We have commented elsewhere on the herculean efforts made by
some orthodox Roman Catholics to attenuate the force of the Vatican decrees, but we have not there enumerated one of the boldest of these orthodox minimisers, Mr. F. H. O'Donnell, who in a letter to Thursday's Times, not only declares, with Sir George Bowyer and others, that the State should be as supreme in civil matters as the Church in spiritual, but asserts "that Catholics hold, like Protestants, that the English Monarch who violates the established constitution in Church and State, and makes war upon his people to subvert the established religion, would fall beneath the national judgment as justly as ever Charles Stuart was punished at Whitehall." That means, we suppose, that if James II. had tried to reintro- duce Catholicism into England against the provisions of the Constitution, no absolution of the Pope's could have exempted him from moral guilt, or have made it unjust for the English people to cut his head off. And Mr. O'Donnell adds :—" In affecting to defend the allegiance due to Civil Government, Lord Acton runs serious risk of compromising the allegiance which free peoples owe to their own liberties." If a few more Roman Catholics held such stern doctrine as to popular liberties, there would be less uneasiness about Romanism. But how can we help being uncomfortable when Popes declare, even unofficially, that no faith need be kept with those who have broken faith with God?
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