Our Roman Letter

New Zealand Tablet, 23 March 1922, Page 17

Our Roman Letter

(By 'Stannous.")

It is scarcely necessary to record the fact that our fellow-countrymen here have been following recent happenings at home with an interest that is tireless and intense. The statement of the Hierarchy, given to the world on the opening day of the discussion at An Dail, was welcomed by every single one of us in Rome. Their Lordships' call for prayer as a means of helping the deliberations was warmly responded to in many a college and many a convent in Italy. Indeed it was whispered here in the Eternal City that the Holy Father himself had offered his morning Mass in union with the general intention which the bishops had prescribed for the priests of Ireland on that day. Through each succeeding session of the Dail the discussion was closely followed here. The story of the signing of the treaty, as it was told to the world in the speeches of the various delegates, makes sad reading for Irishmen. Leaving aside the question of the. merits or demerits of the treaty itself, it is a fair inference from those speeches that the five representatives were in a manner bluffed and outmanoeuvred by skilful politicians of sharper intelligence and quicker vision. It is far from pleasant for Irishmen to acknowledge their defeat, but on all counts it is better for our international standing to face the facts as they are. To our many warm-hearted Italian friends it is a persistent wonder why so few of us Irishmen have shown the slightest emotion as a result of the London agreement. Yet, however, one may seek to explain this absence of enthusiasm, the fact remains that it is so. A very striking proof of this mental attitude is to be found in the circumstance that in Irish circles here. there has been no talk of Te Deums, at least up to the time of writing these notes. On the other hand, in more than one ecclesiastical institution ruled by British superiors thanksgiving functions have already taken place or are being arranged. The dominant feeling among the vast majority of our fellow-countrymen in Rome, now that the struggle seems over, is one of sorrow and regret for our dead who have fallen in the fight. God rest them: their sacred dust sanctifies the soil of Ireland. Somehow, here and now, our thoughts of them are sadder than they were, our memories of them dearer and more lasting.

I see that the Irish Catholic has been recommending, presumably to Irish readers, a new book which purports to tell the story of Catholicism in England. At the head of an imposing article of nearly two columns’ length in the issue for December 31, 1921, the book in question, — The Church in England described in heavy type as “a scholarly book by Father Stebbing.” The author of the book was domiciled here in Rome some years ago. During his sojourn in the Eternal City he was never very notorious for his sympathies with the Irish. So I was interested to discover what he had to say about the history of Catholicism in England, a history which cannot be adequately told without constant reference to the part played therein by men and women of the Irish race. The writer of the article in the Irish Catholic heartily commends Father Stebbing’s volume to the notice of the readers of that paper. After a study of the book I regret that recommendation given the work by the erudite writer of the article referred For one reason, the great bulk of the later Irish contribution to the building up of the Faith in England seems to have been steadily ignored. However, I should hesitate to criticise the book if this persistent omission were its only fault. But there is one piece of writing, which, in view of the hearty praises lavished on the volume by the enthusiastic scribe in the Irish Weekly, I cannot let pass in patient silence. The passage in question occurs on page 139 of the book and reads as follows: “And it may be safely said that great was the number of those Anglo-Saxon Christians, who used the discipline of the primitive surroundings in which they lived so well as to win the title of Saints. It was the virtues of these simple children of the Church before the Norman Conquest, more than anything else, which won for England the appellation of an Island of Saints. It is but just to say that this was not an exclusive name, it was shared

in a pre-eminent degree by the land to the West, which we call Ireland.” So baseless are the assumptions underlying this paragraph, and so questionable are its terms that I cannot but wonder ■ how a reviewer in an Irish Catholic paper could have passed it without comment. Irish Catholics, to whom this book of Father Stebbing‘s has-been so ably recommended, may well rub their eyes when they find, in the paragraph quoted above, the implied assertion that their country only participated in the historic title “Island of Saints” or that that appellation was ever applied, even remotely, to the land to the East; which we call England. In the circumstances, it may interest my readers if I recall for them the facts of a. controversy which took place a few years ago, wherein the English assumption of this title was submitted to historical analysis by an Irish ecclesiastic living here in Rome. The incident, which offered the opportunity of this analysis, was the use of a certain phrase in a speech made by the French Cardinal Andrieu, in replying to an address presented by the English bishops on the occasion of the celebration here 13 years ago, of the beatification of St; Jeanne d’Arc. In the account of the function given in the pages of the English Catholic weekly, The Tablet, the Cardinal was reported to have concluded his speech with an expression of hope and prayer for the speedy return of the Island of Saints to the true Faith. In a subsequent number of the Tablet (May 15, 1909) a short letter appeared from the pen of the Irish ecclesiastic referred to; the letter pointed out that the Island of Saints had never abandoned the true Faith. Leading English Catholics were aghast at this implied challenge of England’s right to the title of “Island of Saints,” and some of them hurried to give the Irish champion a little lesson in history. They did not know their man; in the event, they were reduced to silence, and the English pretension to the appellation was shown to have no historical foundation. Some months later a historical treatment of the whole question of the title and of its English assumption of it was published here in Rome, in a pamphlet: Insult Sanctorum, La Storm di un Titolo Usurpato. For the learned, that pamphlet said the last word. Yet here is “a scholarly book by Father Stebbing”- repeating the same old fiction in a. new and more offensive form, a book which Irish Catholics are being implicitly advised to buy. The first English champion, in the subsequent controversy, was the well-known Bishop Vaughan, who was at the time resident in Rome. In the issue of the Tablet for May 29, 1909, he published a letter assorting that, while Ireland had long been known as the Island of Saints, England had equally borne the same title in the ages of Faith. In the course of the discussion it became evident that the worthy Bishop based this definite assertion on passages written by Cardinal Newman and by Dr. Lingard. It was soon pointed out to him by the Irish protagonist that the question at issue was, not what Newman said or what Lingard said, but, was this; are there any historical data of the ages of Faith to justify the assertion that England was called by that title, He was also asked to offer, in proof of his claim, some historical argument based on the ages of Faith, or at least to quote some historical authority of established reputation before Lingard’s time. When he fell back on the statement of the claims of both Newman and Lingard to he accepted as first-class historians, who carefully ■ weighed their every word, and who would never pronounce a judgment without excellent reasons for it, he was told that bis two authorities were no more infallible than other historians, and he was again pressed for some historical proof of his first assertion. He failed to offer it. But he stated that it was a. deplorable fact that the verdict of Lingard and Newman on England’s right to the title in question, was insufficient to obtain a general recognition of that right. However, he laid the flattering unction to his soul that England enjoyed another title, “Our Lady’s Dowry,” which he held to be in

Canon appealed to the last words spoken by Blessed Edmund Campion, in presence of the tribunal which sentenced him to death. The force of the argument was derived from the fact that the martyr had been.sentenced in the year 1581, and that in his speech before his judges he had referred to England as the “Island of Saints.” In the letter putting forward this argument, the Canon gave, as his reference page 308, of the Life of Edmund Campion, published in 1867, by Richard Simpson. In that work there was given .a short speech as made by the martyr before his death. So far as he had gone, Canon Gunning appeared to be right. But the Irish ecclesiastic was not undone. His letter in reply to the English Canon, may justly be said to have ended the controversy, although the debate was not formally closed for some time afterwards. He stated that 'any respectable authority of the sixteenth century or earlier which attributed to England the title of “Island of Saints” was deserving of serious consideration. He was quite willing to consider Blessed Edmund Campion as a competent historical authority. But the trouble was that no historical proof whatever, of the kind asked for, had been offered in the name and with the authority of the Blessed Martyr. What Canon Gunning, had brought forward was quotation of a biography written in 1867. The martyr on the other hand had suffered and died in 1581. Wherefore he asked the Canon to refer him, not to the biography published by Simpson, in 1867, but to the historical sources of the alleged speech. His claim was that if Blessed Edmund Campion actually used the expression attributed to him by his nineteenth century biographer, the historical proof of such use was to be found in documents or in some such historical instruments of the sixteenth century. Unhappily, for the cause he espoused, the Canon did not • give the required reference, presumably because no such documents existed. The worthy Canon, therefore, no less than the venerable Bishop, had failed to prove his case. When we seek to trace this mistaken English notion to its source, we find that it may be attributed to a rather florid passage in Lingard’s History and Antiquities of the Anylo-Saxnn Church. On page 90, of the second volume (third edition, London, 1845) there is to be found a strangely worded passage, which is apt to deceive the inattentive reader. In that passage the learned Lingard seems to have laid aside, for the moment, his usual mood of philosophic detachment and to have allowed himself, great historian though he was, to make a definite statement, for which he had not the smallest historical evidence to offer. Lingard’s book containing this error was first published in 1806. The English pretension to the title is, therefore, of no greater antiquity than 120 years. Such a pretension,. so far as we know, was never even heard of in the ages of Faith. Yet, such as it is, this usurpation of Ireland’s exclusive name was inserted into a public prayer for the English, as far back as 1839. According to a letter, which appeared in the Tablet controversy from the pen of Rev. J. Keating, S.J., the question of the justice of the English claim to this title was raised in Catholic Opinion in 1868, by an anonymous writer, who successfully called attention to the historical blunder involved in an English use of the appellation in question. In deference to the demands of historical accuracy, Father Keating tells us, Cardinal Manning gave the prayer a new form by substituting the expression “an Island of Saints” in the place of the more definite phrase complained of. In reference to this change, it is scarcely necessary to point out that it falls far short of what is required, for despite the alteration the false inference is conveyed to the minds of ordinary people. Father Stebbing, in employing the indefinite article before the words “Island of Saints” sins, it must be confessed, in very eminent company. But he can claim • for himself all the credit of that delightful assertion, that Ireland shared in a pre-eminent degree' (whatever that means), the enjoyment of a title, which, in , point of historical fact, was borne by no’other land.

some respects a more glorious name; with that title he was ■'{ willing to be satisfied until more light should be thrown on $ his country’s claim to the title “Island of Saints.” J'j A subsequent issue of the Tablet contained a letter over | the-name of Canon Gunning, who was responsible for,, the I] first and only attempt' in the course of the controversy J to bring forward ara historical authority anterior to the nineteenth century., « support of the English claim,-t The I