IRISHMEN DISGRACING THEMSELVES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 21, 14 September 1883, Page 17

IRISHMEN DISGRACING THEMSELVES.

We learn from the Chicago papers of Sunday that, on Saturday evening, June 17, West Turner Hall, in that city, was thronged by an assemblage of two thousand five hundred Irishmen, that resolutions, which under a very transparent disguise attacked the circular recently sent out by the Propaganda to the Irish Bishops, were adopted, and that these resolutions were developed and supported in speeches by several prominent members of the National League. We are sorry for this meeting ; sorry that Irishmen could bo found to attend it ; sorry that professed Catholics could be induced to address it, but sorry, above all, that the National League has, through the action of some of its leaders, been compromised by it. The deadliest blow •which the agitation for Irish independence has yet received in this country has been dealt by that meeting, and dealt by Ireland's professed friends and advocates. Shame on the Irishmen of Chicago, that they should allow any man to lead them into an act most disgraceful to themselves both as Catholics and Irishmen. There is not an Irishman in the country whose brain is unfuddled by demagogues' rant but will view with indignation and anger the insane exhibition of his countrymen at Chicago. Pope Leo's letter was no manifesto against liberty ; -it was the admonition of a loving father to children whose acts had been misrepresented : to children whose welfare, spiritual and temporal, was dear to his heart. It was given in kindness" ; it should have been received in kindness. And it is a disgrace to the Catholic spirit of the Irish that some of their sons should rise and utter langaaga against the Holy Father which brings a blush to the oheek of their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists. Their acts were the acts of madmen. Not only did they disgrace themselves, but they have weakened the cause of the land to which they claim to be devoted. England has long sought to estrange the clergy from the National movement, — Michigan Qatholic.