THE POPE'S ADVANTAGE.
THE English Press is still childishly afraid of saying anything that appears to favour a Catholic cause, how- ever clear may be the justice of that cause. Miss Harriet Martineau tells of two occasions on which tales of hers were peremptorily refused solely on the ground that she had taken occasion to draw attention to the virtues of Roman Catholics, and she declares that the late Mr. Dickens avowed to her his intention never to allow anything, however true, that could benefit the reputation of the Roman Catholics to appear in his journal. We must say we should have supposed that to be the policy not only of a past age, but of a blundering editor, unless, indeed, the journal in which such a policy was adopted had circulated chiefly amongst the ignorant and vulgar. Englishmen of any culture understand by this time, we hope, that the duty of according equal terms to good per- sons of all religions cannot really be held or practised as a duty at all unless you are prepared to practise it in the case of those who would not accept that duty for them- selves and who would not apply it to our case. If a principle is good only for the case of those who accept it, it is not good at all, for nobody can really accept it who does not feel it binding on him when he comes to deal with those who are not of his own way of thought. Now, the Pope's Allocutions are generally very irritable and feeble pro- ductions, but in the Allocution of March 12 even his style indicates that he has at last got something to say which those who do not accept his authority are, as reasonable beings, bound to attend to. And accordingly there is much less of that fretfulness which marks the latent impression that no one who does not agree with the Pope already, is at all the more likely to agree with him for anything that the Allocution says. We will not say, indeed, that the new Allocution is a statesmanlike document. But unquestionably it has more of the solid basis of fact and argument than any we remember for many years back. And yet he gets no credit for this from the English Press. Nevertheless, the reason of his better and more reticent style is obvious. If the Italian Bill on Clerical Abuses is to pass, in anything like its original form, it is quite clear that Cavour's theory of a " Free Church in a Free State " would have been completely abandoned by Italy, and that there would be the gravest justice in the Pope's complaint that the liberty of the Church is a fiction, and the usurpation of the State a fact. On February 10 last, the Saturday Review, which is, of course, quite above the vulgar fear of being thought to favour Roman Catholicism, contained a very interesting paper on the provisions of this strange outburst of persecuting scepticism in Italy ; and proved conclusively that the measure was in many respects worse, and certainly supported by a much more indecent demonstration of atheistic passion, than the Falck Laws in Germany. Thus the first article of this absurd and intolerant Bill provides that " the minister of religion who abuses his office, so as to offend against the institutions or laws of the State, and per- turb the public conscience or the peace of families, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term ranging from four months to two years, with a fine which may extend to 1,000 lire .(£40)." Of coarse, under that clause John the Baptist would -have been fined £40 and suffered the same imprisonment as he actually suffered at Herod's -hands, though no doubt he would o not have been liable to the arbitrary capital punishment which the actually endured. Indeed, any one of our High-Church c1nrgymen preaching that to marry a divorced man or 'woman, 'though lawful under English law, is contrary to the lavr of
or any Dissenting minister declaring that the tolera- .tion.of the. State Church is a wickedness which must be visited yin • a :divine judgment upon the nation, would be punishable 'under this clause with fine and imprisonment. The former -could • easily be shown to have disturbed " the peace of lainilies," and the latter to have disturbed " the public con-
• acienee." Indeed, what ministers of any kind are useful for, -if 'they-are not at times to disturb both the public conscience -and the. peace of families, we cannot imagine. What have !been all the efforts to rouse the public feeling of England -,...against the Turkish policy of Lord Beaconsfield, except efforts ..to -disturb "the public conscience ?" What can any sort obf attack on the moral apathy to evil, whether in domestic :aar in :national morals, be, except an assault on the private or ../miblic 'conscience, as the case may be ? It is clear that to clause ,so vague as this can be meant for no purpose on earth except to put a powerful weapon against ministers of religion into the hands of an unscrupulous Adminis- tration, to be used by them as the opportunity of the moment may suggest. The second clause of the Bill is even more explicit in the same sense, and is intended absolutely to paralyse -the ...pulpit. "Any cleric who, in the exercise of his office, by dis- courses spoken or read in public assembly, or by writings other- wise . published, expressly censures, or by any public. action -outrage; the institutions or laws of the State, a Royal decree, or any' other act of public authority, shall be liable to three - months' imprisonment." Why, half the politicians of England„ *probably more than half, could be imprisoned for three months 'under such a provision as that, if they were but' clerics.' -What .11orygentleman is there who has not on platforms dozens of times since it -was, disestablished, denounced the Disestablishment.of " the Irish Church as a gross iniquity? What Nonconformist has -notinveighed in unmeasured terms against the gross injustice of theBstablishment and the Education Act? Even in Italy no suck provision would be permitted for a moment against any class bit the clergy. One of the very men who supported this measure declared in support of it, in Parliament, that 'Call re/Ogions are incompatible with modem civilisation, a saying, certainly tending to disturb greatly both the " public conscience" and the "peace-of families; but the purpose of this monstrous measure evidently is to take away their moral liberty and ;.poorer from priests, and from no other class in Italian society nit-all. We cannot say we wonder that with this 'measure, although not as yet passed by the Senate, before him, thePope Tseizedlthe opportunity to declare to the world that the-Italian It cheats are conspiring against the liberty of the Church, and intending to keep him and his clergy in the strictest moral letters, and to subject them, if they do their duty, to all sorts- of petty-persecutions. What the Pope says of this proposal is 'certainly- not at all too -strong :—" So soon as this law can be sanctionedand promulgated, a lay tribunal mast judge if and .how-s.-priest, .in the administration of the Sacraments, disturbs the conscience of the faithful and the peace of families; and' the word of the bishops and of priests shall remain shackled and smothered ; and not less shall be that of the Vicar- of -Jesus Christ, who, although he may be personally . &died irresponsible for reasons of policy, shall nevertheless be _punished- in the persons of his accomplices ; as a Minister' had no hesitation in declaring in public Parliament, when alluding
• torour person, he stated that it was neither a novelty nor an anorimly in' penal legislation to punish accomplices when the _principal- author was beyond reach." Indeed, there is. or was; a' special clause in the Bill authorising the punishment bf *priest" for publishing or distributing documents " directed to _pravake 'disobedience to the laws- of the- State, from what - ever ecclesiastical authority and • whatever place they may emanate."
when, then, the Pope makes his appeal to Europe as against a. "-Cumming" Government which is aboutto break all the eagagei wants on the faith of which it got possession of Rome, he has sally aomnch stronger case than any one who has *not
• watched the proceedings of -the present Italian Parliame4 world have-supposed. If the Clerical Abuses -Bill were to *Ifecoome lbw, Cavour's policy would be thrown .to the windi 'sad .there would even be a fair excuse—we do not • say *a jastlfication--.for any Catholic Government which proposed
to interfere in Italy for the purpose of redeeming the Roman Church from its state of vassalage. But what is far worse even than the 'excuse for European inter- vention which such a policy would furnish, is the proof. it would give that the, party of liberty is not sincerely disposed to favour liberty at -all, except it be liberty to think and do as sceptics approve. Cavour's last words, "I will have no state of siege,—any one can govern in a state of- siege," are even more applicable to the, subject of moral and intellectual -con- straint, than to constraint placed on physical violence. The party,-,whether it be that of Rome, or that of the Atheistic -enemies of Rome,—whosay they cannot tolerate the liberty to as- sail what they approve, really surrender the only conceivable prin- ciple under which truth can be arrived at. And we need not point out that it is 'infinitelyworse, and more illogical, for those who eagerly proclaim human fallibility, to take such a course, than for those who assume that they have access to the sources of in- fallible truth. The Pope has thus gained a real advantage against the nominal friends of liberty, but it is through the default of these nominal •and very untrue friends of liberty. If the Italians wish to deprive his Allocution of its force, let them, as quickly as may be, defeat the Clerical Abuses Bill, do all in their power to give real freedom to the Church, and trust to the power of truth, and the power of discussion, and the power V experience, to make good the cause of a religion more reason- able and -nobler than either the fierce Italian Atheism, on the one hand, or the bitter Italian Romanism, on the other.
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