THE NECESSITY OE CATHOLIC UNION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 47, 21 March 1874, Page 9

THE NECESSITY OE CATHOLIC UNION.

At a meeting of the Catholic Union of Ireland on December 3, Mr J. P. Smith, M.P. said: — "The existence of the Catholic Union needed no justificaiun (hear, hear). Rather, if it did not exist, men might wondering ask, has the spirit of the agu touched the land ol St< Patrick — has the shamrock withered and have the holy wells dried up? When, tjn years ago, Poland was in arms, and there ran along the Carpathian heights, " There is hope for Poland whilst iv Poland there is a life to lose," Irelard sent forth a voice of sympathy and cheer (applause). Should she now be silent when Polish proia'J9 assert, in the face of the German tyrant, the liberty of the Cljttrdr, and brave imprisonment and death r.»tli?r than surrender the trust committed to them by a persecuted Pontiff? Ireland had protested against the dismemberment of France ; and should sho bo silent, lie asked, wheu the audacious conqueror asserts a d'in.i.iion over not only the bodies but the souls of the faithful people of and Lorraine ? (applause, and cries of ''No 1 "). Should Ireland fold her arms whilo the head of the Church is bound a prisoner in the Vatican, aiui tun capital of Christendom is made the centre of a. destructive propagMn*

ism ? In the times in which they lived a body like the Catholic Union, based as it is upon a rigorous exclusion of everything appertaining to party politic?, could not aspire to be, in the ordinary acceptation of the term a popular organisation. Its mission was nevertheless a high and noble one, and so far it had been productive of credit and honor to Ireland (cheers). It was a symbol of Catholic unity, a protest agaiDst falsehood, and the spirit of the age. It identified Ireland with the Catholic cause, and vindicated her claim to a place in the councils of the Catholic nation (applause). Politics, indeed, it eschewed, but politics could no more be divorced from morals th .n education from religion ; and, in upholding the principles of morality, that body — non political though it be— was the ally of every just political, cause in the world (applause). When unregulated by morals, politics were bucaneering adventures — false lights held out by pirate htnds to lure the unwary voyager to his ruin (applause). He had had the pleasure of listening to 'Monsieur Thiers when, in a spirit of prophetic statesmanship he warned his country a united Italy would extend her hand from the summit of the Alps to a united Germany, and that such an alaance boded evil to France and mankind. The aged statesman had been justified by the event (hear, hear). Federal Switzerland, to her Bhame, had cast her lot with united Italy and confederate Germany, in an unholy league for the destruction of those principles on which the edifice of civil society rests. The avowed object was to subject the Church to the State, to reduce the ministers of G-od to the condition of mil servants, and make religion an affair of policy (applause, and cries of " Shame"). For what had the Jesuits been banished ? For what had the several religious orders been plundered ? For what had the Bishops of Poland, of Germany, and of Switzerland been fined, imprisoned, and exiled ? Was it that they had refused to render unto Caesar the things of Csosar ? Was it that they had sanctioned resistance to any human law that was not in itself an abnegation of the Divine Law ? It was not j but, rendering justice to the world and the world's law, they had had- the temerity to claim justice from Heaven and Heaven's decree (applause). The philosophic genius of the Greeks expressed the ideas Just and Justice by words which imply equality. In the countries he had named the equality enforced was a dead letter of scepticism without a Garden of Olives or a Mount of Calvary to relieve the dreary monotony of the landscape (cheers). Public worship was regulated not with a view to the glory of God — the Author and Preserver of the universe — but the glory of Prince Bismarck, the founder of confederate Germany. The ruler of Germany might be entitled to the respect ana obedience due from those subjects to him who is their master by the accident of a day ; but by a law of nature every human society is under an obligation of manifesting by external worship its sense of absolute dependance on the Lord and Master of all, who is in Heaven (applause). To receive this public worship was the right of the Deity, as it was the duty of men in Bociety to render it ; and the State-that imposed fetters on its free exercise offended against the natural law, trampled on revelation, and was a monster in the political world (cheere). The issue of the combat to which the Catholic world had been impiously and assiduously challenged did not admit of a moment's doubt (hear, hear). The ephemeral politician — the pseudo-philosopher of the /ail accompli — heedless whether the fact impressed a truth ©r a falsehood, might sneer at the von possumus of an old iran with silvered head, weak, defender, and a prisoner 5 yet were they words of sublimity, magnificence, and power. Uttered on a disastrous field, they had saved ere now the honor of a glorious flag ; spoken at the stake, the flames that consumed the martyr's body, illuminated hig puthway to an eternal kingdom (applause). Happy was the man, the etatej or people that, tempted to sacrifice principle to expediency, truth to error, and purchase delusive peace by ignominious surrender, had in such circumstances had the wisdom and virtue to retire within the lines of the impregnable fortress, non possumus, there r-almly and confidently to await the advent of the army which the God of battles never failed to fend for the relief of those heroic souls who uphold His justice upon pnrtli, fight the good fight, and keep the faith (loud applause).