_Moderator of General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Ireland in_
1904-5.
For obvious reasons, the Religious Difficulty under Home Rule does not
receive much attention on the political platform in Great Britain. But
in Ireland a religious problem flames at the heart of the whole
controversy. This religious problem creates the cleavage in the Irish
population, and is the real secret of the intense passion on both sides
with which Home Rule is both prosecuted and resisted. Irishmen
understand this very well; but as Home Rule, on its face value, is only
a question of a mode of civil government, it is almost impossible to
make the matter clear to British electors. They say, What has religion
got to do with Home Rule? Home Rule is a pure question of politics, and
it must be solved on exclusively political lines. Even if this were so,
might not Englishmen remember that the Nationalist Members of Parliament
have been controlled by the Church of Rome in their votes on the English
education question? I mention this to show that under the disguise of
pure politics ecclesiastical authority may stalk in perfect freedom
through the lobbies of the House of Commons. Is it, then, an absolutely
incredible thing that what has been done in the English Parliament in
the name of politics may be done openly and undisguised in the name of
politics in a Home Rule Parliament? That such will be the case I shall
now attempt to show.
Let us begin with the most elementary facts. According to the official
census of 1911 the population of Ireland is grouped as follows:--
Roman Catholics 3,238,656
Irish Church 575,489
Presbyterians 439,876
Methodists 61,806
All other Christian denominations 57,718
Jews 5,101
Information refused 3,305
I beg the electors of Great Britain to look steadily into the above
figures, and to ask themselves who are the Home Rulers and who are the
Unionists in Ireland. Irish Home Rulers are almost all Roman Catholics,
and the Protestants and others are almost all stout Unionists. Does this
fact suggest nothing? How is it that the line of demarcation in Irish
politics almost exactly coincides with the line of demarcation in
religion? Quite true, there are a few Irish Roman Catholics who are
Unionists, and a few Protestants who are Home Rulers. But they are so
few and so uninfluential on both sides that the exception only serves to
prove the rule. These exceptions, no doubt, have been abundantly
exploited, and the very most has been made of them. But the great
elementary fact remains, that one-fourth of the Irish people, mostly
Protestant, are resolutely, and even passionately, opposed to Home Rule;
and the remarkable thing is that the most militant Irish Unionists for
the past twenty years have not been the members of the Irish Church who
might be suspected of Protestant Ascendency prejudices, but they are the
Presbyterians and Methodists who never belonged to the old Protestant
Ascendency party. It is of Irish Presbyterians that I can speak with the
most ultimate knowledge. Their record in Ireland requires to be made
perfectly clear. In 1829 they were the champions of Catholic
Emancipation. In 1868 they supported Mr. Gladstone in his great Irish
reforms. They have been at all times the advocates of perfect equality
in religion, and of unsectarianism in education. They stand firm and
staunch on these two principles still. But they are the sternest and
strongest opponents of Home Rule, and their reason is because Home Rule
spells for Ireland a new religious ascendency and the destruction of the
unsectarian principle in education.
I ask on these grounds that English and Scottish electors should pause
for a moment, and open their minds to the fact that there is a great
religious problem at the heart of Home Rule. Irish Presbyterians claim
that they know what they are doing, and that they are not the blind
dupes of religious prejudice and political passion. It is for a great
something that they have embarked in this conflict; they are determined
to risk everything in this resistance, and in proportion as the danger
approaches, in like proportion does their hostility to the Home Rule
claim increase.
What, then, is the secret of this determination? It lies in a nutshell.
A Parliament in Dublin would be under the control and domination of the
Church of Rome. Two facts in Irish life render this not only likely and
probable, but inevitable and certain. The first fact is that
three-fourths of the members would be Roman Catholic, and the second
fact is that the Irish people are the most devoted Roman Catholics at
present in Christendom. No one disputes the first fact, but the second
requires to be made clear to the electors of Great Britain. Let no one
suppose that I am finding fault with Irishmen for being devoted Roman
Catholics. What I wish to show is that the Church of Rome would be
supreme in the new Parliament, and that she is not a good guardian of
Protestant liberties and interests. Ireland has been for the last two
generations brought into absolute captivity to the principles of
ultramontanism. When Italy asserted her nationality, and fought for it
in 1870, Ireland sent out a brigade to fight on the side of the Pope.
When France, a few years ago, broke up in that land the bondage of
Ecclesiasticism, the streets of Dublin were filled Sunday after Sunday
for weeks with crowds of Irishmen, headed by priests, shouting for the
Pope against France. The Church first, nationality afterwards, is the
creed of the ultramontane; and it is the avowed creed of the Irish
people. But this would be changed in an Irish Parliament, British
electors affirm. Let us hear what Mr. John Dillon, M.P., says on the
point. Speaking about a year ago in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester,
Mr. Dillon said--
"I assert, and it is the glory of our race, that we are to-day the
right arm of the Catholic Church throughout the world ... we stand
to-day as we have stood throughout, without abating one jot or
tittle of that faith, the most Catholic nation on the whole earth."
What Mr. Dillon says is perfectly true. The Irish Parliament would be
constituted on the Roman model. If there were none but Roman Catholics
in Ireland, Ireland would rapidly become a "State of the Church." But
how would Protestants fare? Just as they fared in old Papal days in
Italy under the temporal rule of the Vatican. But it may still be said
that Irishmen themselves would curb the ecclesiastical power. This is
one of the delusions by which British electors conceal from themselves
the peril of Home Rule to Irish Protestants. They forget that Irishmen
are, if possible, more Roman than Rome herself. I take the following
picture of the Romanised condition of Ireland from a Roman Catholic
writer--
"Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell, who 'believes in the Papal Church in
every point, who accepts her teaching from Nicaea to Trent, and
from Trent to the Vatican,' says, 'While the general population of
Ireland has been going down by leaps and bounds to the abyss, the
clerical population has been mounting by cent. per cent. during the
same period....' A short time ago, when an Austrian Cabinet was
being heckled by some anti-clerical opponents upon its alleged
encouragement of an excessive number of clerical persons in
Austria, the Minister replied, 'If you want to know what an
excessive number of the clergy is like go to Ireland. In proportion
to their population the Irish have got ten priests and nuns to the
one who exists in Austria. I do not prejudge the question. They may
be wanted in Ireland. But let not honourable members talk about
over-clericalism in Austria until they have studied the clerical
Statistics of Ireland.' A Jesuit visitor to Ireland, on returning
to his English acquaintances, and being asked how did he find the
priests in Ireland, replied, 'The priests in Ireland! There is
nobody but priests in Ireland. Over there they are treading on one
another's heels.' While the population of Ireland has diminished
one-half, the population of the Presbyteries and convents has
multiplied threefold or more. Comparisons are then instituted
between the Sacerdotal census of Ireland, and that of the European
Papal countries. I shall state results only. Belgium has only one
Archbishop and five Bishops; but if it were staffed with prelates
on the Irish scale it would have nine or ten Archbishops and some
sixty Bishops. I suppose the main army of ecclesiastics in the two
countries is in the same grossly incongruous proportions--ten or
twelve priests in Ireland for every one in Belgium! The German
Empire, with its 21,000,000 Roman Catholics, has actually fewer
mitred prelates than Ireland with its 3,000,000 of Roman Catholics.
The figures of Austria-Hungary with its Roman Catholic population
of 36,000,000 are equally impressive. It has eleven Archbishops,
but if it were staffed on the Irish scale it would have
forty-eight. It has forty Bishops, but if it were like Ireland it
would have 288. Mr. O'Donnell goes on: 'This enormous population of
Churchmen, far beyond the necessities and even the luxuries of
religious worship and service, would be a heavy tax upon the
resources of great and wealthy lands. What must it be for Ireland
to have to supply the Episcopal villas, the new Cathedrals, and
handsome Presbyteries, and handsome incomes of this enormous and
increasing host of reverend gentlemen, who, as regards five-sixths
of their number, contribute neither to the spiritual nor temporal
felicity of the Island? They are the despotic managers of all
primary schools, and can exact what homage they please from the
poor serf-teachers, whom they dominate and whom they keep eternally
under their thumb. They absolutely own and control all the
secondary schools, with all their private profits and all their
Government grants. In the University what they do not dominate they
mutilate. Every appointment, from dispensary doctors to members of
Parliament, must acknowledge their ownership, and pay toll to their
despotism. The County Councils must contribute patronage according
to their indications; the parish committees of the congested
districts supplement their pocket-money. They have annexed the
revenues of the industrial schools. They are engaged in
transforming the universal proprietary of Ireland in order to add
materials for their exactions from the living and the moribund. I
am told that not less than £5,000,000 are lifted from the Irish
people every year by the innumerable agencies of clerical suction
which are at work upon all parts of the Irish body, politic and
social. Nor can it be forgotten that the material loss is only a
portion of the injury. The brow-beaten and intimidated condition of
the popular action and intelligence which is necessary to this
state of things necessarily communicates its want of will and
energy to every function of the community.'"
Of course Mr. F.H. O'Donnell has been driven out of public life in
Ireland for plain speaking like this; and so would every man be who
ventured to cross swords with his Church. It aggravates the situation
immensely when we take another fact in Irish life into account.
In quite recent months Mr. Devlin, M.P., has brought into prominence a
society called the Ancient Order of Hibernians (sometimes called the
Molly Maguires) which, according to the late Mr. Michael Davitt, is "the
most wonderful pro-Celtic organisation in the world." This is a secret
society which at one time was under the ban of the Church; but quite
recently the ban has been removed, and priests are now allowed to join
the order. The present Pope is said to be its most powerful friend. It
has branches in many lands, and it is rapidly gathering into it all the
great mass of the Irish Roman Catholic people. This is the most
wonderful political machine in Ireland.
Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., has recently given an account of this society
which has never been seriously questioned.
"The fundamental object of the Hibernian Society is to give
preference to its own members first and Catholics afterwards as
against Protestants on all occasions. Whether it is a question of
custom, office, public contracts, or positions on Public Boards,
Molly Maguires are pledged always to support a Catholic as against
a Protestant. If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if
they are to be deprived of public contracts, if they are to be shut
out of every office of honour or emolument, what is this but
extermination? The domination of such a society would make this
country a hell. It would light the flame of civil war in our midst,
and blight every hope of its future prosperity."
And now we reach the core of the question. It is perfectly clear that
Home Rule would create a Roman Catholic ascendency in Ireland, but
still it might be said that the Church of Rome would be tolerant. On
that point we had best consult the Church of Rome herself. Has she ever
said that she would practise toleration towards Protestants when she was
in power? Never; on the contrary, she declares most clearly that
toleration of error is a deadly sin. In this respect the Church of Rome
claims to differ _toto coelo_ from the churches of the Reformation. In
Ireland she has passed through all the stages of ecclesiastical
experience from the lowest form of disability to the present claim of
supremacy. In the dark days of her suffering she cried for toleration,
and as the claim was just in Protestant eyes she got it. Then as she
grew in strength she stretched forth her hands for equality, and as this
too was just, she gradually obtained it. At present she enjoys equality
in every practical right and privilege with her Protestant neighbours.
But in the demand for Home Rule there is involved the claim of exerting
an ecclesiastical ascendency not only over her own members but over
Irish Protestants, and this is the claim which is unjust and which ought
not to be granted. Green, the historian, points out that William Pitt
made the Union with England the ground of his plea for Roman Catholic
emancipation, as it would effectually prevent a Romish ascendency in
Ireland. Home Rule in practice will destroy the control of Great
Britain, and, therefore, involves the removal of the bulwark against
Roman Catholic ascendency.
The contention of the Irish Protestants is that neither their will nor
their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an
Irish Parliament civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of
membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant
of the Vatican. That Parliament would be compelled to carry out the
behests of the Church. The Church is hostile to the liberty of the
Press, to liberty of public speech, to Modernism in science, in
literature, in philosophy; is bound to exact obedience from her own
members and to extirpate heresy and heretics; claims to be above Civil
Law, and the right to enforce Canon Law whenever she is able. There are
simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her
intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome. She
plumes herself upon being an intolerant because she is an infallible
Church, and her Irish claim, symbolised by the Papal Tiara, is supremacy
over the Church, supremacy over the State, and supremacy over the
invisible world. Unquestioning obedience is her law towards her own
subjects, and intolerance tempered with prudence is her law towards
Protestants. It is a strange hallucination to find that there are
politicians to-day who think that Rome will change her principles at the
bidding of Mr. Redmond, or to please hard-driven politicians, or to make
Rome attractive to a Protestant Empire. Rome claims supremacy, and she
tells us quite candidly what she will do when she gets it.
Here is our difficulty under Home Rule. Irish Protestants see that they
must either refuse to go into an Irish Parliament, or else go into it as
a hopeless minority, and turn it into an arena for the maintenance of
their most elementary rights; in which case the Irish Parliament would
be simply a cockpit of religio-political strife. But it would be a great
mistake to suppose that the religious difficulty is confined to Irish
Protestants. It is a difficulty which would become in time a crushing
burden to Roman Catholics themselves. The yoke of Rome was found too
heavy for Italy, and in a generation or two it would be found too heavy
for Ireland. But for the creation of the Papal ascendency in Ireland,
the responsibility must rest, in the long run, on Great Britain herself.
England and Scotland, the most favoured lands of the Reformation, by
establishing Home Rule in Ireland, will do for Rome what no other
country in the world would do for her. They would entrust her with a
legislative machine which she could control without check, hand over to
her tender mercies a million of the best Protestants of the Empire, and
establish at the heart of the Empire a power altogether at variance with
her own ideals of Government, fraught with danger, and a good base of
operations for the conquest of England. Can this be done with impunity?
Can Great Britain divest herself of a religious responsibility in
dealing with Home Rule? Is there not a God in Heaven who will take note
of such national procedure? Are electors not responsible to Him for the
use they make of their votes? If they sow to the wind, must they not
reap the whirlwind?
In brief compass, I hope I have made it quite clear what the Religious
Difficulty in Ireland under Home Rule is. It is not a mere accident of
the situation; it does not spring from any question of temper, or of
prejudice, or of bigotry. The Religious Difficulty is created by the
essential and fundamental genius of Romanism. Her whole ideal of life
differs from the Protestant ideal. It is impossible to reconcile these
two ideals. It is impossible to unite them in any amalgam that would not
mean the destruction of both. Under Imperial Rule these ideals have
discovered a decently working _modus vivendi_. Mr. Pitt's contention
that the union with Great Britain would be an effectual barrier against
Romanism has held good. But if you remove Imperial Rule than you create
at a stroke the ascendency of Rome, and under that ascendency the
greatest injustice would be inflicted on the Protestant minority.
Questions of public situations and of efficient patronage are of very
subordinate importance indeed. Mr. Redmond demands that Irish
Protestants must be included in his Home Rule scheme, and threatens that
if they object they must be dealt with "by the strong hand," and his
Home Rule Parliament would be subservient to the Church of Rome. Does
any one suppose that a million of the most earnest Protestants in the
world are going to submit to such an arrangement? Neither Englishmen nor
Scotsmen would be willing themselves to enter under such a yoke, and why
should they ask Irishmen to do so?
It is contended, indeed, that the power of the priest in Ireland is on
the wane. This is partly true and partly not true. It is true that he is
not quite the political and social autocrat that he once was. But it is
not true that the Church of Rome is less powerful in Ireland than she
was. On the contrary, as an ecclesiastical organisation Rome was never
so compact in organisation, never so ably manned by both regular and
secular clergy, never so wealthy nor so full of resource, never so
obedient to the rule of the Vatican, as at the present moment. Give her
an Irish Parliament, and she will be complete; she will patiently subdue
all Ireland to her will. Emigration has drained the country of the
strong men of the laity, who might be able to resist her encroachments.
Dr. Horton truly says: "The Roman Church dominates Ireland and the Irish
as completely as Islam dominates Morocco." By Ireland and the Irish Dr.
Horton, of course, means Roman Catholic Ireland. Are you now going to
place a legislative weapon in her hand whereby she will be able to
dominate Protestants also? It is bad statesmanship; bad politics; bad
religion. For Ireland it can bring nothing but ruin; and for the Empire
nothing but terrible retribution in the future.