MURDER IN IRELAND.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16607, 3 December 1919, Page 3

MURDER IN IRELAND.

PRIEST DENOUNCES CRIME. . A DRAMATIC SERMON. The murder of a sergeant of police in the district was the subject of ringing denunciation by the garish priest of Lorrha, Ireland, Father Gleeson, who thus addressed the congregation -at Mass, as dramatic an utterance as assuredly was ever heard from a Tipperary pulpit. “The sin of Cain has been committed in the peaceable parish of Lorrha; the widow and children are plunged into life-long grief by the murder of their father. The brand of Cain lies on the assassins, who, standing behind a well, slew an innocent man, almost at our own doors, and the shadow of that crime will hang over this parish for many generations. The murderers, if they escape human justice, will not escape Divine justice, and while they live the face of the dead innocent man —the good father and good Christian—will haunt their memory, and they will walk, like Cain, fugitives on the earth. Their fate is worse than the fate of the man who has been murdered. “I do not know, who the murderers are, but I now denounce them. I will stay to fight them, and God will , punish them. We must now consider the question of moral sanction. It has been put forward by some unknown persons that there is a moral sanction for the murder of policemen in this country at present. The teaching of the Catholic Church is, that it is only a public authority established legitimately by the people of the country, after a fair trial, on sworn evidence, which has a moral sanction for the taking of human life. Who has authorised a small band of unknown, ignorant persons to meet in secret, and to that the life of a. fellow-being may be lawfully taken? The Irish people did not consider this question at the general election. It was not put before them, and, if it had been, it would have been rejected with horror. If a hidden hand may commit murder the life of no civilian is safe; that is the teaching of history. “The Irish people would be mad and shallow-brained if they gave their"sanc-' tion to such a principle. There is no moral sanction, and the persons who commit those crimes are murderers. The Irish people will not approve of bloodshed, and the freedom of martyred Ireland will never be achieved- by midnightassassination. Better for Ireland to wait on than to place power in the hands pf men who would work out their own ends by the weapons of the tyrant. Keep your cause Yree from crime, and God will be with you. Commit crime, and you bind the chains mere firmly around your country. There is no coward like the miscreant who, covered by the darkness of night, and shielded by a stone wall, in cold blood, a human, tiger, without pity, takes the life of a fellowman and sends him, without notice, before God. The persons who commit murder are not' fit to live. They, should be removed from th'e earth. Every crime must be expiated, - and the expiation of death is death. _ _ “Since the commission or this crime, my whole outlook on life seems to be changed. The ancient, religious and peaceable Parish of Lorrha, in which I have been content to end my _ days, seems now to me to be changed into a' desert of bitterness. Each morning when* I look from my window I shall, see the place where an innocent stranger was murdered in cold blood; the dead face of the murdered man will greet me. How can I care to die in- this parish? Wo cannot restore life to the dead, nor remove from tho clay of the parish the stain of blood. But we have ! a duty to perform. ■ Ate must denounce j the murder, and wo must pray for the ; soul of him who was murdered, and for j his afflicted wife and orphans. The j cause which is founded on murder and j cemented by human blond, is cursed by God, and doomed to vengeance. May j the' curse of Cain, the curse of the j widow and tho orphans, _the curse of . the priest, and tho curse, of God fall on those who are guilty of this mur- I der, and may God have mercy on their | souls.”