IRELAND AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland who look to the growth of a political temper hostile to the authority of the Union as the chief factor in the future politics of the island, are throwing themselves on the favour of the agitating priests, and striving to gain the front position in the hierarchy by courting their favour. Of these, the Archbishop of Cashel, Archbishop Croke, is the chief ; and after trying his power at Rome to defeat the more moderate views of Archbishop M'Cabe, who has steadily resisted the violent policy of the Land League, and losing the battle, he now comes forward in Ireland to raise, as it were, the flag of revolution against the more Con- servative ecclesiastical authorities who discourage the Land League ; and in a letter to Mr. Sullivan, M.P., openly ex- presses his scorn for the Archbishop of Dublin's views on those subjects, and his " satisfaction " that "his Grace's poli- tical likings and dislikings, though possibly of some consequence elsewhere" [an allusion, of course, to the struggle for influence with the Pope], " carry with them very little weight or signifi- cance, except with a select few, in Ireland." When that kind of opinion is publicly expressed by one . Catholic Arch- bishop of another standing at the head of a still more important diocese, wo may be sure that the Catholic Church is so divided, even in moral and spiritual influence, that it will not count for anything like what it once did in guiding the mind of Ireland. And, indeed, it is perfectly clear not only that the Revolutionary and Atheistic party who secretly sympathise with M. Rochefort and the French Nihilists, are gaining ground in Ireland, and that, say what Mr. Parnell will, it is the rapid increase of this state of feeling which led him to court the sympathy of that section of French opinion, but also that even among the Catholic priests and Bishops who still hold honestly the theology of the Church, the impatience of any control tending to limit, however moderately, the political acts of their life is becoming very irritable, so that the least semblance of interference, whether by the Holy See itself or by the prelates of the Church, for the purpose of curbing the political passions of the day, excites the most violent prejudice, and sometimes the hottest resentment. It is a very curious and significant sign of this that, hearing of the wish of the Pope to send. a Nuncio to England, in order to inform himself more accurately of the British Government's view of the disputes between that Government and the Irish hierarchy and people, a secret meeting of Irish Bishops should have been held last week in Dublin, at the Catholic University, the result of which was, according to the Freeman's Journal, to send a " unanimous and em- phatic" protest to the Holy See against that design. In other words, this protest was an attempt to fetter the Pope's prerogative, as far as it could be done, on a matter which has hitherto been usually regarded as almost entirely a subject for the Pope's own private discretion. In other times, indeed, when it was supposed likely that the Irish Catholic Church would be endowed by the State, and that the State would ask power to nominate the Irish Catholic Bishops in return for such an endowment, there was a very natural jealousy in Ireland of close relations between the Papal See and the British Government. It was thought that it might lead to the choice of Bishops of an anti-Irish complexion, of Bishops who had not won their influence by genuine devotion to the religious interests of their country, but who had recommended them- selves to the ruling Power by deserting those interests. The time, however, when the English Government could hope to influence the selection of Irish Bishops by the Pope is long gone by. Whatever the Pope might learn from his Nuncio in London, he would always learn a
great deal more of a very different tenor from the various Irish Sees ; and so far as we can see, what the Irish Bishops are afraid of is not so much that the Pope should be misinformed and misled by the Nuncio, as that he should have any in- dependent means at all of studying the political problem of Irish disaffection,—any means at all with which they do not supply him. Even Dr. M•Cabe, the Archbishop of Dublin, knowing as he does the extreme difficulty of keeping any control over a peasant priesthood, unless the Bishops go at least half way with the political views of the peasantry, may very likely feel that his difficult course on the Irish Land Question for instance,—ono half-way between sympathy and restraint,—would be rendered still more difficult if the Popo really knew how much was to be fairly said for the British Government, and used his in- fluence to press yet more moderation on an episcopacy even now openly divided between the spirit of revolution and the spirit of conciliation. The situation in Ireland just now is mainly this : the tenant-farmers are wild for the re- duction or even abolition of rents ; the priesthood are all taken from the class of tenant-farmers, and even the least political of them, though they may deplore all violence, look for more or less benefit from the operations of the Land League ; the Bishops are divided into two parties, those who dread the moral disintegration of the new doctrines of arbi- trary popular morality, and those who hope to become by these means the popular Bishops of Ireland ; but both the one party and the other fear any attempt of the Pope to get inde- pendent light as to the situation ; the moderates think it hard enough to be moderate as it is, and that it would be harder if the Pope was more urgent in that direction ; while the violent party, of course, do not wish to give the Pope any fur- ther advantages in censuring their violence. Thus the Head of the Catholic Church is paralysed by his Bishops ; the Bishops are divided against each other ; and the peasantry see even their Church wavering between the party of violence and self- cancelled contracts, and the party of peaceful agitation and scrupulous good-faith.
The consequence of such a state of things as this in Ireland is, for the present at least, simply disastrous. It is not a religious movement which is weakening the authority of the Church, but self-interest which is weakening all the purely religious considerations which urge the duty of good-faith to landlords 'and of obedience to the State. And, of course, religious con- siderations of one kind cannot be set aside without re- ligious considerations of all kinds suffering seriously. The Irish lose faith in their Church, because their Church, so far as she is true to herself, is not on the popular side; and so far as she is on the popular side, is not true to herself. Now, what- ever may be the faults of Roman Catholicism, no people can help suffering by losing confidence in the only religion they have, without gaining confidence in any other. And this is, as we believe, the exact condition of Ireland. In spite of the Vatican Council, the Popo bad never so little authority with the Irish Bishops as he has now. The Irish Bishops who are on the side of moderation had never so little autho- rity with the Irish priests as they have now ; and the Irish priests who are on the side of moderation never had so little authority with the Irish people as they have now. On the other hand, the Irish Bishops and priests who are with the Land League have hardly any purely religious authority at all, because the people know very well that their ambition or political passions have induced them to take up a course which, from a religious point of view, it is barely possible to justify. The net result is that the religious disorganisation of Ireland greatly intensifies the political disorganisation, while both intensify the moral disorganisation. It will be a happy thing,,not merely for the British Government, but for the Irish people, if the Land Bill does something to heal the chasm which is slowly widening between the faith of Irishmen and their self-interest.
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