[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—The brevity with which "An Irish Catholic" has despatched my letter has not been favourable to perspicuity. His remarks are so palpably irrelevant as to look rather like an evasion. If he had been less hasty, he could not have failed to perceive that the question was not as to the opinion either of Bishop Horsley or Bishop Thirlwall, who on this point express none, but as to the historical statements of Archbishop Kenrick and Bishop Clifford, and the conclusions drawn from them by these prelates. He seems to think that it matters nothing what representations were made to the English Government as to the actual belief of the English and Irish Roman Catholics in the Pope's Infallibility, so long as they did not expressly pledge themselves that the obnoxious doctrine should not, in the course of a few years, be converted by the decree of a General Council into an article of faith.
Others may consider this as rather sharp practice, and may think that something more was required, if not by good faith and strict veracity, at least by candour and openness ; and that Eng- lish statesmen may well be excused, if they either overlooked the possibility of such an amazing contingency, or deemed it incredi- ble that the Church of Rome should after the lapse of nearly nineteen centuries declare the fundamental doctrine of its religion to be an article of faith.
The delusion under which they laboured was fostered by the Court of Rome, a proceeding which Dr. Newman seems to re- gard as a suitable penalty for the attitude maintained by England towards the Papacy since the Reformation.—I am, Sir, &c., J. T.
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