_Tu quoque_ is not a logical reply; but at the tail of an argument it does not come amiss. Well, then, in England the law recognises no other marriages than those contracted before the parson or the registrar. Let a Protestant and a Catholic therefore get married before a priest, without the presence or knowledge of the parson or the registrar, it is a valid marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church and binds the conscience of the Catholic party; but it is no marriage in the eyes of the law. So far the case is the exact converse of the _Ne temere_ Decree. But it goes farther; for it holds not only in the case of a Protestant and Catholic but also in the case of two Catholics. The law of the land will not recognise a marriage contracted by two Catholics in their own church and before their own priest, unless the registrar or the parson be present. On the contrary, the _Ne temere_ Decree does not in any sense touch the case of two Protestants. Now, Catholics think, and justly so, that a priest is quite as qualified a witness for the marriage of Catholics as the parson is for the marriage of Protestants, or as the registrar is for the marriage of either. The Catholics have in this a real grievance; and they feel it; yet their consciences have not been so wounded nor their hearts so broken as to think of exhibiting them bleeding before their country upon election hustings. Political consciences show strange phenomena. What is decreed by the _Motu proprio_ has been in force since the Constitution _Apostolicae Sedis_ was published in 1869. Yet during those forty-two years nobody seems to have been hurt by it; and nobody seems to have been concerned except Catholics till lately. The _Motu proprio_ obliges Catholics, under threat of excommunication not to bring ecclesiastics before lay tribunals without the permission of their bishop. It binds ecclesiastics equally with lay Catholics. It does not, and cannot, touch non-Catholics in any sense; a very plain proof of which is that it threatens with excommunication those to whom it applies. That censure of excommunication should convince anyone that the _Motu proprio_ cannot possibly apply to non-Catholics. They are not within the Church; and how could those be put outside it who have not been within it? It applies to Catholics only, whether lay or cleric. But not to all Catholics. The Holy Office issued a Decree in 1870 in which it declared that “the excommunication does not affect subordinates, even though they be judges.” A Catholic functionary acting in his official capacity does not come under the Decree. It will at once then be seen how unfair are the following words spoken by Mr. Campbell, who represents the Dublin University in Parliament. Speaking at a meeting in Dublin on January 4th, 1912, he said of two Irish Catholic Judges: “They might be called upon any day in the exercise of their duty to their Sovereign to put the law in force against a Catholic priest.