CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 650, 30 April 1929, Page 17

CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION

CENTENARY OF PASSING OF ACT DANIEL O’CONNELL’S WORK The passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill by the British Parliament just 100 years ago was (he subject »f an address given by Mr. P. J. O'Regan in the Manchester Unity Hall last evening before Bishop Cleary and 4 large audience. •Mr. O’Regan outlined the history of the emancipation movement, saying that it could be broadly divided into two periods—that in which the Catholic faith was prescribed by law, and that in which penal laws fell into disuse and the' Catholics were restored to the rights of citizenship. It was to the lasting credit of Daniel 9’Uonnell, whose name must always pe connected with the movement, that ite had insisted on unconditional emancipation. This insistence was in spite the fact that at one time it was sought to make emancipation conditional on the British Government obtaining a right of veto on the appointment of bishops. His also was the credit of conducting a great constitutional change to a peaceful and orderly end. But O’Connell had other claims to remembrance. Ho was the friend of universal religious liberty and had advocated the same freedom for the Jews us for his fellow' Catholics. He had negro slavery and in every Sood cause lie had been willing to help. }t was fitting, therefore, that in celopmting the centenary of the 1829 mancipation Act his name should be remembered.