The Morning Post last Saturday published a striking account of
Republican interference with the annual meeting of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, which was held in Dublin on October 11th. Cardinal Logue presided over this meeting, at which the Bishop of Clonfert delivered an address on " Catholics and Citizenship," covering much the same ground as the pastoral letter from which we quoted last week. Two archbishops were also on the platform. It was impossible, however, for the Bishop of Clonfert to get a ' hearing until a number of Republicans who interrupted and booed him were forcibly ejected. "A more astonishing proof of the total collapse of the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland could not be imagined." Five or six years ago, as the well-informed correspondent of the Morning Post points out, " the most insignificant Catholic curate would have been listened to in respectful silence by any audience in Southern Ireland," even though he defended the Union or advocated conscription. To-day the leading figures of the Hierarchy are booed at for supporting the Irish Free State. Once again casuistry has sapped the roots of authority.
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