TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE IRISH BISHOPS' OUTLOOK.
IT is evident from the recent letter of Archbishop Walsh, as well as from the tone taken even by so -vehement a political partisan as Archbishop Croke, that the Irish Episcopate have at length been awakened to a sense of the danger that threatens their influence in Ireland, if they do not desist from the course to which till very recently they have committed themselves, of encouraging the party of Irish irreconcilables, whose main policy it is to make Ireland ungovernable by any British Government whatever. Mr. Parnell has not, indeed, been able to van- quish them. They on the contrary, so far as we have the means of judging, have completely defeated him. But they have defeated him only with a great effort, and not without a great sense of the formidable character of the opposition. They have been aware of the growth in every Irish city and town of a very strong minority of persons who neither obey God nor regard man, who are as indifferent to Mr. Parnell's breaches of the moral law, as they had themselves allowed too many of their flocks to be to the many and grievous breaches of the laws of justice, charity, and property which the National League had initiated or con- doned. They have become sensible that, owing to the negligence and unscrupulousness of the Irish Catholic clergy during the waging of the land-war, there has grown up a very formidable spirit of caprice, self-will, and anarchy in Ireland, which threatens not merely the authority of the British Government, but the authority of the Catholic Church ; and they have seen in many places the strange sight of the Catholic Church endeavouring to recover her authority by attempts to exercise spiritual power in political matters after a fashion which they must per- fectly well know to be quite illegitimate and incapable of any sort of defence. In a recent case, it is alleged that communion has been refused to a follower of Mr. Parnell's only because he will not desert that leader at the dictation of his priest,—a course quite as violently opposed to the Roman Catholic tradition, as Mr. Parnell's conduct itself, to say nothing of Mr. Dillon's and Mr. O'Brien's, has been for many years past opposed to the best traditions of the Church of Rome. They well know that they dare not excommunicate for the mere refusal of members of their flock to desert Mr. Parnell as a political adviser, and that in any appeal to Rome they would be overruled and rebuked if they persisted in so -violent a breach of the Church's neutrality on purely political questions. But they know also that unless they recover the influence which by their unwise policy in en- couraging lawlessness and anarchy they have so largely lost, they will soon have to deal not merely with head- strong politicians, but with a very considerable party of a thoroughly irreligious spirit which ignores not only the authority of the British law and the moral authority of the Roman priesthood, but the authority of all law and of all religion.
This prospect has no doubt given the Irish bishops very serious and just causes of alarm,—causes of alarm all the more serious to them that they are themselves in great measure responsible for the spread of this lawless spirit in Ireland. On the other hand, they have gradually learned during the progress of Mr. Balfour's administration of Ire- land, how much influence they might gain with the British Government by allying themselves in general with the orderly party, and interfering onlyto alleviate and popularise the conditions under which the orderly party in Ireland should govern the country. They see that they can get such a Land Law as their people thoroughly approve ; that they can secure the cordial help of the British Government for Ireland in periods of distress, and not only its cordial help, but help so effective that the British authorities are received in distressed regions with acclamations never accorded even to popular politicians ; and further, that on questions of serious ecclesiastical policy, like questions of education, they hold the balance in the British Parliament, and may deter- mine not only the policy of Ireland, but the policy of the United Kingdom. In a word, they see themselves in a posi- tion very similar to that of the Catholics of Prussia, who have not merely completely baffled the attacks which a powerful Minister made on the Church, but have compelled the Government to come to terms with them, and to repeal every provision by which the Catholics suffered, as well as to consult carefully the wishes of the Catholic Party in determining the general domestic and foreign policy of the Empire. All this the Irish Episcopate have been very slow to learn, but at last they are evidently learning it, and we see the result in Archbishop Walsh's tardy and hesitating confession that Ireland may perhaps be not yet ripe for Home-rule. In truth, Home-rule, dangerous as it is to the United Kingdom, is, we believe, still more dangerous to the ultimate interests of the Catholic Church in Ireland. No sooner would the Catholics find themselves brought face to face with an Irish Parliament, than they would discover what they had risked in sacrificing the great advantage which they now possess as spokesmen of the popular feeling when that comes into conflict with the Conservative force of the British Government. In an Irish Parliament they could not long play that part. They could not, consistently with their Catholicism, cast all prudent considerations to the winds and go in for a revolutionary policy. They would find themselves outbidden as a popular party by the Par- nellites and the Irish Radicals and Republicans, and they would then soon discover what a price they would have to pay for becoming the Conservative Irish Party, instead of being, what they now are, only in part a Conservative, and in much greater part a popular and democratic party, which takes the cause of the tenant-farmers and the labourers under its protection. In an Irish Parlia- ment, the Catholic Party would soon find itself in the uncomfortable position of being obliged to take the part of the British Government against the Irish Reds, and the Irish Reds would then gradually gain the reputation of being the patriotic party, the party that sets the actual government at defiance. The Irish prelates have a fore- taste of what this would mean in the enthusiasm which Mr. Parnell has so often evoked by his appeals to the men of the hill-sides, and to the violent Nationalists of America.
They know that if they had to pose as the representatives of the moderates, and as more or less the adherents of the British Government,—and no other attitude would be consistent with the steady policy of the Church of Rome, —they would soon find a popular opposition growing up against them which would greatly undermine their moral and religious influence. This they are only just beginning to apprehend ; but as soon as they do appre- hend it, we shall see a yet more decided change of atti- tude. It is far better for the Irish prelates to rule a. party which is always endeavouring to obtain, and often actually obtaining, great concessions from the British Government, and so earning the reputation of a popular policy, than to become the centre of resistance to revolu- tion, as they must, if an Irish Parliament and Administra- tion spring into being, and they, in consequence, earn the reputation of resisting the aspirations of Celtic patriotism and insular independence. After all, Leo XIII. has under- stood the natural function of the Irish Episcopate far better than such creatures of the hour as Archbishop Walsh and Archbishop Croke, and his policy for Ireland, if it has not already triumphed, is at least beginning to triumph, over theirs. They are awakening at last to the advantages of their present position, and the great disadvantages of the position which they would occupy so soon as Home-rule had been obtained, and they found themselves face to face with a violent Radical Opposition such as Mr. Parnell is eminently qualified to lead.
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