"FATHER FURNISS" AGAIN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3648, 22 March 1883, Page 4

"FATHER FURNISS" AGAIN.

A correspondent of the Times writes: — '•The follow in-- extract from a half penny manual l>v the Rev. Father Fivmiss, which bears Cardinal Cullen's imprimatur, and is circulated by hundreds of thousands juuoiiir Irish Roman Catholics, both in Irelaud and England, will throw light on the value of those protestations of innocence on the scaffold of which we have lately heard so much : — " Remember that in the moment when the priest says over you the great words of pardon and absolution, your sins are forgiven, the pains of hell are taken away, your soul is made bright and beautiful like" an au gel of God, and the kingdom of Heaven is yours. ,- i" What every Christian must Know and Do," p. 10 of the last edition, published by James Duffy, Son, and Company, Dublin, and Paternoster Row, London.) When the Irish Roman Catholics, therefore, protest their absolute innocence upon the n-aifold, after receiving the Ministrations of their priests, they are only doing what their church authorises thorn to do, whether they have committed the crime or not. The same manual contains the following definition of murder :--■ "Murder, or unjustly taking away another's life " p. 23... On this explanation of murder there is, besides, the following curious note at the bottom of the page:--

" It is not a sin to desire some temporal misfortune to another that it may make him cease to give scandal, or be converted, or not persecute the go"d." So long as the ideas of a rude peasantry a.~ to justice and injustice are made the measure of the nature and gtii.lt of murder, and they are taught that they may without sin, "desire some temporal misfortune," to befall their supposed enemies, it will be folly fo expect much improvement iv the moral atato of Ireland. The dignitaries of that Church which boasts of Irish piety, have the matter much iv their own hands.