ROMAN CATHOLIC DECLARATION. [From the "Times," May 17th.]

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 572, 8 October 1851, Page 3

ROMAN CATHOLIC DECLARATION. [From the " Times," May 17th.]

In another part of our paper will be found a " Declaration" by certain Roman Catholic Laymen on the question at issue between the Imperial Government and their spiritual head. The signatures to this document are numerous and respectable, and it may be taken as the geneial remonstrance of the body against the impending legislation. To nothing, however, beyond this formal character can it make pretension, for it scarcely contains even that filament of reason which dissentients usually weave into their recorded protests. It declares very plainly that a large and influential portion of the Romish congregations m this country consider the Pope entitled to eioct episcopal sees in any part of the world, and that any opposition on the part of the people or Government is offensive to their feelings. Beyond tins the declaration does not proceed. It is a meic profession of iaith, conveying a statement of tenets with sufficient distinctness, but malting no more npproach to argument than the oaths of abjuration or supremacy. The protest unhesitatingly describes the designations recently assumed by Dr. Wiseman and bis colleagues as their '• pioper ecclesiastical titles," adopted in pursuance of " rights legally theirs." It declares that an essential part of the Pope's supremacy consists in 1113 " right of conferring spiritual and ecclesiastical jurisdiction on the bishops of his church, and of assigning to them portions of tenitory called dioceses, and of appointing each bishop to an episcopal chair or see, * * thereby authorising him to designate himself as bishop of such see, and to assume and use the title thereof." It declares that "no State did at any time, or ia any country, possess the right to interfere with such appointment, jurisdiction, see, or title," and denies that any European law exists whereby " the right of creating bishoprics or bishops is inherent in or dependent on thecivil power." It declares that all rights of interference in such matters arise and are constituted simply out of delegations of the Pope's authority in cases where he has been pleased to allow a certain participation to the State in return for advantages bestowed. It represents all these maxims and claims as unimpeachable, indefeasible, immutable, and eternal ; characterizes as ''persecution" any secular legislation in contravention thereof, and, finally, avers that neither the authority of the English Crown, nor the powers of the English law j are in any way affected or disturbed by the reduction of such principles to piactice. Except as a repudiation of certain sympathies which have been ascribed to the Roman Catholic laity, we hardly see in what way this protest can be expected to be serviceable. We ara all, of course, perfectly aware that these and many move claims have always bepn preferred by the Papal See and its adherents whenever such venturous asseitions could be made with impunity. Neither can we be surprised to find that a majority of English Papists are ready with their signatures whenever a public declaration of their faith shall have been judged expedient by their spiritual directors. But tho declaration itself has no more pertinence than a recital of the Papal rescript. Nobody doubts the tenets or practices of the Romish Church in matters of doctrine, discipline, or authority. What is to be remembered is simply the fact that other parties think differently, that these other parties have might on their side, and that it requires something beyond the conciseness of unreasoning arrogance to prove that they have not the right also. Romanists assert the jurisdiction of the Pope as they assert the fact of transubstantiation. They are no longer liable to combustion for the latter tenet; but they are still amenable to control in the practical exercise of the former. We deny one and all of their claims, in so far as they regard the construction of a territorial hierarchy, and if such pretensions can be held to deserve any further confutation than that given by the indignant instincts of a free people, they have already received a very sufficient exposure. Those who sign this document muat well know that their assertions are wholly unsound, as expressions of any recognised truths, and partially so even as statements of fact. It is not true, for instance, thst " the law-officers of the Crown have declared" the rights now sought for Romish prelates "to be legally theirs." On the contrary, it was very plainly announced that the said prelates had brought their very lives and properties under the arm of the law, though it was not thought expedient to enforce so luthless a statute. These titles, therefore, are not their " proper" titles, and it was even argued by some, as the romonatrants cannot have forgotten, that the existence of suf» ficient laws against Papal encroachments was enough to disprove the necessity of any fresh legislation. Neither is it true again, oxcept as an aiticle of Popish, faith, that the Bishop of Rome enjoys the alleged, "rights" of jurisdiction and appointment. On the contrary, these pretensions have been constantly impugned, and as constantly suspended, and though it may be competent to a Papist to declare that no state ever " possessed" a right of interference or opposition, it ia perfectly notorious that every state upon earth, whether Catholic or Protestant, has exercised these rights without the smallest sciuple or hindrance whenever its own dignity demanded the step. Besides it is plain that the argument of the remonstrance reaches above and beyond all such limits of operation. The "rights" of the Pope being what they assert must transcend any Parliamentary circumscription, and Dr. Wiseman might clearly have been made Archbishop of Cantei bury with as much validity as Archbishop of Westminster. There is precisely as much "persecution" in forbidding one title as the other; nor is the principle of interference less manifest in the restrictive than the exclusive provisions of a statute. Are the remonstrants prepared to deny this conclusion, or to maintain it ? It is surprising- that men of intelligence should not have seen the double force of their own expostulation, that vicars-apostolic with extraordinary powers were tolerated, while a territorial hierarchy with less extensive authority is proscribed. In point of fact, the Pope has not so foregone his prerogatives, but if, as the remonstrants assert, he had actually done so, the very circumstance itself would prove that no oppression, could he intended by a Government which permitted an unlimited expansion of purely spiritual authority, and objected only to assumptions touching on territorial rule. It is at this vital point that the case of the lemonstiants utteily breaks down. They may allege with undoubted truth that it is the form and custom of their church to act upon its own plenary authority in all matters whatever when uncontrolled by the vigilance of the state. It is unquestionably a part of such "forms" to organize a hierarchy with territorial titles and indefinite jurisdiction, inasmuch as the Romish Church recognizes no other ecclesiastical powers, and declares itself superior to all temporal powers. But the most ardent advocate of religious freedom can never be persuaded that the liberty of worship requires a territorial title in the minister, or that a congregation is fettered in its creed or ritual because its overseer is prevented from designating himself by the name of an English town. There may be those who consider the subject unworthy of contention altogether, but none who can believe at once in the substance and justice of the comfl plaint. If territorial titles really confer power or jurisdiction, then do such appointments pertain clearly to the Queen of England only; if thpy are merely such "foims" as Dr. Wiseman asserts, then it is impossible that the loss of them can constitute a grievance. Ou no ground can our restrictive legislation be justly stigmatized as persecution, for we either take away nothing but an empty symbol while the reality remains, or we annul an insolent assumption which incurred greater penalties than it finds.