The Catholic Union of Great Britain has published a protest
against the Italian Bill on "Clerical Abuses," which puts the Catholic objections to it very fairly. It points out that the proposed Bill, by forbidding the clergy to criticise the laws or
institutions of the country, debars them from the right conceded to all classes in other countries ; that the provisions which im- pose penalties on the clergy for " disturbing the pubic conscience, or the peace of families," are provisions aimed at the very func- tions of the clergy, the chief sphere of which is in the conscience, private and public ; that the vagueness of the proposed law is in itself a great mischief, as it leaves it a matter of discretion what is and what is not a transgression of it ; that it is evidently intended to fetter the Pope by punishing his subordinates who publish his decisions, and so, of course, to strike at the liberty of the Catholic Church ; and that some of its supporters have openly declared that the Bill is intended as an attack not only on the Church, but on Christianity itself. We do not know that the last objection is a very good one. The law, if passed, will not give any validity to the speeches of its supporters, but only to the words contained in the statute. But all the other grounds are most cogent against a measure which threatens not merely the Roman Catholic Church, but the principles of toleration and freedom of conscience, to which it has generally been supposed that the Roman Catholic Church was most hostile, and which are certainly of far more political value than any other principles asserted by Italy since her emancipation.
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