Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland)
Then another of their papers, the _Rosary_, has said: "We have
played the game of tolerance until the game is played out"; and has
prophesied that under Home Rule the Church will become an irresistible
engine before whom all opposition must go down. And whatever the
educated laity may desire, no one who knows Ireland can doubt that
it is the clerical faction that will be all-powerful. The leading
ecclesiastics are trained at the Gregorian University at Rome; and
one of the Professors at that institution, in a work published in 1901
with the special approval of Pope Leo XIII, enunciated the doctrine
that it is the duty of a Christian State to put to death heretics
who have been condemned by the Ecclesiastical Court. Of course no one
supposes that such a thing will ever take place in Ireland; but what
the Ulstermen object to is putting themselves under the rule of
men who have been trained in such principles and believe them to be
approved by an infallible authority.
In 1904 some foreign merchants at Barcelona wished to build a church
for themselves. Republican feeling is so strong in the municipality
that permission was obtained without difficulty. But the bishop
at once protested and appealed to the King. The King wrote back a
sympathetic letter expressing his deep regret that he was unable to
prevent this fresh attack on the Catholic faith.
We are constantly being told that the tolerance and liberality shown
by the majority in Quebec is sufficient of itself to prove how foolish
are the apprehensions felt by the minority in Ireland. Well, I will
quote from a journal which cannot be accused of Protestant bias,
the _Irish Independent_, one of the leading organs of the
Nationalist-clerical party in Ireland:--
"(From our own Correspondent.)
"Montreal, Thursday.
"In connection with the celebration of the anniversary of
Wolfe's victory and death, which takes place in September,
prominent members of the Anglican Church have inaugurated a
movement for the erection of a Wolfe Memorial Chapel on
the Plains of Abraham. The organisers of the movement hope
ultimately to secure the transfer of the General's remains to
the chapel for interment on the scene of his victory.
"The population being largely French-Canadian Catholics, the
Catholic Church organ of Quebec strongly protests against
the erection of an Anglican chapel in the heart of a Catholic
district."
Now if this conduct on the part of the Roman Catholic authorities is
quite right at Barcelona and Quebec, why is it "Orange bigotry"
to suggest that the same people may act in the same way at Cork or
Galway?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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