[To TEE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Six,—Many of us are at a loss to account for the silence of the English Roman Catholic Bishops ; it is a cause of distress and dismay in the actual state of disorder and perversion of moral teaching in Ireland. In many instances there, the popular religion seems to have become a mere religion of forms, their Gospel a message of hatred and greed, and the justification of the means by the end.
If a Catholic of irreproachable life defends the rights of property, or makes a stand against those principles, he must be prepared when attending mass to hear himself called " an Orange Catholic," " vermin," " a limb of the devil," &c.
Archbishop Walsh, in his letter to Mr. Gladstone, thus defines public outrages :—" Third, as regards ' social order,' we shall confine ourselves to two aspects of the case,—public outrages, namely, what is called personal intimidation, or, as you other- wise express it, the fulfilment of contracts and personal liberty of action." In this manner crimes and barbarities, the grossest infringements of all law, Divine and human, are passed over. This is given as the "view entertained" by "substantially " the " whole Irish Episcopacy." But I have good reason to know that there are Bishops, as well as priests, who dissent from that " view " of " social order," and to whom it is abhor- rent. In England, meetings of what the patriot P. J. Smith called the League of Hell are attended by priests, and its Press propagandism is in full swing. We expect our Bishops now and always to be the exponents of morality, and to uphold the law of God as superior to human aims and aspirations. There- fore, their continued silence at this crisis may inflict a serious injury on the Church in this country.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ALFRED TREVELYAN.
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