The Holy See And The Liberty Of The Irish Church At The Beginning Of The Present Century.

All students of Irish Catholic affairs must feel, at every moment, that we are at a great loss for a collection of ecclesiastical documents connected with our Church. The past misfortunes of Ireland explain the origin of this want. During the persecutions of Elizabeth, of James the First, and Cromwell, our ancient manuscripts, and the archives of our convents and monasteries, were ruthlessly destroyed. At a later period, whilst the penal laws were in full operation, it was dangerous to preserve official ecclesiastical papers, lest they should be construed by the bigotry and ignorance of our enemies into proofs of sedition or treason. Since liberty began to dawn on our country, things have undergone a beneficial change, and recently great efforts have been made to rescue and preserve from destruction every remaining fragment of our ancient history, and every document calculated to throw light on the annals of our Church. We are anxious to coöperate in this good work, and we shall feel deeply grateful to our friends if they forward to us any official ecclesiastical papers, either ancient or modern, that it may be desirable to preserve. Receiving such papers casually, we cannot insert them in the Record in chronological order, but by aid of an Index, to be published at the end of each volume, the future historian will be able to avail himself of them for his purposes.

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To-day we insert in our columns two letters never published before, as far as we can learn, in their original language. They were addressed, in the beginning of this century, by the learned Archbishop of Myra, Monsignore Brancadoro, Secretary of the Propaganda, to a distinguished Dominican, Father Concanen, then agent of the Irish bishops, who was afterwards promoted to the See of New York, and who died at Naples, in the year 1808, before he could take possession of his diocese.

The first letter, dated the 7th August, 1801, refers to certain resolutions adopted by ten Irish prelates, in January, 1799, at a sad period of our history, when Ireland was in a state of utter prostration, and abandoned to the fury of an Orange faction. In such circumstances, we are not to be surprised that the Catholics of Cork, Waterford, Wexford, and many other parts of Ireland, in the hope of preserving their lives and property, should have petitioned to be united to England; or that Catholic prelates, anxious to gain protection for their flocks, should have endeavoured to propitiate those who had the power of the government in their hands, by taking into consideration the proposals then made—that the state should provide for the maintenance of the clergy, and that a right should be given to the state to inquire into the loyalty of such ecclesiastics as might be proposed for the various sees of Ireland.

The celebrated Dr. Milner, treating of the resolutions just referred to, observes in his Supplementary Memoirs, p. 115, that they had nothing in common with the veto which was afterwards proposed by government in 1805, and several times in succeeding years, and adds, that the prelates “stipulated for their own just influence, and also for the consent of the Pope in this important business.”

According to the wise determination of the prelates, the matters they had agreed to were referred to the judgment of the Supreme Head of the Church. A speedy answer, however, could not be obtained. At that time the great Pontiff, Pius the Sixth, was a captive in the hands of the French Republicans, and soon after died a martyr at Valence in France. The Holy See was then vacant for several months, until, by the visible interposition of Providence, Italy was freed from her invaders, and the cardinals were enabled to assemble in conclave to elect a new Pope. Soon after his promotion, Pius the Seventh occupied himself with the affairs of our Church, and the secretary of the Propaganda received instructions to communicate through Father Concanen to the Irish Prelates the wishes of his Holiness.

The substance of the official note of Monsignore Brancadoro is, 1. That his Holiness is thankful to the British government for the relaxation of the penal laws to which Catholics had been so [pg 051] long subjected, and for any other acts of liberality or kindness conferred on them. 2. That the Irish prelates, whilst manifesting their gratitude for the favours they had received, should prove, by their conduct, that it was not through a feeling of self-interest, or through hopes of temporal advantages, that they inculcated on their flocks the necessity of obedience to the laws and the conscientious fulfilment of the duties of good citizens; but that they did so through a spirit of religion, and in conformity with the dictates of the gospel. 3. That to prove how sincerely they were animated with those feelings, the Irish prelates should refuse the proffered pension, and continue to act and support themselves as they have done for the past, thus giving an example of Christian perfection which would not fail to give general edification.

The second letter is also from the secretary of Propaganda to Father Concanen, and is dated 25th of Sept., 1805, in which year Dr. Milner had just brought under the notice of the Holy See some new projects of government interference with the Catholic clergy, which had lately been introduced into Parliament by Sir John Hippisley, at that time a supporter of Emancipation, but who afterwards gave proofs of a great desire to enslave the Catholic Church.

In the second letter Monsignore Brancadoro states the apprehension felt by the S. Congregation, lest the moment of the Catholic triumph should prove the one most dangerous to the purity and stability of the Catholic religion since the Reformation; that it would be no injustice to suspect the British Government of being influenced by designs to that very effect; that the Bishops should, therefore, as a general principle, renounce all idea of advancing their own proper interests, or of securing any temporal advantages, lest through human frailty they should inadvertently be surprised into any concessions which in course of time might prove injurious to the interests of religion. The Secretary then goes on to say that the S. Congregation found serious difficulties, more or less, in all the plans which, as Dr. Milner had reported, had been proposed by the statesmen of the day in England. These plans were:—1. The pensioning of the clergy. 2. State interference in the nomination of Bishops. 3. The restoration of the Hierarchy in England. 4. The concession to the ministry of the right to examine the communications which might pass between the English and Irish Catholics and the Holy See.

As to the plan of pensioning the clergy, Monsignore Brancadoro points out the dangers to which its adoption would expose them. If they accept a pension from government, the offerings of the faithful will be undoubtedly withdrawn, and the [pg 052] priesthood will be left quite dependent on the caprice of those in power. He recalls to Father Concanen's memory, that in his previous letter of the 7th of August, 1801, he had announced to him the Pope's wish that the Irish clergy should decline all pensions from the government, and mentions that the Irish Bishops, in reply, had stated that they willingly renounced all temporal advantages in order to preserve religion uninjured.

The secretary of the Propaganda next reminds his correspondent that Pius VI., in a brief of 20th March, 1791, had condemned a decree of the National Assembly of France, by which the clergy of that country were made pensioners of the state; and he adds that the Holy See had resisted a similar attempt of the English government in regard to the clergy of Corsica, when that island had fallen into their hands.

Examining the various vetoistical plans mentioned by Dr. Milner, Monsignore Brancadoro quotes the authority of the great and learned Pontiff, Benedict XIV., to show how decidedly opposed the Holy See has always been to every project directed to vest Catholic ecclesiastical appointments in the hands of a Protestant sovereign. This question is discussed in a brief of that Pope addressed to the Bishop of Breslau on the 15th of May, 1748, and his words are as follows: “There is not recorded in the whole history of the Church a single example in which the appointment of a bishop or abbot was conceded to a sovereign of a different religion”. He adds “that he would not, and could not, introduce a practice calculated to scandalize the Catholic world, and which, besides bringing on him a dreadful judgment in another world, would render his name odious and accursed during life, and much more so after death”.

2. The learned writer then proceeds to examine the various plans of granting to government certain powers in regard to the nomination of bishops, and explodes them all as replete with danger to religion, and well calculated to enslave the Church.

The plans proposed to lessen the Pope's unwillingness to grant to the sovereign the right of nomination were the following:—Some thought that the nomination should be limited to a certain class of persons who should have been approved of by the episcopal body after an examination and trial. Such a body might be the vicars-general, of whom two should be appointed for each diocese. The government was to be bound to choose the bishops out of this body. This plan was rejected, first, because it would really amount to vesting the nomination of bishops in a non-Catholic sovereign; and secondly, on account of difficulties created by the circumstances of the time and place.

Others proposed to give the government the right of excluding from the episcopal charge those obnoxious to itself. Monsignore [pg 053] Brancadoro says of this plan, that unless this right of exclusion were restricted by limits, it would be equivalent to a real power of nomination. But even so, even after due limitation, it was an absolute novelty in the Church, and no one could tell what its consequences might be. Besides, it was uncalled for, since the experience of so many centuries ought to have convinced the government that the ecclesiastics appointed to govern dioceses were always excellent citizens. Besides, it was the custom of the Holy See not to appoint to a vacant diocese until it had received the recommendation of the metropolitans and the diocesan clergy. This was a safeguard against improper appointments.

3. With respect to the restoration of the Hierarchy in England, Monsignore Brancadoro blames the motive which induced the English nobles to petition for such a change of church government, namely, the desire they felt to have bishops less bound to the Holy See. He declares that, although differing quoad jus, bishops and vicars-apostolic did not differ in reality, and that the Holy See was equally well satisfied with the bishops of Ireland, and the vicars-apostolic of England and Scotland.

4. The Secretary condemns, as worst of all, the plan of giving to the ministers the right to examine the communications that pass between the Holy See and the British and Irish Catholics. Such a right has never been allowed, even to a Catholic power, much less should it be allowed to a Protestant government. The case of France was not to the point, for there the right was limited to provisions of benefices alone. The government has no reason to be afraid: the Holy See has expressly declared to bishops and vicars-apostolic, that it does not desire any political information from them.

The two official notes we insert will be read in their original language with great interest. They are noble monuments of the zeal of the holy Pontiff, Pius VII., and of the vigilance with which the Holy See has always endeavoured to uphold the rights and independence of our ancient Church. Undoubtedly the wise instructions given in those letters had no small share in arousing that spirit with which a few years later our clergy and people resisted and defeated all the efforts of British statesmen to deprive our Church of her liberties, and to reduce her to the degraded condition of the Protestant establishment. The notes of the secretary of Propaganda are a fine specimen of ecclesiastical writing, illustrating the maxim fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.

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