THE BISHOPS' DECLARATION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 14, 27 July 1888, Page 5

THE BISHOPS' DECLARATION.

( United Ireland, June 2.) We publish with heartfelt satisfaction the resolutions which the Irish Biihops have promulgated at the command of the Holy Office. They need only be read side by side with Bishop O'Dwyer's menacing and arrogant letter to see what a chasm divides him from the great body of the Irish Prelates. In the on« manifesto there breathes throughout the spirit of aggressive hostility ; in the other, an air of the mildest friendly monition ia assumed candidly in obedience to spiritual discipline. The Irish people have the keenest appreciation of the difficulties by which their Bishops are encompased in this unhappy matter. It would be cant to affect not to know that the action of the Holy Office is an affront to their deepest and most earnest convictions as to what is beat for the moral as well as material interests of their people. On the other hand, disobedience to explicit instructions from ihe Holy Office would be an act of revolt from their disciplinary ecclesiastical duty. The pressure from the Vatican, of which every day's Roman tolegranas in the anti-Irish papers in London gave us exultant notice, has been yielded to at last in. a form from which the most virulent of our enemies will derive little consolation. The Bishops have spoken with heavy hearts words which do not exceed by a single syllable the requirements which rigorous orders imposed. Their declaration sitiefies their sacred duty ; it does mt alter ours by a hair's breadth. So far from deriving discouragement from the Bishops' resolutions, it is impossible to peruse them without seeing that tneir transparent moral is (hat, with the very best intentions, the recent interference of the Holy Office wai most sadly misplaced and ill-grounded, and that, whatever excesses of language individuals may have fallen into in resenting it, the resolutions of the Catholic members and the tremendous outburst of lay Catholic feeling throughout the Irish world which has followed them demand no word of reprobation from those who would naturally be the most sensitive guardians of Iri-h Catholicity. "In obedienca to the commands of the Holy See '—the phrase with which the first resolution opens — is the keynote of 'he whole. That the Decree of the Holy Office was "intended " to affect the domain of morals alone is a proposition to which the resolutions of the Catholic members gave hearty assent. It was the purpose with which it wag sought by English intriguers, and " the uses to which it was being put by unscrupulous enemies ot ihe Holy See and the Tnsh people" that the Mansion House resolutions branded as political ; ana against the assertion that the Decree was so sought, and is being so used, the Bishops do not offer a word oE remonstrance. The second resolution simply recites our Holy Father's "direct assurances" as to his "intention," "hope," and " purpose" in condemning the Plan of Campaign and boycotting — au intention and a purpose whose bona jidrs no responsible Catholic politician ever dreamed of impugning, How far the effect coirespouds with the intention may be inferred from the Bißhops' eloquent, silence as to the contents of the Decree or as to its enforcement. The earae desire to safeguard the Holy Father's august person from the taint of disrespectful political strife is the burden of the third resolution, and the desire is not more earnestly expressed than it was expressed by every prominent speaker at last Sunday's monster meetings. Finally, the resolutions leminding all who may be called apon to deal with this most painful and delicate subject ot our Holy Father's inalienable and divine perogative to speak with authority on all questions appertaining to faith and morals only embodies a principle which the Mansion House resolutions expressly recognised as the base of all Catholic doctrine ; while no word ot rebuke ia uttered of that other principle which the Catholic members and the Catholic laity are contending for with a passionate earnestness that has shaken the country to its core— the principle, namely, that " the Irish people cannot rec gnise any right in the Holy See to interfere with iha lush people in the management of their political affairi." From beginning to end of the Bishops' declaration there is not a sentence to which tho most fiery Nationalist cannot yield a yrateful and affectionate assent ; while nobody will welcome more heartily than those responsible for the National Protest which is in progress the Bishops' weighty admonition as to tha reverence for high and holy thingi which should influence our every word in a situation in which eveiy feeling is only too apt to find ill-judged expression. The difference between Bishop O'Dwyer's letter and the Bishops' resolutions ia

the difference between the headlong assault of a vicious enemy and the words of tenderesfc council of fathers whose hearts overflow with SS m rt 7> Bißho P O'Dwyer's haste to fulminate his threats through the Orange newspapers amidst their volleys of K*-atish fire, stands rebuked by the calm ond sorrowful act of obedience of the Irisb Episcopacy "to the commands of the Holy See" ; while the fact remains more incontestable than ever that the Decree of the Holy Office wan founded upon reasons which the Irish Bishops cannot defend, and is being turned to the political and social prejudice of our nation ni a mam er for which the Bishops cannot affect to have any feeling but one of consternation and loathing. The Bishops' reaolutions Impose the necessity of scrupulous reverence in the conduct of the agitation, but supply irrefragable evidence in justification of it. Ihe fact that nether the Plan of Campaign nor boycotting elicits the censure of the Bishops, apart from their dutiful accept iuce of the Decree, is m itself too significant to need comment. The Bishops nave performed a hard and painful duty iv a manner which strengthens their hold upon the Irish Catholic heart ; it remains for unsuackled Irish Catholic millions now to complete the impression already satisfactorily establishing itself in Rome th.it the unlucky Decree of the Holy Office was founded on lamentable misapprehension about Ireland, and has wounded to the quick every Catholic instinct, even more thau every National instinct of our race.