THE CORONATION OATH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 17, 25 April 1901, Page 20

THE CORONATION OATH.

CRITICISM BY MR. T. M. HE ALT.

Speaking at a meeting held in Dundalk to protest against the t3rms of the Coronation Oath, Mr. T. M. Healy, M.P., spoke as follows :—: — Fellow idolaters (laughter), we are often reminded by our rulers of the Scripture command, • Fear God ; honor the King.' Why don't the Government allow you to fulfil the second precept ? Tho King's first act was to distribute honors, titles, and rewards galore to those around him. He made the German Emperor a Field Marshal, and he created the Irish idolaters (laughter). This was your reward for the great sacrifices and valor of Irish Catholics in the South African war (laughter). The English people attack the Irish because they are Catholios, and they shoot the Boers although they are Protestants (laughter). We declare that if the King had hai courage on the steps of the throne of England, in the presence of his Lords and Commons, to say : ' I decline to insult sacred memories of my Catholic predecessors from Alfred the Great to St, Edward the Confessor, and from thence to William the Conqueror, down the long line of English Kings ; above all, I decline to insult the Catholics who have fought so gallantly in my armies ; I decline to insult those who are my Counsellors and my Commons,' he would have done more to commend himself to Ireland than any English monarch has ever done by the artifioes of statecraft. This abominable oath is not only an outrage upon us, but an outrage to the nearest and dearest members of his own family. For let me remind you of this. The Czar of Russia is his nephew, the King of Greece is his brother-in-law, and these are all sincere members of the Greek Catholic Church, who, in common with us, honor the Mother of God, and believe in the Real Presence (here the crowd uncovered) ; yet, clothed with the ermine, which is the emblem of purity ; holding in one hand the sceptre, which is the insignia of dominion and justioe, he takes with his other hand the Holy Evangels and pledges his honor as a Km?, his faith as a Christian, to the foulest insult ever designed against the cieed of millions of his liegemen. — (Cheers.) Is the King asked to make a declaration against Mahommedaniam ? Why, if he were to say Mahomec was not the prophet of God, fifty millions of Indians would rise up in rebellion. — (Cheers.) Do they think they can keep their hee's on the necks of Catholics? He is going to a-k for an advance of silary — (Laughter.) Her late Mije-ity got an allowance, as near as I can compute — because I am not, good at lon<£ figures— of £380,000. Well, we all know how hard it is to live on £.180.000 a year, and the new King is going to ask for half a million, and eighty Irish Catholic members will be expected to assent in your name to give this extra salary to King Edward VII. aa a reward for putting an outrage upon the Mother of Gol and her Divine Son. I suggest, by way of encouraging an intelligent loyalty in Ireland, that we get this declaration printed in large latters, and, if the Kind's ministers refuse to repeal it, that we paste it in front of every Catholic church in Ireland and on the wall of every national school, so that the humblest and most ignorant as well as the highest and most intelligent, will see the words by which the King demands the allegiance of Catholios. — (Cheors.) Try that a bit. Put a few of them on the police barraoks occasionally. Paste them up when the militia are about to be sworn in. — [Laughter.) When you Bee the recruiting pergeant going about give him a oopy for the good of his health — (laughter) — and, believe me, if the Protestants of England think that they will lose a recruit or a sovereign — while they would like to insult you if it could ba done with impunity — rather than lose a regiment from Ireland this declaration will very soon be swept from the Statute Book. — (Cheers.)