Page:Rome and Fenianism.pdf/9

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Rome and Fenianism
The Pope's Anti-Parnellite Circular
17

"But we may be sure there is a very explicit understanding between the courts of St. James and of Rome, and that ample rewards and promises have been held out by the former, in order to squash the Irish nationalists, Human nature is human nature all the world over, and money can work wonders; and it is no wonder if the Pope and Cardinals would be willing to sacrifice a few millions of penniless Irishman for the sake of catching a score or two of English nobles, whose revenues are greater than that of half Italy. This is a simple state of the case. We have been bought by British gold, and those who were formerly our best friends, have been turned into our deadliest enemies. One English aristocrat is worth more than a million of us; nay, the whole Irish people are but as dust in the balance, when the Catholic hierarchy weigh them against a score of British nobles, and the enormous wealth of the British Government. We him: done now. The matter is settled. All has been made plain. Our eyes are opened." Archbishop Cullen's comment on this language of tho Liberator is:—“Such are the principles laid down for the instruction and guidance of our people."

Let us now quote, in illustration of the Parnellites of to day some passages from a Dublin Newspaper, "failed Ireland," in its number of Ike-ember, 30th, 1882. It gives an "address from the Gympie Branch of the Irish National League to the Queens- land Irish and their countrymen at large." It mentions that the President, the Rev. M. Horan, had resigned his ofiicein consequence of the action of the Propaganda, and that the league was "indignant at the officious intermeddling of Propaganda between the priests and the Irish people, and at the condemnation of the Ladies’ Land League." The address asserts that the Propaganda is not "a purely disinterested body, and does not exercise its powerful influence on behalf of a government outside the Catholic pale gratuitously." It says: "There is no disguising the {not that a World-wide conspiracy, largely the product of English intrigue at Rome, has been inaugurated against the Irish race at home and abroad. The factors of that conspiracy are Gladstone, co-operating through Propaganda; the Propaganda in Ireland operating through the Irish hierarchy to sever the clergy. especially the comma, from the people. …… And this work of denatonalization, he (Mr. Gladstone) hopes to bring about by the oo-operation of his ready tool and stipendiary. the Propaganda." "Gladstone has obtained n large sum from the British Parliament to be employed in expatriating the evicted Irish to Australia." "The Propaganda undertakes, for some consideration which time will disclose, the Work of denationalizing the Australian-Irish, and, us a first step towards that end, is appointing English and Anglo-foreign bishop: who will carry out Propaganda's aim by means of English nuns in our schools," etc. The children are to be divested "of every vestige of national sentiment." The address denounces the Propaganda rule that Irish priests "must not take part in the discussions of the prevailing mobs," and talks of "gagging the curators." "Hence," it says, "Propaganda, Gladstone's ready agent, at his instance, gets them gagged by the bishops." And "the reward anticipated, or promised, for this subserviency is the establishment of a Catholic University on a footing acceptable to the Irish hierarchy and Irish Catholics generally." Within a few months of the publication of the foregoing atrocious calumny upon the Propaganda, a body whose acts are always ratified by the Pope himself, the proprietor of United Ireland was enabled to become Parnellite Member of Parliament for Mallow, by virtue of a commendatory letter from the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel.

To return to Archbishop Cullen. In May, 1864, he exhorts the young men who might be tempted into evil Societies, "to avoid dangerous reading, and to be on their guard against publications which, under the pretence of being the organs of the Irish People, insult our religion, promote revolutionary doctrines, and endeavour to drive the country into a foolish warfare, in which everything would he lost that has been gained within the present century, and deprive us of the blessing of heaven." In October, 1865,