"1. That there are Inquisitors in partibus is not to be denied. That
letters of these Inquisitors are laid before the Roman Inquisition is
equally certain. Even in the time of Leo XII, when the church of
Rome was far less active in the British empire than it is now, some
particular case was always decided on Thursday, when the Pope, in his
character of universal Inquisitor, presided in the congregation. It
cannot be thought that now, in the height of its exultation, daring and
aggression, this congregation has fewer emissaries, or that they are
less active, or less communicative than they were at that time. We
also see that the number is constantly replenished. The cardinals Della
Genga-Sermattei; De Azevedo; Fornari; and Lucciardi have just been added
to it.
"2. Besides a cardinal in England, and a delegate in Ireland, there is
both in England and Ireland, a body of bishops, 'natural Inquisitors,'
as they are always acknowledged, and have often claimed to be; and these
natural Inquisitors are all sworn to keep the secret--the soul of the
Inquisition. Since, then, there are Inquisitors in partibus, appointed
to supply the lack of an avowed and stationary Inquisition, and since
the bishops are the very persons whom the court of Rome can best
command, as pledged for such a service, it is reasonable to suppose they
act in that capacity.
"3. Some of the proceedings of these bishops confirm the assurance that
there is now an Inquisition in activity in England. * * * The vigilance
exercised over families, also the intermeddling of priests with
education, both in families and schools, and with the innumerable
relations of civil society, can only be traced back to the Inquisitors
in partibus, whose peculiar duty, whether by help of confessors or
familiars, is to worm out every secret of affairs, private or public,
and to organize and conduct measures of repression or of punishment.
Where the secular arm cannot be borrowed, and where offenders lie beyond
the reach of excommunication, irregular methods must be resorted to,
not rejecting any as too crafty or too violent. Discontented mobs, or
individual zealots are to be found or bought. What part the Inquisitors
in partibus play in Irish assassinations, or in the general mass of
murderous assaults that is perpetrated in the lower haunts of crime,
it is impossible to say. Under cover of confessional and Inquisitorial
secrets, spreads a broad field of action--a region of mystery--only
visible to the eye of God, and to those 'most reverend and most eminent'
guardians of the papacy, who sit thrice every week, in the Minerva
and Vatican, and there manage the hidden springs of Inquisition on the
heretics, schismatics, and rebels, no less than on 'the faithful'
of realms. Who can calculate the extent of their power over those
'religious houses,' where so many of the inmates are but neophytes,
unfitted by British education for the intellectual and moral abnegation,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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