CATHOLIC LOYALTY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 127, 8 October 1875, Page 9

CATHOLIC LOYALTY.

The Pittsbrtrg 'Catholic' speaks as follows in refutation of the accusation that Catholicity is incompatible with loyalty to one's country, than which no accusation is less plausible :—": — " When Norway was taken from the King of Denmark, and given to Bernadotte by the allies for his services to them, and his perfidy to Napoleon, the Roman Catholics offered their lives and their all to resist the infringement of the rights of their Protestant King, and in their conduct gave a rare and noble instance of their fidelity and loyalty. In the several revolutions which have convulsed Continental Europe in 1847, in France, in Hungary, in Naples, in Lornbardy, have the Catholic clergy been ever mentioned in connection with disloyalty ? In the mania for the overturning of thrones, which seized on the people of many of the States of Europe during that eventful period when princes fled before the hurricane of popular indignation, and abandoned their capitals in consternation, the Catholic clergy, with the fealty which has always characterised their sacred calling and social standing, preserved their goodwill and affection for the lawful authorities." One of the fullest, clearest, and most succinct resumes of the contents of Dr. Newman's late pamphlet has been made by a writer in the ' Illustrated London Graphic ' of January 30 — a paper which is quite as aristocratic and ultra-Protestant as the ' Pall Mall Gazette.' The admissions, indeed, are so startling, so just in themselves, and so flattering to Dr. Newman and to Catholics generally, that we cannot refrain from reproducing some of them : — ■ " Dr. Newman tells us that this is likely to be his last publication. We earnestly trust it may not be so, and that he will still have many more words to be addressed to a generation which — whatever may be its fault — has at least come to esteem him almost as he deserves to be esteemed. But if he elects to retire finally from the field, it certainly will not be because his right hand has lost aught of its cunning. Eloquence, grace, and vigour of style, power of statement, closeness of reasoning — all these gifts are as manifest in this pamphlet as they ; were in any of Dr. Newman's writings of thirty years ago. Yet that which perhaps strikes us most of all in it is the exquisite urbanity and dignified courtesy of its tone- Considering how Mr. Gladstone, by ' passionate invective ' and loose and ill-considered charges, had bared his back to the lash which Dr. Newman so well knows how to wield, the gentleness with which he is here dealt with is well-nigh astonishing ; but the reply is none the less crashing for its calmness. That it is a complete vindication of Catholics from those imputations upon their loyalty urged by Mr. Gladstone is a point as to which, we should say, amongst other people of sufficient intelligence there could hardly be two opinions."