"P.C.T." IN REPLY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XV, Issue 11, 8 July 1887, Page 11

"P.C.T." IN REPLY.

TO THE BDITOB N.Z. TABLET. Siß, — Your correspondent " J.K" displays some ingenuity in fighting shy of the extracts from Irish history, contained in my letter. No doubt such facts must be very unpalatable to all advocates of Englißh spiritual domination. Nevertheless, *;those facts, and many more of the like nature, cannot be ignored. They stand recorded in letters of blood on the pages of our country's story. They are burnt into the hearts of Irishmen with a fierceness that leaves an indelible mark. And they remain for all time as a monument of English ecclesiastical perfidy in Ireland, and as a warning to Irishmen of what they may expect from such of those English clerics as are true to the traditions of their class. But " J.K," does not see any connection between the past and present treatment of the Irish people by English priests. In his view they have changed their tactics altogether, and they now present to the world a spectacle of the most irrepressible affection and goodwill to wards the members of their congregations that bail from the Green Isle. He has found them, during an experience extending over some twenty years, to combine the qualities of perfect gentlemen with those of the most zealous apostles. What a delightful picture, must not the contemplation of all their perfections conjure up in the mind of " J.K." I Only fancy the dear Father Angus hob-nobbing with my Lord the Marquis of so and so at his dinner table in Belgravia amongst all the snobs and aristocrats of the West End, and suddenly called forth at the voice of duty, beaming with benignity, and filled with zeal and something elße, to seek some poor member of his dear Irish flock in the fever ward or the cholera-stricken house. Your correspondent probably knows that it is the duty of every priest, charged with the care of souls to give the last consolations of religion to the members of his flock, even though his life is thereby endangered. So when he tells us that the English priests in the large cities Tisit the sick members of their congregation, he merely informs

us that they attend to the letter of the law that binds them undei the pain of sin. But if we would know the spirit that sometimes animates those English gentlemen, who, we mußt believe, on the authority of " J. K." never flinched from the call of duty, we may learn something from those facts mentioned in the Dublin Freeman 1 * Journal of not much more than a year ago. Amongst other incidents, we find|the expression of his sentiments given by the rector of a regular church in a great English city, on bearing of the death of a priest. " Another of our priests dead," said he; " another valuable life sacrificed through attending a filthy Irish family." "He must," says the writer of the article, " have had in his mind the Timea' description of the • filthy and felonious multitude.' " No doubt this English rector sometimes visited filthy Irish families himself. Possibly "• J. X. M in his 20 years' experience of English priests, met him at some time or other on his mission of mercy, and must have been highly edified bf his suavity of manner, and his happy way of consoling the filthy Irish in their afflictions. But will it be believed the writer in the Freeman tells us that it took very active intervention on the part of a certain popular Irishman, to save the church of this gentleman from being boycotted? What a shock it must have given to the refined and sensitive nerves of "J. K." to learn that the ungrateful Irish congregation should, for a moment, think of leaving such a dear, good rector as that all alone in his glory, to preach to empty benches. But I forget. "J. X.," in all his 20 years' experience of English priests, never met an Irishman who was treated with contempt by one of them. Well, it is never to late to learn ; and if your correspondent has gone through life with his " eyes " bandaged, lest any faint glimmer of light might penetrate those orbs, on the subject of English priests' treatment of their Irish flocks, there may yet be some hope left that the experiences of others will undeceive him. That there are other causes at work to account, in the past, for the vast leakage from the Church in England, I have no intention of denying. Nevertheless, 1 repeat that the gross insults heaped by English priests on their Irish congregations nave a great deal to do with that falling off, which is a source of great grief to all Catholics. Speaking of the dislike entertained by English priests for the Irish, the above-mentioned writer says in the same place :—": — " In many examples which have come to our knowledge, it amounts to something not far removed from monomania. God alone knows what multitudes of souls have been lost through this horrible, unpleasant feeling. Why don't you go to Mass,' said a missioner lately to an Irishman ia a northern English town. He replied, ' Would your reverenoe hare me to go and hear my country abused from the very altar V The ordinary Sunday morning's prelections bf his pastor were flavoured with remarks on the ' dirty Hirish ' ". " These," continues the writer, " formed some thirty to one of his congregation, and though he banished numbers of them from his church, they yet gave him a handsome living." But why multiply instances ? What purpose can be served by dragging before the public gaze things that are so disgraceful to those concerned ? "J. X.," who talks so glibly of malicious libel, ought to reflect seriously on his ill-advised championship of such a cause, by which he compels people, in the interests of truth, to speak out plainly.— l am, etc., P. 0. T.