ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY (IRELAND.) (Hansard, 13 May 1850)

§ The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH

rose to present a petition from the board of guardians of the union of Thomastown in Ireland, on the subject of the relative position of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland towards each other, and praying for a grant of public money to make provision for the clergy of the latter denomination. He thought that he should best explain the object of the petitioners by entering into a short detail of the statements in their petition. They commenced by declaring that the population of the ecclesiastical union of which they formed a part amounted to 4,000 persons; that the income of 1377 the Protestant incumbent was 410l. a year; that he lived in a house which had cost 1,025l., and that he was in the enjoyment of twenty-two acres of glebe. They further stated that the church in which he performed divine service had been built at the expense of the parishioners for the purpose of accommodating 120 persons, but that never on any occasion had there been more than 100 persons present, and that in general not more than 60 attended. They further stated that the Roman Catholic Chapel of Thomastown was an ancient structure, and too small to contain the Roman Catholic congregation of that place. There were also two other Roman Catholic chapels to which the same description would apply in the same ecclesiastical union, and those chapels the Roman Catholic inhabitants were unable to rebuild, owing to the state of poverty to which they had been reduced by the late famine. The petitioners further said that in the last few years Parliament had granted two millions of money to extend church accommodation in England and Wales; that it had also granted other large sums to accomplish the same object in the Highlands of Scotland, and that by such bounty church accommodation had been found for 480,000 persons who previously were without it. The petitioners further added, that within the same time not a single farthing had been given by Parliament to find church accommodation for the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. They declared that they were not moved to ask for some provision to be made for the increase of their places of worship by any envy or jealousy of the superiority of their Protestant neighbours, with whom they lived on terms of unusual cordiality and friendship, but entreated Parliament to provide some remedy for the religious inequality which they had set forth in their petition; and, without wishing to inflict any injury upon vested rights, they implored Parliament to apply the surplus property of the Protestant Church of Ireland to purposes of public utility, and especially to the increase of church accommodation for the Roman Catholic population of Ireland. After expressing his condemnation of this part of the prayer of the petitioners, he said, that he would not at present enter into the question whether the Church of England in Ireland had any surplus property or not. If there were any such surplus, the Church of England in this country had the first claim to the appropriation of it. He believed 1378 that the united Churches of England and Ireland formed but one Church; and, therefore, it would be unfair as well as unjust to appropriate to any other Church the property which belonged to the Church of England and Ireland in common. On this occasion he must tender to the petitioners and to all who sought to obtain a public provision for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, his most earnest advice not to propose to take from the Protestant Church of England the aid to be given to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. By offering such a suggestion, those who were friendly to the prayer of the petitioners would throw back to an infinitely distant period the fulfilment of their object. There was in this country a Protestant feeling which might be easily roused to rescue the Protestant Church from any meditated offence or injury. His firm conviction was, that the Protestants of England would never grant to the Roman Catholic Church any boon which involved injury and offence to their own Church. Whilst he was prepared to reject the prayer of these petitioners, as to the source from which aid was to be extended to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, there was another portion of their petition in which he concurred, namely, that in which they declared that they wanted no aid which would bring their Church into conjunction with the State. It would be impossible for the Government of a Protestant State to interfere in the distribution of the patronage of a Roman Catholic Church. A Protestant Government could not have such knowledge of the men who were worthy of patronage as would enable it to exercise such patronage properly. Besides, he was satisfied that in the Protestant mind of England the strongest feelings of suspicion would be excited, if a constant intercourse were carried on between the Government and the various dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church. It was held by many to be unjust to take from the imperial revenue funds to endow the Roman Catholic Church; but, for his own part, he knew of no measure which would partake more of an imperial character than one which would improve the social condition of the population of Ireland. The due reward of such a policy would be found in the better feelings and more orderly conduct of the people of Ireland. If he might on this occasion be permitted to advert to any fund from which the means of increasing 1379 church accommodation for the Roman Catholics of Ireland might be taken, he should say that it was to be found in the sums due to the Imperial Treasury, the disposal of which was to be provided for in the Distressed Unions Advances and Repayments of Advances (Ireland) Bill which stood that evening for a second reading, In the first instance, he would gladly see those advances, as they were repaid, appropriated to the provision of church accommodation for the Roman Catholics of Ireland. In the next place, if there were a surplus after that object was accomplished, he would gladly appropriate it to the building of glebe-houses for the Roman Catholic clergy; and, if there were a surplus beyond that, he would purchase lands with which that Church might be endowed. And when he considered the vast quantity of land which was now thrown into the market by the instrumentality of the Incumbered Estates Act, he had no doubt that it would be of great advantage to Ireland itself to apply the money thus repaid to the State to the purchase of small estates for such purposes.