Some English Jesuits.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 12, 20 March 1902, Page 29

Some English Jesuits.

Commenting on the proposal of the Protestant Alliance that the Jesuits be expelled from the United Kingdom the ' Catholic Herald ' suys : — The three clergymen proceeded against are typical specimens of the English Jesuit Father Gerard is a member of one of the best-known families in Britain. The brother of this disloyal intriguer (in Protestant Alliance eyes) is only a Major-General in the army of King Edward VII. Father Sydney Smith was himself a Protestant — as' some of tho best-known Jesuits were — and Father Thurston is so imbued with profound trust in British fairplay and an implicit confidence in the soundness of the Jesuit position, that he is doing his best to have the charges brought against the Jesuits in England decided by a jury of English public men, nominated by the Mlefereo' Miews'pa per or at i:ts instance. The idea that the Jesuits are a disloyal, mischievous, and useloss Order is too ludicrous to be argued There is a Father Ross, of Bladensberg, S.J., there is Father Russell, a brother of the late Lord Russell of Killowen, there is Father Day, S.J., who is the son of Mr Justice Day, Father Bernard Vaughan, S.J., is the son of one Colonel Vaughan and brother of another. The Jesuit colleges in England have probably sent out more pupils to fight and fall on South African battlefields during the present war than all the other Catholic colleges of England combined. One of the most renowned of recent V.C heroes was Captain Kenna, a Stonyhurst man. Even those who, like ourselves, take their own view of the war and the British army, recognise that facts of this kind render absurd the contention of tho Protestant Alliance that the Jesuit Order is a dan-i>e-r to the British constitution. The strangest, and yet the most amusing aspect of this Protestant Alliance proceedings is that the same Protestant Alliance would be the first to cry out if Protestant del g\ men were expelled. or their expulsion attempted, from any Catholic Slate. There is not the slightest attempt to show any cause why the Jesuits should be expelled Tho whole case is rested on the letter of an obsolete law. and on thai alone. The Protestant Alliance, like Shylock. cries out for the strict fulfilment of its bond. Like Shylock, it may have more than it bargains for before the case is through.

J