SIR HENRY JAMES ON THE POLITICAL POWER OF THE PRIESTHOOD.
SIR, HENRY JAMES. in his speech at the Union Club on Tuesday, made effective use of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh's formal claim to exer- cise political authority over the Catholics of Ireland in relation to their use of the electoral power. He pointed. out that all the arrangements which have been made for many years back have had for their object to secure to each man the free use of his own judgment in matters of politics ; and that Archbishop Logue, far from approving that attempt to protect individual freedom, plainly declares that the Roman Catholic priesthood should exert, and that the Roman Catholic people should submit to, the spiritual authority which enables them to guide the people in the right way. " We are frail, weak men," said Archbishop Logue on April 5th, " but we have God's grace, and we are given special light, if we have grace, to direct the people ; and if from time to time we make mistakes, we are more likely to be right than those who have only worldly prudence." It is an amazing assertion of the Archbishop's, and one quite destitute, we imagine, of the smallest vestige of theological authority, that the laity " have only worldly prudence" to guide them in the exercise of their political duties. We do not profess to have any great knowledge of the Roman Catholic doctrine, but this we think we can say, that every man, layman or ecclesiastic, according to that doctrine, has special grace given him, if he deserves it, to perform his special duties ; and that as no one has even so much as contended that the grace given to the priesthood has any special reference to political issues, the layman who has a dutiful spirit may fairly count on the grace necessary to estimate at its true worth, be that small or great, the political advice given him by the priesthood. If he conscientiously rejects that advice, he would, according to any reasonable and moderate Roman Catholic standard, have as good a right to believe that he had grace given him to reject it, as, in case he had submitted himself to it, he would have to believe that he had had grace given him to submit. There can be no question but that Archbishop Logue went altogether beyond any authority, that we ever heard of, in implying, if he meant to imply, that the grace given to the priesthood to enable them to guide the consciences of their flocks, includes a special power to strengthen and direct their consciences to the highest and most appropriate political issues. The priest may advise on political no less than on domestic questions ; but those whom he thus advises are personally responsible for either accepting or rejecting that advice, and may be just as thoroughly justified in rejecting it as in accepting it. That a considerable majority of the people of Ireland might mis- conceive that duty, and think it right to follow their priest's advice in political topics, whether they themselves feel satis- fied of its soundness or not, is no doubt a very strong reason indeed for not granting to Ireland a political Constitution under which the minority who are either not Roman Catholics, and have no sort of temptation at all to defer to the political wisdom and sagacity of the Irish priesthood, or who, though they are Roman Catholics, are not Home-rulers, might be grievously oppressed. Nothing can be more probable than that under such a Constitution, the minority would find themselves the objects of a wide- spread and very galling system of ecclesiastical tyranny. And nothing can be more certain than that the Glad.. stonian Party are bound to make up their minds whether they do or do not think it wise and right to deliver over the Irish minority, including all the Protestants, into the clutches of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Moreover, the people of England have a right to know their decision on this point, and to hold them responsible for it. Thus far we fully agree with Sir Henry James, and think the drift of his speech most weighty and im- portant. But it seems to us that there is some disposition manifested in it to treat as wrong and unconstitu- tional, both the offering of advice by the priesthood as to the best mode of performing a political duty, and the taking of such advice when it is offered, by the laity ; and if that is what he means, we cannot at all agree with him. If we remember rightly, the grounds on which Mr. Justice Keogh delivered the judgment setting aside the Galway election to which Sir Henry James refers, were that the priests had used spiritual terrorism on a large scale to induce their flocks to vote for a par- ticular candidate. How far the evidence bore out the assertion, we do not remember. But undoubtedly, if the priests proposed to refuse absolution, as for a mortal sin, to those electors who had voted for one candidate rather than the other, or even went so far as to inspire an ignorant peasantry with well-grounded fear that they would refuse absolution for the exercise of their free choice in the matter, there can be no doubt that Mr. Justice Keogh decided rightly, and that Sir Henry James was thoroughly well justified in supporting him ; nor would any sound Roman Catholic theologian deny for a moment that a priesthood who had so acted had transgressed all the traditions and principles of their own Church. But the use of spiritual terrorism is one thing, and the use of influence freely offered and freely accepted is • quite another. It is perfectly absurd to assume that a priesthood has not quite as much right to offer advice frankly in relation to the exercise of political as it has in relation to the exercise of domestic or personal discretion. Protestant pastors cer- tainly do so, and we never heard of any proposal to regard it as an unconstitutional act in a Methodist parson or a Baptist minister that he had recommended his flock to vote for the Disestablishment of the Church of England. Almost all the Welsh Nonconformist ministers do, we imagine, use and even strain their influence in that direc- tion, and it would be quite absurd for Churchmen to cavil or protest against any such use of influence acquired in the pulpit for the promotion of political objects. It is no more objectionable than a lawyer's use for political purposes of influence acquired in advising his client on the conduct of his private affairs, or of a good landlord's use of his influence with his tenants, so long as it does not go a step beyond the free tendering of advice. Indeed, it may well be less objectionable. A priest ought to be, and not unfrequently is, one of the very best men in his parish, and of course, where it is so, his example and his principles and his counsels do rightly affect the conduct of his people not only in private but in public matters. We no more blame a Roman Catholic peasant who has no very strong view of his own for voting by the advice of his pastor, than we blame an English Churchman or a Scotch Presbyterian for deciding his course in a, similar manner. In fact, such advice is one of the most legitimate of all elements in the consideration of the question how to vote, to any man who has not made politics a special study and interest of his own. The unconstitutional act is to use any threat, or any language conveying to an ignorant people the impres- sion of a threat, that they will suffer either phpically or spiritually for the free exercise of their political judgment, and certainly not the private tendering of even urgent advice by one who believes himself to have a better grasp of the political situation than those to whom the advice is tendered. We do not know whether Sir Henry James would accept our view of the difference between legitimate moral and political advice, and the utterance of a spiritual threat ; but there were passages in his speech which seemed to suggest that he thought there was something in the very position of a priest which rendered his interference in politics intrinsically indecent and unconstitutional. Perhaps we mis- understand him, but if we do not, we should certainly regard his speech as going far beyond what it is possible seriously to maintain. The priesthood are no more obliged to refrain from giving political advice than any other class. But as in some Churches they wield what the people regard as tremendous powers of binding and loosing from spiritual penalties, and may wield those powers so as to take away anything like freedom of judgment from their people, the State is no doubt bound to treat the illegitimate use of these powers for political purposes as vitiating an election, and to provide against the danger of their being thus immorally employed. That does not in the least preclude them from giving earnest and even urgent advice, which it is, indeed, quite certain that the ministers of all other reli- gions offer very freely, and often with extraordinarily effec- tive results. Archbishop Logue and his clergy have even less right to make a purely moral question of the support or resistance given to Mr. Parnell, than they have to make a moral question of the support or resistance given to Mr. O'Brien or Mr. Dillon, simply because Mr. Parnell's evil deeds were private matters, while the others' evil deeds were essentially political ; but they have a full right to urge on their people their own view of the issue, so long as they abstain from anything like spiritual intimidation.
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