FATHER BURKE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 8, 21 June 1873, Page 10

FATHER BURKE.

lebiaud and the Pope. In the year 1 541 a Parliament ussembled in Dublin, and declared that Henry the eighth was King of Ireland. Two years later, in gratitude to the Irish Parliament, Henry called all the Irish chieftains over to » grand, assembly at Greenwich ; and on the Ist day of July, 1543, he gave the Irish chieftains their English titles. They returned to Ireland with their new titles. Henry, free, open handed, generous fellow, as he was — he was really very generous— gave those chieftains not only the titles, but a vast amount of property, only it happened to be stolen from the Catholic Ulmrch. He was an exceedingly generous man with other people's goods (great laughter). He had a good deal of that spirit of which " Artemus Ward" makes mention, when he says that he was quite well contented to see his wife's first cousin go . to the war (laughter;. In order to promote the authorized reformation — not Protestantism, but his own reformation.— in Ireland, Henrygave to these Irish Earls, with their English titles, all the abbey lands and convent and church lands that lay within their possesions. The consequence waß he enriched them ; and to the eternal shame of the .<

©•Neil and O Donnell, McWilliam Burke and Fitzpatrick of Ossory.they had the cowardliness and weakness to accept these gifts at his hand. They came home with the spoil of the Monaateiies, and their Jinglish titles. And now, mark. The Irish people were as true as steel m that day, when the Irish chieftains proved false to their country and their God (applause). Nowhere in the previous history <tf Ireland do we- read of the clans rising against their chieltaius. Ixowhere do we read of the O'Neill or O'Donnell dispossessed of his own people. But on this occasion, when they came home, murk what followed. < >'Brien, Earl of Thomond when he arrived in Munster, found half his dominions in revolt against him. M'Williara Burke Earl of CJanricarde, whet, his people heard that their leader bad accepted the abbey lands, the first thing they did was to depose him, and set up against him another man, with the title of The M'William Oughter de Burgh. Con O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, when he came home from Ulster, was taken by his own son and clapped into gaol; and he died there, and his people abandoning him, O'Donnell, of Tyrconconnell, came home, and his own son and all his people rose against him and drove him oat from the midst of them. [A Voice—" served him right"] (applause). Now, I say, in the face of all this— Mr Froude i 3 not justified in stating that Ireland threw the Pope overboard. These chieftains did not renounce the Catholic religion.; they only renounced the Papal' supremacy ; they did not come home Protesl ants ; they only came home schisrr. atics, and very bad CathoMcs ; and Ireland would not stand them (applause.) The Irish not a Pehsectxtjng Race.

But we have another magnificent proof that the Irish are not a persecuting race. When James 11. assembled his Catholic Parliament in Ireland, in 1689, after they had been for more than one hundred years under the lash of their Protestant fel.ow citizens, after they had been robbed and plundered, imprisoned and put to death for their adherance to the Catholic faith, at last the wheel gave a turn ; and, in 1689, the Catholics were up and the Protestants were down. That Parliament assembled to the number of 228 members. The Celts — the Irish, the Catholic element — had a sweeping majority. What was the first law that they made? The very first law that the Catholic Parliament passed was as follows :—: — " We hereby decree that it is the law of this land of Ireland that neither now nor ever again shall auy man be persecuted for his religion." (Tremendous cheering). That was the retaliation we took on them. Was it not magnificent ? Was it not grand ? a magnificent specimen of that spirit of Christianity, that spir.t of forgiveness and charity without which, if it be not in a man, all the dogmatic truths that were ever were revealed will not save or enoble him (renewed cheering) .