LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
CLERICALISM IN IRELAND.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent " Hibernicus " really goes beyond all sense and reason in basing a charge of clerical intolerance on the rejection of a Protestant nurse—who, after all, was very nearly being appointed—for an infirmary in the South of Ireland. Will he venture to say that a Roman Catholic would have even the faintest chance of consideration for a similar post—indeed, I might almost say, for any post whatever—in a Protestant district of the North ? To the CatholiC clergy it is a matter of extreme importance, as any one who signs him- self " Hibernicus " ought to know, that those who have to attend upon the Catholic sick and dying should be themselves Catholics. This is only natural, seeing the great value which that Church attaches to the timely performance of the minis- trations and rites prescribed for persons in that condition. In the case of other public appointments than those of doctors and nurses, I do not think there are the slightest grounds for accusing Irish Catholics, who have patronage in their hands, of unduly favouring their own creed. The favouritism, where it exists, is much more political than religious ; and I doubt if there is more political favouritism in Ireland than in England, though perhaps it is more openly avowed. I am quite certain there is not more in Catholic Ireland than in Protestant Ireland.
As to the general question of clerical dictation and intimi- dation, exercised by the Roman Catholic clergy upon members of their own Church, my own knowledge of Irish Catholics (among whom I am glad to number many personal friends), has led me to some very definite conclusions. In the first place, there can be no doubt that the clergy have claimed the right of dictating absolutely the political action of their flocks on all questions which have any moral bearing. This, of course, means all questions whatever. Thus, we have Arch- bishop O'Brien, of Toronto, " commanding " his flock to vote against a commercial treaty with the United States, on the ground that demoralisation and corruption would, in his opinion, follow any closer union with that people ; and thus, too, we had Archbishop Walsh, of Dublin, denouncing Mr. W. F. Cogan for condemning the League, because he thereby condemned, constructively, his ecclesiastical superiors, who notoriously favoured that body. But the question is really, not what the clergy claim, but what the laity will submit to. Now, although they do not sufficiently protest against eccle- siastical dictation where it is used on their own side, neither are they at all inclined to submit to it where it is used against them. The clergy, indeed, are all-powerful on questions on which their flocks have no decided views of their own. They are all-powerful on the education question (including the
establishment of reading-rooms, libraries, &c.), because, although it cannot be said that the laity are indifferent to in- tellectual enlightenment, they have certainly at present no- strong or definite ideas as to how it ought to be attained.. But on questions such as the national or the agrarian ques- tions, on which the laity have genuine convictions of their own, the clergy must either go where their flocks go, or be left behind. This was far from being the case some forty years ago, in the times of which Sir C. G. Duffy treats in his. " League of North and South." But between those times and these the Fenian movement intervened,—a movement whose direct results were trifling enough, but which accomplished a most momentous work in showing that the people could be organised for political purposes in the teeth of the most. determined clerical opposition.—I am, Sir, &c., T. W. ROLLESTON.
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