BRAZIL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 81, 14 November 1874, Page 14

BRAZIL.

(From an occasional correspondent of the * London Tablet.') I SEND the following extracts from the speech of the Deputy, Senhor Dioge de Vaseoncellos, translated from the { Journal de Commercis' of July 10th, 1874, on the tribunal that condemned the Bishop of Pernambuco: —

"Who henceforward can place the slightest confidence in the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, ' the tabernacle of the law, 1 after seeing the Bishop of Olinda condemned ? "This tribunal is by its position the first in tue land; if it is brought into disrepute, that is the result of its own acts, not of anything lor others may say against it. I allude to its decree of December 30th 1873. which is approved and defended by its present chief judge. Tbe following facts will show in what manner it is accustomed to^administer justice. "When Presidents of Provinces and agents of the Executive appear at its bar, then not only the laws of the land but the honor of the nation are thrown into the shade. Every one knows how many Presidents of Provinces have been accused* at its bar, for there is no crime in the statute-book that they do not deem themselves entitled to commit. One of them has already been denounced by the Crown Advocate himself for the crime of false coinage. Another, quite lately, annulled a habeas corpus, legally granted. In the meanwhile the Supreme Tribunal, tbe invincible bulwark of the law, has never found one of those criminals fit to be made an example of. The law, it seems, is not for this privileged class, who are sent forth like Persian satraps to bless the Provinces of the Brazilian Empire. Out of 162 criminal caßes brought before the Supreme Tribunal, prior to that of the excellent Bishop of Olinda, only one terminated in'a conviction of the accused. This was the case of a Vice-President of Piauhy. The penalty imposed, was a month's suspension from his employment, a ridiculous sentence, as the culprit had already been dismissed." After reading the sentence, the speaker continued :—

"It is not my intention to annoy, oe say anything to, the ex-Vice-President of Piauhy. I have read the sentence simply as a document proving the character of the Tribunal which passed it. • Political passion' — that horrible passion, the evil motive of the crimes and violence charged against the accused — was put on the list of • extenuating circumstances !' What jurisprudence is this, which is unable to define the circumstances of an internal act, and confound them with the internal propensity to guilt, as if that were an excuse for the crime ?

" On one hand, then, we see criminal leniency and scandalous perversion of law and miscarriage of justice ; while on the side of the bishops — men sacred by their dignity and Apostolic office, men never blinded by ' party passions,' but guided by the noblest principles — on the side of the Bishop of Olinda and of that Prince of the Church who laboured to revive religion in Pernambuco, we behold arbitrary power and illegal as well as unjust severity.

" Allow me to describe some of the scenes which took place on the day when this successor of the Apostles was dragged before the Tribunal. The population of Rio de Janeiro were eye-witnesses of those scenes, and the generous souls must remember with disgust and grief the disorders which took place. Tbe Bishop of Olinda, on entering the Tribunal, might have exclaimed -with Malesherbes, the illustrious advocate of Louis XVI., 'I look for judges, but see only accusers.' "On the eve of the trial the Tribunal acceded to the request of the advocates who spontaneously offered their services ; next day the

permission given was called in question, aad an attempt was made to annul it.

" The public prosecutor challenged one honourable judge because he was known to be a Catholic, and the defenders were allowed to challenge no one, not even men notorious as enemies of the Church ! The speakers were interrupted at every moment, and for the first time in a Brazilian court of justice the spectacle -was exhibited of a president cutting short the argument for the defence with the coarse and unseemly words, c We have got other business to attend to.' " Where was the judicial calumnies of those judges, when they could tell the counsel for the defence that they had more important matters to attend to than to hear the argument on hehalf of the accused ; denying him a natural right, one granted to a prisoner even among savages !

"So great was the leviiy and indecorum displayed by the judges that some of them actually rose from their seats during the defenoe, and were heard talking against the Bishop of Olinda in the midst of the crowd — talking with the notorious writer of abusive articles against the Church— the Grand Master of the Freemasons.

- < "On the day on which the Bishop of Olinda was condemned, but prior to the publication of the sentence, that same Masonic ohief and public writer received at his house the chief luminaries of the different Lodges, and they applauded with champagne and enthusiastic cheers the condemnation of a venerated prelate to imprisonment with hud labour.

" The juridical value of this monstrous sentence has been duly appreciated in this House and in the Senate. Happily the opinion of educated persons in the country has already swept aside sophistry and prejudice j and there are not, two opinions amongst honest men wifcft regard to this great outrage.

" These are the facts which provoke and develop angry passions. It is not our protests nor our stifled clamours ! There is no security left us : our lives, our property, our station in society, are no longer safe in our country ; nor can we any more place faith or hope in the Supreme Tribunal of Justice.

" After the condemnation of the Bishop of Olinda, the Lodges assembled, and presented a golden pen with jewels to the learned gentleman who had acted the part of public prosecutor. The same Lodges had previously augmented his salary as a Minister of the Empire for the important services he had done them in the Government.

" In conclusion, I would call your attention to the future of onr institutions, which have lost much in the good opinion of Catholics. The country only sees in the Bishop of Olinda a victim of the abuse of power, a true martyr. The same is about to happen to that distinguished man, the Bishop of Para. He is already in prison, and will of course be condemned. The drama is prepared ; the indecent actors have rehearsed tbeir parts ; they have only to repeat them now before the public, on the stage of the Supreme Tribunal of Justine. " Let the Government be aware that all they will get by the proceeding will be the enshrining of another martyr in the hearts of the people. I must tell them that these two names, illustrious for the most distinguished gifts-'of piety, will survive to future agee, and overpower by their renown the misrepresentations of nistory. A day will come when of those who were Cabinet Ministers on the 7th of March, the very names will be forgotten ; but the names of the Bishups of Park and Olinda will shed glory on Brazil as that of St. Clement does on Alexandria, now in ruins ; as that of St. Augußtine on Hippo — now known to us by no other vestige save that of having been the see from, whence the great Doctor of the Church filled the world with the renown of his learning and sanctity."