THE ROMAN CHURCH AND .1.HE IRISH LMBROGLIO.
WE dealt last week with the Nemesis of Pretence in the handling of the Irish question. Another pretence, and one which deserves treatment by itself, appears in our attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church. Here again the pretence is double. We pretend that the Irish Bishops and other leading ecclesiastics, including the heads of Maynooth, do not really desire to injure us, but are merely following their followers. We pretend, that is, that at heart they are not anti-English, but have to seem to be so lest they should lose influence with their flocks. That, of course, is pure fiction. Many of our most bitter enemies are to be found among the Bishops and Priests of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. To a large section of the Roman Church we are under a religious and political interdict. We are outside the law —Christian or Pagan.
Our next pretence is that the Vatican and those who direct the world-wide policy of Rome were not really anti- British during the war, and, of course, are still less inclined to injure us as a nation now peace has come. Why should they hate us when we so obviously do not hate them ? This is a pretence so patent that we wonder how even the party politician can indulge in it. We do not assert for a moment that the mass of sincere and loyal non-Irish Roman Catholics are anti-British or particularly anxious to assist, protect, and exalt the reverend Bolsheviks of Maynooth. What we do say is that the Ultramontane party at the Vatican was intensely against the Allies and on the side of Germany during the war, and that even now, though to some extent cowed and frightened, this party is doing its best to injure us. If not, how are we to account for such amazing facts as that which we lately exposed in these columns—the fact that, without any snub or censure, the Roman Primate of Ireland has given his imprimalur to a number of the Irish Theological Quarterly, published at Maynooth, which contains a detailed and closely-argued defence of the murder campaign that is now taking place in Ireland.
It is no use to pretend that such a publication is unim- portant. It is exceedingly important to the Sinn Feiners and
the Irish Republican Army at such a moment as this. It enables them to assure men of religious feeling that they are doing nothing wrong when they are detailed to kill a policeman, a soldier, or an enemy of the cause. Again? it is no use to pretend that when the Archbishop of Dublin gave his imprtmatur to an article in the magazine edited by five theological professors of Maynooth he had no intention of making himself responsible for the views expressed, but merely thought that the first, like other articles, dealt with matters which could be reasonably and usefully discussed from the theological point of view. When murders arc going on, as they have been going on in Ireland of late, no person of such an acute and vigilant mind as Archbishop Walsh could possibly have failed to see that the first article in the Maynooth magazine was given up to a discussion of the metaphysics of man-killing and that a conclusion was reached so exceedingly pleasant, timely, and useful to the organizers of murder. Those who gave the non obstat and the imprimatur to such an article cannot escape the responsibility inherent in such an action. What is the use of censorship if it does not prevent the publication of views condemned by the censors ?
We return at the end of this article to the subject o! the Maynooth apology for murder. First, however, we must deal with another facet of the problem of Pretence. What is the use of pretending that the people who control the Roman Church in Ireland are perfectly friendly to us when we find such a portent as the publica- tion of the unanimous letter addressed by the Irish Roman Catholic Hierarchy to the Bishops of Belgium, Spain, and, unless we are mistaken, of other Roman Catholic countries ? In this context we desire to mention, with the greatest satisfaction, though with no surprise, that Admiral Lord Walter Kerr, as president of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, has addressed to Cardinal Mercier a per- fectly admirable letter commenting on the Cardinal's recent communication to Cardinal Logue. No State paper more sincere, more able, or more effective has appeared during the Irish controversy. While Lord Walter Kerr maintains not merely a perfectly correct but a strongly loyal attitude towards his own Church, he is able to show the monstrous injustice done to us and our rule by the Irish Hierarchy. The passage in regard to murders and reprisals is so admirable that we must find space to quote itinfull:-
" During the post eleven months 152 policemen have been murdered, 50 officers and soldiers, and two officials. They have been ambushed in lonely roads or shot in the back in crowded streets, and in some instances butchered in their beds. Many have been mutilated by expending bullets ; one was killed from behind as ho knelt at Masa. . . Many—probably a majority—were Catholics, like the three officers murdered in Dublin.
Your Eminence will doubtless have heard much of charges of reprisals and outrages against innocent persons by soldiers and police. These charges are circulated throughout the world by an unsleeping propaganda, and included in them is every instance of persons killed when resisting or disobeying lawful authority, every death by accident during a tumult, and not a few eases, there is good reason to believe, of private vengeance and of murder by rebels themselves disguised in =dorms which they have stolen. At the same time, I do not deny that there have been cases in which policemen and soldiers. mad. dened by the slaughter of their comrades, have fallen into deplorable excesses, of which no defence is possible. . . Yong Eminence should know, however, that 41 policemen and officials had been murdered this year before the first ease of retaliation was even alleged, and justice will award the greater condemna- tion to the rebels alike against God and Caesar, from whom the provocation and the example came. Scarcely less of a scandal than the crimes themselves is the indifference with which public opinion in Ireland regards them, and the unwillingness or inability of the better disposed' to aid in their detection and punishment. And saddest of all, my Lord Cardinal, is the fact that no corporate effort has been made by the spiritual leaders of Ireland to stamp out tho mur. derous spirit which is a reproach to their people and their faith. There•is no oppression of nationality in Ireland any • • - more than there is oppression of religion, and on neither ground
mn sympathy with the Trish revolutionary movement be justly claimed from a free Catholic people like the Belgians."
Every word of this is true. But how amazing that it is not one of the Princes of the Roman Church who says it, but a retired British Admiral Surely Cardinal Bourne's heart must have burned within him when he read these noble words.
Let us say once more that we are not surprised at these brave words by a brave man, for wehave never for a moment supposed that religious-minded Roman Catholics felt differently towards murder than do Protestants of good faith. We fully realize that the Roman Catholic creed, when truly practised and understood, whole-heartedly condemns every form of wilful murder. But since Lord Walter Kerr has done so good a service not only to his country, but to his own Church, we desire to ask him to go further. If he has not already done so, why should he not use his influence to get the Holy See to realize the immense importance of at once repudiating the notion that high Roman officials such as the Primate of the Roman Church in Ireland have a right to give their imprimatur to such an article as that which we have just mentioned ? We will remind our readers of the operative passage in the article in the Irish Theological Quarterly to which the Archbishop of Dublin gave his imprimatur in common with the rest of the magazine :—
" So long as a tyrant unjustly holds a kingdom and rules by force,' says Suarez, he is always actually using force against the nation ; and thus the nation is always waging against him an actual or virtual war. And so long as the nation does not declare the contrary it is always considered to wish to be
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defended by each of its citizens, indeed even by any outsider. Hence if it cannot be otherwise defended save by slaying the tyrant, any one of the people may slay him.' That is, the ordinary procedure of war as of criminal jurisdiction must be regarded as dispensed with, so long as the nation is in the physical impossibility of organizing regular warfare. If such irregular methods—with their consequent danger of demoraliza- tion—are permitted or even enjoined, it is perfectly clear that when the nation is able to organize end equip a quasi-militaryforce, force, ants of belligerency require no special justification. Nor is there any need of a formal declaration of war, for such a declaration is merely an ordinance of positive international law which affects only the signatories of the Hague and Geneva regulations. It is the usurper who by his continued occupation has declared war on the nation. It is the right and duty of the nation to defend, by every effective means in its power, its liberty, its honour, and its independence."
As we have said before, what we want to know is whether the Roman Church means seriously to endorse the quotation from Suarez in the above passage, and, further, to endorse Mr. O'Rahilly's development of a doctrine which amounts to anything being allowable to an insurgent. " The ordinary procedure of war, as of criminal jurisdiction, must be regarded as dispensed with." Take, again, the declaration that " acts of belligerency require no special justification." If this means anything in the context and in regard to what is happening in Ireland to-day, it means that the killing of policemen, soldiers, and civilians requires no special justification. You may kill out of the ditch, from behind the hedge, or by the shot in the back without being a murderer. " And so say all of us " is apparently the chorus of the Archbishops and Bishops of the Roman Hierarchy in Ireland. Is it also the voice of Rome 1
We are sure it is not, and it is in no mocking voice or hypocritical spirit that we express our sympathy with the dreadful predicament in which the Roman authorities have been placed by the persons responsible for the publication of the Irish Theological Quarterly. We feel confident that if the Supreme Authority at the Vatican has the matter brought to its notice, and is asked whether the Archbishop of Dublin had anything in the nature of official encourage- ment for allowing such views on murder to be officially promulgated by the official organ of a Theological College, Its reply will be in the negative. The Holy See does not and cannot tolerate views on homicide which would receive the unhesitating approval of comrades Lenin, Trotsky, and Djerj insky when next they get busy with their campaign of introducing " a heavy civil war ' into this or any other European country.
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