[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Permit me to remark that the Pope, whose teaching in the recent Encyclical is, as you observe, "rather Conservative," holds the doctrine about rebellion which is held by the great majority of Catholic divines. There are some, however, of great authority, whose teaching is a little different. I do not know that you can make much of the "Irish Rebellion of 1848." Its area was so limited that it could not fairly be called an Irish movement, in the sense that the people of Ireland generally took part in it. There were Catholics engaged in it, no doubt ; but I hardly think that any of them, qua Catholic, could be described as "admirable." Very few prominent ecclesiastics (certainly no Bishop) manifested any sympathy with them. Father Kenyon, of Templederry, is said to have shut his door upon those whom his writings were thought to have stirred into action, when they were outlaws and fugitives.
I must say, in candour, at the same time, that your remark about " Catholic rebellions" seems very apposite to the case of Belgium. Most of us have seen the monument to Count de Mdrode, in the Church of Ste. Gudule, at Brussels. I doubt whether Mgr. Pecci, when Nuncio in that capital, would have expressed to members of the De Mdrode family precisely the same opinions as Leo XIII. now teaches. This is by no means to be taken as implying that Leo XIII. is wrong, or that I think him
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