PASTORAL LETTER BY THE IRISH HIERARCHY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 49, 6 December 1900, Page 10

PASTORAL LETTER BY THE IRISH HIERARCHY.

ONE result of the National Synod held recently in Maynooth was the issue of a Pastoral Letter by the archbishops and bishops of Ireland, Their Lordships, on contemplating what has happened in Ireland during the past quarter of a century, find manifest reasons for joy at the progress of the Church. Efforts and sacrifices unsurpassed in the same period by any other people have yielded rich fruit in noble cathedrals, parochial churches of great richness and elegance, convents, monasteries, and raligious institutions of all kinds. At other times and in other places, the venerable hierarchy remark, it baa often happened that as the material building rose in strength and beauty the spiritual edifice was crumbling into ruin, but their Lordships have the further great source of consolation and gladness that it is not so in Ireland, where they have every reason to bless and thank Providence for ' the faith and labor and charity ' of the faithful. One evidence of this latter characteristic is the notable development in recent years of private and public devotion.

■ Turning to the relations of the Church to questions that bear upon her interests at the same time that they touch those of the civil society in which she exists, the prelates can contemplate the course of events with satisfaction and gratitude. Among these questions none have been more important than education. For the cause of education after the Catholic ideal priests and people have stood firmly united. Both have been steadfast in vindicating the principles which they hold to be indispensable. In Ireland as elsewhere the struggle for the schools turned on everlasting issues. In every grade of education pastors and people have had to contend for the recognition of Christian principles.

The brilliant achievements of the pupils in the primary and secondary systems accentuate the grievances of Catholics in the matter of University education. The most brilliant Catholic students are led to the very threshold of the University only to find the door shut in their faces. This is not only a grievance, the Bishops state, but an insult to a Catholic nation ; an insult inflicted by an opposition which draws its fall force from religious prejudices, and ia actuated by the bitterest hostility towards a people who will not renounce in education the abiding principles of their religious belief.

Passing from education (saya the Irish Weekly) the venerable hierarchy expre°s their congratulations that the powers of local government, which, for the first time in this century, have been conferred upon our fellow-countrymen, and add with singular satisfaction a tribute of admiration of the prudence and moderation and liberality with which they have entered on their exercise, and voice a fervent hope that ' this measure of local government will not only help to heal the soreness of ancient feuds, to mitigate class prejudices, to draw all Irishmen together in the Bervioe of our common country, but that it will demonstrate our fitness for wider responsibilities, and remove much of the distrust with which some persons, no doubt honestly, still regard the prospect of national self-govern-ment.

As a means towards extending among the laity the practices of religion, the Bishops most earnestly commend the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Beyond, and in addition to these ordinary precau-

tions of a Christian life, the hierarchy consider it their duty to warn their people with all earnestness and solemnity against the special danger, which has assumed Buoh proportions, from the spread of irreligious and immoral literature. A sad change, their Lordship* deplore, seems to have oome over public opinion on this point, 'No subject now is too nacred to be made the matter of popular discussion in magazines and newspapers — the mysteries of faith, the solemn truths on whioh man rests his eternal hopes, are tossed about with as little reyerenoe or reserve as if they were some topio* of the moat trivial importance.' Against this great peril the Bishops pronounce a most solemn and weighty warning, and not less grave and impressive is their warning against the dangerous literature whioh ia ponred almost in floods over the country, and whioh for corruption in worse than anything to be found in the pagans'. Finally, the revered prelates, after raising their voices in pro* test against the intolerable wrong to which Catholic sailors in the British Navy are subjected, who, when at sea are afforded no opportunity of satisfying their conscientious requirements in the praotioe of their religion, refer to the approaching pilgrimage from Ireland to Borne, a witness to the faith of this Catholic land and, in particular, of its unfaltering loyalty under all circumstanoee to the Vicar of Christ and the See of Rome.