THE LAW ON CLERICAL ABUSES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 217, 22 June 1877, Page 5

THE LAW ON CLERICAL ABUSES.

Hebe is the first article of the law as first presented : — The minister of a religion who, abusing the acts of his proper ministry, disturbs the public conscience and the peace of families, is punished with imprisonment from four months to two years, and with a fine which may rise to 1,000 lire. This article was amended before the passage of the bill by striking out •' the acts of," in order that the penalty might be incurred also by omissions. Article 2 : The minister of a religion who, in the exercise of his ministry, with a discourse proffered or read in a public meeting, or with writings otherwise published, expresses censure, or with any other public act insults the institutions or the laws of the state, a royal decree, or any other act whatever of public authority, ia punished with imprisonment of three months and fine to 1,000 lire.

Ii the writing or the act are directed to provoke disobedience to the laws of the state, or to acts of public authority, the transgressor is punished with imprisonment of from four months to two years, and a fine up to 2,000 lire. If the provocation is followed by resistance or violence to the public authority, or by any other crime, the author of the provocation, -when that does not constitute complicity, is punished with the full imprisonment of two years and a full flue of 2,000 lire, extensible to 3,000. Those who publish and diffuse these writings and discourses are punishable in the same degree. The article which the Unita Cattolica considers the most cruel of all is the following : The minister of a religion who performs an act of exterior worship against the provision of the Government is punished with imprisonment up to three months, and fined up to 2,000 lire. This article, says the Unita, may make punishable even the saying of a Mass or the giving of a benediction. The articles given, and the fact that the law has passed the Chamber of Deputies, will show what the discussion must have been; but few, perhaps, were prepared for the blasphemies, the insults to the Holy Father, and the open avowels of disbelief, which rendered the assembly which holds in its hands the present destinies of " regenerated Italy " worse than a parliament of pagans. However, they have merely justified the constant denunciations of the Holy Father, and expressed by many voices, in a legislative assembly, what has already been otherwhere expressed by single voices. In 1867 Miceli asked of the Parliament: "Whatia to be done with the Papacy except demolish it ?" The Diritto, now the ministerial paper, said : "To destroy the priestly hierarchy is a necessity of our existence." One of the present deputies, Philippo Abignente, an ex-priest, exlainis, " The Church is in its agony." During the discussion of tins law Petrucelli della Gattina, apostrophizing the Holy Father, whom, araid the laughter of the Assembly, he called repeatedly " the Caliph of the West," and " the Caliph of the Vatican," said j " You, like your ancestor, St. Peter, lie, lie, lie ! St. Peter denied his Master ; you deny your country." To whioh there was a response of, "Very good!"— Cor. N.Y. Tablet.