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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 1

Notes

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Notes.

Note A.

The following passages occur, in a letter from Lord Clarendon to Dr. Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, dated "March, 1848," marked private, but since fortunately made public:—

"My dear Lord,—Your Grace had the goodness to promise me that you would convey to Rome, for the consideration of the Pope, the amended statutes of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland, as the British Government has no official organ of communication with the Holy See.

"I was happy of having the opportunity to consult your Grace before any alteration was made, because, as a Catholic prelate, you well know what guarantees and provisions were requisite for ensuring religious instruction to the Catholic youths who might frequent those Colleges, and I was anxious that such securities should be given with the most entire good faith, and in a manner perfectly satisfactory to the Irish prelates, who, like yourself, desire to see the true interests of morality and the Catholic religion promoted by these institutions. . .

"As entertain a profound veneration for the character of the Pope, and implicitly rely upon his upright judgment it is with pleasure that I now ask your Grace to submit these statutes to the consideration of His Holiness, believing as I do that they may be advantageously compared with those of any other similar institution in Europe."

Is it not humiliating that a Minister of State in this Protestant empire should write such a letter, asking the approval of a foreign potentate to an Act which had received the signmanual of our Gracious Sovereign? One can almost rejoice to see a Government which had been guilty of such crouching before the Pope spurned from his foot! The bold and outspoken bigotry of Dr. M'Hale is quite refreshing when compared with such servility.

Note B.

Besides the usual blasphemous interjections of "Holy Mary! Mother of God! intercede for us," &c. &c., the following are some of the epithets applied to the Virgin:—"Gate of Heaven, Morning Star, Ivory Tower, Golden Temple, Ark of the Covenant," &c. (See Challoner's "Garden of the Soul," a devotional work very extensively used by the Roman Catholics.)

Note C.

Extract of a letter from a Paris Correspondent of the "Morning Post," dated "Paris, Sunday, 7th January, 1849

"Now that Pio Nono has escaped from Rome, and is partially released from the troubles of his Pontifical duties, he really should turn his attention to the high crimes and misdemeanours in which the Romish priesthood are wont to indulge. The French papers are constantly compelled to chronicle the condemnation by the law courts of some member of the sacerdotal order, for infringements of that which the social order has ever held sacred. To-day their columns are polluted with the accounts of a priest, who employed his leisure hours in the commission of crimes which are too hideous to enumerate. Well may Dryden ask,—

"'How can incest suit with holiness,
Or priestly orders with a princely state?'

"The frightful mass of pollution which was placed before the public during the trial of the Freri Leotade, at Toulouse, has again been stirred up. In another part of the French papers is to be found the sentence passed on a priest for embezzlement of the parish funds; so that you see the office of sacerdos in this country is too frequently coupled with that of either, bos, fur, or sus.

Note D.

Instances of the submission of the Irish clergy to the Pope abound. We need only refer to a case of late occurrence,—the condemnation of the New Colleges page 40 by the present Pope, through the influence of Dr. M'Hale, Archbishop of Tuam, and the general belief in Ireland that, owing to that censure, the Colleges would be rendered almost inoperative, as the priests would unanimously condemn them.

Note E.

In an edition of Dens' works, in eight volumes, published by Coyne, Dublin, under the sanction of Dr. Murray, the Romish Archbishop, there (vol.ii. p. 155) the following question occurs:—"What power has the Roman Pontiff?" "The Pope hath plenitude of power in the Church, so that his power extends to all those who are in the Church, and to all things which belong to the government of the Church."

Note F.

The obligation of oaths. The opinions of the Jesuits as to oaths, and the power of mental reservation, are well known. They have been avowed in England within the last few years!

The "Secunda Secundæ," of Thomas Aquinas, has been stated by a Maynooth Professor, Dr. M'Nally, before the Committee of the House of Commons, to be a standard book there. (See Appendix to Report, p. 450.) In this work occurs the following question:—"Whether a prince, on account of apostasy from the faith, loses Ins dominion over his subjects, so that they are not bound to obey him?" Answer, "We have the authority of Gregory VII., who says, 'We holding the statutes of our holy predecessors, absolve by our apostolical authority those who are bound to excommunicated persons by fealty or the sacrament of an oath; we absolve them from the sacrament of their oath, and prohibit them to observe faith towards them, by all means, till they make satisfaction. But apostates from the faith are excommunicated, as also heretics, as the Decretal says, Extra de Hæreticis, cap. ad Abolendam.' Therefore men must not obey apostate princes."

The above is taught at Maynooth, which is endowed liberally by us Protestants. Can we wonder that Ireland is disaffected, when such a pest-house of sedition is allowed to exist? We might multiply quotations such as the above.

Note G.

To show the opinions of Romanists themselves as to the obedience due to the Pope, read the following extract from the "Tablet," the English Roman Catholic Journal of Oct. 28, 1848, relative to the Irish Colleges:—

"The Holy See has now spoken. Its word has gone forth to the ends of the earth, and will never be recalled. All Catholics must bow to it, and render it obedience. If any sons of the Church, nominal or real, wished to gainsay what has now been written, it would be impossible for them to do so; and we hope and are most anxious to be persuaded that few—none, even—entertain a thought that would dishonour them for ever. No cleric can henceforth take a part in these Colleges; so that there can be no ecclesiastical president or vice-president in Gal way. No layman of high character can meddle with them, so that Cork is equally safe. Even the shadow of Catholic authority and protection, therefore, is wanting; and they must now stand on their true basis—that of un-Catholic or anti-Catholic establishments—'sinks of indifference and error,' but man-traps or soul-traps no longer. If Catholic students attend their halls, supposing halls ever to have a bodily existence, they must attend avowedly, because either their parents or themselves are careless of eternal ruin. Against such danger, no bishop and no pope can effectually provide. But at all events, a yellow flag has been hoisted over these receptacles and propagators of contagion. The mark of the Beast is upon them, and the brand of infamy has burnt down to their very bones."

Note H.

The following is an extract from an allocution delivered by the late Pope Gregory XVI. on the affairs of Spain, in 1841:—

"We complain that the property of the Church has been invaded, as if this property were subject to national authority, and as if the immaculate spouse of Christ had not the right of receiving and possessing earthly property, and as if our predecessors were to be treated as usurpers for having held this property under Pagan princes themselves; and so legitimate was their right considered, page 41 that when one or other of the Pagan emperors took possession of it, their successors hastened to sell it as property illegally detained. We complain of the decrees and other acts of the Government violating the immunities of the Church, and of ecclesiastical persons established by the command of God and of the holy canons; of the decrees which, with unheard of boldness, attack the power the Church has received from her Divine Founder, and which she has preserved in all its force and integrity, in spite of the opposition of secular rulers." . . . . . "We therefore condemn, by our apostolical authority, and in virtue of the protection which we owe to all the churches, all the aforesaid acts, all that the Government of Madrid has done or attempted to do, by itself or its subalterns, against the Church: declaring by our authority all these acts to he null and void, either in the past or the future, and of no effect in the consequence which may result from them. We implore and conjure, in the name of our Lord, those among the authors of these resolutions who still glory in the names of sons of the Church, at length to open their eyes to behold the wounds they have inflicted on their tender mother, and to reflect on the censures and spiritual punishments they incur, ipso facto, and which the apostolical constitution and the decrees of the Œcumenical Councils pronounce against those who attack the rights of the Church: let them take pity on their own souls, bound in invisible chains."

Note I.

The preceding note shows what are the pretensions put forward, and the authority claimed, by the Papacy in the present day. In the year after the allocution was issued, the Pope commanded a jubilee throughout, all Ireland, offering various indulgences and privileges to such Roman Catholics as prayed for Spain. On receipt of this edict the Papal bishops in Ireland addressed pastoral letters to their dioceses. One of these bishops was Dr. Kinsella, Bishop of Ossory, one of the four who, in 1831, set up Dens as the conference book for the province of Leinster. The address of the Pope was published in 1843, in the Popish "Almanac, Registry, and Directory for Ireland."

Note K.

The Papal bishops who were examined before the Committees of both Houses of Parliament, and before the Commissioners of Education in 1825-6, gave evidence, that if a bull were published in any country, and not reclaimed against by the bishops, it would then be put in force.

Note L.

So notorious is it that the nature of Papal authority inevitably interferes with the working of the civil power in a country even thoroughly Popish in its tendencies, that proofs abound, when we merely look to the past history of the most priest-ridden countries in Europe. A Committee of the House of Commons in 1816 published a Report, shewing the regulations made by some Continental states, as to the publication of certain bulls affecting the very stability of the civil power. In this Report it is stated that three of the most Popish states of Europe, France, Spain, and Portugal, forbade the publication of the bull Cœna Domini within their dominions. The French Parliament in 1768 thus pronounced: "The Court, all the Chambers being assembled, has ordered, and does order, the said publication to be suppressed forever; it forbids all persons, of whatever condition, dignity, and quality they may be, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, secular or regular, printers, booksellers, hawkers, or others, to cause the said publication to be printed, distributed, sold, or otherwise issued, on pain of proceedings extraordinary being instituted against them, as rebels against the king, and as guilty of high treason."

Note M.

We give the following extract from a journal already named, the "Tablet," to shew what are the opinions of even English Papists as to the degree of submission due to an Act of Parliament, till it has been endorsed by the Pope. The subject is, the New Colleges, which Pius IX. has condemned, and the writer, in his tone of insulting and triumphant derision, probably says more than he at first intended, or than he afterwards approved of:—

"Calm your perturbations, ye excellent individuals, and submit with decent page 42 dignity to the inevitable. It is even so. It must be so. It will be so yet more and more. You are only at the beginning of your perplexity. The Pope will speak more loudly than ever, and, what is more, he will be listened to. He will turn over your musty Acts of Parliament with finger and thumb, scrutinizing them with a most irreverent audacity; examining those which concern him, and when he has found these, rejecting some and tolerating others, with as much freedom as you use when you handle oranges in a shop, selecting the soft and sweet, and contemptuously rejecting the sour and rotten. And then, oh, dreadful thought! he will insist upon being obeyed. The very slates at Exeter Hall must erect themselves in horror at the bare thought of such a thing. What! the Bill was read three times in each House of Parliament—it was twice passed—engrossed on parchment—garnished with a waxen appendage by way of seal, and had over it pronounced, by Royal lips, the mysterious and creative fiat, La Reine le vent. The Queen wills it: her Lords will it: the Commons will it. What does it want to complete the perfect fashion of a law? Nothing of solemnity—nothing of force—which the Imperial sceptre of this kingdom could give is wanting to it. Bur, truly, it may want the sanction of religion. The Pope disdainfully snuffs at it: an Italian priest will have none of it: it trenches upon his rights, or rather upon his duties; it violates the integrity of those interests which he is set to guard: and therefore, Commons, Lords, Queen, wax, parchment and all, avail it very little. You may call it law, if you please; you may enter it on your roll; you may print it in the yearly volume of your statutes. But before long you will have to repeal or alter it, in order to procure the sanction of a foreign potentate, without which it has not in the end the value of a tenpenny nail."

After this a liberal Dissenter may well say, "Such language would really lead one to question whether any Roman Catholic deserves to be called a subject of Queen victoria, or can be a loyal citizen of any nation upon earth. The man who refuses to obey a law of his country, till a foreign potentate has had leisure to look over it, and is pleased to accord it his sanction, is manifestly an alien in the land where he resides."

With such evidence before their eyes, politicians still wonder that conciliation fails, and that the Roman Catholic Irish are turbulent and rebellious. If Oliver Cromwell were now alive, how would he treat such a missive as the above?

Macintosh, Printer, Great New-street, London.