
and which gives all that is needed in the way of secular instruction.
This master— a man of excellent character (he goes to a neighbouring
•diocese to discharge his religious duties !) — daily assembles the Catholic
children, who attend in large numbers despite the prohibition, for
prayers and catechism. The school is in every way (save in the
principle which underlies it) one which would suit my friend's needs
excellently, that is, taking the general state of education into account.
But he is threatened with a denial of the sacraments if he sends his
sons to it. With the officer of the National Board he says : " When my
bishop prohibits the use of the only school within my reach, why does he
not — as he could do by only willing it — provide a proper substitute ?
He has already admitted the mixed principle in the National school.
The model school I want to use is practically the same, and if I use it
I am outlawed. I must put up with such inferior home teaching as I

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 6£

can pay for, or send my boys to a school where they would be familiarised
with manners of the rudest and ideas of the lowest kind ; and they will
be handicapped in the struggle of life in such a way as to render success-
impossible."

Is this a position in which a man should be placed whose first desire
is to do well his duty as a parent and a Catholic 1 The consideration of
the answer must be reserved for the next letter.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

SIR, — The case of my northern friend, saving that he has a burden
rather heavier than common, is not singular. It exists wherever a
model school is found, unless there be in the vicinity a middle-class
school of the Christian Brothers. Over Ireland this instance may be
multiplied by thousands, and the position gives rise to more heart
burning and alienation between the people and their spiritual chiefs
than the latter seem to have an idea of. It is certainly a hard and
cruel position for a man of good-will to find his duty as a parent and as
a Catholic in direct antagonism. Now my friend's bishop is not "Castle"
nor faineant. He is no monsignor who dwells apart and veils his
dignity within the recesses of his palace. He lives with and for his
subjects, and enjoys their affection and confidence as well as their
veneration. He fills a position of the greatest difficulty with eminent
ability and success. There is perhaps no bishop in Ireland who can
show so much work thoroughly done in the same space of time.* But
if such examples are found in the green wood what will take place in
the dry ? The almost universal and persistent neglect of the middle-
class schools is giving rise to a general feeling of soreness and discontent
which, unless the cause be removed, will add another potent element of
disunion to the number already existing. To make the matter clearer,
we must subject it to analysis, and endeavour to distinguish the relative
rights and duties of the parties. The bishop has clearly the right to say
to my friend, "I forbid you, under pain of deprivation, to send your
children to the model school." But does the exercise of that right
entail no duty 1 Can the bishop justly or wisely or rightly close one
schcol-door without, if it be in his power, opening another? If my

* It may now, unhappily, be said that the bishop referred to was the late Dr.
Dorrian. It may be also added that some provision for middle-class education has
since )>een made in Belfa.st.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

friend says, "I obey you, my lord, but I call upon you to lead the way
in providing a proper substitute for the school you forbid — you will find
me and all my class only too ready and willing to give the means," can
the bishop decline the invitation without grave neglect of duty ? The
answer must be left to himself .as supreme judge.

Let us now examine what are the rights and duties of the parent.
In the natural order his authority in the education of his child is
absolute, conditioning that it be not so used as to violate the moral law.
This authority we have seen the Pope guarding when he was sovereign
of the Roman States. The right of the bishop supervenes when the
child is admitted into the Christian family. Now this admission does
not do away with the original duty of the parent. It divides it indeed
with the child's spiritual father ; but on the other, the natural parent,
the duty remains of fitting the child for his place in life. The duty and
right of the one is in the physical and intellectual order ; of the other, in
the moral and spiritual. The right and duty of the natural parent as
regards the child's physical and intellectual development remain entire.
We will more clearly perceive its nature by an analogy. The laws both
of nature and revelation oblige us to maintain the life of the body. To
this end we take the best and most wholesome food. If this be not
within our reach we take that which is not so good, yet fulfils its office,
though less effectually. Wanting this, we take a quality still lower, till
we come to that which is positively unwholesome and destructive of life.
This we may not take, because by doing so we would become accomplices
in our own death.

The parent is bound to provide for the child's intellectual nourish
ment. His obligation in this respect is not touched by the authority of
the Church to provide for its moral training. For this he ought, if he
can, place his child in a Catholic school, where knowledge, the mental
pabulum, is supplied in its highest form— that is, illumined by the
Spirit of Wisdom, and ordered and correllated by revelation. If this
school, which I insist upon for the Catholic child as the clearest and most
indefeasible of rights, be not available, he is bound to provide from
non-Catholic sources such knowledge as is necessary for the child's future,
with as little of naturalism or paganism as may be. And so on through
many gradations till we reach the school which is destructive of faith
and morals. This, it is clear, Catholics cannot frequent — no matter
what mental destitution or social disability may result — no more than
they may trample on the cross or offer incense to Jupiter to propitiate
the rage of the heathen persecutor.

The analogy shows that the matter is one of degree and expediency,
and of dual authority. The parent's duty, if it does not confer co-ordinate

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 71

rights, surely entitles him to have a say in the matter. Is he ever con
sulted ? Are his ideas and interests in his child ever taken into account ?
It would not appear so. He is treated as if non-existent, and decisions on
these matters, not of principle — on these he has only to learn and submit —
but of prudence and expediency, are come to without the least reference to
him. In the northern town before mentioned non-Catholic boys have at
their command half a dozen institutions excellently suited to give the needed
training. Every day in a flourishing community opens new roads to
advancement. The non-Catholic boy " keeps his powder dry," and waits
upon occasion and opportunity. The Catholic does not guard the
ammunition, because he never got it. He is hopelessly out of the fight,
and the inferiority begot in evil times continues by reason of intellectual
-destitution.

It may be said, if the bishop just now in question be no "Castle"
but a model bishop, how can the other be blamed in particular for what
seems to be a general defect 1 Most justly he can, because it was his
action led to it, and because his attitude makes an adequate settlement
of the question impossible. He still prevents the preparation and
presentation to our rulers of the Catholic educational claim ; and, even
if it was formulated, he would still remain an obstacle, for he would not
honestly join in the mandate to our representatives which alone could
force the Government into compliance. When Mr. Parnell and the
Irish members were forcing the passage of the Intermediate Act (a
matter, by the way, on which the Catholic Whig and the Castle bishop
preserve an absolute silence, if they do not claim the Act as their own)
he found the greatest difficulty in bringing certain Irish members up to
their duty. He was accused of calling them "Papist rats." Putting
aside his own denial, the presumption is quite against the truth of the
charge. He is too highly-bred a gentleman to use a term which would
justly offend others beside the persons in question, and too prudent a
general to give such an opening to the enemy. But if he called them
by the most opprobrious epithet the language affords, would it express
the measure of their degradation 1 These same Catholic Whigs form as a
class the best proof of the urgent need of the thorough reform of our
educational system, especially in its higher grades.

This again brings us face to face with the question not now to be
asked for the last time — Why has the Catholic University failed, and
who is responsible for its failure 1 Who shall answer to Ireland for the
squandering of the enormous sum contributed for its foundation, and
who for the still more lamentable waste of intellectual power, and the
-continued imposition of mental inferiority its fall involved ? Who can
be properly charged with its career of inefficiency and its inglorious end ]

72 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

Not surely the grand and beautiful character whose fame gave eclat to
its opening, and whose " University Lectures " remain the sole record of
usefulness and honour connected with it. Ireland will yet inquire why
he was permitted to depart with as little recognition of his priceless
services as if he were an incompetent usher ; for she is grateful not
only for what was done, but for what might have been, and her honour
is touched in this matter.

One answer only can be given. The university was killed by
the Castle bishop. The need for it was of the greatest. It was
founded by the direction and had the fruitful blessing of the Holy See
—that powerful blessing which has given life to every truly great educa
tional centre throughout the world. Yet these potent motors and the
lavish generosity of the people could not prevail against West-British
influence. This was persistently and successfully bent on eliminating
from the curriculum of this first of Irish schools everything distinctively
Irish. Provision was carefully made that nothing savouring of Irish
feeling or Irish patriotism should be the outcome of its teaching.* To
this end all specially Irish studies were excluded, and the principal
chairs filled by foreigners, some of whom had not the good sense or the
good taste to conceal their anti-Irish spirit, or their contempt for the
country whose sons they made a pretence of educating, and which gave
them the bread they so badly earned.

Great as is the mischief the Castle bishop has done and is capable of
doing, he will never surpass what he has achieved in destroying the
Catholic University. The Church can work miracles with the masses,
but unless the leading intellects of a people run in national and Catholic
lines her work is being continually undone. When the thinkers of a
nation — who are always less numerous than is commonly imagined — are
not possessed with the Christian idea, what the Church builds up one
day they throw down on the next. They put the spiritual and intellec
tual orders in opposition, and when the former is not unusually active,
the latter, being naturally in alliance with the worldly spirit, prevails.
The result is a succession of catastrophes, of which the rebellion called
the Reformation and the French revolution of '89 are the chief
examples.

When, finally, the Catholic University, dissociated from the
national life, came to perish of sheer inanition, and the country would
no longer bear the annual collection for its support, a writer in an
English Catholic paper pointed out the principal cause of its decay, and

* Special care seems to have been taken to guard against renewing the ancient
traditions of Irish learning, connecting the past with the present, or doing anything
•which would go to build up a new Ireland in the national and intellectual sense.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 73

quoted in support of his view some memorable words of the late Arch
bishop of Tuam. This letter caused quite a flutter in West-British
Catholic circles, and indignant reclamations were made about its publi
cation. The Dublin correspondent of the paper in question pronounced
the quotation to be ''scandalously false." Unfortunately for him, he
had nothing to allege in support of his assertion, while the writer of the
letter in question had abundant testimony to his accuracy from many
persons who, like himself, were present and heard the words. With the
usual "fairness" of English journals, the paper positively refused to
insert argument or disproof of any kind, and the slanderer got off for
the time.* The letter in question was thought worthy of notice by his
Eminence of Dublin, who thus referred to it in a pastoral published
shortly afterwards. The Cardinal sets out by declaring " the Catholic
University is not dead, nor even does it sleep .... The University
established by Papal authority to confer degrees in theology, scholastic
philosophy, and canon law continues under the control of all the bishops
of Ireland .... This University is a non-teaching institution. But
under another aspect the Catholic University shall be a teachiug body,
and it shall be closely connected with the Royal University . . . Under
this aspect it shall be entirely distinct from the Catholic University,
and shall henceforth be distinguished as the 'Catholic University
College.' "t

After reading this extraordinary series of contradictions, the first
idea that occurs to one is to inquire, " What estimate does the Cardinal
form of the intelligence of his readers 1 " First we have the unqualified
assertion that the Catholic University, the great school which was to
educate the highest mind of Ireland, was not only not dead, nor asleep,

* The writer referred to declared that he heard the late Archbishop of Tuam reply
as follows to the address of the students of the Catholic University, on the occasion of
the jubilee of his consecration : "Amongst all the addresses which I have received,
this comes to me with peculiar pleasure and some surprise. For never since its
beginning as a teaching institution have I aided your school by voice, or pen, or
pone. You will naturally look for an explanation of such a statement, and I will
frankly give it When it was question of framing the curriculum of the university,
after the chairs common to all universities — theology, philosophy, &c.— were founded,
I thought that in an Irish Catholic school the special studies relating to Ireland
should be provided for. I was withstood, and a spirit was manifested which I
could neither work with nor accept. I took my hat, left the council chamber, and
never returned." This report was pronounced " scandalously false," and all evidence
of its substantial correctness (of which there is abundance) declined. The writer
has since heard that when Dr. Mac Hale insisted on the necessity of establishing
chairs for Irish history and literature, &c., &c., Cardinal Cullen asserted his supreme
authority as Papal Delegate, thus ignoring not only the rights of the Irish laity,
but of his own equals in the hierarchy.

t The title of " Catholic " has since been withdrawn by authority from " Univer
sity College," as well as the library and everything else that could possibly help it in
the work of education.

74 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

but living and acting. Next we have the detail of dissolution, and even
dissection. The Catholic University as conferring degrees is to live in
idea somewhere and somehow. The Catholic University as a teaching
institution (to simple people the idea of a university apart from its
teaching function is preposterous) is to exist no longer, but its duty is
to be continued by a school called the Catholic University College,
<( which, however, is to have no connection with the Catholic University, but
to be affiliated to the Royal" This, surely, must be the most wonderful
school ever seen, which can be opposite things at the same time, and
embody in its constitution contradictory ideas. We must look to the
11 stone-blind " West-British faction for this result.

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR

SIR, — The Irish Catholic University died, and justly died, because
it was dissociated from the national life. If the intentions
of its managers had been reached, its product would have
been a race of West-British Whigs — that is, of anti-Irish Irishmen.
Better a thousand times it perished than continued that hateful class ;
for torpid intellects are preferable to active when the latter are perverted.
There is still, it is true, a " Catholic University College "* in Stephen's
Green, but it is merely a college of the metropolitan See, in which a few
professors of more or less excellence teach a few scholars in the halls of
the whilom university. It is no more the school first founded in that
locality than the decrepit son of a dead man is the man himself. It
bears no resemblance to that seat of learning the light of whose science
was to attract students from East and West, from far California and
from the Antipodes, and be a centre of highest culture for every race of
English speech. The prophecy has failed ; the promise wras blighted ;
the hope withered in the baleful miasma of Whiggery and West-
Britonism which destroys when it touches everything Irish and Catholic.
The utter failure of the university is apparent when one asks : ' ' Where
are the works of science and literature which it has produced 1 Where
the men of mark and cultivation, of ' light and leading,' who have issued
from its halls; and illustrated its teaching 1 Where its influence on the
mind of Ireland, in planting fruitful ideas, in ennobling public life 1" It
was a weakling from its birth ; it has vanished, and left scarce a trace of
its existence. Its failure will make the next attempt to found a univer
sity far more difficult ; but it will, at all events, warn the future founders
not to repeat the errors of the past.

* Is it true that this college has six ,-itudeuts and eight eminent professors ?

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 75

The history of the Catholic University will in due time be written.
The materials are collected, and are, I understand, in competent hands.
It will not be an edifying history ; it will be one of warning. In the
meantime it will be well to advert to one or two episodes in its life to
point the present argument. What follows is written from memory, and,
therefore, subject to correction ; yet I trust my recollection of the facts
is sufficiently accurate to prevent material error. The university had
gone far on its downward course, the annual collection was dwindling,
the hope of success growing fainter, when certain members of the hier
archy approached the Government of Lord Derby with proposals for a
charter and endowment. Partly, it may be, to " dish the Whigs," partly
to settle a troublesome question, the Government entered into negotia
tions, which were carried (by the late Lord Mayo on the one side, and by,
I think, Drs. Leahy and Moriarty (or Deny) on the other, to a considerable
length. The charter of a purely Catholic University (with en-
endowment) was conceded ; the question came to be the constitution
of the senate and governing body. Under, we may well suppose,
Whig Catholic inspiration, the bishops were induced to claim supreme
and irresponsible power, to the exclusion of the lay element, even when
this was to be the outcome of the university itself, That demand was
put as an ultimatum. When this stage was reached the No-Popery
faction in England began to move. The Government declined to accede
to the demand, and retired from the negotiation. The bishops then got
alarmed at the prospect of losing the only offer ever made by our rulers
on any matter of education which respected Catholic principles. They
offered to renew the negotiation on a more moderate basis ; but by this
time the Government thought they had no more to gain than to lose by
declining, and they are said to have replied to the altered demand of the
bishops : " Her Majesty's Government never could have imagined that
the Irish Catholic bishops could say what they did not mean," and there
was an end.

Time passed on, and Mr. Gladstone essayed the settlement of the
third Irish reform he had proposed. He appears to have submitted the
University Bill in its general idea through Lord Emly to some of the
bishops, and had it approved. The university he proposed being just an
exaggerated Godless college, the Catholic spirit of the people, backed by
the better judgment of the majority of the hierarchy, repudiated the Bill.
The ministry was defeated ; Gladstone, indignant at what he nmst have
thought a betrayal of confidence, retired and wrote "Vaticanism." It
would look as if he blamed Lord Emly, for the latter has not appeared
since in Government circles, and could get no better appointment for his
son than that of principal domestic of a sham Court.

76 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOK.

Some time after this fiasco, when it had become apparent to the world
that the University was in articulo mortis, the writer meeting on the way
to Dublin a bishop, a member of the Educational Committee, he ventured
to urge strongly the reforming of the University. The bishop replied
that the matter had already been finally arranged, and the institution
given over bodily to the greatest society of teachers the world has ever
known. Now the bishop spoke of a fact in which he was participant.
He could not therefore be mistaken. Nevertheless, the transfer
was not carried out,* and Dean Neville was charged with the
revival of the all-but-defunct University. It is said this eminent
divine left his pleasant quarters by the Lee with the notion that
the Irish party would use their powers, which now began to be
seen, though not acknowledged, to obtain the charter and en
dowment which were declined before. Whatever may be deter
mined in the future, certain it is that the party would not
speak one word nor move one motion to make the dean rector magnificus,
with a munificent salary, of a revived school which, if it showed more
intellectual activity, would assuredly be more tainted with Whiggery
than before, and, finding his hopes were vain, he retired on the lines he
had prudently left open.f It seems after that that the previous
arrangement could not be resumed, and so this institution, once so
bright with hope and promise, ended its useless and inglorious career.
Under the guidance of the Castle bishop we have come down from the
Irish Catholic University of 1851 to the Koyal " University" of 1883.
Facilis descensus Averni. How anyone, having regard to the meaning of
words, could apply the noble and time-honoured title of " university " to
this motley examining board passes comprehension. Not only is it not
a university in the sense of teaching — it is not even one as examining.
And its constitution ! Catholic prelates, heads of Godless colleges,
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Unitarians, Nothingarians — and Thomas
Maguire, impossible to class — all fitly presided over by the chief
Freemason in Ireland — head of the impious sect which hates and
wars against the Christian Name. How pleased and edified the
Catholic members of the university must have been to see their
Chancellor principal figure in the Orange orgies carried out in Belfast
last week. Does the Irish Hierarchy know how this shameful compromise
is regarded by the people 1 Was the Hierarchy justified in accepting it *
I ask not as deciding, but seeking a decision. It would appear that in
this the bishops, under whose supervision this nameless thing was

* It has since been effected with the result of raising the number of students, in
a few weeks, from half a dozen to near one hundred.

tit is currently reported that the Dean was several weeks in Dublin in this year of grace
(1887) exhausting the resources of diplomacy to gain access to the Castle by the back stairs.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 77

produced, lost sight of their fiduciary character, and went beyond their
rightful powers in leading the Irish people into this dismal swamp in
which their faith as well as their nationality is imperilled.

This wretched sham is consistent throughout. A sum less than a
third of what is given to the three Godless colleges is granted to all
Ireland, non-Catholics as well as Catholics. Of this the professoriate
takes a large portion, the administration and examiners a goodly part of
the remainder, while the Senate swallows half the rest, and leaves
j£2,000 for the students ! Again, these latter come from richly-endowed
Trinity,* and even from Oxford and Cambridge, to snatch from the
"Royal" students the miserable portion which should fall to them.
When one passes the spacious portals of Trinity and thinks of the
leisure and wealth and learning there devoted to the uses of a mere
section of the population and to the maintenance of an unjust ascendency,
it is impossible to repress a feeling of indignation at the cowardly and
illegitimate compromises into which we have been led.

This paltering with Catholic principles in Education is, in the present
condition of the mind of Europe, peculiarly unfortunate. Since the
revolt of the sixteenth century, modern civilisation day by day widens
the gulf between it and the power which brought it into existence. The
Church had endued society with all the fruitful elements of civilisation,
as Lecky acknowledges, and succeeded in Christianising the world "in
the very hour that world became supreme." Then was pronounced anew
the fatal " Non serviam" and society at once started on its retrograde
course. Up to this time it has been held together in England partly by
the Christian framework on which it was built up, partly by the illogical
but highly practical common sense of the people, partly by their natural
phlegm. All these, and the more indefinite but most real and invaluable
publie conscience which the Church creates in every community she
civilises, are yielding to the dominant principle of English life. This
is private judgment, which is in essence naturalism — that is, paganism.
It is essentially a principle of disintegration, which, now slowly, now
quickly, but always certainly, works through and destroys the cohesion
of every community in which it takes root. Once a man is persuaded
that he is his own prophet and priest he comes soon to the conclusion
that he is his own sovereign, since the greater authority contains the
less. English society is at length yielding to the universal solvent. It is
being rapidly reduced to its primal elements of barbarism. Your English
workman and labourer is a savage with a slight varnish of civilisation.
Your educated Englishman is a pagan with the least (intellectual)
tincture of Christianity. The change wrought by the last thirty years is.

* One of the two Btudentships of this year has just been taken by Mr. Dickie, a
student of Trinity.

78 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

significant. Then Atheism was apologetic and not " good style." Now
it is audacious, and, when allied with science and a cultivated taste,
rather held to be a distinction. The open profession of infidelity no
longer debars a man from success in life, nor shuts to him any avenue of
ambition. Meanwhile the paganising of every relation of life goes on —
education, marriage, art, science, literature. Only by the intervention
of the Irish party was the legislature recently saved from the intrusion
of the most beastly form of agnosticism in the person of Mr. Bradlaugh —
favoured, we profoundly regret to admit, by Mr. Gladstone, whose
genius, if not principle, should, have preserved him from this melancholy
lapse.

Add to these active principles of dissolution the aggregation of vast
masses of workers in the great manufacturing and mining centres living
Godless and joyless lives, with passions brutalised and unchained, looking
with covetous and jaundiced eyes on the luxury produced by their
hopeless toil, and you have the elements (wanting only hunger to stir
them into activity) of the most ferocious revolt the Christian era has
seen.

As if to make this universal, modern Governments are every
where engaged in banishing the very name of God from the schools. In
one country of all modern states could the Christian idea be made to
dominate, not only with the consent but in satisfaction of the ardent
desire of the people, and in this they are deprived of this privilege of
infinite value by the default of their spiritual chiefs. It cannot be
repeated too often or too emphatically — till the change comes — that to
the Castle bishop — to his want of courage, consistency, and principle —
is owing the elimination of the Christian idea from the Irish educational
system.

I ask again, who can tell what we lose, what the world loses, what
the Church loses, by this thrice unhappy compromise ? There are
abundant evidences that the intellectual superiority of the Irish race
remains ; and we have many examples of the special aptitude of the
Irish genius for the study and development of the queen of sciences.
Perhaps before this time would have issued from a truly Irish Catholic
University another Scotus to confute modern sophists and propound a
philosophy which would compel the world of intellect back from
paganism. The least issue of a thoroughly-organised system of Irish
Catholic education would be the taking by Irishmen of the chief
positions in their own country and in England, where now their place is
mostly to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Lee no one say in his haste this is extravagant. When we see
Michael Davitt, with education gained haphazard, coming from a convict

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 79

prison to inaugurate a revolution which has destroyed the strongest as it
was the worst monopoly in the world, and speaking only yesterday to
the most thoughtful portion of London society ; when we see Mr. Healy
and Mr. Sexton, bred in the schools of the humble Christian Brothers,
commanding the respectful attention of and forcing just legislation on
the hostile senate of England, what may we not hope from an Irish
educational system worthy of the people, and doing fullest justice to
their intellectual powers 1

As long as the Castle bishop is left in his present place of influence,
so long will everything Irish and Catholic perisli under his hand. It is
then, a matter of simplest necessity for the Irish people to turn to their
true leaders and guides — to the successors (and, thank God, they are
many) of the late patriarch of the West, and ask these venerable prelates
to embody in a Claim of Right the Irish Catholic educational demand.
This is the first step ; the next is to instruct the representatives of Ireland
to place this claim before the Imperial Parliament, and urge it in that
persuasive manner they have of late become masters of. The land
question is near a settlement, so that the way will be open for this most
just demand, which can be urged paripassu with that still greater claim
of the Irish nation to live its full and natural life within its own borders
undisturbed and unimpeded by its hereditary enemies. In making
their claim the bishops will have at their back the whole popular force,
and we may rely on them that the terms they make will not be marred
by the Whiggish element which has hitherto ruined every attempt at
educational justice.

I am, sir, yours,

Ax IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

P.S.— One word for " Albulfeda." I am sorry he thinks I have
deteriorated. It is not consciously nor on the grounds he states. I
never claimed educational monopoly for any class. I merely take facts
as they are. Society is educationally divided into four classes — the man
who works with his hands only, he who works with his head and hands,
he who works with his head only, and he who is not bound to work at
all. Here you have necessarily the divisions of primary, middle-class,
professional, and what is properly called " liberal " education — or that
which aims at the cultivation of the intellect for its own sake. If any
of the humble ranks show exceptional ability I would not only permit
them to go, but aid them on their journey to a higher place. This will
not alter the fact that the bulk of mankind must always " earn their
bread with the sweat of their brow " — a penalty the beneficence of which
amply atones for its severity.

I. C. L.

80 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

SIB, — The recent University celebrations constrain me again to ask
the favour of your columns for a little while. The Royal University
has had its annual meeting. Its Chancellor, having for his supporters
two non-Catholics, went from the platform, when he beslavered his
" Roman Cawtholic brethren " with hypocritical pretences of goodwill,
to meet his real brethren in the Orange-Freemason Hall in Molesworth
Street, where he was received with "tumultuous applause, largely
mingled with Kentisn fire." There, no doubt, the murderous conspiracy
against those same " Roman Cawtholics " was still further evolved, and
Lord Ernest Hamilton sent down to Derry, as representative of his
family, to incite the Orange mob to riot and outrage. The Cardinal
spared us the shame of seeing him play second to this ignoble duke. He
did not avoid the scandal of presiding at the Senate next day. Turn it
round in any and every light, this same Senate is just the old Godless
" Queen's " Senate under another name, with the addition of a few
Catholic ecclesiastics. These do not in the slightest degree change the
nature of the institution, nor entitle it one whit more to the confidence
of the Irish people. From this position the question naturally arises,
"Who or what does Cardinal McCabe represent in this false and
dangerous compromise1? Not the Irish Church, to which it is
abhorrent. Note the scant attendance of Catholic ecclesiastics at the
conferring of degrees. Not certainly the Irish people who were not
consulted in its institution, whose interests it mocks, and who turn with
indignation from its pretence of educational justice. The Cardinal
represents simply and solely — himself.

We were assured lately, in solemn pastoral, that the Catholic Uni
versity was not only not dead, but "living and active." It had aban
doned, to be sure, its claim to confer degrees, but it was still a teaching
institution "affiliated to the Royal University." Its last session opened
with four students and eight professors. It was " too utter." The
sham could be sustained no longer, and the University buildings (or
more correctly, part of them) have been at length made over to those
who will make good use of them.

Who is responsible for the squandering, with scarce any appreciable
result of the vast sums (amounting in all, it is said, to £350,000) given
out of their poverty by the Irish people for their chief school 1 These
funds were a sacred trust. How were they disbursed ? Was there an
audit of any kind of the University accounts, or any check whatever on
the expenditure 1 The Land League, with less than half the amount,
made a revolution, one effect of which was to reduce the burthen on the

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 81

Irish tenantry from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 a year. And the public
were amply satisfied with the results. Yet an audit was called for most
clamorously by those who never subscribed a shilling, and it was satis
factorily rendered. The managers of the Catholic University muddled
away the enormous sum named in the attempt to found a school
which should be Catholic and not Irish, with the result of passing
over to their successors the University buildings swept of every
thing but the dust of thirty years. It is open to grave question
if the removal of the library was not as illegal as it was
illiberal and unjust. It was a gift to the locus for teaching purposes; and
whoever is answerable for having sent it to litter the floors of Clonliffe
will yet have to answer to the Irish people. The Jesuit fathers may or
may not be the proper persons for the place. That is not the question.
They have been charged with the duty of carrying on the work of the
Catholic University. They represent the interests of higher education
in Ireland, and everything done to their detriment, every disability put
upon them, every obstacle thrown in the way of their efficient work
ing, every burthen, every penalty (and they have had all of these), is
an injury to the highest interests of Ireland, for which an account will
be demanded when the day of reckoning comes.

One of the first things to be done, when the reconstitution of Irish
society comes to be undertaken, is to refound an university which shall
be Irish as well as Catholic. And this of necessity if we mean to hold
our own in the intellectual race, or take our place amongst the pro
gressive peoples of civilisation. It may clear the ground for the attempt
if we examine into the rights and duties involved. And, first, it is
necessary to declare emphatically that it is not possible, in the present
temper of the people, to propose the entrusting of any sum, large or
small, for university purposes, to the hands which made such a fatuous
use of the former fund. Nothing could be farther from my thoughts
than to charge these with intentional malversation. However good the
intentions of Cardinal Cullen and his associates, the fact remains that
the money is gone and the university dead. From the constitution of
the board of management it could hardly be otherwise. Ecclesiastics
are almost invariably bad men of business. Their whole training
is foreign to the conduct of affairs, especially when there is in question
the judicious expenditure of money. It may be said that of the many
millions spent in religious buildings in Ireland during the last fifty years
one-fourth was worse than lost by reason of ecclesiastical ineptitude.
The want of a lay element of ability and experience in the affairs of the
university would probably have been fatal to its success were there no
other and yet more formidable obstacles. Of these the chief was the

82 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

usurpation by the episcopal committee of parental and national rights as
real and important as their own. It was pointed out, in a former letter,
that the authority in education was not single but dual. While the
Bishop has the supreme right of veto, while he has the duty, belonging
essentially to his office, of seeing that the intellectual cultivation of the
pupil proceeds without danger or detriment to his faith, the parent has
an equal right to decide what the kind and extent of that cultivation
shall be. Were these rights ever acknowledged 1 Were the Irish people,
or any person or persons who could be fairly held to represent them, ever
consulted about the arrangement of a curriculum, or the appointment
and payment of professors in the late university 1 And if not, was not
the omission, the usurpation on the part of this board of a right not
truly theirs ? Insisting as I do on the supremacy of the Church
in the school, I insist with equal emphasis on the educational
right and duty of the parent which existed before the Church was.*
From the authorities we hear nothing of these, yet I venture to
assert that the scandalous and almost hopeless muddle into which
the whole question has got has its origin in their violation.
On this as on other points we want teaching and leading ; we get neither.
In a late pastoral Cardinal McCabe appealed to history for evidence of
the priceless services rendered by the Church to society. He recalled
the fact of the Pope marshalling Europe against the Turk, and thereby
saving it from barbarism. The Candinal clearly sees how dangerous
was the barbarian of the middle age ; he is blind to the nature of the
barbarian at his own gate. He makes peace and alliance with this man,
more dangerous because more educated and more cunning than the Turk.
He has no word of remonstrance or condemnation for the Yorkshire
savage who so lately worked his brutal will in Ireland; nor has
the " gentle and firm " Spencer anything to apprehend from his censure.
No warning voice is raised — no marshalling Christian Ireland against the
enemy, threatening its physical as well as its spiritual life. He censures

* " Children have from their parents three things — existence, support, and
education." ..." The right of a parent to educate his child is the most sacred
of all rights." ..." The obligation founded in nature which binds a parent to
educate his child binds him to educate him religiously." ..." The natural law
makes the parent responsible for the education of his child." ..." The com
mission of the Church, therefore, is strictly limited to a definite end. As to letters,
arts, and sciences, she has no more direct commission to teach them to children than
she has to teach trades and prefessions to adults." . . . "The Church intervenes
to teach religion and morals ; and she does this in perfect harmony with the natural
right." (St. Thomas, quoted by the Bishop of Salford in his pamphlet, "Parental
Right and Church Government in Education.") In this we have laid down, by the
greatest of authorities, the principle that the greater part of the work of education is
parental, and should be begun and conducted by the laity. The parent, in education,
creates the body ; the Church infuses the soul ; and neither work is complete without
the other. •

THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR. 83

the false history of the past, while he favours in the present the falsest
of current historians and the meanest libeller of his people, a journal
so utterly mercenary that it does not so much as pretend to be guided
byaiiy principle, or to sustain any policy save what subserves its own
interest* And, accordingly, we fiud this detestable print in the hands or
on the tables of the Dublin clergy to the exclusion of the national and
Catholic press. The Cardinal goes on in this pastoral to detail certain
Catholic disabilities and proceeds: "Thanks to the justice and good
sense of modern statesmanship, our educational grievances have been to
a large extent removed." Will his Eminence condescend to say who are
the statesmen, and when the justice and good sense have been shown ?
Why is there no word of acknowledgment to Mr. Parnell and the Irish
party who gained the " concessions " — such as they arc 1 He goes on :
"Meanwhile, till the full measure of educational justice is dealt out to
us — which with God's blessing and our own exertions will be soon " —
may we further inquire what is this " full measure," who is to make the
exertions, and what form the movement is to take 1 This is eminently
a case in which God will help those who help themselves, and in which
action, bold and uncompromising, is worth all the vague rhetoric that
could be written. "Great educational victories," the Cardinal adds,
" have been already won, and in God's good time the unfinished work
of justice will soon be completed." Again the question arises: what
are the "victories?" who won them? and is the finishing of the " work
of justice" to be the granting of more money to the Royal University?

It is impossible to discuss this pastoral as it deserves, since to do so
would make one seem to be wanting in respect to the writer. We pass
from it with the remark that it leaves, after careful study, a painful
sense of deficiency. No claim is made, no plan suggested, no movement
advised — all is indefinite and shadowy, save the intention to trust to
" the justice of our rulers." Until his Eminence gets rid of this latter
hallucination he will never effect any good for Ireland, educational or
otherwise. Relying on it now, he says in effect, "Shut your eyes and
open your mouth and see what Dublin Castle will send you." But what
is to be deprecated most in this pastoral is the absence of any warning
against or denunciation of the atheistic principle now at the beginning
and end of our educational system. The apparent acceptance of this
comdemned compromise favours the idea that until the education
question has been removed from the present hands no real advance can
be made. There is apparent on the part of his Eminence a total
insensibility to the popular feeling — a want of touch with his people as
extraordinary as it is dangerous in one of his exalted and responsible
position. He refers to the "distinguished Rector of the Catholic Univer-

* The Irish Times.

84 THE CASTLE BISHOP AS EDUCATOR.

sity." The same school that is already gazetted as defunct. It is better
to be plain in matters of such moment. No movement in advance can or
will be made as long as that gentleman is in the front. He is one of the
three ecclesiastics in Ireland most obnoxious to popular feeling. There
is not a man living worthy of the name of Irishman who would trust
him with the education of his son — taking the word in its highest sense.
Let me be just : he is a man of great abilities and acquirements, an
adept in science, and an accomplished player of lawn tennis. The former
qualities are voided by the direction Castlewards given to them; while, as-
to the latter, they may be useful and agreeable in their way, but not
quite those needed in a man who would undertake the weightest and
grandest task conceivable. This is to create from the intellectual
wealth of Ireland the chiefs of a new order, the conquerors of a
more dangerous barbarism than the old, because it is apostate
from true civilisation. The Rev. Dr. Gerald Molloy may keep the
science for the "Royal" and the lawn tennis for the "Squares." He
may be well assured that they make no claim for him to guide the
Gatholic University of the future. Very different must be the man who
will undertake the sacred duty of banishing from the higher mind of
Ireland West Britonism, and Castleism, and worldliness, and replacing
these by the Christian Idea, with its wealth of virtues, natural and
supernatural, especially with an enlightened patriotism. This noble
virtue is the very antithesis of everything associated with the Rev.
Doctor, as well as with his predecessor, the Dean of Cork, and all the
unhappy roll of Castle ecclesiastics. Greatest of natural virtues, it has a
faith, hope, and charity of its own, which almost ranks it with the
supernatural, and makes it capable of producing in the social order results
analogous to those of the supernatural virtues in the spiritual. The
" Distinguished Rector " lately addressed a long report to the Bishops
assembled at Maynooth. (By the way, on this occasion, their lordships
issued no manifesto of the usual unreal kind.) It was mainly
concerned with the shortcomings of the Queen's Colleges, against which
he drew a heavy indictment, and then passed on to the recital of the
successes of the various Catholic Colleges, which he spoke of as members
of a Catholic University of which he was the head. If the inquiry be not
impertinent, we would like to know what connection the doctor has with
Tullabeg, or Blackrock, or St. Colman's, or Carlow? Has he become
director of their studies, or have they authorised him to speak in their
name 1 To simple people the elaborate address of the " Distinguished
Rector," apropos of nothing particular, seems little better than trifling
with the gravest of subjects, or an attempt to throw dust in the eyes of
the public to cover a retreat and a failure.

GENESIS OP THB CASTLE BISHOP. 85

To sum up : Our whole educational system needs instant reformation,
and a good deal yet to be " improved " out of existence. There is the
"National" School, void of the history and the religion of the people;
the model school to which the Catholic child may not go ; the Queen's
Colleges, hastening to an unregretted and unhonoured dissolution ; and
the Catholic Colleges (with the Schools of the Christian Brothers, the
only teaching institutions formed and conducted on true principles)
affiliated to a Godless Examining Board (miscalled a University), with
fin Orange Freemason for its Chancellor ! This is a spectacle which
Catholic Ireland should not tolerate any longer. Of all this scandalous
confusion the Castle Bishop is the cause, and it will require very different
men from our Dean Nevilles and Dr. Molloys to change and end it.

I am,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

GENESIS OF THE CASTLE BISHOP.

THROUGH whatever recondite mode of evolution he may have come down
to us, the Castle bishop was originally a bishop of the Paie. He it was
who framed laws against the admission of Irish clerics or religious into
benefices or abbeys under his control, who failed, in their regard, in
every manifestation of charity. Nor does he seem to have taken much
concern to reform the thieving and murderous propensities of his
subjects, when the objects of their attention were Irish lands or
Irishmen.

A common persecution and mutual danger subsequently made him
nominally one with his Irish coadjutors, and though he occasionally
showed his origin in his mode of meeting these, and in his tenderness for
the common enemy, he was not on the surface much distinguishable from
his fellows. The moment, however, any relaxation of the penal statutes
was forced 011 the persecutor he began to preach "loyalty" and confidence
in " the good intentions of our rulers." When Emancipation came, it
found him ready to attorn to the Castle, and to declare that the English
Government in Ireland was the best of all possible Governments in the
happiest of all possible countries, if only the unreasonable natives would
look at things as he saw them. He was always ready to maintain that
the English wolf wras really a most considerate and benevolent animal,
and the Irish lamb a most perverse and ungrateful beast, who would not
be quiet and respond to the good feeling and good intentions so constantly
shown by Lupus. This may look like a mild joke, but it is nevertheless
a sad and serious truth, as all know who are familiar with the Castle
bishop's ways during this century.

86 GENESIS OF THE CASTLE BISHOP.

The English Government stands openly convicted at this moment of
a comprehensive scheme for "improving" the Irish people out of Ireland
to the frozen wastes of Canada, or Manitoba — or elsewhere. It stands
openly convicted of aiding by encouragement and connivance the Orange
assassins in Ulster. These may incite to violence of the most dangerous
kind. They may commit murder by firing on a peaceful procession of
unarmed men. The forces of the Crown and the Royal Irish look 011
and make no move to prevent or arrest them. Magnanimous and long-
suffering when his fellows of the Pale are on one side and the " mere
Irish " on the other, the Castle bishop never falters in his allegiance. Of
inexhaustible patience and charity where the enemy is in question, he is
ready to condone by silence, or, if necessary, to defend openly the most
violent and brutal excesses of " our rulers," while he publishes to the world
and condemns — let us grant, with righteous indignation — the crimes of the
people, which are the natural and almost necessary outcome of these
excesses. Short of personal violence offered to himself — say, imprison
ment, under the Act, for intimidating his own priests, "to prevent them
doing what they have a legal right to do " — nothing conceivable could
open the eyes of the Castle bishop to the true nature of his friends.

To what is this portent due ? How is it possible that men of high
station, great learning, great piety, and undoubted good intentions, are
blind to what to the rest of their countrymen is as clear as the sun at
noonday 1 How do they not see that the world (theologically meant) in
Ireland is like the world elsewhere — one of the deadliest enemies of Godt
and accursed by Him ; and that there is, the earth round, no such incar
nation of this world given over to perdition as that Government with
which he has entered into friendly alliance.

If one might without being accused of profanity make a
comparison, the intimacy of some Catholic ecclesiastics with the
late " Buckshot " Secretary can be compared to nothing more
appositely than to the Prince of the Apostles calling on Pontius
Pilate, after the consummation of the crime at which creation
shuddered, to have some friendly talk and such refreshment as
was the fashion of the day. We have a notion of what the early
Christians would have thought of the (impossible) occurrence. Does the
Castle ecclesiastic know how his intimacy with the Pontius Pilate of
to-day is regarded by his people 1

The ingenious theory of " P.K." will not explain the portent, for the
Castle priest is made by the Castle bishop, and the Castle layman is
mainly the outcome of both. We must, in the absence of a more
scientific theory, fall back on his descent, intellectually, from the
ecclesiastic of the Pale. We are further justified in supposing that his

GENESIS OF THE CASTLE BISHOP. 87

incapacity to see the falseness and danger of his position arises
thus : Before an Irish Catholic ecclesiastic can voluntarily associate
himself with the Castle he must be cursed with a natural obliquity of
vision. Once he attorns to the seat of iniquity, once he passes the fatal
portals, dementia seizes him, and repentance and reform become impossible.

There is, however, in the communion of the Castle bishop and his
associates an action and reaction which, if it does not account for the
origin of the phenomenon, sufficiently explains its intensity. The chief
personage in the " respectable Cawtholic " society of Dublin is the
placeman, and pre-eminently the judge. He is in the inner circle. He
forms part of that which is our curse. He touches, or is supposed to
touch, the springs of Government, though he no more guides the machine
than (I envy the originator of the appropriate simile) the tail wags the
dog. To him is drawn the Catholic barrister, the attorney, the doctor ;
and after these the wealthier merchants and traders whose wives and
daughters ambition the Castle. This is the shrine of their most fervent
worship, and they have been often known to serve at it to the ruin of
their fortunes and the loss of their souls. Put in with these the " Catholic "
Privy Councillors, W. H. F. Cogan, The O'Conor Don, Christopher Talbot
Kedington — worthy son of the Sir T. X. Redington of Pupal aggression
times— with the few families of the Catholic gentry who reside
permanently or occasionally in Dublin, and you have the lay elements of
Catholic society.

Into this the Catholic ecclesiastic enters. If he be an Irishman, true
grit, it will soon expel him. If he be one of the class "P.K." evidently
knows and describes, he is soon lost to "faith and fatherland." He associates
with men who, whatever their outward seeming, must be essentially
worldly, selfishly ambitious, and politically corrupt. He joins their
conversations, eats their good dinners, drinks their fine wines, and becomes
like to them. What can he know or care about the starving peasant in
Connaught 1 He does not seem to know of the traffic in Catholic souls
carried on in the Liberties, hi Dublin the world has entered the sanctuary.
With the ecclesiastic of the ordinary type, if "position" be not
everything, it goes for a great deal. It is a hard saying, but it
is true ; and it accounts for many things it may be necessary
by-and-by to detail, and which would be otherwise unaccountable. So
insidiously and powerfully does this Cawtholic society act on those who
court it, that the late Archibishop of Tuam is reported to have said that
ho would not trust himself to live a fortnight in it and expect to retain
the clearness and strength of his convictions.

The effect of this corrupt and corrupting society on religion is most
lamentable. The writer has been told by a priest of great experience

88 GENESIS OF THE CASTLE BISHOP

that the morals of Catholic Dublin have declined twenty-five per cent in
a single generation. There is no city of its size in the empire where so
many young men go wrong. In no town of Great Britain does the
hideous vice of great cities flaunt itself so audaciously and so publicly.
No street or square is too respectable for its exhibition. It seats itself
on the very steps of the metropolitan palace. Now, in every state of
society this abomination must exist ; but it need not be permitted to
spread itself like a cancer over the face of the city when darkness draws
forth its hated presence. This I take to be one of the outcomes of the
Castle alliance; since this latter destroys, ere it has birth, all public,
manly spirit in our youth. Patriotic associations, all that could give
elevation of aim and active interest in public affairs, are by the Castle
alliance barred and banned, and, when possible, suppressed. In the
Catholic Commercial Club, numbering over 800 members, you may
smoke and drink, play billiards and cards, but you must not discuss
public affairs, and this rule is enforced by espionage. Deprived of
everything to give them solidity and earnestness, the youth of Dublin
betakes itself to the bars and music-halls, and then elsewhere. There is
an immense amount of Catholic practice in Dublin ; little of Catholic
principle or Catholic public spirit. There is, in fact, often in the most
unexpected places the densest ignorance of the teaching of the Church.
The writer met lately a lawyer of good character as a Catholic, a county
court judge, who stoutly defended Freemasonry, and maintained his
right to hold his own opinion regarding this " laudable and benevolent "
institution.

This non-Catholic spirit has some wonderful developments. The
ordinary and salutary duty of parochial visitation seems entirely
neglected. Numbers of middle-class families there are, who have resided
for years in the same houses, who have never had a priest inside their
door. The writer can anwer for one family which has never seen the face
of its parochus or his representative, and whose only visitants in the
ecclesiastical order were a Presbyterian minister, who called to see if
haply it belonged to him, and a Scripture reader, who asked permission
to "read a chapter." Poor creatures ! they were earning their living ;
but where was the true shepherd— he whose duty it was to know
his flock one by one, as he has to answer for the least of their souls ?
This refers to a respectable locality. And if it be so in better-class
streets, what must it be in the squalid garrets, and noisome cellars,

" Where misery pours its hopeless groan,
And weary want retires to die ? "

Again, it is a hard saying, but it seems that if you are in Dublin a
"carriage person" or a "Castle person," your soul may be thought

GENESIS OF THE CASTLE BISHOP. 89

worth looking after ; but if you happen to be a common trader, you can
save it or lose it, as you may elect, for all that is done by its guardian.
How can he answer for his charge ? How can he count them every one,
and watch lest the wolf enters, when he does not even know them 1 In
many other ways the Catholic spirit of Dublin is thoroughly demoralised.
It will not soon be forgotten how lately a convent of regular ecclesiastics
refused to cast the votes which would have returned a majority of
Catholic guardians for the North City Union. The first effect of this
quasi apostasy was to put an Emergency marine, without training or
experience, for master over two thousand Catholic paupers; and to
repeal the Emancipation Act as far as they were concerned."* Did these
fathers reflect that it would depend frequently on the votes they
refused whether unhappy children, foundlings or orphans, would or would
not be brought up in the true faith of Christ ; and that in the latter
contingency they became directly answerable ?

During the late trials in Dublin the Emancipation Act was for the
general public likewise practically repealed. The proceedings were like
what used to pass in Tipperary during the land war of forty years ago.
A landlord or agent was shot. Forthwith someone was arrested — the
right man if there was evidence sufficient ; the likeliest man, in the eyes
of the authorities, if that was not available. But so surely as anyone
charged with such crimes went before the Orange landlord jury "well
and truly" packed in Clonmel, so surely was he convicted and hanged.
It was justice if that could be enacted; it was vengeance if justice was
not attainable. So in the late murder trials in Dublin. The guilt of
Francis Hynes, of Poff and Barret, of Walsh and Myles Joyce, was
certainly not proved. Their innocence is believed in "by nine-tenths of
the Irish people — and, indeed, in more than one of the cases has been
tentatively admitted by the Government. These men were done to
death, not for the ends of justice, but to satisfy the craving for vengeance
of the governing class. The conviction of these men was obtained by
the most flagrant jury-packing. Now, the jurors were not necessarily
perjurers or murderers. This theory is not necessary to brand with
infamy the executive, which put in the box not twelve men " impartially
chosen," but twelve violently prejudiced against the prisoners. One of
the sayings which escaped the secrecy of the jury-room and nearly caused
another death ("hang them all") is significant of the temper in which the
life or death of the prisoners was discussed. By no straining of language
could the trials be called fair. A drumhead court-martial would be
fairer because honester. The form of law would not be used while its
spirit was perverted. The constitution would not be outraged because
* This person has since/ been dismissed.

90 «,I;M>;SIH OK THIS OAHTUO insiiop.

not. invoked. Emancipation was repealed for the time, ;ui<l Oatholio

|)iil»liii inadi' no sign. 11. permitted justice and freedom and national
and Catholic principles to bo outraged, and with ineffable meanness and
cowardice made nor reclamation nor remonstrance. The freeman
suggested M. mooting to show some souse of 1 ho ignominy put. on tho city.
It elicited no answer ; and an nn Irish and nn ( 'atholic, and slavish silence
was observed because our chiefs wore in alliance with the Castle.

Worm* remains. Whatever may bo mud of Dublin in oilier respects,
it could never bo chalked with want of generosity. In proportion to
thoir means, nil classes answer inunilicently to every call for religion or
charil v. \Vhat, then, can be said in extenuat ion or excuse of the
pronely tising of hundreds of Catholic children in t he ( loombo and other
Soupor schools'^ The Irallic in souls, put down midst the misery of the
West, has found place in Dublin. Tim /'V<r;mm, most optimist, of
journals when ecclesiastics of high rauk art) Concerned, was compelled to
ask "who's to blame T1 when the (acts wore disclosed. Well, tho Freeman
knows who and what is to blame. Sonu1 spasmodic, attempts have, been
since made to cope with this awful scandal, but we have seen none of
that righteous indignation which would have raised Dublin as one man
to reclaim these poor abandoned children and stay the ravages of the
trallickors in souls'. Dublin ecclesiastics sometimes give the rein to critical

and supercilious remarks on their country brethren, but they must bear to

be told that in no diocoso in Ireland but tho Metropolitan could Mrs.
-and the Irish Church Mission buy in such start ling numbers the
souls of destitute Catholic children. It is all of a, piece. It all results
from "coming to terms with modern civilisation," and entering into
alliance with the enemy of the Irish people and of Cod. Tho Castlo
ecclesiastic is incessantly engaged digging a gulf between himself and his
people. It, is not the latter who will fall into it. At the O'Coimell
Contonarv, at tho opening of the Kxhihitiou, the Irish democracy found
itfielf deserted bv its loaders, secular and ecclesiastic. It will go on with
out them- -it will achieve it.-? just and lawful aims. On the deserters bo
the blame of all the danger and evil (which may (Jod avert !) which may
come of tho desertion. The Cardinal might rule in Dublin. Me might
organise his people as one- man, and reign with a power never possessed
bv mediaeval prince-bishop- a power founded on their inviolable faith ami
solf-sacrilieo. Me prefers to abandon them. Mis iutluence declines to
miuu'ht. 1 repeat, there are tens of thousands in Dublin who, Cod
aiding them, would give their lives for the faith, who will not cuter a
church whore their chief pastor presides, nor road a lino which ho writes.
Mis warmest friends could not advise a public reception when he
returned clot hod with tho cardinalitial dignity. What does th.' Castle
give him to repay tho loss of his faithful people's confidence— what to

TIIK CAHTM5 IUSIIOI' ! HIS All, ITS AND HIS K\l». HI

counterbalance tho weakening of faith, the lowering loin- <>r morals, tlm
proximate danger, if not loss of souls 'I What for tho destruction <»r tlm
unity of tin- Church in Ireland, and tin- par.tlysis of its influence i'»r .-ill
Irish and ('atholio ends'? Butter atk the questions now than ask them
too late.

AN linsii CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

TIIK CASTLK lUSHO!': IMS ALUKS AND IMS KNI).

Sin, — Reviewing tho personage who has HO long occupied our at ton
tion, it occnrH to mo to auk: DOOM ho know tho century IK* lives in'J
does ho know tho timoofdayl does ho know the people with whom
ho IIIIH to deal ? To all those questions a negative answer must lie given,
since to answor affirmatively would ho to iie.e.nso him of practical
apobtaoy,

It is ono of tho misfortunes of our condition ih.ii there is in Irolund
no highly educated zealous Catholic upper olass which in soeiul iulinuiey
would min^lo with our spiritual chiefs nnd jjjivn them some idea of what.
tho ontsido world is thinking and Haying. In lri-.li nociety our Calholir.
aristocracy occupy somothirg of tho position of the Kurasian in Indi:i,
or the "moan whites" of tho Into .slavo Status of tho American Union ;
that is, thoy are an invertebrate, contemptible lot, entirely without in

fluonco or Consideration, donpiHud hy their enemies ;md jihhorred l>y the

people of whom they should have been leaders and proiec.tors.* As it
is, tho wholesome breath of public opinion seldom disturbs tlm serenity
of tho episcopal palace, In tho conference meetings, where frankness
and conrago would ho of immense value, theso qualities are not, often
mot with ; and it not unfrequently happens that tho clorio who is most
prompt to declaim against his chief in his absence, in his presence Hits
dumb,

Dwelling in the atmosphere of the Cattle or the sqnaros, or separated
from his priests and his people hy nn unwise and ill-timed oxclnsiv> ness,
tho Castle bishop sees nothing of tho onN-r world, and therefore
learns nothing. History has no light for him, and tho most
patent facts of contemporary life teach him nothing, lie might soo, if
he would, the rapid change in tho world around — that change whi« h
brings, with BO many other things of good and ovil, a nnivorsul spirit of
inquiry and criticism, which, whatever its tendency, Irim to Ixt met, and
dealt with as a fact. Before this spirit everything of proscription and
privilege is melting nw.iy. No claim of immunity not deriving directly

* Sinrn UH'H VVIIH written, \vn IMVM UK; full t«xt of Uio now pnl'int, oxl,<!rmiii:'i.i.,n

'J'»tH»ot If

92 THE CASTLE BISHOP : HIS ALLIES AND HIS END.

from God, no assertion of authority not clearly and logically provable,
will prevail against its keen and rigid test. The Irish people are, thank
God, by a miracle of his grace, still a faithful people, but they are no
more the people of fifty, or forty, or even thirty years ago than if two
•centuries had rolled between. The bartering of every Irish and Catholic
interest by the late Cardinal to make John Sadleir a Lord of the
Treasury and William Keogh a judge would be no more possible now
than the restoration of the Established Church. The time is rapidly
coming when the Irish people will make any complicity or collusion
between their spiritual chiefs and the hypocrites and frauds who pretend
to fulfil in their regard the duties of governors equally impossible.

If the Castle bishop took thought of what goes on in any country in
Europe he would quickly change his mode. In the Peninsula the Church
daily loses ground. In France she is crucified between the indifferentism
of her nominal children and the unrestrained hostility of her enemies.
In Germany she is under the heel of Bismarck. In Italy, in Eome
itself, she is the sport of the Revolution. In this country — the only
;spot in Europe, in the world, where she might reign — the Castle bishop
blindly and wantonly casts to the winds the priceless blessing, and
throws away opportunities of good beyond compare. Many a French
bishop would give half the years allotted to him to lead a people so
docile, so self-sacrificing, so prompt to respond to any call of duty and of
faith, as any Irish bishop can command.

How long they will remain so who can tell 1 One thing is certain —
miracles are not the normal condition of life, and no people ever did or
•ever could stand always the strain put upon his flock by the Castle
bishop. Better to say now, while there is yet time," that in the new
Ireland being reconstituted before our eyes there is no place for him,
than to Jet him go on, till he is awakened too late by the sight of an
; alienated people, failing to discriminate between his person and his
office, and rejecting both because believing both to be hostile. " If ever,"
said the saintly oracle which spoke but of late from Tuam, "the Irish
people separate from the Irish Church it will not be the fault of the people.''

Thank God, it is not as yet the Irish people who are
separating from the Church, but the Castle bishop who separates
himself from the people. What is this people from whom he
separates himself? Surely the noblest of the whole human
family, since they have preserved the first attributes of humanity under
difficulties never experienced by any other. " Whatever," says the great
English moralist, " raises us above the power of the senses — whatever
makes the past, the distant, and the future predominate over the present
— advances us in dignity as human beings." In his squalid cabin the

THE CASTLE BISHOP : HIS ALLIES AND HIS END. 93

Irish peasant is raised by faith above the degrading power of sense ; the
tradition of a glorious past is for him a living voice ; his kin in distant
America or Australia animate him with ever-renewed fortitude and
courage ; and the future is bright with an undying hope of the speedy
coming of that day which will see him restored to happiness in his own
land. Few in numbers, contemptible in resources, the Irish people have
carried on for ages the struggle for national right and human freedom
against the most powerful, the most unprincipled, the most remorseless
of nations. And in the course of the struggle they have never claimed
anything that was not right and just. They are conquering by the
power of sacrifice, and slowly but certainly forcing their enemy to plead
before the bar of public opinion, and to withdraw the infamous slanders
by which his tyranny was sought to be justified. The Irish people
deserve well of civilization, since there is no department of human
activity or achievement which has not been illustrated by their sons.
They have given to Europe, to America, to Australia, statesmen, warriors,
and legislators. But lately three men of Irish descent — Mac Mahon in
France, O'Donnell in Spain, and Nugent in Austria — ruled three of the
greatest States in the world. They have been in every clime pioneers of
progress. The chief builders of the Australian empire are Irishmen.
In the old world as in the new thousands of altars are dedicated
under the names of their saints. Above all, this martyr nation has
held aloft for three centuries the banner of the Cross, and exhibited
to the world a people faithful to death for conscience' sake, holding
lands and property and life as nothing in comparison with the priceless
treasure with which their very name has become synonymous. And
all this in an age which has made a god of this world, and which places
things of sense first and things of the Spirit nowhere.

In his highest example, the Irishman ranks with the first of the
human family. In his lowest he is no less remarkable. You see the
Connaught peasant at his cabin door, not seldom excavated from the bog;
or return his salutation as he passes on the road. Ragged, unkempt,
often broken with toil, bearing in his features the stamp of centuries of
starvation, to the worldling he is an object of contempt or dislike ; to
the eye of faith, one of respect approaching to veneration. For he is-
almost certainly the descendant of martyrs, and is a confessor in
his own person. He realises, in a manner not known to more
favoured nations, the strength and purity of the family tie, the
sanctities of the Christian home. By taking his child by the hand
to the Souper School, or giving himself the barest outward com
pliance with the preposterous heresy which is always on the watch to
purchase souls, he could change in a moment his lot of extremest

94 THE CASTLE BISHOP : HIS ALLIES AED HIS END,

hardship to one of comfort and even luxury. Yet Souperism, after a
transient and very partial success, has utterly failed in Ireland. In the
town of Clifden, where £20,000 has been poured out for twenty years,
not one family belonging to the mission is found, the only non-Catholic
family in the town being respectable Presbyterians, who don't
acknowledge the Soupers. And this is the man whom the Castle bishop
would deliver, bound and gagged, to his enemies !

What is this which the Castle bishop abandons and betrays ? Surely

" The noblest cause that tongue or sword
Of mortal ever lost or gained."

Of this cause and its leader the poet might have still more truly, though
not" more eloquently, written : —

" Forth from its scabbard never hand

Waved sword from stain as free, -
Nor purer soul led a braver band,
Nor braver toiled for a brighter land,
Nor blighter land had a cause more grand,

Nor cause a chief like thee."

Coming down to us through eight centuries, it embraces every
element of human interest, of racial origin, of history, of politics, of
religion. At this moment it is complicated by others, social and
industrial, and, above all, by the struggle for possession of the land, on
which all others finally turn and rest. Who wins in the last particular
wins all along the line. History shows nothing comparable to it. A
people, I repeat, few in number, and deprived of all the ordinary elements
of power, maintaining a struggle of centuries against a conquering and
dominating race with command of all the "resources of civilisation," and
wielding these with an unscrupulousness and ferocity unparalleled —
winning, at last, by an inviolable adherence to principle and an invincible
patience and constancy. This is a spectacle as unique as it is invaluable.
The statesman can draw from it lessons of priceless value ; the poet,
inspiration for his muse's highest flight ; the Catholic publicist
confirmation of every principle he advocates ; the patriot of every clime,
strength and courage to continue his struggle to the end. No other
cause since the world began so exhibits all justice, all truth, all
rigfit on the one side, all injustice, all falsehood, all wrong at the
other. This cause it is which the Castle bishop, with a blindness and
fatuity incredible if they were not palpable, abandons and betrays.
When his people, in despite of him, emancipate themselves from
the Orange, Freemason, anti-Christian ring which represses their every
movement of national and religious life (and endeavours to exasperate
them into resistance to effect their ruin), he will see his frightful error.
God grant he will not see it too late.

THE CASTLE BISHOP : HIS ALLIES AND HIS END. 95

So strangely constituted is our nature that its very virtues often
issue in defect. The Castle bishop in the past owed his immunity and
his power for evil to the profound respect for the ecclesiastical order
which is one of the outcomes of the vivid faith of the Irish people. An
anti-English bishop would not be possible in England, nor an anti-French
one in France, nor an anti-Italian one in Italy. The time has come
when an anti-Irish bishop will be no longer possible in Ireland. The
universal spread of education, the penetration of the National press to
the remotest parts, the formation of correct and enlightened opinions as
to the true relations of the Church to the people, will make his existence
much longer impossible. His ever having been can neither be explained
nor understood ; for if, as Dr. Croke asserts, " The religion and nation
ality of Ireland are inseparable"— if, as Cardinal Newman teaches,
"They (the Irish) mingle nationality with religion, and religion with
nationality ;" and, again, "No one can tell in Irish affairs when religion
ends and nationality begins," If all this be true, and the Irish people
know it to be true, the Castle bishop in joining the enemies of Ireland
allies himself with the enemies of God and of His Christ. If there bo
on earth one place above all others where "the world, the flesh, and the
devil" are incarnated, it is Dublin Castle. Its rule in Ireland is what
Mr. Gladstone said in relation to Naples— "The negation of justice, which
is the negation of God." The Castle bishop, in going to it, in adopting its
ideas, in upholding its policy, utterly ruins his authority with his people,
goes bick on all the truths he is commissioned to teach, and puts in
peril, as far an he individually can, the faith and morals of his people.

In the beginning of these letters I inquired, " How long is the Castle
bishop to be tolerated in Ireland ?" I had intended to propose a scheme
by which, without any violation of Cath >lic principle or Catholic feeling,
his end would be hastened. It will keep and gain force by the keeping.
In any case it would be better proposed by an ecclesiastic ; and probably
there will be found some one self-sacrificing and patriotic enough to
undertake the duty. In the meantime we of the laity have a right to
demand that the scandalous division of the Irish hierarchy (of which
the Caatle bishop is the cause) shall cease. For it is notorious that this
threatens the very existence as well as the faith of the Irish people
This division is not only on matters of principle, as on the education
question, but on matters of policy touching the life of the nation. The
Castle bishop may take some warning from various signs which even
he cannot overlook. It may be in your memory, sir, thaf- many years
ago, and more than once, I proposed to deal with this qaestion, and
asked your permission to use the columns of the Nation to point out
that the deadliest enemies of Ireland were the Castle bishop and

96 THE CASTLE BISHOP AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC FACTION.

the dry rot of Whiggery in the Irish Church. This permission
was then emphatically refused; and your granting it now is evidence of a
prodigious advance in public opinion. The last Irish Monthly has a
letter from Gavan Duffy to D'Arcy McGee, warning the latter not to
touch the question under penalty of being ruined. That a layman —
" wholly deficient," as the Cardinal truly observed, "in theological
science " — should now, at the suggestion and with the approval of dis
tinguished ecclesiastics, undertake the exposition and defence of the
Christian order in Irish society against the Castle bishop is evidence of a
change which even he cannot overlook. He has gone one step too far.
As long as he contented himself with crossing and defeating every Irish
and Catholic movement he might have been tolerated. When he goes
to the heart of our spiritual life, and endeavours to make the Holy
Father a party against us, it is time to take action against him. For
until he is made impossible the relations of Ireland with the Holy See
will be in peril.— I am, sir, yours, &c.,

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

THE CASTLE BISHOP AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC

FACTION.

SIR, — The preceding letters would be incomplete without some refer
ence to one of the chief supports of our subject in his unhappy course.
Mr. Errington may or may not be an imbecile fop. He derives his
position before the public and his power for evil from the fact that he is
held to represent a section of English Catholic opinion influential at
Rome. It is this which gives our anti-Irish bishops their predominance.
It is freely said that Cardinal Howard's least word would prevail against
the strongest representations of any number of Archbishops of Cashel or
Bishops of Meath, even though the subject was one of which the latter
were the true and proper judges, and the former could by no possibility
have any true notion. We are bound, therefore, to endeavour to get
some idea of what this English faction really is ; and I use the word
faction to indicate a part and not the whole body of English Catholics
for this contains many men as ardent lovers of Ireland as they are truly
Catholic. Unfortunately they do not appear to be able to leaven the
mass or to make their ideas prevail. We are none of us pure intelligences.
We are, everyone, coloured by the atmosphere we breathe, and influenced
more or less by our surroundings. Only a genius or a saint rises
superior to these — the first because he is a genius, and penetrates to the
nature of things through their outward guises ; the latter because he
draws his inspiration from heaven. Now, the one character or the other

THE CASTLE BISHOP AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC FACTION. 97

has never been common in the world, and perhapfe never so uncommon
as to-day. The average Briton, therefore, has as little chance of seeing
the truth of things Irish as a man would have of seeing natural objects
properly through glass stained red, or blue, or yellow. He has, if he
would acquire a true knowledge of Irish affairs, to penetrate a tradition
of falsehood of seven centuries' growth, to clear his mind of a cloud of
prejudice forced in upon it by everything he reads and hears in his daily
life, and to confess himself a member of a community which has
exhausted against an unoffending people the whole range -of human
crime, which still does all the evil it is permitted to do, and with an
amazing audacity claims credit for not doing that which is no longer
possible. It is evident that all this is far beyond the power of the
person in question ; and instead of being surprised at the stupid malice
we see so often displayed in our regard, we should rather be thankful
that there are some few Englishmen who grasp the realities of the Irish
question, and advocate its true solution.

The average British Catholic is, in Irish affairs, an Englishman first,
and a Catholic after. He never reads an Irish Catholic or national paper.
I met lately a friend, an English ecclesiastic of high position, and almost
before the ordinary greeting was over, he literally burst into a tirade of
abuse against Parnell and Davitt, and the Irish movement generally.
While he was exhausting himself, I thought : Is it any use trying to
enlighten this good man ? and concluding it was not, replied never a
word, and talked of the weather. Another priest on the London mission
made, in the hearing of the writer, an extraordinary statement respecting
an event which had just occurred. On being challenged for his
authority, he replied : " Oh, I saw it in the Times and the speech of the
Attorney-General." This gentleman would resent being called unfair
and unjust, yet he goes for his facts to a hired slanderer, and to the
most notorious and inveterate enemy of everything Irish.

This is the ordinary state of mind of the average Englishman-
Catholic and Protestant, lay and cleric. It is created and supported by
a thousand influences. It is upheld by a feeling of his own superiority,
and of consequent contempt for the people who trouble his peace and
rather damage him in the world's opinion. Not always consciously,
there is yet at the bottom of his mind the notion that the Irish arc an
inferior people, and therefore defends the whole course of English rule in
Ireland by " the right of conquest," which is pure paganism, and that
their domination by the imperial race is part of the "eternal fitness of
things."

Those who have had opportunities of comparing the two peoples
in every one particular honourable to men may smile at this

98 THE CASTLE BISHOP AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC FACTION.

feeling, but it is a very real misfortune for us, since it is that which most
constantly operates against the formation in England of a just publie
opinion. Whatever excuse or palliation there may be for the layman
who yields willingly to the anti-Irish influence, there is none, it seems to
me, for the cleric. For he is bound to weigh facts in the scale of the
sanctuary. He is doubly bound as a teacher to know the truth. He
should remember that English society is essentially pagan ; that its
beginning was in an impious lie — the assertion that Henry VIII.
and not the Pope was the Vicar of Christ ; that it is the outcome
of a blasphemous rebellion against God and the Church of which
he is a minister ; and that in its every development it shows daily
clearer and clearer the evidence of its origin, and the doom to which it
hastens. When he " comes to terms with modern civilisation," when he
makes himself one with English society as it exists around him, he acts
as the early Christians would have done had they entered into the society
of pagan Rome and accepted its toleration, which is another way of saying
that Christianity would have perished ere it arose.

In the whole controversy between the two countries the English view
is worldly, corrupt, and pagan; the Irish spiritual, just, Christian,
Catholic. In adopting the former the English ecclesiastic makes himself,
unconsciously though it be, one with the enemies of the Cross of Christ,
and impedes with all his power the salvation of his country.

We will get a clearer view of the condition of English Catholicism if
we take the Tablet as its representative. It is the more desirable to use
this method, as it will enable us to reclaim against the part this once
admirable journal has lately taken in Irish affairs. In the hands of
Frederick Lucas it was a synonym for everything honest and straight
forward in policy, frank and manly in expression, elevated and noble in
aim. For several years it has been the very reverse. Happily for us, its
mental and moral decay have been coincident, and it is not now capable
of doing the mischief its conductor apparently desires. Not that it is
not edited with the gravity and care which become its proprietorship,
and that its literary work does not at least attain a respectable
mediocrity ; but as a journal claiming to be the chief representative of
Catholic opinion in Great Britain it is utterly unworthy of the position-
it is, in fact, below contempt. These are strong expressions, yet I hope
to justify them before coming to an end.

The Tablet is owned by the Right Rev. Dr. Vaughan, Bishop of
Salford, one of a family distinguished for great services to the Church.
This eminent prelate is himself the ideal of an English bishop. Of a
noble presence, genial and frank in disposition, accessible, urbane,
courteous in manner, in ability and cultivation far beyond the average;

THE CASTLE BISHOP AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC FACTION. 99

he bears himself with judgment and dignity before the great community
inidst which he moves. His administration of the diocese of Salford has
been marked by a decided advance in Catholic aftairs ; and if it has
shown any deficiency it is only such as was inevitable from want of
understanding the Irish portion of his flock.

In the paper owned by this great Catholic ecclesiastic the Catholic
people of Ireland has found its most bitter, most false, most inveterate
•enemy.

That the bishop believes this no one who knows him (and to know is
to venerate and love) can for a moment imagine. It is possible he does
not read the paper at all. Certainly from it he has nothing to learn. It is
certain also that he does not know the effects it produces. If he did we may
well suppose he would quickly terminate his connection with it. If the
Tablet would let us alone we might wonder, yet we would have no right
to complain. It has not even that very negative ment : it takes sides
.atainst us. It is skilled in regard to Irish affairs in all the forms of the
suygtstio fain and the suppressio veri, while occasionally it ventures on
the lie direct with an audacity which rivals the Times. Long a leader
in the conspiracy of silence, it has of late become a conspicuous member
of the conspiracy of slander, and Father George Angus, or the recreant
Bellingham, or anyone else who chooses to dip pen in gall to write about
Irish men or things, has free scope in its pages. For defence, or expla
nation, or justification, there is no allowance: "they would cause
discussion."

For sophistry, meanness, and falsehood, the Tablet on Irish affairs
equals or surpasses any of its Protestant contemporaries. Everything
favourable to the country is suppressed, everything unfavourable put
forward. The result is that the presentation of the Irish question
amounts to one gigantic falsehood. We are treated to such headings
as, "A Week's Crime in Ireland," when a multitude of facta and feports
of " facts " which never occurred are brought together to make a picture
of repulsive darkness. At another time we have an article headed,
" England and Ireland," showing the infinite forbearance and goodness
of England and the utter perversity of Ireland. In a word, every fact,
every principle, arising between the two countries, is reversed, and a
reader drawing his information from the Tablet alone would be tempted
to think Ireland and its people justly entitled to a place in the "Inferno."

To aggravate the injustice, the slander, the reversal of all truth in
the controversy, the Papal approval granted to the Tablet when under
very different management, and when its whole meaning was the reverse
of what it is, still remains blazoned on its front. We have ample cause
to feel indignant at this. We have a right to demand that the Holy

100 THE CASTLE BISHOP AND THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC FACTION.

Father (for in this Leo the Thirteenth is Pius the Ninth) shall no longer
be made a party to the rankest injustice, and that his sacred name and
office shall not serve to cloak the basest forms of heretical pravity.

It needs no " scientific theologian " to extract from many of the
later numbers of the Tablet propositions which, if not downright heretical,
should be marked by the notes which describe the stages of approach to
the sin of sins. The explanation may be found in this — that the editor
is a half-converted British Philistine of the most inveterate type. He
may have received the faith. I do not judge. It is clear from his work
that his intellect (like the digestive organs of a late well-known convert)
has never been converted. Now, we know that heresy has darkened the
reason of the English people, and depraved and perverted their wills,
and hence the scandals of relapses amongst converts, and the evident
Protestant tone and sympathies of many who remain nominally Catholic.
This will partly account for the course of the Tablet. Then, this editor is
a toady and a tuft-hunter. He " dearly loves a lord." In his heart of
hearts he has already canonised "the duke," and accords him at least
the worship of dulia. To the aristocracy, generally, he bows down ; and
does his best to connect the Church of God with the cause of an effete
and worthless class, which, in the judgment of every thinking man in
England, is doomed to speedy destruction.

The claim of such a man to guide -English opinion, Catholic or non-
Catholic, is preposterous. His very highest aim seems to be "safe,"
and " respectable/' and " genteel." He is so wholly in thrall to his
feudal superiors that he does not scruple to suppress important items of
English news when these might be unpleasant to the gods of his idolatry.
For example, at the last meeting of the Catholic Union — which would
be the chief organisation of English Catholicism if it was not smothered
by rank and "respectability" — some gentlemen presumed to express the
dangerous opinion that the Union should take action of one kind or
another in public affairs. They were duly put down. A rift was made,
however; some light was let in on the " masterly inaction " of our aristo
cratic chiefs ; and, therefore, the Tablet suppressed the report altogether.
The notes of its backslidings in Irish and Catholic affairs within, say,
the last four years, would fill a small volume. Some few may here be
named. It took up the defence of the " Kavanagh-Extermination-
Pveplanting-with-Protestants " Society. It advocated Lord Derby's in
famous suggestion of spending millions in "emigrating" the Irish
people. It claimed honour and reward for Mr. Errington because he
succeeded in imposing on Propaganda the English idea in all its infinite
falsehood and injustice, and extracting the circular which Mr. Healy
correctly described, and which will not be forgotten while its authors

SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOLICISM. 101

exist or the policy it indicates is pursued. To cap the climax of its
iniquity, it has permitted, without a single word of condemnation, the
advocacy in its columns of the eviction of the whole Irish people, on the
ground that " it would pay." Yet this is the journal which writes of
itself, "It is, therefore, now incumbent on the Catholic press of Europe,
which alone is swayed by the eternal principles of justice, to raise its voice
on behalf of the helpless and oppressed ! " Therefore, we may presume,
the Tablet was silent while its brethren in Ireland were victims ot
Buckshot's brutal tyranny : its strongest deprecatory phrase applied to
one of his worst acts being that " it seemed rather arbitrary." Therefore,
it rather approved of Lord Rossmore's assassination manifesto. Therefore
it is on all occasions as ready as the Castle bishop to praise "the justice
of our rulers," and anathematise all who stand against them. Again it
is, we must suppose, because the Tablet " is swayed by the eternal
principles of justice," that it had no word of condemnation for the
Afghan or South African wars — perhaps the most wanton and iniquitous
that England ever waged, or for the murdering of the Egyptians, with
whom we were not at war at all. Arabi, to be sure, was, according
to the Tablet, a "coward" and a "fanatic." "His ideas were
incompatible with Western civilisation." Above all, his success in
Egypt was adverse to " British interests," and therefore lie must be
squelched. Yet the Tablet could see that the French invasion of Tunis
was a " monstrous iniquity ! "

The whole thing is sickening. Glancing over the Tablet, we get a
clear idea how the Reformation became possible in England, and how it
could be made again. It was such wretched negations of everything
robust, and honest, and Catholic which made it possible for a devil like
Henry to deslfoy in a generation the work of a thousand years. If the
class the Tablet represents were alone — if they did not themselves yield,
as is likely, to the modern spirit, and become one with the world around
them — they would be so handled by the Russell or the Gladstone of the
day, as to quickly lose even the profession of Catholicism. For the
people by whom they were emancipated, and by whom they are supported
and protected, they have nothing but lying and slander, and the basest
ingratitude.

AN IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAN.

SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOLICISM.

SiR, — The sentence pronounced on the first transgression, if
severe, was judicial. Uttered by a human tribunal, it would be
intolerable, for it was for the bulk of mankind penal servitude

102 SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOLICISM.

for the years allotted to each, terminated by death. But infinite-
wisdom joined to it such compensations, as that no one who has-
tasted them would wish his lot other than it is. The sentence that man
shall "earn his bread by the sweat of his brow" was not penal only.
That which declares that, if "a man shall not work neither shall he eat,"
has two issues. If the " sweat " is given the " bread " is the just recom
pense. If a man is ready and willing to work he has a right to eat.

British law in Ireland has for generations denied to the people this
primary and essential right. The Irish landlord has, indeed, in the
past, commonly left his serf a bare subsistence in ordinary times ; but
when pressure or scarcity came there was no reserve, and the serf begged
or starved. An epitome of the whole Irish land system is found in the
great Dillon estate in Mayo. This, which extends over 90,000 acres, was
a century ago a waste of bog and moor. The gradual clearing of richer
lands — the carrying out of the sentence, " To hell or Connaught " —
gradually led to the settlement of this vast tract by squatters. The
reclamation, such as it was, began, and also the rent. It is impossible
to get at the earlier rent roll of the Dillon estate, but it is the general
opinion, supported by the evidence of aged tenants, that fifty years ago
it was between £10,000 and £1 1 ,000. It now stands at close on £30,000,.
the difference being the confiscated improvements of the tenantry. The
process by which the advance was made can be compared to nothing but
periodical blood-letting by a skilful surgeon. This does not threaten life;
yet it so reduces the subject that, when the pressure of disease comes
upon him, he yields at once. The late famine compelled three-
fourths of the Dillon tenantry to rpp?al to the "Mansion House" or the
"Duchess" relief funds, while the noble proprietor was not heard of. It
is true indeed he was not getting his rents. How could he be when he
got them ten times over in advance ? If a man kills his goose he can't
have the eggs also. The enormous rental yielded for so many years by
this estate was largely produced by labour in England. The serf hired
himself out for one-half the year to pay for the privilege of living for the
other on Lord Dillon's bogs. The mansion house of Loughglynn has not
known the presence of one of the title for forty years, nor has any
appreciable portion of the vast revenue been spent in reproductive or
any other works. The honey from this vast hive of 4,500 tenants was
skilfully withdrawn, to be used or wasted elsewhere, and the toilers were
left to starve.

When pressure of want roused the serfs to combination and
resistance, the Lord Viscount was powerless. He could not
evict nor consolidate. If the tenants were wise they could have
made equitable terms. But they trusted to the honour of a

SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOTICISM. 103

nobleman, and were deceived. They went into the Land Courts.
Their lord asked them to withdraw the originating notices,
promising them the land at Griffith's valuation. They did so ;
and when the combination was broken up, and the Coercion Act intro
duced, he broke his promise in the fashion of any common dishonourable
mortal. It would not be just to the well-known man who managed the
property for thirty years to omit saying that he retired from office some
three or four years ago. A member of a much-respected Mayo family
then took it up ; but finding the duties expected to be such as he could
not perform, he also withdrew ; and finally a Mr. Murray Hussey was
imported from Kerry to do the needful. This young person lias been
made a " Jaa Pee," and the pranks he plays in the petty sessions courts
in his neighbourhood will probably be the subject of some questions in
the coming Parliament. To repeat, the whole Irish land question is
epitomised in this one estate, and it is here particularised to give Lord
Dillon the publicity he merits, and the argument the* solid foundation
of fiict. The Irish people claimed through the Land League the first of
all rights — the right to live by their labour. The Tablet — English
Catholic paper — cried "confiscation," "robbery," "Communism." The
Catholic people of Ireland demand to be freed from the domination of the
Orange-Freemason ring which tortures them. The Tablet cries
"sedition." It is said that it is a mere waste of time to expose this
paper — that no one reads it or cares what it says. This I take to be a
mistake. The paper may be intellectually contemptible. But it has
behind it the great office and person of a Catholic bishop, and nothing
which appears in it can be void of the significance pertaining to this con
nection. At lowest, the Ta llet is the straw which shows the way i he
wind blows, and how it became possible to obtain from Propaganda a
document so injurious and insulting to the Irish Church and people as
the late circular.

Whatever the editor be, it is time he was prevented from doing his
little best to hinder that cordial union of the Catholics of England with
us which must precede any solid advance, for them at least, on the line
of Catholic interests.

It is only too evident that obstacles enough to this union exist
already. The English Catholic body seem struck with mortal paralysis
— intellectual and moral. Thirty years ago it showed more activity and
life and hope than now. We had then such men as Charles Langdale
(clarum et ven^rabile nomen) in Catholic public life, if not in politics.
Has he left no son to undertake the lapsed duties and perpetuate the
noble tradition ? We had Kenelm Digby painting with unrivalled
learning fascinating pictures of the ages of faith, fnd tracing

104 SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOLICISM.

with wonderful skill the many roads of human life which lead
to the city of God. Does no man of his race exist to render the
pictures into realities, or show the way in one at least of the roads 1
We had the venerable Charles Waterton illustrating what manner of
man it was who bore with such patient dignity the ostracism of
three centuries from the public life of that England his fathers had made ;
the Waterton of to-day seems to exhaust himself in collecting editions of
a famous book written many centuries ago, and in endeavouring to
elucidate the hopeless problem of its authorship. Then there are Welds
and Maxwells, Stourtons and Scropes, Howards and Petres, with many
another, of whom it may be justly said that in personal qualities they
are worthy of their ancestry. What part do they take in the public life
of England — what action to stem the daily advance of paganism, or to
endeavour to restore the empire to the unity of Christendom'? The
answer is their condemnation. There is not a single English Catholic
gentleman in the'House of Commons ; for it may be presumed that the
nondescript member for Berwick "don't count."

Yet this House of Commons is the centre and heart of our civilisation.

Who influences or guides it controls the destinies of the empire for good

or evil. Through it alone can the impulse be given which can effectually

raise or depress our national life. It is, therefore, of the first importance —

it is evidently essential — that a Catholic party be formed within it,

growing out of and acting with the Irish party. This could be easily

formed from the English Catholic gentry, for they have wealth, and

leisure, and cultivation. Two necessary qualities they have not, namely,

freedom from English prejudices, and the courage of their convictions.

They are, as has been said, in regard to Ireland, Englishmen first and

Catholics after. They have never shown, as regards public life, that

they had any conception of their duties, or the disinterestedness necessary

to the earlier stages of their fulfilment. It is no excuse to say they were

shut out from the representation of English constituencies by prejudice.

They could have got seats in Ireland in any necessary number. At

the next election twenty suitable men could get placed in the Irish

representation, but they would need to be very different from those we

have lately had a sample of. We don't want " clever idiots " like Lord

R. Montague, nor shams like the late Sir George Bowyer. We want

Frederick Lucases, if not in ability, at least in honesty and Catholic

spirit. Supposing the late Dr. Ward was as eloquent with tongue as

powerful with pen, what an unknown amount of good he could have

done in Parliament on such questions as education ! His robust and

masculine understanding, displaying all that was best of the English

mind, would have given him the power of a party. It will yet be

SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOLICISM. 105

recorded as evident proof of the decadence of the English Catholic body,
that at the very turning-point of the history of both countries they have
not given one man to do a man's work on the side of Catholic interests
and public policy.

Enough there were on the other side. Mr. Gladstone, surely
in this case a most credible witness, declared on bringing in the
Compensation for Disturbance Bill that the lives of 15,000 Connaught
peasants depended on its passing ; that for them the sentence of eviction
was a sentence of death. What did our English brethren in the faith
care ? At the head of the Catholic nobility, the Duke of Norfolk marched
down to the Upper Chamber to vote the unroofing of three thousand
humble homes, the quenching of as many hearths. Is his own rooftree
the more secure, his own hearth the happier, for this callous and
unchristian disregard of the interests of those who are most truly
"pauperes Ckristi?" Does he think he has postponed for one day the
inevitable question : What has he or what have his ancestors done to
entitle him to levy a tax of a quarter of a million per annum on the
industry of Sheffield ? The Irish landlord stretched his claim beyond
bearing. It has put him in the way of being deprived of what he is
justly entitled to. And so the English aristocracy. They are riding on
the very top of the law. The Marquis of Salisbury, who is as insolent
and as selfish but rather more cunning than the rest of his class, begins to
hearken to the "bitter cry of outcast London," but it will take more than
words — it will take prompt heroic action — on his part, and on that of the
Dukes of Bedford and Westminster, and the rest, if they are able to rescue
their properties from the rising flood of lawless democracy — lawless, because
it has for long been put by the feudal aristocracy out- side the law.

The English Catholic aristocracy, titled and uutitled, have enormous
interests at stake. The world around them moves with ever-increasing
velocity, and they keep fiddling away, as did the French noblesse of the
last century. With numberless practical questions calling for treatment
and solution, their chief organ is filled with abstractions, such as essays
on the " Days of Creation," the origin of the word " Mass," or the guilt
or innocence of Mary of Scotland. Very interesting, no doubt, to a
community in a satisfactory condition ; the merest trifling in face of such
dangers and necessities as beset the Catholic Church in England. They
might have a formidable party in both Houses of Parliament, looking
after the administration of the poor-law, the care of Catholic orphans,
the education question, and others equally pressing, while they are
absolutely without voice or representation. They debate about Catholic
action or inaction, and finally decide for the latter — their chief organisa
tion, the Catholic Union, showing how " not to do it " in an incomparable
i

106 SOME NOTES ON ENGLISH CATHOLICISM.

manner. We have suggestions of Catholic Liberal associations to form
a tail to the Whig party, and of Conservative ditto to form ditto to the
Tory party — one genius going the length of gravely proposing for the
latter the device of Tiara, Crown, and Bible, and for principal aim
the giving of an active support to the "present union of Church
and State in England." This is "our common Christianity " with a
vengeance. There is to be seen a good deal of intellectual activity
rarely directed to any useful purpose, and liberality sometimes more
scandalous than edifying. Thus the late Earl of Shrewsbury (O'Connell's
"pious fool") spent £100,000 on religious buildings at Alton and
Cheadle, rather monuments to his own glorification than as judicious
expenditure for Catholic purposes, while he could refuse a sovereign to a
good Scotch priest begging for a congregation of labourers.* The late
Sir W. Stewart, of Murthly, spent £30,000 on a private chapel, while a
few miles from his castle lived four hundred Irish Catholics without
church, or priest, or school. The Marquis of Bute gives years of labour
to the translation of the Breviary, and months to writing a life of St.
Mungo. Excellent and praiseworthy works is the noblest ambition that
ever inspired human activity was not open to him, namely, the reconsti-
tutipn, in the Christian order, of the society of which he is so prominent
and powerful a member. This, his first and greatest duty, is so little in
his mind that, with an almost total want of Catholic middle-class and
university education before his eyes, he gave lately an enormous sum
(variously reported at from £40,000 to £60,000) to the Presbyterian
University of the wealthy city of Glasgow. Such an act as this may
well give rise to doubts as to the reality and permanency of his conver
sion, and to gravest fears for the future of a body of which he is one of
the principal "leaders." All this goes to prove that our English friends,
like some nearer home, " have come to terms with modern civilisation."
The outcome of recent long discussions is to leave the Church gagged
and bound, silent and degraded, before her enemy — the world. Not one
of the interlocutors gave a thought to the fact that there was a powerful
Catholic element here which would form the surest basis for any public
movement. Like the French Legitimists, the English Catholics seem to
be incapable, as regards public affairs, of anything but talking and
praying — excellent things when well done, and associated with prudent
and courageous action ; mere delusion without.

* This aged and exemplary priest still lives. When relating the circumstances of
his visit to Alton (the close of which was the shutting of his door by the noble earl
in the face of his visitor), he used to say, "That man's 'charities' will lose him his
sou]." Per contra, he had, at nearly the same time, an experience of the opposits
kind. He was received at another noble house — Lord Stourton's, I think — with
gracious hospitality, compelled to stay overnight, and in the morning received the
offerings of the household, from the seniors to the youngest child of a large family,
and even the servants, who asked to be allowed to contribute.

SOME NOTES OX ENGLISH CATHOLICISM. 107

For this incapacity, this nullity of public action, they have not one
excuse. They have for leaders two men whose appearance marks an
epoch* — one, chief of living men in the order of thought, the other as
great in that of action. Of the latter, especially, the English Catholic
body is not woithy. If the Irish people had the advantage of the
leading wasted on men who will not follow, they would realise, as far as
imperfect humanity can, and in a time incredibly short, that ideal which
springs from a close and active union of the natural and supernatural.
This day of allt others should inspire us with renewed energy, and u
hope whose ardour is a presage of success. Our chief receives the homage
of the nation he has emancipated anew. Before the world, in sight of
all but those who will not see, he triumphs over his enemies and ours ;
and the evidence of his intimate, inviolable union with an organised and
united Irish nation will make easier and swifter the triumph which in
God's providence awaits us. — Yours,

Ax IRISH CATHOLIC LAYMAX.

* It is hardly necessary to name Cardinals Newman and Manning,
t December llth.

POSTSCRIPT.

SEVERAL points touched in the foregoing letters require explanation.

1. As to the title "Castle Bishop," this so exactly describes the
personage in question that in spite of various criticisms I find myself
unable to invent a better. Now, bishops there are in Ireland who have
never been to the Castle, nor, as far as the public know, have had any
communication therewith, who do its work as thoroughly as if they were
its constant attendants, and drew a handsome revenue for their services.
Again, there are bishops who have been to the Castle in bodily presence
who hate it with an absolute hatred, and who are Irish in every throb of
their hearts and every fibre of their brain.

2. "Coming to terms with modern civilisation" has been more than
once referred to as practical apostasy, or at least as leading to it. To
prevent misconception, it is necessary to define all civilisation as the union
of men in society for the mutual aid and the development of the arts of
life. Civilisation in the natural order is that which makes itself its own end.
Civilisation in the supernatural or Christian order is that which has an
end above and beyond itself. In the particular we know that the man
who seeks himself his own interest, pleasure, enjoyment — even though
the pursuit be regulated by reason and outward decorum — finds himself,
indeed, but finds his own ruin. For the supernatural is the complement,
and perfection of the natural, wanting which the latter sinks to
inevitable decay. Again, the man whose secret aim, desire, object is the
supernatural, in apparent neglect of all the world holds dear, finds that
which even the world prizes —happiness — and finds also his own higher
good — the summum bonum of human existence. The civilisation of
which each of these men is the type, follows the individual fate for good
or evil. Now, it must be granted that English civilisation — and Irish as
far as it is West British — is of the natural or pagan kind ; and the
Catholic ecclesiastic who makes himself one with it, who tolerates it,
who does not fight against it, as far as his action or inaction goes —
involves the Church of God in the ruin which, from the operation of
constant necessary laws, sooner or later overtakes such civilisation.
While, therefore, we may thankfully take advantage of all the material
progress of which the age boasts so much, we must keep steadily in view
that it makes no part whatever of that true civilisation which aims at
restoring human society, as far as it is possible, to its primal condition.

3. It has been said : How can you, an ultra of the Ultramontanes,
support so unreservedly the leadership of a non-Catholic? Some of our
friends on the other side, and others at this, openly and secretly point it
out as a weakness that we give Mr. Parnell our entire confidence. This

HO POSTSCRIPT.

is sufficiently offensive from men of a class who profess Catholicism for
no nobler purpose than to enhance their price. Nevertheless, it suggests-
the usefulness of an explanation which can be readily given.

In addition to being offensive, the insinuation is historically false;
for, with few exceptions, the best Irishmen for the last hundred years
have been non-Catholics. Beginning with Grattan, Ireland owes more to
them than to any others save one. Perhaps the most beautiful character
who during the whole period adorned Irish life was the late John Martin.
The instinct of the Irish people is more exact than the bastard theology
of the purists who would confine the noblest of natural virtues — that one
which, in a manner, combines them all — patriotism — to the profession of
any class or creed.

There is in all society, whether Christian or pagan, an inherent right
to pursue its own lawful ends by its own means. In seeking to re
establish the prosperity of their country by the enaction of laws for the
protection of industry, and by gaining power to manage their own affairs,,
the Irish people are perfectly justified in electing as their chief the man
who seems to them most likely to lead them to success, no matter what,
ill the religious order, he may or may not profess. It is a question of
expediency, of means to end, and so likewise is the assistance which the
leader may ask or accept. If any political chief were to require a
condition of moral perfection in all his followers, he would, if he could
begin any movement at all, quickly find himself a general without an army.
Supposing, by the favour of Mr. Gladstone, the beastliest form of
infidelity, in the person of Mr. Bradlaugh, had got entrance into the
House of Commons, Mr. Parnell, while declining to admit him into the
Irish party on account of the odium he would attach to it, would be
perfectly free to take advantage of his vote on a critical division.

But our choice may be justified on still higher grounds. The charity
of the Catholic Church is as wide as that of her Divine Founder. Her
solicitude embraces every creature formed in his image. Her jurisdiction
extends to every soul on whom the Christian character has been
impressed by true baptism. She tells them they are bound to hear her
voice and to regard her as their true mother. Declaring with precision
the law of which she is the depositary, guardian, and teacher, she is
intolerant of its contraries, because she is certain of its truth. She has,
in delivering this message, more than the certainty of the exact sciences ;
for, fully satisfying the most rigorous demands of reason as to her
authority, she gives to her subjects the higher, the absolute certainty of
faith.

Yet while declaring her message to all men she refrains from judging
individuals without her obedience — nor, indeed, does she decide on the

POSTSCRIPT. Ill

condition of those within, save in the rare cases when she raises a saint
to her altars or strikes an obdurate sinner with the major excommuni
cation. On the contrary, she permits us to hope that many apparently
beyond her pile are in reality her children, born to her in baptism, in
good faith obeying conscience, and responding to the grace of the Holy
Spirit, " which bloweth where it listeth," in ways not known to men —
perhaps approaching the one fold in which, following the general law,
God wills all men to be. In that wonderful book, the "Apologia "of
Cardinal Newman, we have a forcible example of this truth in his decla
ration that after he had received (conditional) Catholic baptism his faith
was no stronger nor wider than before, which is, by implication, the
assurance that he already possessed the fulness of Catholic belief.

4. Here the writer may fitly declare a truth which to him has always
been matter of thankfulness— that between English and Irish Protest
antism (using the word in its widest sense) there is, in a manner, almost
as great a difference as between the general spiritual condition of the two
peoples. The Irish Protestant is a far higher type, both in belief and
conduct. The difference appears chiefly in the South and West. But
truth compels me to except Belfast from this favourable view. It is
nearly, if not altogether, as unbelieving and immoral — in its Protestant
element — as any Scotch or English town of like size. Whether owing
to the purer atmosphere, the higher standard set by the Church, or to
inherent merit, we meet in Ireland, not unfrequently, men to whom we
may safely extend the charity of the Church, and believe that they are
sincere and faithful Christians though not dwelling apparently within
her pale.

Passing from this, the writer has the best reason to know that the
late Isaac Butt, though, unhappily, not a Catholic, was in sentiment
profoundly Christian. He had penetrated the secret of the national life,
and drew from his early home that feeling of sympathy with the people
and respect for their religious convictions, which led him, at the close of
his career, to put himself at their head and inaugurate the movement
which has had in other hands such wonderful success. With perfect
consistency, therefore, with an entire and unreserved confidence, may
the Catholic people of Ireland follow their gallant Protestant chief, not
judging him in the spiritual order, but mayhap praying that in God's
good time every possible reward may be given him for services
and self-sacrifice without parallel in our time. Certain it is that
there is incomparably more of the true Christian spirit in the heroic
devotion of Parnell to the people and cause with which Catholicism
is inseparably linked, than in the piety of the most Catholic
Whig lawyer who ever sold himself body and soul to do the diabolical

112 POSTSCRIPT.

work of the British Government in Ireland. In the new order so rapidly
being formed out of the ruins of the old there will be in public life no
distinction of Catholic or Protestant, no ascendency, no Pale. Good
citizenship will form the sole title to honour and command ; and, speak
ing in the name of a people I know well, and in my own, the Catholics
of Ireland do not desire, and would not accept, any condition of things
in which other ideas should prevail.

f>. " But," asks a friend, venerable by reason of years and office, still
more venerable from services, "are you quite sure of your ground1?
Granting the truth of every word you have written, are you not doing
more evil than good? Are not these letters, after all, rather the outcome
of an idiosyncrasy idealising an ordinary condition of things than a sober
statement of facts as they are 1 Are you not by externating thoughts
floating in the minds of many, by giving body and form to the inchoate
and intangible, inducing the very evils you desire to prevent, and hasten
ing the final catastrophe when the abomination of desolation shall sit in
the holy place1?" I listen to my friend with the more respect because I
am unable to accept his view. It seems tinged with the foreboding
which comes of years and sorrows — sorrows not personal, but for a
desolated country and a suffering people. I ask myself, is the Government
of to-day, less than the Government of last year or last century, a
Government of fraud and force, of chicane and hypocrisy 1 Arc not its
final sanctions, as of old, the bludgeon, the bayonet, and the gibbet? Do
not three of the four crimes calling to heaven for vengeance — wilful
murder, oppression of the poor, and defrauding labourers of their wages —
ravage the land 1 And do not Catholic ecclesiastics, having power to
stop them, not only sit down and make no sign, but enter into friendly
relations with the criminals ?

6: Then, turning once more to the Propaganda Circular, we find
clearest evidences of a condition of mind, of a current of opinion, boding *
imminent danger to Ireland and the Church. The Quarantotti Kescript,
while bartering our ecclesiastical freedom for some unknown but un-Irish
equivalent, was at least polite in its terms. The Propaganda Secretary
of to-day, abandoning the stately and elaborate forms of Roman courtesy,
designates our chief, " Parnellius," as he would an unprincipled ad
venturer, a mercenary agitator, as something at once dangerous and
contemptible; and the nine bishops who had already approved the Tribute,
the thousands of clergy of the second rank, and the whole Irish people,
as " asseclse " — lacqueys, sycophants, hangers-on ! The scribe who drew '
the circular may have been ignorant of what he was doing. The
eminent ecclesiastics who signed it were or were not. If the former, they
showed how matters of infinite importance can be done with unheard-of

POSTSCRIPT. 113

carlessness ; if the latter, they have put an unparalleled affront on the
most loyal and faithful people committed to their care. Again, in the
Soderini pamphlet, " published by authority," and in Maziere Brady's
" Rome and Fenianism" (written in Rome), a rehash of the vile stuff of
the anti-Catholic Dublin press, there is further proof of depth of anti-
Irish prejudice in the surroundings of Propaganda.

7. We suffer an unknown detriment from want of University educa
tion. We ean never reconstitute ourselves thoroughly without it. The
three years of University life are what temper and polish the student
and make the man. In these he digests and assimilates the acquisitions
of college life, and matches himself with his future competitors. It is
the attrition of mind with mind in the University, the emulation bred
of constant struggles, the training of historical and debating societies,
which give the first stimulus to manly effort, the first inception of
laudable ambition to succeed in life. As well pit a raw recruit against
the veteran of many campaigns as match our youth, half-formed from
their college course, against the trained minds of the University. It is
unjust, and we will no longer bear injustice ; for we do not need. For
every man of Irish birth we demand equality before the law. No true
Irishman will ever, on Irish soil, ask for more. He would not be worthy
of the name if he was content with less. When, therefore, the most
eminent ecclesiastic in Ireland comes to us associated with the chief of
the anti-Christian sect of Freemasons and of the Orange ascendency
faction, red with the blood of our brothers in Deny — when, I say,
Cardinal McCabc and the Duke of Abercoru offer us a thrice-condemned
Godless examining board, which they call a Royal University, surely it
is time to make a stand, surely it is time to say, " Your Eminence, we
cannot accept this thing ; it is not Catholic nor Irish. It involves the
violation of our educational rights, and implies the abandonment of
Catholic principles. We therefore reject and abhor it, with the whole
train of compromises of which it is the fitting conclusion."

Once for all, we will level up or level down. If a Catholic Trinity
be not founded, with equal rights and proportionate endowments, then
the Trinity of ascendency must go. We have at length got a foothold
on the soil of Ireland. Out of that must come everything we can claim
of equality and justice — we will not have fastened upon us, by educa
tional disability, an ascendency more subtle and more potent than any
law could invent or impose. For thirty years Ireland has seen her
highest interests bartered and juggled away for promotion for the basest
of mankind — Whig-Catholic lawyers. She was indignant and outraged,
but dumb. What has she gained by quiescence ? The Propaganda
Circular, and the gagging of every Irish ecclesiastic worthy of the name.

114 POSTSCRIPT.

The anti-Irish, anti-Catholic conspiracy grows and gains upon us.

The assembly best representing everything of honesty and loyalty
and worth in Ireland met in the Rotunda a few weeks since. Many
eloquent voices were heard, but that sacred voice was silent which so
long sustained and guided the Irish cause. Again the Irish Church was
severed from the Irish people. The Cardinal scored another triumph.
He will find a few more such victories fatal as those of Pyrrhus.

So much in answer to my venerable friend. One more precaution
against the evils he dreads. I beg my readers to keep always in view
the distinctions made in an earlier letter. Whatever the merit or
demerit of ecclesiastics, the Church is not touched in her Divine life.
That always remains perfect and immaculate. If it were otherwise, our
Lord could not dwell within her. She retains through all vicissitudes
the same absolute indefeasible claim to our obedience and love, because
in her totality she remains perfect, and everywhere possesses and guards
the Life of our life. When, therefore, faithful Catholics see anything in
the clergy to give them pain, they should draw closer to their Mother
because some of her sons may act unworthily. This is where true loyalty
is shown, and faith and constancy are tried.

8. For those who have followed me so far with sympathy and
indulgence in dealing in a manner necessarily very imperfect with a
difficult and complicated subject, no further profession of faith is
necessary. For those, again (and I hope they are few), who consider
these letters hostile criticism from without — instead of what they really
are, filial remonstrances from within — no words of mine could give them
a contrary impression. For those whose opinions may be yet undecided)
I will repeat that as for myself I could choose no higher good than to be
faithful to death for what is to be prized above life itself, so for Ireland I
can desire no less. Sooner would I see the last man of Irish race perish
than that one ray of her sole but incomparable glory — her fidelity to the
Catholic faith and the See of Peter — should be dimmed or withdrawn.
For myself, I have the most profound conviction that, in spite of so
much to endanger and disquiet us, Ireland is destined to remain, and to
become still more, the most Catholic of nations. Her glorious
apostle did not pray for three yaars on the mount which bears
his name without effect. More certain hope than even this :
we rest upon . the Eock ; we look with calm and perfect
confidence to the chair of Peter, and know with absolute
certainty that the voice which will issue therefrom when the
cause is finally judged will be the voice of the Holy Spirit, In due
time the prelates who possess the confidence and who command the
obedience of the Irish people will put before the Holy Father the truth

POSTSCRIPT. 115

and justice of our cause, and by this statement our adversaries will bo
confuted and confounded. It could not be otherwise, for we are
Catholic before all. It is, in truth, impossible for those whose souls
have once embraced the Christian idea, who give themselves lovingly to
its consideration, who know the serenity and elevation of mind it brings,
or sometimes, coming unawares, how it floods the soul with sweetness
and light — it is impossible that they can ever turn away from the
absolutely True and Good at the instance of human passion or ambition,
for what is, at best, indifferent — at worst, corrupt. There is no
correlation between things different in kind. Neither can we compare
the finite with the infinite — time with eternity. Perpetual youth, a
million of worlds, an eternity of their enjoyment, all the pleasures of
sense and intellect, are to the soul which has once tasted the ineffable
sweetness of Divine wisdom not of a moment's consideration, not of a
feather's weight, against that one absorbing, consuming thought, that
ray of Divine light, that relation of origin and congruity which binds her
to her God. This advantage, this benefit, this priceless heritage, this
blessing beyond compare, conies to us and remains with us because of
our inviolable union with Rome, and this union we will guard and
maintain while a man of Irish name remains on Irish soil.

The words of a great man, still living, adorn the first page of this
book. With those of another, gone to his reward, it ma}-, I trust, be
fitly closed. They form part of the 39th Conference of Lacordaire ; and
even in their clumsy English dress read like that grandest outcome of
Inspiration, " In prindpio erat Verbum:" "There is a man over Whose
tomb love still keeps guard. There is a Man Whose sepulchre is not
only glorious, as was predicted by the prophet, but even beloved.
There is a Man Whose ashes after eighteen centuries have not yet grown
cold, Who is every day born anew in the memory of countless
multitudes ; Who is visited ui his tomb by shepherds and by kings,
who vie with one another in offering Him their homage. There is a
man whose steps are continually being tracked, and Who, withdrawn as
He is from our bodily eyes, is still discerned by those who unweariedly
haunt the spots were once He suffered, and who seek Him on His
Mother's knees by the border of the lake, on the mountain top, in the
secret paths of the valleys, under the shadow of the olive trees, or in the
silence of the desert. There is a Man Who has died and been buried,
but WThose sleeping and waking is still watched by us — Whose every
word still vibrates in our hearts, producing there something more than
love, for it gives life to those virtues of 'which love is the mother.
There is a Man Who long ages ago was fastened to a gibbet. And that
Man is every day taken down from the throne of His passion by millions

116 POSTSCRIPT.

of adorers, who prostrate themselves on the earth before Him, and kiss
his bleeding feet with unspeakable emotion. There is a Man Who was
once scourged and slain and crucified, but Whom an ineffable passion,
has raised from death and infamy, and made the object of an unfailing
love which finds all in Him peace, honour, joy — nay, even ecstasy
There is a Man Who, pursued to death in His own time with
inextinguishable hate, has demanded apostles and martyrs from each
successive generation, and has never failed to find them. There is one
Man, and one alone, Who has established this love on earth, and it is
Thou, 0 my Jesus ! — Thou Who has been pleased to anoint, to
consecrate me in thy love, and Whose very name at this moment
suffices to move my whole being, and to tear from me those words in
spite of myself."

APPENDIX.

For the convenience of the reader, the authorised translation of the Circular of Propaganda
is added, with the articles from the Nation, which they drew forth. These latter have a
permanent value, which make them worthy of being rescued— as far as this place may do so —
from the oblivion which attends on newspaper literature. They have never been answered,
for the best of all reasons.

LETTER OF THE SACRED CONGREGATION DE PROPAGANDA
FIDE TO THE BISHOPS OF IRELAND.

ILLUSTRIOUS AND REVEREND LORD,—

Whatever may be the opinion formed as to Mr. Parnell himself
and his objects, it is at all events proved that many of his followers have
on many occasions adopted a line of conduct in open contradiction to the
rules laid down by the Supreme Pontiff in his letter to the Cardinal
Archbishop of Dublin, and contained in the instructions sent to the
Irish Bishops by this Sacred Congregation, and unanimously accepted by
them at their recent meeting at Dublin. It is true that according to
those instructions it is lawful for the Irish to seek redress for their
grievances and to strive for their rights ; but always at the same time ob
serving the Divine maxim to seek first the kingdom of God and His
justice; and remembering also that it is wicked to further any cause, no
matter how just, by unlawful means.

It is, therefore, '4the duty of all the clergy, and especially of the Bishojis,
to curb the excited feelings of the multitude, and to take every opportunity,
with timely exhortations, to recall them to the justice and moderation which
are necessary in all things, that so they may not be led by greed of gain to
form a wrong estimate of their true interests, or to place their hopes of
public prosperity in the shame of criminal acts. Hence it follows that it
is not permitted to any of the clergy to depart from these rules them
selves, or to take part in, or in any way promote, movements inconsistent
with prudence and with the duty of calming men's minds.

It is certainly not forbidden to contribute money for the relief of
distress in Ireland ; but at the same time the aforesaid Apostolic man
dates absolutely condemn such collections as are got up in order to
inflame popular passions, and to be used as the means for leading men
into rebellion against the laws. Above all things, such collections should
be avoided where it is plain that hatred and dissensions are aroused
by them, that distinguished persons are loaded with insults, that never
in any way are censures pronounced against the crimes and murders
with which wicked men stain themselves; and especially when it is

118

APPENDIX.

asserted that the measure of true patriotism is in proportion to the
amount of money given or refused, so as to bring the people under the
pressure of intimidation.

In these circumstances, it must be evident to your Lordship, that the
collection called the " Parnell Testimonial Fund" cannot be approved
by this Sacred Congregation ; and consequently it cannot be tolerated
that any ecclesiastic, much less a Bishop, should take any part what
ever in recommending or promoting it.

Meanwhile, I pray God long to preserve your Lordship.

Given from the palace of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda
Fide llth day of May, 1883.

JOHN CARDINAL SIMEONI, Prefect.
DOMINICK, ARCHBISHOP OF TYRE, Secretary.

NOTE.— This translation is not exact.

THE ROMAN LETTER.

(From the "Nation" of May 19th, 1883.)

THERE is evil and disastrous news from Rome. Never since the priceless
treasure of the Faith was brought to our Irish shore has so terrible a
stroke been dealt at religion in Ireland as it is. our lot to chronicle to-day.

The deadly intrigues of England have triumphed at the Propaganda.
The sword is drawn on our faithful and devoted prelates and priests.

May the God of our fathers be with Ireland in this cruel moment !
Now, indeed, must we show that our fidelity to religion and our historic
devotion to the Holy See can come scathless through an ordeal more
trying than the blazing faggots of Elizabeth or the merciless massacres
of Cromwell.

As we have through blood and fire held our Faith against England,
so shall we at all human price hold our country against Rome. We will
not desert our priests and prelates ; they will not desert us. If force,
spiritual or temporal, come to tear them and us asunder, we will call to
mind ere now those who in an evil moment were enabled to speak in the
name of the Supreme Pontiff were (fortunately for Rome and for Ireland)
resisted — and successfully resisted — by O'Conncll, with Catholic Ireland
at his back.

A letter has been addressed by the Propaganda to our Irish prelates,
in which the inconceivable outrage is offered to our country of mixing up
crimes and disorders wholly abominable, and detested by all good Catholics
and good citizens, with the justifiable and legitimate political warfare

APPENDIX. 119

waged by the Irish people for the defence of their lives and the recovery
of their just rights. Long has England tried to get the world to do what
the Propaganda has herein at last done — that is to sa}% to class together,
as of one and the same moral character, the lawful resistance of the Irish
people to oppression, illegality, fraud, and destruction, and the execrable
disorders (really the evil products and outgrowths of that oppression and
illegality) which unhappily may attend upon acute stages of popular
exasperation.

What can the Propaganda say — what could be suggested by the
British spy who for the past sixteen months has been traducing us and
our prelates and priests in secret at Rome, in denunciation of crime that
has not been a thousand-fold more strongly said on countless occasions
by ourselves and by those priests and prelates 1 It shall not be said, for
it cannot be said, that Catholic Ireland has so changed as to resent a
reprehension of crime from a tribunal of God's Church. No, no,
Monsignori ; not so. Your offence against Ireland is that you have
espoused the ancient and persistent calumny of our oppressors, in
dragging in a proscription of legitimate patriotism within the sweep of a
rightful condemnation of crime.

If England's word is to be held good at Rome on such a subject, let
us face the consequence. Terrible were the crimes, frightful the
disorders, during Ireland's hapless condition in the eighteenth century.
The bloody atrocities of the law went often side by side with the ruthless
barbarities of the " Tory " and the " Rapparee." England called aloud
upon the world to execrate the wretches who were resisting her laws ; and
the Irishman who sheltered a priest or who shot down a trooper — the
peasant who stole to mass on a Sunday or the peasant who fired the
Williamite usurper's mansion — were " tarred with the same brush." Nay,
indeed, the records of the period show us that, then as now, the priests
and the laymen who were most innocent of complicity in disorder were
foully declared to be the " real " authors of all crime ; while the people,
because they would not love and obey the law, and give .up alike the
priest and the murderer, were declared to be "sympathisers with
assassination."

All the way right down through our history comes the same
abominable effort of England to classify Irish patriotism with Irish
erime.

Take the period of the Tithe War : —

Even apart from the scenes of bloodshed actually incidental
to the struggle against tithes, agrarian outrage rose to a terrible
pitch. Every circuit had its " bloody assize." Forth from the
press of England — from the statesmen, the legislators, the agents

120 APPENDIX.

(open and secret, ecclesiastical and lay) of England — there burst
a continuous roar of defamation, in which O'Connell and the
Irish priesthood were held up as the secret inciters and real
authors of Irish murder, turbulence, and crime. Then, as to-day, every
passionate sentence that could be culled, longo inter vallo, from hundreds
of speeches — every hasty word, amidst thousands spoken in restraint
and noble exhortation to tranquillity and peace — every regrettable act of
omission or commission in the heat and turmoil of a desperate conflict
in a cause righteous before God — was patched and pieced together so as
to startle one with an apparent unity and continuity. " Behold ! " cried
England, "behold the language and the deeds of these Irish demagogues,
priests and laymen. Why does not the Pope denounce them 1 "

Nor was it only O'Connell and his lay associates whom England,
according to her traditional custom of moral assassination, held up as
accountable for Irish crime. Then, as now, Irish priests l>y name, Irish
prelates by name, were denounced to the Pope (in secret) by paid emis
saries of the English Government. The late ever-lamented illustrious
Archbishop of our Great Western Diocese was able to exhibit proofs of a
startling episode in the history of English secret intrigues with Rome.
Vehement efforts were secretly made by the English Government to
prevent his elevation to the See of St. Jarlath. Lay " Catholics " were
sent to Rome to stab his character ; and

He ivas confronted with a collection or compilation of "inflammatory "
speeches or letters to the press alleged to have been made or written
by him or his associates and friends in Irish politics, as tending
to show complicity in or encouragement of laivlessness, outrage, and
crime !

That compilation was an elaborate task. Who did it 1 Who had the
newspaper files searched through1? Who sant a British "Catholic" spy
to Rome with the deadly indictment in his bag 1

The English Minister of that day simply did what the English
Minister of to-day has done. But in that clay it was done in vain.
To-day it has succeeded !

And the Propaganda talks to us of "prudence" and "wisdom,"
forsooth ! In these temporal affairs we Irishmen have shown ourselves
better stewards than the disastrous counsellors of the Holy Father have
been. For while we, who succeeded to a national inheritance, as it were,
only in esse, have, step by step, been recovering and winning the ancient
possessions and rights, prerogatives and influences, of our nation, their
Eminences of Rome have been losing to the Holy See, piecemeal, all its
territory, all its peoples, all its temporal rights, all its temporal
possessions. So "wisely" and so "prudently" have they managed those

APPENDIX. 121

things, that we faithful Catholics have to-day to sec in grief and shame
the Venerable Father of Christendom, whose power once filled, and
ought still to fill, the civilised world, reduced to temporal helplessness
and insignificance !

One possession there yet remained which w»wisdom and -imprudence

could alienate for a moment from the Holy See. One country and we

might almost say only one, were it not for our suffering-sister nation,
Poland— there yet remained where in the hearts of the people and in
the national spirit there mingled fidelity to the Holy See and devotion
to Fatherland. In "Catholic" Italy the Tope may be robbed; in
"Catholic" Portugal nuns insulted in the public street; in "Catholic"
Austria a Concordat trampled under foot ; in "Catholic" France religion
openly dethroned by popular vote ; in " Catholic" Spain the popular heart
also lost to or estranged from the Church. But in Ireland as in Poland
there yet remained unshaken an indissoluble love of God and love of
country. For God and for country we to-day invoke all Catholic Irish
men to confront, in a spirit worthy of religious men and patriotic citizens,
the attempts to reduce Irish Catholics to the condition of those Con
tinental peoples who, first separated from their pastors, soon unhappily
found other and less worthy guides, and ere long marched on to
infidelity with the cry of "No Priests in Politics !"

Prudence, true prudence, must be our care just now, equally with
firmness and determination. We will hold fast our faith, no matter
what may be the temptations or the provocations to which we may be
subjected ; but as for our country, on no account whatsoever shall we
surrender or abandon its sacred cause. If Rome will enter into an un
holy alliance with England against us, then, trusting in the help of the
good God, we shall stand for the national rights and liberties of Ireland
against Rome and England.

"THE VETO."

(From the "Nation" of May 26*/t, 1883.)

THE many references made just now to " the Veto " and to O'Connell's
great triumph on that question suggests the desirability of briefly recall
ing the exact facts of the Veto contest, and particularly of the Liberator's
share in that memorable struggle. In outline, doubtless, the truth on
the subject is generally known even amongst other than educated
persons ; but there is reason to doubt even if all fairly educated Irish
men are acquainted with the details. The importance of the story need
not be pointed out, and the lessons taught by its perusal concerns not
only Irish Catholics but also the British Government and the Holy See.
K

122 APPENDIX.

The. more recent agitation of the Catholic question may be said
to have commenced in this century in the year 1805. The commence
ment was feeble and hesitating, for the political troubles and the
Government barbarities of the few preceding years had wellnigh
crushed all hope of a better future in the minds both of the people
and of their leaders. In one respect, however, matters had improved
since 1799, when the Irish bishops, or at least some of them, frightened
by the terrible condition in which they found themselves, passed
a formal resolution accepting the principle of British control in the
appointment of the members of their own body. In the year 1808
they practically rescinded that resolution, and declared against any such
concession as was involved in it being given to England in re tarn for a
measure of Catholic Emancipation. This was a blow to the hopes of the
English, who would at any time after 1800 have thought "emancipation
with securities " a good bargain, and with whom, of course, the notion of
such a settlement originated. But they did not abandon the- scheme of
getting control over the Irish Catholic Church, and thereby a political
power in Ireland which they could never otherwise have obtained. Three
different sets of circumstances favoured their aims : First, a section of
the Irish Catholics — mostly aristocrats who merely cared for the
privileges they would personally acquire from emancipation, and place-
hunters like Richard Lalor Shiel — expressed themselves willing to give
'•' securities " to the Government. Secondly, the English Catholics,
including the English Catholic bishops, with one notable exception, took
the same side. Thirdly, the Holy See was just then contending with
England's great enemy — Napoleon — and, consequently, was much
tempted to do England what service it could in the hope of receiving aid
in return against the great despot of the Continent. How England
strove at Rome to gain her ends is told in many books ; but perhaps the
following passage, from a biography of Archbishop Murray, by the late
venerated Dean Meagher of Dublin — a passage that, with the change of
a name or two, might well be written of certain doings at the present
time — is as succinct and accurate an account of the matter as any other : —

" A Vetoistical faction in Rome, composed of Irish and English, had already
poisoned the public mind, and produced unfavourable impressions, even on many of
the Cardinals, by the circulation of the most unfounded misrepresentations ; the
caJumnies of Sir John Cox Hippesley and other political dabblers in ecclesiastical
affairs formed no inconsiderable part of the machinery, while the whole framework of
the system was artfully kept together by the powerful intrigues of the British Cabinet.
These attempts to intimidate the delegates, although defeated, were nevertheless
renewed through the assistance which at this time they had obtained from the Veto
istical portion of the Irish press. Among other publications, some numbers of Carrick's
Morniny Post had been transmitted to Rome, containing a furious paragraph in which
the delegation and remonstrance of the laity had been called in question, and repre
senting both as emanating not from the nation but from an unauthorised junta of a
few turbulent, hot-headed individuals in Dublin."

APPEXDIX. 123

Under these circumstances it is not, perhaps, very surprising
that, on the 3rd May, 1814, the following announcement appeared
in an English paper : "We have just heard from unquestionable
authority that the first act of the Pope, on his re-establishment
Rome, was to pass in full consistory— with the Cardinals
unanimously agreeing — an arrangement giving to the British
Crown the desired security respecting the nomination of Catholic
bishops." The news fell like a thunderbolt on Ireland ; the mass of the
people, lay and clerical, refused to believe it. But a few days afterwards
all doubts on the point were set at rest by the publication of a letter
from Monsignor (afterwards Cardinal) Quarantotti, Prefect of the Sacred
Congregation of Propaganda, to Dr. Poynter, head of the En-lish
-hierarchy, conceding the Veto.

It would be impossible to exaggerate the feelings of wonder and alarm

which the Quarantotti rescript aroused in Ireland. It scandalised, astounded ,

and horrified bishops, priests, and people— the weak-kneed and corrupt

ttle faction of Catholics to which we have already referred excepted—

for it was seen to be a deadly strokj both to religion and nationality.

'An Irish Priest," writing to the Dublin Evviing Post of the feelino-

in Dublin said : —

vei 'Tu^fcoTder of1"63'1 Hke wildfire thi:<)Ugh every ^ gradation of society ; and the
complained. Early this morning my old servant maid, without waitine°for Imv
command, of mine, accosted me abruptly with these words : • Oh ! sir, what shall ve
«Jo ? h it— can it be true that the Pope has turned Orangeman I ' "

The scenes presented by the various chapels on the occasion of the
reading of the rescript were touching in the extreme. « The deep silence,"
says a writer on^his subject, « of the fixed and mourning congregations,
huddled together in their poor and dimly-lighted churches, hanging on
the lips of the preachers— their only consolation, and conscious that* the
fate of their children, their country, and their Church depended on the
conduct of that priesthood— was such as could never be forgotten." Nor
did the bishops and the clergy fail to speak out at once the thoughts with
which their souls were filled. The letter of the " Irish Priest " already
quoted concluded with somewhat remarkable words. « Every attempt/'
wrote the reverend gentleman, "to weaken the Catholic Church in
Ireland shall in the end prove fruitless ; and as long as the shamrock
shall adorn our island, so long shall the faith delivered to us by St.
Patrick prevail in spite of kings, Parliaments, Orangemen, and Quaran-
Dr. Coppinger, the venerable Bishop of Cloyne, denounced
what he called " Mr. Quarantotti's decree " in scathing language. « In
common," he wrote, " with every real friend to the integrity of the
Catholic religion in Ireland, I read it with feelings of disgust and in-

124 APPENDIX.

dignation." Other bishops followed with similar comments, but the first
body of ecclesiastics to pronounce on the rescript was the clergy of
Dublin. They met on the 12th of May, in Bridge Street Chapel, and,
headed by Dr. Blake, P.P., afterwards Bishop of Dromore, they then
passed the following amongst other resolutions : —

" That we consider the document or rescript signed Quarantotti as non- obligatory
upon the Catholic Church in Ireland, particularly as it wants those authoritative marks
whereby the mandates of the Holy See are known and recognised, and especially the
signature of the Holy Father."

" That we consider the granting to an anti-Catholic Government any power, either
direct or indirect, with regard to the appointment and nomination of Catholic bishops
in Ireland, as at all times inexpedient."

Other clerical protests came forth in due course, and, finally, the bishops
held a Synod at Maynooth, on the 25th of May, at which they resolved
that the decree was not mandatory, and appointed two of their number
to go to Rome as a deputation to argue the whole question with the
Pope in their behalf.

The bishops and the clergy, in short, made a noble stand against the

Veto; but if they had stood alone in their opposition there is little doubr

that the result of the fight would have been different from what it

happily was. Nay, it is hardly going too for to say that if the laity,

headed by O'Connell, had not intervened on the side of Ireland and

Catholicity in this country, some of the bishops themselves would

have eventually recalled their non possumus and accepted a Veto in one

guise or another. As a matter of fact, after the esoript of Quarantotti

had been withdrawn, Dr. Doyle and other prelates were for accepting a

measure of emancipation qualified by the concession to the British

Government of at least some share in the appointment ©f Irish bishops.

This fact is placed beyond all doubt by many documents, including letters

from Dr. Doyle himself to Sir Henry Parnell— one of the leading

champions of the Catholic cause in Parliament, and grand-uncle, by the

way, of the present Irish leader. But O'Connell, backed by the laity,

did intervene— happily for religion and country— and won the fight. All

through— from 1800 to 1814— he saw clearly the effect of putting the

Irish Church in any degree in the power of the British Government ;

and throughout all those years he constantly proclaimed that nothing

but unqualified, unconditional emancipation would be accepted by the

nation. He rejected with scorn all compromises, all projects for giving

to the Crown "securities for the loyalty" of Irish priests or bishops;

and he never ceased pouring out scorn or ridicule on the authors of those

projects— whether they were Irish, or English, or Roman— in language

which would, doubtless, sound exceedingly strange at the present day to

many who revere his memory as the greatest Catholic statesman of the

APPENDIX. 125

century. Let us here give, in illustration, a few extracts from his anti-
Veto speeches. On the 28th of May, 1813, speaking of the Catholic
Relief Bill of that session, he said :—

"I will not ask you as Catholics, but I will boldly demand of you

rM£»r« Tt/\tt ,1.^ *-»^4- ««^.,r~~ _i l_ _ • i * V

and that your bishops are not to be degraded to the subserviency of 4uKe s l t de
waiters, nor your priesthood to the dependence of police-constables ? If > our feel 's
and opinions be, as your approbation of these sentiments proclaim the,
-accordant with mme-if you dread as Catholics, and abhor as I ishmen the ^tension
<.f the influence ot the servants of the Crown-an influence equally fa'fc 1 to

'' y~y°U W1" J°m With n" y°Ur heart* in the un™« ado

motion.'' y~y°U W1 J°m Wt n y°Ur heart* in the un™« adoption ofmy

Speaking in Cork, on the 13th April, 1813, ami referring to the
aristocratic Catholics of the Local Catholic Board, who had retired from
a great public meeting at which O'Connell attended, because the demand
there made was for unconditional emancipation, the Liberator said :—

" I saw them a few moments back, a few scattered individuals in a corner of a yard
I addressed them, because though small, very small indeed in their numbers vet af
individual- they are respectable, and I wished to undeceive them n the -error I
£ked them, it they were Catholics, and could they talk about security ? I to d horn

o orn

« thn mim°?;S °f the Ca'tle-t<> ^e pensioned hirelings of he
worH P H| • u °ranSeuPaPlsts> t^ 5 but let them not as honest, honourable
worthy Catholics insult the public ears with so discordant a sound/

In January, 1815, he declared he desired unanimity, "but," he added
I now disclaim it for ever, if it be not to be had without this concession
I will for ever divide with the men who, directly or indirectly, consent
to Vetoism of any description." In the same speech he said :—

"If the Veto, if the interference of the Crown with our religion were a

V religious I should leave it at once to the bishops. " ButTt ta infinite*
nterestmg as a po ht.cal measure. It is an attempt to acquire without expense an

loesenDoCtefgeeia he ±? &t7 ^^ ^ ^^ f°r ^^ Who WCTttS

el^ritt =^r^^^^- ^f-sj-

contagious interference; and every duty that can urge a man ?o a puWic d bcLure
of facts, interesting to every class in the State, calls on me to declare that there M£ iste

Cr± Vs' 7 t F ^ twofomcr tobe the concession to the M^te ^ of the
everv rlfn f ef ua' 7,Pr™f 7 "^ *''« Catholic Church in Ireland ; and there fa

O'Connell expressed the most entire confidence in the fidelity of the

ishops and the clergy, but he did not hesitate to tell them what, in his

opinion, would happen should they, even through good intentions, yield

126 APPENDIX.

to the designs of the English. He said in the same speech from which.
we have made the foregoing quotations : —

"Yes ; as our former prelates met persecution and death without faltering, the
bishops of the present day will triumph over the treachery of base- minded Catholics
and insidious Ministers of Government. But even should any of our prelates fail,
there is still resource. It is to be found in the unalterable constancy of the Catholic
people of Ireland. If the present clergy shall descend from the high station they
hold, to become the vile slaves of the clerks of the Castle — a thing I believe
impossible — but should it occur, I warn them in time to look to their masters for
their support ; for the people will despise them too much to contribute."

On the point of Roman interference in Irish political affairs O'Connell was
particularly outspoken. "We now exhibit the determination," he said on
the 29th August, 1815, "which we have always avowed, to resist any
measures originating in Rome of a political tendency or aspect. I know
of no foreign prince whom, in temporal matters, the Catholics would
more decidedly resist than the Pope ; and this while they respected and
recognised his spiritual authority." Animadverting on another occasion
on what he termed "the attempt made by the slaves of Rome to instruct
the Irish Roman Catholics upon the manner of their emancipation," he
said : " I would as soon receive my politics from Constantinople as from
Rome ! " As for Quarantotti, he met with very scant courtesy indeed
from the Irish leader. " Howr dare," said the latter, 011 the 19th May,
1814, in Stephen's Green, "how dare Quarantotti dictate to the people
of Ireland ? " The nation roused itself under the spell of the patriot-
orator's words, and although coercion by Dublin Castle was employed to
help forward the Veto project — the Catholic Board, for instance, having
been proclaimed pretty much as the Land League was a year and a half
since — nevertheless the public voice was heard in thundrous accents on
the burning question of the hour. Take the following resolution, which
was passed at the great meeting at Stephen's Green, to which we have
just referred : —

" Resolved — That we deem it a duty to ourselves and our country solemnly and
distinctly to declare that any decree, mandate, or decision whatsoever of any foreign
power or authority, religious or civil, ought not, and cannot of right, assume any
dominion or control over the political concerns of the Catholics of Ireland."

Little more remains to be told. For a short time the Veto rescript
remained in force, but only for a short time. Condemned by the all but
united voice of Ireland, it was at length withdrawn, and its author was
at the same time removed from his post. Did space permit, there are
many reflections wrhich might be made on this scheme to bind the
Catholic Church in Ireland in British fetters, and on the manner in
which it was defeated. It is scarcely necessary, however, that AVC should
point the moral of the tale. That moral is obvious in every line, and it
is as important as it is obvious.

AITENDIX. 127

THE VETO AND THE CIRCULAR,
(From the "Nation" of June 2, 1883.)

NOTWITHSTANDING the painful nature of the outrage offered to Ireland
in the Propaganda Letter, it was our conviction from the very first that
any danger to the interests of religion which might ensue would lie
caused less by the angry reclamations of the Irish people than by the
language of the Errington-Simeoni party. Our anticipations were well
founded, and already deplorable mischief looms on the horizon.

The line adopted is one, the evil tendencies of which can be seen at
a glance. It is contended that the Letter is all the Pope's own idea ;
that Mr. Errington has had nothing whatever to do with it : that Lord
Granville has had no hand whatever in it; that the Pope, has been
neither misinformed nor insufficiently informed ; that "both sides " and
all sides were fully heard by the Pope; that he knows better than
Irishmen do what goes on in Ireland ; that he knows better than
Irishmen do what they think in their own minds, or mean or intend in
subscribing to the Parncll Fund ; that the Pope having declared that
they design and intend it as a help to violence and crime, they do so
design and intend it, though they themselves may not bo awaro of the
fact; that they, therefore, must not subscribe to the Parnell Fund, no
matter from what good or pure or noble motive, since the Pope knows
their motives best; that for anyone to say the alleged facts and
circumstances on which the Pope's Letter is based are non-existent, and
that the Propaganda Letter ought to be recalled, is defying Peter and
•resisting the voice of the Church.

Now, tlrere is no more pernicious mode of weakening or dcstrovin^
the authority of the Holy Sec, to which we Catholic Irishmen have ever
been faithful, than by this style cf language. For if what is just now-
being written in Vatican journals in Rome and England be true, the
instantaneous, the loud, angry, and indignant protests of the bishops,
priests, and people of Ireland against the Rescript of Pope Pius VI I.,
establishing the Veto, were wicked and rebellious, defiance of Peter, and
resistance of the voice of the Church.

We put it to the conscience and judgment of any man of calm and
sober mind within the pale of the Catholic Church : Is it a good thing
for religion, is it conducive to confidence in the Holy See, that the Irish
people— knowing all they know about the Veto ; knowing all they know
about British intrigue with Cardinal Quarantotti ; knowing all they
know of the part borne by English Catholics in that transaction;
knowing as they know that that stroke at their liberties (averted by the
stern resistance of the Irish people) was as truly and fully a Papal act

128 APPENDIX.

as is this recent letter from the Propaganda — should be told the choice
before them is submission to or severance from Rome 1

Evil is the hour in which this baleful idea is thrust forward.
There is nothing more fatal to authority than subjecting it
unnecessarily to strain, especially strain that may prove to be
too severe. It is mischief pure and simple to be familiarising
the popular mind with such an alternative as " submission or
revolt," solely for the purpose of buttressing up a dubious
transaction. We quite agree with the contention that the figure
of speech, or the resort, of appealing " from the Pope ill-informed
to the Pope well-informed " is one that might be used as an excuse by
the veriest schismatic or heretic ; but the real question is whether it
may not, on the other hand, be also used in wisdom and good faith, for
a very salutary purpose, by the best friends and truest counsellors of the
Holy See. That is to say, it may be used to avert collision, it may be
used to save authority from discredit or injury. When Pope Clement so
far harked in with the anti-Jesuit crusade, in presence of a howl raised by
all the infidels and tyrants of Europe, as to decree the suppression of the
heroic Society of Jesus — when Pope Pius the Seventh was so far
"misled" or " misinformed " as to concede the Veto in 1814 — it was
wiser to say, "This act will be reconsidered j the Pope has been mis
informed ;" or to say, as is said, in effect — und, indeed, almost in terms —
by an English Catholic journal, "even in such cases the Pope is right; he
can never be misinformed ; the Veto was right ; the suppression of the
Jesuits was right ; the English Government ought to have a voice in the
selection of Irish bishops ; the Jesuits ought to be suppressed ', the Pope
knows best on all these points ; he is never ill-informed ; the Vicar of
Christ stands on a higher ground than all the Governments of the world,
and his judgments are pronounced in a serener atmosphere" — and so the
Jesuits should have been kept down, and the Veto kept up.

Who is the best friend of religion, who is the wisest counsellor of
Rome — the man who seeks to link the Pope's spiritual authority irrevoc
ably to acts that, as a matter of fact, are open to review, and who madly
demands that that authority shall sink or swim with them ; or he who
says, "There is nothing inconsistent with the sacred authority of the*
Holy See, nothing inconsistent with the unchanged and unchangeable
teaching of the Church, nothing inconsistent with the Divine guarantee
of infallible teaching, in a Pope recalling an administrative act and
restoring the Jesuits, or cancelling the deadly Veto, or withdrawing an
undeserving censure on an Irish national movement 1 "

The point is so simple that it can be grasped alike by the most pro
found theologian or the humblest peasant in Ireland : Either the Pope

APPENDIX. 129

was right or the Pope was wrong on the Veto. If we suppose him to
have been right, how are we to regard the conduct of Daniel 0 'Council
and the Irish people? How are we to regard the conduct of the Irish
archbishops, bishops, and priests? Above all, how are we to regard the
conduct of the Pope himself in practically withdrawing his rescript1?
Does the Tablet wish Irish Catholics to believe that the Pope was right,
that there was no error, that there was no lack of accurate information
and wise counsel, but that the Holy See flinched before " outcry and
insubordination in Ireland?" Is this more true, and is it more edifying,
than our version, namely, that the Holy Father, on further consideration,
on fuller information, and on sounder counsels, withdrew the Veto and
saved religion in Ireland 1

We put it straight to the prelates of Ireland— and the point is vital
just now : Is it good for religion, is it a service to the Holy See, that our
people should be asked to believe that the Pope is incapable of error in
political and temporal affairs'? Or is it more conducive to the interests
of faith, and is it truer loyalty to the Holy Sec to maintain that the
Supreme Pontiff deals with facts or alleged facts as they are laid before
him, and may at any moment recall, vary, rescind, or cancel any adminis
trative act, on more mature consideration, and on a more full and
accurate knowledge of the circumstances] This is a subject which
cannot without danger to religion be paltered with at a moment so
critical as the present. The pretence that the letter of Cardinal
Quarantotti in 1814, or the letter of Cardinal Simeoni in 1883, should
not be questioned, discussed, or resisted, any more than the Dogma of
the Trinity, or of the Immaculate Conception, or of the infallibility of
Papal teaching ex cathedra, can only lead to one result. For Irish
bishops and Irish priests this is now a pressing question, and we look to
them to give it a reassuring and a satisfactory solution.

FACTS FOR THE PROPAGANDA.

(From the "Nation " of June 2nd, 1883.)

THE .British agent at Rome has persuaded the Cardinal Secretary of the
Propaganda that "priests in politics," or the participation of the
Catholic clergy in the civil life of their country, has had an evil effect in
Ireland. He plainly enough tells us that if our prelates had kept their
priests off Land League platforms, and set their faces against Mr. Parnell
and the Irish party, the murder-leagues of the Irish Carbonari would
never have been known.

There are a few matters of fact relating to this view which the
Cardinal Secretary can easily test and verify for himself.

130 APPEXDIX.

The first is that the Carbonari — the real original fraternity of that
ill-omened name, whom we shudder to see any Irishman imitating — are
the growth and product of his Eminence's own country, not of ours.
Yea, are the growth and product of a '; No-Priests-in-Politics " policy
wherever, unhappily, they appear.

The second is that wherever the Carbonari, the Illuminati, or any
other of those unhallowed secret confederacies have once been able to
establish themselves, they wisely recognise that the priest in politics
would be fatal to their designs ; and so the Carbonari take for their
motto, " No Priests in Politics."

The third is one well worthy of investigation by the Propaganda.
Let all possible inquiry test these all-important and all-convincing facts :

The three murder-leagues that have so startled and horrified us in
Ireland have been these, ^iz. : — •

Maamtrasna,
Crossmaglen,
Dublin.

Maamtrasna is in the arch-Diocese of Tuam.
Crossmaglen is in the Archdiocese of Armagh.
Dublin is, of course, in the Archdiocese of Dublin.
The three Irish prelates affected (according to the Propaganda
doctrine), therefore, are —

Most Rev. Archbishop McEvilly,
Most Rev. Archbishop McGettigan,
His Eminence Cardinal McCabc.

Is Dr. McEvilly a Land Leaguer ? Is Dr. McGettigan 1 Is Cardinal
McCabe 1 Is it much short of a libel on the Archbishop of Tuam to say
he has encouraged Mr. Parnell's movement in any shape or form 1 Is it.
much less than a calumny to insinuate of Dr. McGettigan that he has
ever forwarded or aided the Land League 1 What shall we say of
Cardinal McCabe in such a connection ? Is it not recorded in Downing
Street how his Eminence has, from first to last, denounced the move
ment that saved the Irish people from ruin and brought forth Mr. Glad
stone's Land Act of 1881 ?

The three Archbishops of Ireland who in this whole business have in
their several dioceses most vehemently carried out the policy exhorted
to us — if not, indeed, commanded — by the Propaganda, are — •

Dr. McEvilly,
Dr. McGettigan,
Cardinal McCabe.

APPENDIX. 131

And those dioceses have given to us —

The Maamtrasna Murder League,
The Crossmaglen Murder League,
The Dublin Murder League.

Indeed, his Eminence of Dublin can boast of or weep for two murder
leagues — Mr. Carey's " Invinciblcs " and Mr. Devine's "Avengers."

" Shun the Land League and stick to the Sodalities " sounds a very
pious maxim. Indeed, Cardinal McCabe early wanted our wives and
sisters to be banished from the Sodalities if they dared to help the Land
League. Well, Mr. James Carey shunned the Land League and was
deep in the Sodalities. Will the CVirdinal Secretary just inquire who
this last-named spiritual subject of Cardinal McCabe's diocese happens
to be ?

Meantime, what of the fourth Archdiocese of Ireland ? What ha\v
the spiritual subjects of his Grace the Archbishop of Cashel contributed
to this bloody business 1

.Nothing — just nothing !

Yes, Tipperary, once torn and stained by terrible deeds of
violence, through these recent years of fierce excitement has presented
a spectacle of public peace and practical devotion to religion. In no
other part of Ireland have prelate, priests, and people been more united
in earnest participation in the national struggle. In no part of Ireland
have there been fewer crimes. In no other part of Ireland is religion
more an edifying reality at the altar and in the homes of the people,

Nor does Cashel and Emly stand alone in this significant and
splendid contrast to Tuam, Armagh, and Dublin.

"He who runs may read." We invite the Propaganda to study the
lesson.

NOTE. — The foregoing articles from the Nation form nearly the last,
as they are amongst the ablest and best, contributed by the late Alex.
M. Sullivan to the cause of Faith and Fatherland.

EXTRACT OF LETTER TO COUNT MONTALEMBERT BY G. H.
MOORE, LATE M.P. FOR MAYO.

(Referred to in page \iv.)

The Times, after introducing you to the intelligent British
public as a well-known " defender of the Gallican liberties," instructs
them "that your Avork is destined to be remarkable." It is a noble and
passionate eulogy of English freedom, the language of which extra
ordinary composition is a stream of unpausing eloquence." This

132 APPENDIX.

specimen of well-informed criticism and accurate English is at once
adopted by the enlightened body to which it is addressed. The
" British Christian " bows down to you in reverence as the sworn foe
of " Ultramontanism," which is his present idea of the evil principle,
and the English people generally think it bnt just to repay your
elaborate flatteries of everything that is English by a vigorous develop
ment of all those " ridiculous and offensive exaggerations and gratuitous
insults to foreigners and attempts at interference in the internal affairs
of other countries " which you yourself describe as one of their
exquisite developments of liberty of speech.

Do not suppose that I do not cordially concur in much that you
have said, and in much more that you might have said, of the noble
attributes of the English character. No man admires more than I do,
no man is more willing to recognise the genius and the virtues, the
great energies and the great deeds of the people of England. I
respect and appreciate the bravery that has never been surpassed, and
the resolution and perseverance that have rarely been equalled, the
energy that never falters, the industry that never tires, the thrift
that never wastes, and the generosity that never fails. They have all
the homely energies that make a people great, and almost all the higher
inspirations that make a nation glorious; and when their history is the
history of the past, many and heavy as have been their errors and their
crimes, there is no race among the children of men that will have done
more for the greater interests of mankind than that which is called the
Anglo-Saxon. But, like the children in the fairy tale, upon whom many
beneficent spirits have conferred their choicest gifts — all marred and
perverted by the curse of one malevolent fairy that was not invited to
the christening — there is one giant vice that poisons at their very source
the energies and the virtues of this great people.

A writer whose words you quote has designated, although indistinctly,
one of the leading features of this their evil genius : " Intolerable
national prejudice and a pride without limit and without prudence, which
is revolting to other nations and dangerous in itself." This, however, is
not all : it is but a branch of that which is the root of all — a self-worship,
the most inordinate and absorbing and overruling that ever "darkened
the human reason or hardened the human heart,'-' a terrible national
idolatry to which human feelings and human consciences are expected to
bow down in worship, to which all the rights of all other men are offered
up in remorseless sacrifice. On what point is it that the " intolerable
national prejudice " of which you speak runs riot and the pride exceeds
all limit and all prudence1? Of the vast commerce which shadows every
ocean with its canvas, of the gigantic industry which has made England

APPENDIX. 133

the workshop of the world, of the mighty struggles they have maintained
in defence of their own liberties, of the efforts they have made to repress
slavery and to colonise the world with free men, of all that is good and
great in their nature and their history, Englishmen are certainly not
over-proud. What other people would bear such large honours with
a modesty more decent] It is only on the subject of their gross insular
habits, their stupid insular prejudices, their narrow insular opinions, their
exceptional insular institutions, their absurd insular religion, that they
are arrogant, tyrannical, and cruel. They are firmly persuaded
that a body of institutions, civil and religious, which are but thu
type and embodiment of their own habits, passions, prejudices, and
superstitions, are fitted to meet all the exigencies of all the human
race, and ought to be forced upon the convictions of every people in
the world. "Such a thing as that would never do in England,'
means, in the mind of an Englishman, that the institution to which he is
pleased to allude is utterly unreasonable, and should be resisted at once
by all but idiots and slaves. On the other hand, " such an institution
has been found to succeed in England," means, in like manner, that if
it has not succeeded among any other people it is owing to some inherent
and degrading defect in their organisation, and that in itself it is adapted
to supply all human wants, temporal and eternal. The consequence is
that while among Englishmen proper, of whose feelings and interests
English institutions have been the growth and arc the ready instrument,
these institutions have been loved and successful ; all other nations who
have felt their operation have either shaken them off as intolerable or
regarded them as the engines of fraud and oppression. And this not
because Englishmen are naturally unjust or indisposed to mercy ; but
because they will persist in endeavouring to generate out of a hybrid and
sterile egotism that social vigour and patriotic life which can only be
begotten by the genial instincts and indigenous impulses of nations. But
this is not the only fatal fruit of this tree of good and evil. When men
have once persuaded themselves that the promotion of their own interests
is a convertible term for the general advancement of human happiness, it
is easy to see through what channels human happiness will be advanced.
When men once believe that to plunder the capital and absorb the
industry of a sixth part of the human race, to whom they contribute
neither capital nor industry, is but "the legitimate and necessary
ascendency of the Christian west,"* it is almost a foregone conclusion
what a rapacious and relentless despotism will spring from a hypocrisy so
sordid and so cruel. And this is no mere occasional offence against the

* M. de Montalembert, p. 10.

134 APPENDIX.

rules of government ; it is a deliberate conspiracy against the rights and
liberties of mankind. It has been maintained and enforced at a cost of
blood and treasure, and sin and miser}-, and ruined races and decimated
generations, which will never be counted up till that day of reckoning when
"British Christianity" and British government will be weighed in scales
essentially "un-English." This inflexible imposture, which never drops its
iron mask — which never reveals its inmost heart to man or God —
which has made its language the vernacular of English politics and
England herself the great Pharisee of nations, but which, under every
disguise, is still self-interest and lust of rapine — this is the Unknown
God of the English heart to which you have just offered up your devout
<?.? voto. And this is the secret of your success. You have addressed
your sympathy to the worst part of the Englishman's character, and
you have done so at a time when men grasp at a straw for consolation.
You have sounded the trumpet of his sordid despotism, you have sung
the praises of his worst misdeeds, you have vindicated his vices and
justified his crimes — all this he might have heeded not ; but you have
touched his cold heart and won his selfish sympathy by grovelling in
the very dust in }~our worship of his weakness and his shame.

But you have done more, you have done worse. In taking your survey
of English institutions in their general scope and particular operation, it
could not have failed to strike you that there was one-third of the "great
Christian nation" to which your felicitations did not wholly apply ; that
this third was inhabited by men professing that component part of
Christianity called the Catholic faith ; that Parliamentary government
had not consulted their happiness quite as much as that of other parts,
and that perhaps the constancy with which they adhered to their
particular sect of Christianity might have something to do Avith their
misgovernment. Any man with a spark of Catholic chivalry in his
heart would have said something, were it only in a whisper, of the
exceptional injustice which still distinguished the ecclesiastical institutions
of Ireland. English self-conceit, however, is an exacting master, and if
you had uttered a word of remonstrance against Irish misgovernment,
you would have lost all the fame you had so dearly earned. Silence,
therefore, under such circumstances, was a pitiable necessity, and might
have been pitied in silence. But you were not satisfied with a
silent sin. Having insulted the French clergy and their religious
organs in order to propitiate the Protestantism of England — having
insulted the Government and people of France, in order to flatter
the national prejudice of England, as an act of final homage to
that " great Christian nation whose institutions are more favourable
to the propagation of Catholic truth and the dignity of the priesthood

APPENDIX.

135

than any other regime under the sun,"* you turn by the wayside
to where you see God's Church spoiled and usurped ; " the dignity
of the priesthood " spurned and dishonoured • " the propagation of
Catholic truth" systematically trodden down by the very regime of
which you have become the apostle ; and you select that melancholy
subject for gibes and reproach. I say, you select. You had bowed down
in every point of the compass ; you had worshipped Englishmen in every
rank and station and profession and position — upper classes, middle
classes, lower classes — in every act of their public or their private life,
as legislators, as soldiers, as citizens, as sportsmen. Among all that host
of men you select, as the sole and special objects of your obloquy, two
Irish priests ! No sophistry can cover the animus of this selection.
Even if your allegations against them had been fairly stated, and had
been reasonably pertinent to the matter at issue, the selection would
have been more than suspicious ; but they arc stated with deliberate
unfairness.

*M. de Montalembert.

JOHN H&YWOOD, Excelsior Stt.-iin Printing and Bookbinding Work*, Huline Hull Road. M.vicliester.

BX 1504 .L48 1884 SMC

Letters of an Irish

Catholic layman = being
AKE-2582 (mcsk)

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