MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, he wished to ask the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) a Question of which he had given him private Notice, and which might hereafter involve a short discussion on a question of Privilege. He wished to ask him, Whether he was not mistaken in attributing to his Eminence Cardinal Manning the words contained in the Question which the hon. Member for Peterborough put to the Prime Minister on the previous day—namely, that it was the mission of the Roman Catholic Church in England to "bend or break the Imperial power of England into submission to the Papacy?"
§ MR. WHALLEY,in reply, said, he had only heard of the Question since he entered the House; but he thought he was in a position to give the hon. Member a satisfactory answer. The words of his Question yesterday were—
That Cardinal Manning said that they (the Jesuits) were the leaders of the great Catholic mission in this country, and that the object of that Mission was to break and bond the Imperial power of England into submission to the Papacy.The hon. Member at once challenged him, and, speaking from recollection, he replied that these words were published in The Tablet, of July 20, 1872. He found that was so on the authority of the "Monthly Letter of the Protestant Alliance." [Laughter.] He was not himself a member of the Protestant Alliance, but many Members of that House belonged to that body, and he had never heard any statement of theirs successfully called in question. The 1248 authority he had quoted seemed to suggest some amusement, and if the hon. Member was not satisfied he would afford him a further opportunity of verifying it from the organ of the Protestant Alliance. These were the words—Writing of the Jesuits, who, as Cardinal Manning stated, were now at the head of the great Catholic mission in this land."—[Tablet, July 20, 1872.]As to the other words he quoted, they were somewhat abbreviated from a similar extract from a reported speech of Cardinal Manning; but the House, if they would allow him to read it, would judge whether it was fairly given. He said—We have to subjugate and subdue, to conquer and rule, an Imperial race. We have to deal with a will that reigns throughout the world as the will of old Rome once reigned. We have to bend and break a will which nations and kingdoms have found inflexible and invincible. Were heresy conquered in England, it would be conquered throughout the world: all its lines meet here; and therefore in England the Church must be gathered in her strength.That was the best justification he could offer, and it appeared to him to be sufficient. If, however, the hon. Member desired any further information and would put his Question on the Paper, he would endeavour to satisfy him.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, it would be observed that the ground on which he trespassed on the attention of the House was, that the statement made yesterday by the hon. Member, which he believed was not founded in fact, he was now convinced was inaccurate. He anticipated that the hon. Member would rely—["Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, that any debate on the Question would be out of Order. The hon. Member had put a Question, and he had received an Answer. If he had anything further to say, he might possibly, by the indulgence of the House, be heard, but there could be no debate.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, there was no hon. Member of the House more anxious to obey the authority of the Chair or to be guided by the feeling of the House than himself. He merely wished to read the language actually employed by Cardinal Manning, and to show that the extract, on the authority of the Protestant Alliance now read by 1249 the hon. Member was equally garbled with the words he attributed yesterday to Cardinal Manning. The occasion on which Cardinal Manning used the words was a meeting in 1859, of the Provincial Council of Westminster, at which the Cardinal delivered a sermon that had no reference to the Jesuits, but which referred to the strictly spiritual missions of the Catholic Church generally to bend to the reception of the truth the will of the English race. He was addressing the English Catholic Bishops, and he said—
And, lastly, it is good for us to be here in England. It is yours, right rev. Fathers, to subjugate and to subdue, to bend and to break, the will of an Imperial race "——["Hear, hear!"]—he hoped hon. Members would wait until the sentence had been entirely read before they expressed an opinion on it—To bend and to break the will of an Imperial race, the will which, as the will of Rome of old, rules over nations and peoples, invincible and inflexible. You have to rear the House of Wisdom, which was fallen, and to do this you have now, as the Apostles then, to gather from the Spiritual quarry the stones which shall build up the House of God. You have to call the legionaries and the tribunes, the patricians and the people of a conquering race, and to subdue, change, transform, transfigure them, one by one, to the likeness of the Son of God.He wanted to point out that these words did not bear the meaning which was given to them by the hon. Member; but——["Order, order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, the House had given the hon. Member an opportunity of correcting the quotation, and he submitted that any further debate would be out of Order.
§ MR. WHALLEYMay I be permitted to——
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member would be entirely out of Order. The Question is, that the Clerk do now proceed to read the Orders of the Day.