TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PRESENT POSITION OF THE ANTI-PAPAL LEGISLATION.
WE have got hold of the real Simon Pure at last—the measure which, after much dubiety in picking and choosing, Ministers have persuaded themselves is sufficient to repel the Papal aggres- sion. The bill, indeed, has not yet been published; a delay occa- sioned by the adjournment of the House without a decision on Wednesday, after three days' debate on the motion for leave to bring it in. But the Attorney-General has done his best to ex- pound its scope and tendency.
The assumption of any British territorial designation by digni- taries of the Roman Catholic Church is to be declared illegal. Two means of enforcing this declaratory law are to be adopted : a penalty of 100/. is annexed to every transgression of it; and all acts done by usurpers of the forbidden titles, in the characters at- tributed to them by those titles, are to be held null and void. Again, all property conveyed by gift or bequest to the offenders in their usurped characters is to be declared forfeit to the Crown. The object of this proviso is to defeat any attempt to endow a branch of the Romish Church in the -United Kingdom. The conveyances are not declared void, in order that, when in trust for the use of private individuals, the designation of a trustee by a title not recognized by the law may not positively defeat them.
To attain to a conjectural estimate of the efficiency of this mea- sure, it will be necessary to turn a retrospective glance to the pro- jects it is meant to thwart, and to the actual state of public opinion and feeling in relation to them.
That an encroachment on the national independence and the Crown's rights of sovereignty has been committed by the Roman Pontiff, can hardly, after the thorough sifting the question has now undergone, admit of reasonable doubt. In partitioning coun- tries into territorial dioceses or minor ecclesiastical divisions, the Pope has to deal either with states which acknowledge his spiritual authority, or with such as have not yet recognized it, or have cast it off. No state in communion with the Romish Church allows the Pope to erect dioceses in its dominions without its licence and co- operation. What the Pope has no right to do in relation to states which recognize his spiritual authority, he can have still less right to do in relation to states which repudiate that authority. The Papal instrument, therefore, which parcelled out the dominions of Queen Victoria into Romish episcopal dioceses, no permission to do so having been asked, much less obtained, was an aggression on the independence of the Sovereign and the nation.
The Queen. and her people are entitled to devise measures to re- pel that aggression ; the only consideration that admits of a doubt is, whether it is worth their while to take the trouble. Let us look at the reasons of the supporters of the Government measure, for thinking that the aggression is of sufficient importance to call for vigorous resistance. According to the Attorney-General's analysis, the Papal ag- gression involves an insult and contemplates an injury. It has been saidthat the insult would best have been met with silent con- tempt. The policy of acting thus may be questioned : men or nations who put up with affronts from one person, in a manner invite them from others. But, waiving this minor consideration, her Majesty's Ministers maintain that they must take the injury into account. To that end, they argue after this fashion. The avowed object of the Papal proceeding is to complete the organization of the Pope's spiritual subjects in the United Kingdom ; to facilitate the acqui- sition of property by a hierarchy, for the purposes of the Church; and to confer upon that hierarchy the power of synodical or com- bined action. Now we have already two endowed Churches in the British Islands—the Church of England and the Church of Scotland. Soon after the Revolution of 1688, it was deemed unsafe to the Government of that time to permit the clergy of the Church of England to act in Convocation ; it was thought to be impossible to keep their proceedings free from an ad- mixture of political bias and action : the action of the Convocation has therefore been permanently suspended. The General As- sembly of the Church of Scotland is allowed to meet and deliberate annually; but a Commissioner appointed by the Crown is present at its meetings, with full power to dissolve them should the mem- bers (as they were very apt to do in days of old) diverge into state politics. If it has been deemed unsafe to allow churches which have no foreign connexions to act in Convocation or General As- sembly, much more must it be unsafe to concede that privilege to a church, if possessed of property, (an important element of political power,) which recognizes the authority of a foreign head, who has a political in addition to his spiritual character, and political interests. The Church of England recognizes the supremacy of the Sovereign ; the Church of Scotland, which does not recognize that supremacy, is so essentially provincial as to be incapable of doing much harm; but the Church of Rome, which numbers among its children a third of the whole population, spread through the Three Kingdoms, and refuses to recognize in the Sovereign any right of surveillance or control, might easily be converted into a dangerous political engine. During the political troubles under the First Charles, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland fairly set aside the Parliament and usurped its functions. It may be that the present Pontiff and Pre- lates of Rome have no political ends in view, but who can vouch for their successors ? The antecedents of the Romish Church in every European state show that it has been very
apt to take a part in political contentions. The Church of England has been rendered politically innoxious by losing its power of synodical action; the Church of Scotland has been rendered politically innoxious by a jealous limitation of its sy- nodical action under surveillance : the Church of Rome might also be rendered politically innoxious, but only by depriving it of the power of synodical action for it will not and cannot concede to the state the exercise of such a surveillance as the Church of Scotland submits to.
On these grounds, stated or implied, Ministers argue that the British Government and Legislature not only have a right to pre- vent the complete organization of the Romish Church within their territories, but that it is their interest to do so. In this respect the case of the Romish Church is only parallel to that of the en- dowed or Established Churches of England and Scotland.
'Without accepting these arguments as conclusive we may ad- mit thus much in their favour, that they have denuded the mea- sure of its theological bearing, and placed it upon purely political grounds. This renders it every way less objectionable, inasmuch as it frees it from the taint of compulsory propagandism. Besides, by merely subjecting the Church of Rome in this country to re- straints already imposed on the favoured and established Churches, no slur is cast upon it.
A third question, however, remains—Is the Government mea- sure sufficient to prevent the complete organization of the Romish Church in these realms ? The solution of this question presupposes answers to two others—Is the measure of a nature to com- mand the sanction of the Legislature as at present constituted ? is it a measure that is capable of being enforced after it has be- come law ?
The difficulties in the way of carrying the measure through the Legislature are in a great measure of the Government's or perhaps more properly of the Premier's creation. The danger to be guarded against, and the means to guard against it, are exclusively poli- tical. All citizens are entitled to hold and express any religious convictions or sentiments they please—to exercise any ritual or devotional observances they please, and that without incurring any penalties or civil disabilities. But to the full enjoyment of these rights it scarcely appears to be necessary that their churches should possess the power of concerted legislation and ju- risdiction. Congregational discipline may be enforced, the in- struction of the Church imparted, and its consolations administered, without it. Such power the State maywithhold withoutencroach- ing on religious liberty. What the State denies to the Anglican and Scotch Churches, it may without injustice deny to the Romish. The question is purely political. But this was not clearly perceived when the Papal aggression was first intimated to the public. The con- nexion of the Jesuits with the Sonderbund troubles in Switzerland, the controversy now waging between Rome and Sardinia and the actual position of the Pope upheld on his throne by French and Austrian bayonets, have tended to identify the Romish Govern- ment and Church with the present reactionary movement towards despotism on the Continent. The Papal aggression in this country has in consequence been regarded by many as a device to sow dis- sension among us and paralyze the power of England to counte- nance and aid us, liberty in other countries. The Papal pro- clamation took people by surprise, awakening in them a mixed sense of astonishment, sectarian anger, and vague alarm. In this state of confusion, and probably with a gleeful consciousness that he was writing something very spirited and likely to command general- assent and admiration, Lord John Russell penned his letter to the Bishop of Durham. That epistle would have done no discredit to a private and zealous Protestant; but, while it added to the be- wilderment and irritation of the public, it committed the writer to a sectarian line of policy incompatible with his high official duties. Reflection or the representation of his colleagues, appears to have slowly led Lord John to a more just estimate of his appropriate functions ; but the storm he augmented is yet unlaid, and it im- pedes him. Out of doors Protestant declamation is answered by the denunciations of John of Tuam : in Parliament, Mr. Plumptre and Sir Robert Inglis call for coercive measures against the Ro- monists ; the Irish Catholics act and speak under a belief that their religion has been insulted ; others plunge into the discussion of Church Reform or the abolition of all State Churches ; while Liberal Members, who care little for any kind of theology, fearing a recurrence to penalties on religious opinion, overlook the politi- cal element in the question before them. The Legislature is very much at sea, and there is no Peel to steer it into harbour.
Supposing the measure safely piloted through these storms, comes the difficulty of enforcing it. In England, where the Romish Church has no status, and where juries conform to the law even when disapproving of it, matters may go smoothly enough. But in Ireland the Romish priesthood, as such, has been allowed to_ hold property in trust : an established order of things will have to be reversed ; and experience has shown that Irish juries, when their blood is up, pay little regard to positive law.
If the ability of Ministers to carry their measure in its present form is rather uncertain, their attempts to enforce itwhen carried, in Ireland at least, will be beset with difficulties. As for its provisions, if juries can be found, in the event of its being violated, to enforce the penalties they appear to be stringent enough for their object. By preventing the numerous and well-disciplined Romish Church in the United Kingdom from heaping up wealth in the hands of its hierarchy, it may be prevented from acquiring greater political influence than the Dissenting sects ; and by debarring its hie- rarchy from synodical action, the political influence it denves from
opinion may be rendered as innoxious as that of the Established Churches.
• The future, however, is dim and uncertain. Not that there ap- pears any chance of the sanguine visions of Romish propagandists or the nightmare apprehensions of zealous Protestants being real- ized; but a spirit of religious controversy has been evoked, which may long continue to rage, and only be laid at last by the sacrifice of our Church Establishments.
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