Catholic Emancipation Bill

“ In 1779 he was in favour of the relief of the Roman catholics from penal laws, but he strongly opposed ‘Catholic Emancipation,’ especially the bill of 1805, on the ground that it is one thing to grant perfect toleration, quite another to confer political power. ”

“ From this time to the period of the agitation on the great Reform Bill of (1832) we find no events worthy of record. The burning question of Catholic Emancipation received at the time its petitions to Parliament for and against the measure, in accordance with the expanded or contracted views of the petitioners; but the Vicar of Dudley (the Rev. Dr. Booker) failed not in his episcopalian views occasionally to denounce the contemplated innovation upon our glorious constitution, and to predict the evils that must follow the introduction of Roman Catholics into Parliament. ”

“ In your present situation, it may be interesting to you to know that the bill for Catholic Emancipation will pass the Commons without doubt, and very probably the Peers also, unless the Spiritual Lords make a great rally. ”

“ Catholic Emancipation will not encroach upon these rights and privileges, it will only procure an equal participation of civil rights and privileges for the Catholics, which in compliance with the Gospel, the Protestants are bound to grant, as they in a like situation, would wish to obtain the same privileges for themselves. ”

“ Then with what face can the Protestants object to Catholic Emancipation, on the plea that Catholics once were barbarous; when their own establishment is liable to the very same objections, on the very same grounds? ”

“ But, under our free institutions, it is the right of the Catholic citizen, by argument, influence, and voting, to secure as much as possible of his just religious liberty without prejudice to the natural or civil rights of others. Therefore, as a matter of course, whenever Catholics obtain sufficient power to command a majority of votes, they will, if they act on Catholic principles, demand and obtain all their rights and full equality before the law with other citizens. ”

“ Political and religious emancipation has conferred on Catholics an importance in the state which is altogether new, and conversions on a large scale during a quarter of a century have been a concurrent cause of their occupying a high and honorable position in society. No prime minister, therefore, can now ignore them, much less can he molest them. In every session of parliament some obloquy cast on them in former ages is removed. ”

“ Our Government is essentially Protestant; therefore, by emancipating the Catholics, give up a few circumstances which have nothing to do with the essence. The Catholics are disguised enemies; therefore, by emancipation, turn them into open friends. They have a double allegiance; therefore, by emancipation, make their allegiance to their King so grateful, that they will never confound it with the spiritual allegiance to their Pope. ”

“ It is one, indeed, amongst the tests of excellence in any political constitution, that it can stand very rude shocks, and that it has internal resources for healing all injuries not organically destructive. Catholic emancipation, whatever might be thought of it if viewed from a station of unlimited power to choose or to reject, must now be reconciled to our minds for better and worse; and in peaceable times will gradually adjust itself to the working of our political system, settling into the general economy of the machine. ”

“ I perfectly understand, as I said, that an honest man may disapprove of the Emancipation Act, and may wish it repealed. But can any man, who is of opinion that Roman Catholics ought to be admitted to office, honestly maintain that they now enjoy more than their fair share of power and emolument? What is the proportion of Roman Catholics to the whole population of the United Kingdom? ”

“ Conflicts there will be, annoyances and vexations must be expected; but in all the European states as well as our own, if we except Sweden and Denmark, there is too large a Catholic population to be either massacred, exiled, or deprived of the rights of person and property common to all citizens or subjects. The British government has been forced to concede Catholic emancipation, and all appearances indicate that she will be forced ere long to place Catholics in all respects on a footing of perfect equality with Protestants before the state. ”

“ They know the threat extends to the life as well as property. All means with them are lawful for the one end. Do we, in all these fruits of the aggression, and of the Ministerial favour which created it, see the promised gratitude of the Roman Catholics? Every obstacle to the free exercise of their religion had been removed; and we were to have peace, but have it not, because, from the vantage-ground of their emancipation, a dominant supremacy was to be superadded. The hierarchy is not for the use of the Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, but for the Pope and his priesthood's power. ”

“ We are quite as strongly opposed to the establishment of any "state religion" as this self-elected body of political reformers are or affect to be; and, to quote and apply to this body the words of "Document No. 4," "we cannot yield one jot or tittle of their demand, for it involves a principle to us sacred and vital. It means the union of church and state." And we refer to history for the proof that the Catholic has never been a state church, but has been more frequently found in antagonism to the civil power than in alliance with it; always on the side of liberty and the rights of the people ”

“ Lastly, modern times have given birth to a third kind of political constitution, a mean between the two preceding ones, in which Catholicity is no longer the base of the social edifice in preference to every other religion, and is only one of the public worships recognized by the state; at times that of the majority of the citizens, and observed as such in the religious solemnities in which the government takes a part. In this hypothesis, the state remains religious, but it is neither Catholic nor Protestant. ”

“ There is a great difference between accepting and sustaining a democratic government where it already legally exists, and laboring to introduce it in opposition to the established and to the habits, customs, and usages of the people where it does not exist. And even if Catholics in other countries had a preference for the monarchical form, they would not dream of introducing it here, and would be led by their own conservative principles, if here, to oppose it, since nothing in their religion requires them, as a Catholic duty, to support one particular form of government rather than another. ”

“ Hopes were held out that the Union might bring Catholic Emancipation, that the Catholic clergy might receive a State subsidy similar to that given to the Presbyterian ministers. They were to find that Catholic Emancipation was no more to the taste of England than to that of the Irish Parliament and that a State subsidy to the Catholic Church would only be granted at the price which Castlereagh desired the Presbyterian ministers to pay for the Regium Donum. ”

“ Are we to fold our arms and let others rebuild the very framework of society according to plans which our faith, reason, and history disapprove of, and very often condemn? Our ideas in the matter may not prevail, but how would we be justified in deploring the consequences of a legislation which we did not even try, by our influence, to suppress or modify? To abstain as Catholics from this great work of reconstruction is profoundly un-Catholic. It is the act of a traitor to the Church and country. ”

“ Genuine Catholics will never conspire against our government and laws, but will always be true and loyal American citizens. If the majority of the people or the whole people were to become Catholics, they would not use their power to subvert our American institutions, or substitute for them those of any European nation. On the contrary, nothing could happen which would secure the perpetuity of the republic and promote its political prosperity and glory with anything like the influence which the Catholic religion would exercise in producing such desirable results. ”

“ We reject with horror the caricature of the doctrine of Papal infallibility which the opponents of the Vatican Council have drawn, and we repudiate the slander that this doctrine or any other article of our faith is in conflict with our duties as subjects of our government, or with the allegiance which we owe our fatherland. We protest against the course of those governments which have endeavored to hinder the propagation of Catholic doctrine within their territories, and to favor the opposition to the church by their protecting the rebellion against it. ”

“ It can only recognize them, and protect and vindicate the rights of each only in relation to those citizens who acknowledge its authority. This recognizes and protects the Catholic Church in her entire freedom and independence and in teaching her faith, and in governing and disciplining Catholics according to her own canons and decrees, which, unless we are greatly misinformed, is more than the state does for her, in any old Catholic nation in the world. ”

“ The substance of the argument is that the Catholics obtained emancipation by denying that Papal infallibility was a dogma of their Church, and that the Power which had changed their faith might change their allegiance. The Vatican decrees reversed the policy of Clement the Fourteenth, who, by overthrowing the supremacy of the Jesuits, had "levelled in the dust the deadliest foes that mental and moral liberty had ever known." Equality of civil rights should be maintained without regard for religious differences. ”

“ Any party may feel itself honored that secures the votes of the great body of our Catholic citizens, whether naturalized or native-born citizens, and no party will suffer in the end by insisting on justice to Catholics and to Catholic interests. Any party, by frankly and fearlessly sustaining the equal rights of Catholics with Protestants, and maintaining the freedom and independence of religion, will not only serve truly their country, and respond to the demands of American patriotism, but they will best ensure its own permanent prosperity, power, and influence. ”

“ It is, we think, a mistake on the part of our politicians who are Catholics, whether in or out of office, to be so anxious not to be suspected of acting under Catholic influence and in view of Catholic interests. The church asks only what is just, only to be protected in the possession of the equal rights before the state, guaranteed to her by the constitution of the state, and which are not always respected by the popular sentiment of the country. ”

“ There is not a civil, religious, or political right anywhere existing on this earth, belonging to non-Catholics, which does not also belong to Catholics. They must get that idea fast in their minds, and fight on that which is a lawful and just issue. No Protestant can claim a right which does not belong equally to a Catholic. No Protestant, be he individual or government, can say to a Catholic: You must not believe this doctrine or that; you must not take the Pope for an infallible guide in religion, but yourself; you must not educate your children in your religion, and so on. ”

“ Be the Catholic Emancipation a thing of great or of small misfortune, [8] be it a means of adding happiness to four millions of people, or a reform which will only give honour to a few of the higher ranks, yet a benevolent and disinterested feeling has gone abroad, and I am willing that it should never subside. ”

“ The objection is then faced, that liberty may be as justly claimed by the non-Catholic as by the Catholic. Of course, replies the Civiltá, the only case in which that question can become a practical one for Catholics is where they form the majority. Is it to be supposed that a majority shall be bound, for the sake of a minority "to pass a law opening all the pits of hell for its fellow-citizens?... With Catholics the liberty of dissidents cannot be a natural right." ”

“ Italy, in the act of overturning the temporal power, has completed her own unity. In the act of completing her own unity, she has, in the city of Rome, violated what the Pope calls Catholic unity, by admitting religious liberty within the sacred walls. In America no great State has modified its law in favour of the new theocracy. Several of the Catholic States have shown a consciousness of its aims, and jealousy of its accredited agents. In Canada, leading Liberal statesmen have clearly evinced a rising consciousness of what the Papacy is, and of what it aims at. ”

“ They will never take part in despoiling churches, societies, colleges, or other institutions of their property or chartered privileges, as radicals and infidels most assuredly will, so far as they have any power. Catholics will not do anything of this sort, even in case they should in certain States become an overwhelming majority. They will never seek to tyrannize over their fellow-citizens, to establish their religion [pg 625] by force, or to compel any one to do those things which are required only by the Catholic conscience. ”

“ There is no reason, therefore, for making a controversy about what the Catholic Church would do in the United States if the whole people were her docile children. The question of real importance relates to the action which Catholics ought to take, and probably will take, as one factor of greater or less power in the political community. Our aim in discussing topics of this kind is, first, to animate Catholics to a manly and honorable determination to secure their own equal rights, and to obey strictly their conscience in all their political and civil relations. ”