NATIONALISTS AND CATHOLICS.
WE do not know whether Leo XTTT. reads English ; but if he does not, we hope that he will have Mr. Healy's speech on Monday translated into Italian. The finer graces of the oration will of course escape in the process,—we doubt, for example, whether the exquisite art of speaking of the Governor of Malta as " Simmons," can be reproduced in Italian. But the substance will remain, and in that substance there is much that the Pope will do well to ponder. He will see that the Nationalist Members are ready to sacrifice Catholic interests without regret or hesitation when they seem to conflict with political interests. Had Mr. Healy cared ever so little for the Church of which we believe he is a member, he would not have discouraged the Government in the attitude they have taken up in Malta. He might, indeed, have found matter for very effective comparison between it and the attitude which English Governments generally have taken up in Ireland. He might have said with great truth and great point :—' In Malta you recognise facts; Ire- land you ignore them. In Malta you have to o with a, Qatholic people, and you treat it as a Catholic people. In Ireland you have to do with a Catholic people, and you behave as though it were a reproduction of Mr. Lyulph Stanley. In Malta you have found the right road, and we shill never let you rest till you find the right road in Ireland.' That would have been a consistent and reasonable line for an Irish Catholic Member to have followed. As a Catholic, he would have rejoiced at the Maltese getting their rights ; as an Irishman, he would have insisted on the extension of similar rights to Ireland. Instead of this, Mr. Healy chose to make a speech which would have delighted a French anti-Clerical meeting. In so far as it had any influence on the Government, it must, from the Catholic point of view, be a bad influence. Suppose, for example, that Ministers were considering whether to make further concessions to the Irish Bishops in the matter of Irish education, they would naturally ask themselves how such concessions would be received by the Irish Party in. Parliament. Their proposals would certainly irritate a section of the Conservatives. Would they be welcomed by the Nationalist Members in such a spirit as would enable Afinisters to despise that irritation ? After Mr. Healy's speech, we cannot imagine Ministers entertaining any doubt on this head. He would rejoice, indeed, in the introduction of a liberal Irish Education Bill ; but the motive of his joy would be the chance afforded him of embroiling the Government with their own supporters. He would be utterly indifferent to the pro- spects of Catholic education, or the wishes of the Catholic Episcopate. The one question he would ask him- self would be : " How can I best damage the Tory Govern- Ment ?" And the answer, of course, would be : "By reinforcing the Dissentient Tories. If Catholics and Protestants can be induced to make common cause against an educational policy in Ireland, the Cabinet which is responsible for it may be very seriously injured." Cabinets seldom introduce measures of relief from pure love of the persons relieved. They are not above taking into account the capital they may hope to make by what they propose. Mr. Healy has been frank enough to show the Govern- ment exactly what would happen if they tried any educa- tional experiment in Ireland. They would have against them the Front Opposition Bench, because they were Tories ; Ulster and the English Protestant Rump, because they were truckling to Rome ; the Irish Nationalist Members, because they saw a chance of putting Ministers and the Pope at a common disadvantage. With such a combina- tion as this in prospect, it is easy to calculate the chances of Ministers making any such attempt. There is a significant contrast between the action of the Nationalists on the Maltese question, and their action on another matter which was before the House of Commons on the same evening. Where religion was not concerned, the Nationalist Members were quite willing to be found on the same side with the Chief Secretary. Had they wished it, they could easily have found a plea for rejecting the rating clauses of the Dublin Corporation Bill. There was the same chance of creating a schism in the ranks of the supporters of the Government, for if a section of the Conservatives dislike the supposed concession to the Pope, a ,section of the Unionists equally dislike the supposed concession to the Dublin Home-rulers. But instead of rejecting the rating clauses, the Nationalist Members gave them strong support. It is clear, therefore, that they do not in all cases oppose the Government when the Govern- ment do what they like, or may be supposed to. like. They will accept from them what they think will promote the interests of Home-rule ; they will not accept from them what will promote the interests of the Roman Catholic Church.
The reason of this difference is clear, and it is this that makes us wish that the Pope should read Mr. Healy's speech. How much the Nationalist Members care for their religion we do not know. But we do know that they care for their politics more. However high a place they may give to the one, a higher place still is reserved for the other. Now, from the point of view of politics, the Pope has committed a grievous offence. He has con- demned " Boycotting " and the " Plan of Campaign." This is the explanation of Mr. Healy's speech last Monday. The Pope, he maintains, has stooped from his high posi- tion and condescended to become the tool of the English Government. He has not taken a proper view of his duty. He has been unwise enough to think that morality is im- mutable; that it is no more right to rob your enemy than to rob your friend ; that outrage and intimidation are always wrong, and not, as the Nationalist Members would fain have it, only wrong when they are used on the wrong side. Mr. Healy is angry with the Pope because the Pope has not done what Mr. Healy himself has done, —subordinated morality to politics. The Pope has treated the Sixth and Eighth Commandments as of paramount and universal obligation. The Nationalist .Members and the Nationalist Party generally treat them as of subordinate and partial obligation. " Thou shalt do no murder,"— unless the victim be a landgrabber. " Thou shalt not steal,"—unless the money stolen be owing for rent. It is just the same with the precepts of the Gospel or the commands of the Church. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, but you may boycott him if you do not like his politics. You must hear mass every Sunday, but you need not stay in church if there is a boycotted man anywhere in the building. So long as the Pope adheres to these antiquated notions of morality, he must not expect the good-will of the Irish Nationalists. Their ideas of duty and religion are alike elastic, and they will have nothing to say even to the Pope so long as he will not stretch his principles to the same length. Nor, we are sorry to say, is there much to choose in this respect between the Nationalists and the majority of the Irish Catholic clergy. At all events, the difference goes no further than the lips. The Nationalist clergy disobey in silence, the Nationalist laity disobey with much expendi- ture of speech. The question, therefore, for the Pope to consider is : What worth attaches to professions of respect and submission which have no counterpart in the actions of those who make them ? Is it any solid gain to the Vatican that it should have to purchase ecclesiastical obedience by condoning moral rebellion ? For ourselves, we cannot see that it is. A rope that would break if any strain were put on it, is in practice of no more use than a rope which has already broken.
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