ARISTOCRATIC CHEEK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 15, 11 August 1893, Page 6

ARISTOCRATIC CHEEK.

The following are passages from a tissue of impudence published in tbe London Times by a mob of Catholic Unionists — lords and swellt* as well as fools and knaves — headed by that egregious prig, the Duke of Norfolk. The manifesto is that against Home Rale of the Tooley street tailors, to which we referred last week :—

" We cannot but believe that such a rule wcu'd prove injurious to religion.

We are aware that some Catholics confidently rely upon tbe ioflueace of the Irish ecclesiastical authorities to mitigate or to avert the ev'ls of such a government, but we must sorrowfully acknowledge that we cannot Bhare this hope. We have ever felt the deepest admiration for the many signal virtues of the Irish clergy. We are familiar with their heroic history. We are not unmindful of tbe benefits we have received at their hands. W« know that now, as always, hundreds of Irish priests wholly devote themselves to their sacred duties and that their labours bear abundant fruit amongst their flocki.

But these considerations cannot blind db to the undeniable fact that hitherto they have failed to c pc with the revolutionary tendencies of the present movement. We cannot forget tbe repeated boaata of the extreme party that some of the most extravagant developments ot their system have been openly countenanced or tacitly approved by the majority of the clergy, nor can we affirm that those boasts have been unfounded. We are not aware that they hare boen publicly denied or challenged by the ecclesiastics whom they concern, and, while we are unable to point to any body of evidence tending t

rebut them, we cannot but remember with grief many incidents which go so far to justify their truth.

Above all we are unable to ignore the significant circumstance! that the politicians whose conduct we have described have been able to retain, and now enjoy, the approbation, th» favour, and the strenuous support of the active majority of the Irish clergy. We can see no adequate reason for supposing that under Home Rule the Irißh clergy would be better able to induce their people either to discard revolutionary leaders or to renounce revolutionary causes than they are under the present Constitution of the United Kingdom. It seems to us, on the contrary , certain that Home Bule must inevitably lead to speedy and progressive developments of the revolutionary spirit, and must thereby aggravate those very evils wbiob the Irish ecclesiastical authorities have hitherto failed to combat with effect. For a time, indeed, as politicians, the clergy might acquire fresh powers by successive compromises with the popular movement, but those powers, in our judgment, would infallibly fail whenever it was sought to use them to moderate tbe popular passions or to check the popular career. We believe that under these circumstances a section ot the Irish people must ultimately be bronght into conflict with the Church, and we cannot look forward to such a struggle without the gravest apprehension. It is certain to be fruitful of many scandnls. It may result, ac similar struggles in other hands have resulted, in spiritual calamities yet more grievous.

For these, am mgs>. other reasons, we, ss British Oatholica, are opposed to the policy of Home Rule. We respectively snbmit them to the attentive consideration of our Catholic countrymen."

The Liverpool Cafwlic Times refers to the above as follows:— We iead with no little amazement tbe addieaa of the British Unionist Catholics published in tbe Times at tbe close of lait week. The signatories are, it is true, a small b dy, and their influence on the public life of the country is not very notable, but they include quite a number of titled personages, and wo expect commou sense at least to be associated with respectability. Evidently political passion has in their case proved too much for the safeguards of reason siuce they have placed themselves in a nniquely ludicrous

position. Their anti-Home Bute pronouncement has fallen absolutely fiat npon the country. Thsy are laughed at and ridiculed by their allies, whose cry ia that Home Rule will become Borne Rule ; and they are looked upon by the Catholics of Ireland and the majority of the Catholics of this country as gentlemen who are guilty of an act of unparalleled audacity, What is their title to override the authority of others — Pope, bishops, priest?, and people, and to pose as the zealouß custodians of Ireland's faith ? Have they suffered for it ? Have they worked for it 7 Have they aided it in any way whatsoever 7 Do they know anything about the condition of religion in Ireland more than the most ordinary newspaper reader ? We have examined their names — from the Duke of Norfolk's to that of Mr W. Worsley-Worawick — and onr conviction iB that if the whole of Great Britian were searched it would be impossible to find an equal number of fairly intelligent Catholics who have done lees for the promotion of Catholicism in Ireland, or who are more ignorant of its state and prospects Yet, forsooth, these are the zealots who are so dreadfully alarmed for the future of the Catholic religion in Ireland that they must lay their fears before the British people through the columns of that essentially Catholic paper the London Times. How pitiful is the farce and how sad it is that religion— which should be sacred to all men even to violent political partisans— should be nsed in putting it npan the Btage. The farce, too, is so perfectly transparent t Take for instance, one of the most prominent of the signatories, ths late Home Secretary. In this "statement" Mr Henry Matthews expresses bis anxiety lest the Faith should suffer in Ireland. In ad reuses to Protestant audiences Mr Henry Matthews has openly declared that in bis belief the Catholics of Ireland under Home Rule would be bo influenced by religious feeling that they would persecute their Protestant brethren 1 Which Mr Matthews are we to believe, Mr Matthews the {quasi) fervid Catholic or Mr Matthews the Orangeman? We should be Borry to place all the 8 gnatories entirely on the same low level as this Janue-like politician, but the sincerity of their religious zeal in signing the address must be considered the same as his when we take into account how thoroughly partisan is the object they have in view and bow little interest they have hitherto shown in the progress of religion in Irtlaud.

We protest very strongly against the action of these Unionist Ca 1 holies. We do so on various grounds. la the first place, they betray a spirit of arrogance in asserting that when the Irish Bier* archy supports Homi Rale it is giving its aid to a policy dangerous in the highest degree to religion. Io his reply to the addresees from the Irish pilgrims last February the Holy Father said : " L«t both priests and faithful people honour aud reverence the bishops, whom the Eoly Spirit has placed as rulers ; for thus by loyalty and obedience to their own chief pastors they will be drawn more cloßely to Him who is the Supreme Pastor." In a memorable sentence the late Cardinal Manning inculcated the same lesson, pointing out how the bishops were the best judges of the condition of religion from the fact that they had their hand on the pulse of the people. But, despite the direction and advice of Leo XIII. and Cardinal Manning, these Unionist Catholics apparently entertain little respect for the judgment of the Irish bishops as to the preservation of religion, for which the Holy Ghost has placed them aa rulers.

How do they reconcile this contempt for Papal and epiacopa authority with their professed dread of a Bimilar spirit being displayed by Irish Catholics at some future time 1 Surely if they desire the Irish people to be docile to ecclesiastical authority they should not set them an evil example by spurning it themselves. We protest, in the next place, againzt this statement, because it suggests comparisons which are proverbially odious. These Unionist Catholics observe, "We believe .... that a section of the Irish people must ultimately be brought into conflict with the Church, and we cannot look forward to such a struggle without the gravest appre-

hensions. It is certain to be fruitful of many scandals." Now, th'i disgraceful and entirely gratuitous assumption must induce Iriib Catholics to appeal to the past to show whether their fathers or ouri were most faithful to the Holy See in days of trial and persecution, and we must perforce admit that whilst they can boast as a nation of never having severed the union with Borne, we cannot take pride in such a source of satisfaction. Nay, they can refer us, as a correspondent does in our present issue, to the anti-Papal spirit displayed in the establishment of the Cisalpine Club by men holding namei which figure in the present statement, and which thus tend to strengthen faith in the doctrine of heredity. As its title) indicates, this club was founded with the design of repudiating what Protestants oall rjltram mtanism, aud what all modern Catholics recognise as unflinching devotion to the Supreme Pontiff. We protest likewise against the ingratitude manifested towards the Catholics of Ireland by the Unionist Catholics who, in this retpect, faithfully represent the sentiments of the members of the Cißalpio* Club. Father Amherst, SJ,, tells us that in May, 1829, just a fort. night after the passing of the Emancipation Act, and towards the close of the club's existence, when its members, bb a whole, no longer held the unsound principles on which the club was founded, Daniel O'Connell was proposed to be balloted for at the next meeting. On this occasion, remarks Father Amheret, a s ranger walking down 8t James's street and aware of what was going on. would kave supposed that these Catholic gentlemen were about to admit into their club by acclamation the man to whom they were were chiefly indebted for the passing of the great Act, " the man who might have exclndei them from the Emancipation which he had won, and left them to fight their own battle for liberty. But they were trooping down to exclude their Liberator from their company." Their action in thus blackballing him drew from O'Oonnell the comment, "it was a comical testimonial of my services in emancipating them. It would be well perhaps if I conld unemanci pate some of them." Similarly th« return which these Unionist Catholics muke for all that the Irish have done for the Catholic religion— and some of them certainly would not now have the faith were it not for Irish Catholics — is to misrepresent and malign them. Instead of raißiDg their voices with honest Protestants against the Ascendency under which the Catholics of Ireland have so long been oppressed they endeavour to perpetuate | it, and aeek, in the words of Cardinal Manning, to " inflame more and more the heated contentions between two peoples whom justice and truth would still bind in peace and unity." To our mind the exp)an» alion of their extraordinary conduct lies in the apothegm of an ancient Attic wrier: impudence follows from ingratitude, which seemi, in truth, to lead to unworthy deeds of every kind. Who gave them the power to speak as if they were representing the Catholics of England when they actually represent nobody but themselves? Let meeting! be called in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, the great centres of Catholic life and Catholic thought, and the Catholic body will in no uncertain termg give voice to their senti* menta towards the people of Ireland in this hour of their crucial struggle for the restoration of their national rights,