Subject: The Pope—Foe of Mankind. Part IX. A Word to the Irish Race.

Of Irish birth and blood myself—proud, too, of it—I desire to add a word for the special benefit of my brethren of that noble race.

The papacy has been the constant foe of Ireland. Adrian IV, an Englishman elected to the papacy in the early medieval period, sold Ireland bodily to King Henry II of England, on the latter’s payment of a heavy “Peter’s Pence” contribution, with the promise of more to follow.

No successor of Adrian ever revoked this infamous betrayal of a heroic Christian people. As late as Pius VII, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the papacy was willing to sell out to the British Government the right of appointing bishops to Irish Catholic sees. The loud, energetic, and unanimous protest of the Irish masses, led by the immortal ‘Connell, alone prevented consummation of this iniquitous deed. Rome, not Britain, nor Protestantism, is Ireland’s real foe.

Leo XIII condemned Parnell and Parnellism just at the most trying time of the Irish people ‘s struggle for ownership of their own soil and for the undeniable right of self-government. The uprising of the Irish race all over the world against Leo’s heartless ingratitude and despotism—portending an enormous decline in “Peter’s Pence” collections in America, the British Isles, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere—brought the lascivious Leo virtually to his knees before indignant sons of St. Patrick.

Now, Ireland and the Irish are worshiped hypocritically in Rome. In proof whereof is the following from The Catholic Telegraph, March 20, 1913:

Rome, March 18.—Bunches of Erin’s ” green, immortal shamrock,” large and small, were to be seen all over the Eternal City yesterday, the feast of St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland. Overflowing congregations attended the services in the church of the Irish Franciscans, historic St. Isidore. Archbishop Seton pontificated at the high mass in the morning, and the panegyric of the saint was preached by the Rev. Father Pope, the noted English Dominican. Cardinal Falconio officiated at bendiction of the most blessed sacrament in the afternoon.

In the National Church of St. Patrick in Rome the sermon was preached by Monsignor Benson, and Monsignor Zampini, the papal sacristan, was the celebrant of the high mass. The rector of the Irish College officiated at benediction.

The Irish are the backbone of genuine Roman Catholic strength everywhere the English language is spoken. Rome loves them not, but has to conciliate them through motives of fear and through love of gain.

St. Patrick was not a Romanist. He founded in Ireland a flourishing, independent National Christian church, which fell into desuetude only when papal control put it under merciless curse and into abject helplessness.

The sons of Erin have been, in all times and everywhere, daring. Not wind, nor wave, nor clouded sky; not narrow trail, nor darksome wood, and dim ; not crouching panther, nor ravening lion has ever daunted their advance to brother ‘s help and to mankind ‘s betterment. Nor shall any papal threat or menace now deter their gallant race ‘s onward move towards the obliteration of Romish tyranny. Hunter exultant and seaman triumphant does Bret Harte portray the adventure- loving Irishman:

The sky is clouded, the rocks are bare,
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play,
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb,
And the lion’s whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join the chase to-day.

But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee,
And the town that was builded upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake shock.

No people are more intensely devoted to intellectual emancipation and educational advancement of the masses than the Irish. They are so not because of, but in spite of, priests and bishops. The latter would keep their people ignorant; for the ignorant are invariably superstitious. They held Ireland for centuries in the chains of ignorance, till British Protestant public opinion, of which Irish Protestantism and liberalized Catholicism are no mean proportion, succeeded, in the early nineteenth century, in the inauguration of a National School System for Ireland.

With savage opposition did the Irish Hierarchy and priesthood first meet this system; but it has, in spite of all priestly efforts, won its way to success through hearty popular indorsement. Ireland has been, under its influence, transformed. The country has in large measure ceased to be priest-ridden.

To conciliate the bishops and priests of Ireland the government permitted the latter to become, in Catholic districts, managers of the National Schools. The priests had the appointment of teachers in their hands absolutely; to the priests were sent from Dublin checks for the payment of teachers’ salaries. The teachers could not, for a time, call their souls their own. Women teachers were, not infrequently, subjected to gross abuses from lascivious priestly school managers.

Teachers were compelled to teach catechism to the children, not only in the schools, but in the churches on Sundays. Male teachers had to attend mass on Sunday and serve the priest at the altar. Any one failing to do so was certain of dismissal.

The teachers, forced at length to combine permanently against priestly tyranny, greed, and lustfulness, did so with the full approval of the commissioners and inspectors of education, for the most part Protestants of independent thought and action, appointed directly by the government. The united teaching body of Ireland has finally put the priest in his place. Once the despotic ruler of Ireland’s school system, he is now nominal manager only in his own district.

The priesthood in certain parts of Canada enjoys to-day a supremacy over Separate [Parochial] Schools almost as despotic as that formerly enjoyed by the priests of Ireland over Irish National Schools and teachers. The priesthood of the United States of America, not satisfied with absolute domination over the parochial schools, is striving, by combination almost unholy, with the politicians to acquire control truly forbidding and, in American public opinion, most disastrous over the Public School System of this country.

The sturdy independence of so enlightened a body as the teachers of Ireland in regard to a tyrannous priesthood is token pleasing, indeed, of what is in store for the Irish priesthood when Ireland has a Home Eule government. The priest will then be dealt with there as he has been in France and other Catholic countries—made to attend his own business and keep his hands off the pure maidens of Ireland who devote themselves to the arduous and noble profession of teaching.

The Irish teachers had, under priestly rule, to bribe priests for appointment—the position going usually to highest bidder. The teachers were obliged even to furnish the priests’ houses. It was a case of bribery at the beginning and bribery throughout the teacher’s career. So flagrantly corrupt did this priestly control of Irish schools become that the teachers and people at last revolted, the bishops themselves took alarm, and the priest was driven out of his selfish, lustful place of domination of teachers and schools.

Dr. F. W. Merchant, who is one of the leading school authorities of Canada, holding high place in the Department of Education in Toronto, was recently commissioned by the Conservative government to pay an eight months’ visit to Europe for the purpose of investigating technical and industrial education in the Old World.

From The Toronto Globe, bitterly opposed to the Conservative Party, I quote in part :

Discussing his trip, Dr. Merchant said he visited schools in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Switzerland, and Germany. He classified the schools under four headings: (1) Ordinary or elementary schools, with a certain technical, industrial, or commercial bias; (2) technical high schools—schools that taught those entering industrial life just what the present high schools do for those choosing a professional career or are preparing for a university course; (3) trade schools pure and simple, where there is an attempt to teach a trade along with a certain amount of elementary education; (4) the polytechnic schools, which attempt to meet the individual needs of a host of people along a variety of lines. These schools work principally at night. — The Toronto Globe, May 15, 1913.

Here is what Dr. Merchant finds in the Ireland of to-day:

The Irish [said Dr. Merchant] have done more in the last ten years to organize trade schools in small municipalities than any other people I have visited. Splendid schools had been organized in places of from two to ten thousand inhabitants. Itinerant teachers are engaged. Agricultural training is not separated from technical training.

The priesthood, by a determined, enlightened Irish Catholicism, not so strong yet in numbers, perhaps, but overwhelmingly powerful in intellect and civic worth, has been compelled to keep hands off Ireland’s National School System. The agitation for political deliverance, led so ably by Charles Stewart Parnell, a noble Irish Protestant, whom the priests drove to a premature grave, gave marked impetus to the movement for Irish liberation from the priestly yoke, started in the days of O’Connell.

Irishmen, Protestant and Catholic, have in recent years, by patriotic combination for the abolition of landlordism, firm ally of a corrupt priesthood, scored a success more permanent than even did, in like regard, the French Revolution. The Irish National teachers, a noble body of men and women, are organized in solid phalanx, free from priestly dominance, for the upliftment of their race and country. Statistics show that their success against obstacles of appalling magnitude, the priesthood principally, has been magnificent.

The Catholic teachers of Ireland fear not to tell the priests to “keep off the grass’ ‘ and to see that the once haughty clerics do keep off the shamrocked soil of a people ‘s educational system, worthy successor of that which, soon after Patrick had established his independent, non-Romanist Church in old Erin, attracted scholars and fmpils from all over Europe.

Come, let the day, under a Home Rule government, when all Ireland’s bitterness and dissensions, kept alive for its own evil, selfish purposes by Rome, may disappear ; when the grand old land of Patrick and Malachi, of Grattan, Swift, ‘Connelly and Parnell, may sit as an equal at the table of the world’s great peoples.

No real Home Rule can Ireland ever enjoy as long as she suffers from Rome rule. Home Rule is coming because Rome rule—thanks to High Heaven!—is fading away from Ireland forever! In The Washington Post of February 16, 1912, I read:

“A measure for the better government of Ireland will be submitted to you.”

In these simple but pregnant words George V, King of Great Britain and Ireland and the dominions beyond the seas, announced to his liege lords and his faithful commons the intention of his ministers to introduce and pass into law a bill for the restoration to Ireland of her native parliament.

One wonders if fate is at last going to be propitious to the aspirations and desires of the great majority of the Irish people. So often in the past has the cup been held to Ireland’s lips, and so often rudely dashed away, that the blind goddess of mischance seemed to be pursuing her with unrelenting hate. Generation after generation of patriots who sought freedom in various ways, by sword and pen, by speech and agitation, passed away sickened with the cruelty of hope deferred. But the sacred spirit of liberty died not. From sire to son the care of the cause was handed down, and the banner that fell from the dying grasp of an O’Connell or a Butt was taken up by a Duffy or a Parnell and passed along to their successors still floating bravely to the breeze.

In 1782 Grattan won a free Irish parliament, and closed his great speech on the occasion with the following magnificent peroration:

I found Ireland on her knees. I watched over her with an eternal solicitude. I have traced her progress from injuries to arms and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift: spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed. Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her; and bowing to her august presence, I say, Esto Perpetua.

But eighteen years later, when his parliament was wiped out of existence, what a hollow mockery his prophecy seemed to be! Yet scarcely was the parliamentary union with England effected, than attempts began to be made for its repeal. Small and ineffectual at first, these attempts grew in volume and intensity with time until at last one of the great English parties was converted to the idea of home rule for Ireland. Gladstone’s two home-rule bills met an untoward fate: that of 1886 was killed in the commons by the defection of his own followers, that of 1893 was smothered in the lords by an overwhelming vote.

But all things come round to him who will but wait. The signs and portents are now favorable. It would really seem at last that in Ireland’s case the wheel has come full circle. There is a safe majority in the commons, and while the lords may delay the bill, their power to destroy it has been effectually removed by the amendments to the constitution adopted last year.

Still there is many a slip. There is a powerful and embittered opposition ; parliamentary time is short, and valued accordingly ; all is not supposed to be well in the inner circle of the king’s ministers. Many an anxious hour will be spent by the promoters and supporters of the bill before it is writ broad and large on the statute book. That it must be so written, sooner or later, seems now inevitable.

God bless the day when George V, successor of the kings who drove papal misrule out of Britain, shall open the first Irish Parliament! That day will be one not alone of civil but, above all, of religious emancipation, disenthralment, and liberation for the Irish race—the beginning of the end of papal, priest-ridden Ireland!
Jeremiah J. Crowley.

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