CHRISTIANITY AND CRIME IN gRELAND. [To THE EDITOR OF THE
" SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—I sometimes wonder what sincere and devout Catholics the world over can think of the practical results of the teaching of their Church where it comes into contact with Irish politics. Personally, I know Irish bishops and Irish priests who do not hesitate to express their horror and detestation of what has been going on in Ireland, but where is the voice of the Church as a body? Not long ago a great Cathedral in London was set out for a solemn requiem mass in honour of an Irish politician who died a suicide. And on Thursday last the murderers of Field-Marshal Wilson were hailed as saints and martyrs by a praying crowd of Irish men and women. Is there no Church teaching or Church discipline in such matters? According to the newspapers a man, described as a " lay priest " and "robed in a cassock and surplice," walked round the kneeling crowd carrying a lighted candle and saying: " We are about to con- template the death of two brave Irish boys. They were K.B.S. boys (Knights of the Blessed Sacrament), daily and weekly com- municants. I would ask even those who watch us to bare their heads when the time comes for the boys to pass into the beyond. They belong to Ireland."
What kind of Christian teaching can these people have re- ceived who glorify crime as a passport to heaven, and who are " daily and weekly communicants " at the very time when they are planning the cowardly and cold-blooded murder of a fellow- Irishman, whose name and record are held in deserved honour throughout the civilized world? One used to read of Sicilian hired assassins who put up a candle and prayed for the success of their bloodthirsty undertakings. But those people were ignorant savages, not Knights of the Blessed Sacrament, mem- bers of a religious order, and enjoying the "daily and weekly" instruction and discipline of their Church. What does the Church say of it, and of the priests, "lay " or otherwise, who countenance such a blasphemous desecration of sacred things?
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