The New Irish Constitution: An Exposition and Some Arguments

by Unknown

In 5, £20

In 4, £25

In 1, £30

There are 25 workhouses with only one Protestant pauper in each, and the Protestant chaplains receive in each £21 a year on an average. There are 12 workhouses with only two Protestant paupers in each on an average: there is a Protestant chaplain for each; they receive on an average £21 a year. There are 12 workhouses with only three Protestant paupers in each on an average. Each has a Protestant chaplain: they receive on an average £30 a year. There are 5 workhouses with only four Protestant paupers in each on an average: their Protestant chaplains receive an average salary of £20 a year. There are 5 workhouses with only five Protestant paupers in each on an average: their Protestant chaplains receive an average salary of £33 a year. There are 7 workhouses with only six Protestant paupers in each on an average: their Protestant chaplains receive salaries of £25 a year on an average. There is 1 workhouse with seven Protestant paupers on an average: the Protestant chaplain receives £30 a year. There are 2 workhouses with eight Protestant paupers in each on an average: in 1 of these the Protestant chaplain gets £25 a year, in the other £30. In all those workhouses I have named there are 194 Protestant paupers on an average; and the Protestant chaplains receive a combined salary of £2,000 a year for attending them. Now nearly all the Guardians of those workhouses are Catholics; those who pay the poor rates are nearly all Catholics.

I do not write these facts in complaint: rather with pride. I give them as evidence of the sort of religious “intolerance” which is practised by Irish Catholics on those few Protestant paupers; who indeed are so few that their having to be in a workhouse at all is not creditable to the wealthy Protestants of Ireland. The [pg 441] money spent in the vain attempt to proselytize a certain degraded remnant of the Catholic poor, if spent on those few Protestant paupers, would make workhouse life unnecessary for them.

(III) The Papal Decrees.

A great noise has been made about the Ne temere Decree, and the recent Motu proprio. They have been used to illustrate a phase of Catholic “intolerance” which is supposed to constitute a constant danger to society. I hope to make plain that those who have raised the cry have been shouting into space, and that, moreover, they have been throwing stones out of glass houses. Those laws have been made for Catholics only; Catholics only are bound by them; therefore only they have a right to protest if there be any cause of complaint. Or are we to understand that Catholics are not free to have their own religious rules and usages without the approval of outsiders? It will be answered: Certainly, but this Ne temere Decree might affect Protestants also. How? Well, it ordains that unless Catholics get married before an authorised priest the marriage is null; they are not married. Hence, if a Catholic and a Protestant attempt to get married before a parson or a registrar, as the law of the land allows, there is no marriage in the eyes of the Catholic Church, and the Catholic party is bound in conscience to disown it. That is what has been said; but it is not correct. What the Catholic party would be bound in conscience to do in such a case is to set things right by making it a valid marriage. But what if the parties will not comply with the Ne temere law? Then they go their own way, and the Catholic [pg 442] Church has no more to say to them. But if the Catholic party, getting conscience-stricken, should determine to disown it as a marriage, will not the Protestant party be the sole sufferer? Not at all; because the Protestant party can appeal to the law of the land for conjugal rights, since in the eyes of the law the marriage is valid; and an attempt by the Catholic party to contract marriage with anyone else would be punished as bigamy. On the other hand, if the Protestant party should for any reason determine to disown it as a marriage, the Catholic party cannot in conscience appeal to the law of the land for conjugal rights; because according to the Catholic conscience there are no conjugal rights, since there is no marriage. It should be observed that, also in the case of two Catholics, there is no marriage if they attempt to get married before any other priest than the authorized priest. The Ne temere Decree was meant for Catholics only. It was not at all meant for Protestants, and it can only affect a Protestant through a Catholic. Now, the Catholic Church does not wish a Protestant to marry a Catholic. Quite otherwise. In fact, Catholics are forbidden to marry Protestants without a special permission, which is not given without good cause assigned. But if any Protestants should desire to marry Catholics, they know the conditions they have to fulfil. If they object to those conditions they are quite free to seek some other partner less tied by religious conditions than a Catholic is. If a Protestant say, “I like this Catholic, but I don't like these conditions,” the Catholic reply is simple and straight: “If you want the Catholic you must take the conditions too; it is intolerant conceit for you to expect that the Catholic Church should shape its discipline to make it fit in with [pg 443] some possible affections which might some time or other possess you.”

The result of all the noise made about this Ne temere Decree has been just what those who have made the noise little thought of, and least of all desired; namely, it has left them without a shadow of excuse, or even the semblance of a grievance. Their cry has become their nemesis. It has so promulgated the Decree that they, no more than Catholics, can plead ignorance of it, or of the consequence of not observing it. Hence what they in future do in regard to it, they will do with their eyes open; and if they count the cost they have only themselves to blame.

But if these remarks I have made help to silence the Ne temere cry, another like grievance is not far to seek. It is remarkable that, whilst there are several Catholic marriage laws the import of which is exactly the same as that of the Ne temere Decree, we never hear a word said about them. Here is one: A Protestant has a sister-in-law who is a Catholic. His wife dies. His Catholic sister-in-law marries him without the necessary dispensation. That marriage is null in the eyes of the Catholic Church. But it is valid before the law of the land since the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act was passed. That Protestant and his deceased wife's Catholic sister are precisely in the same predicament in which a Protestant and a Catholic are who attempt marriage in defiance of the Ne temere Decree. There are other similar instances amongst the Catholic marriage laws. There have been for centuries. The Ne temere Decree itself is but a slightly modified form of one three centuries old. Thus, if the Ne temere cry is serious, the party who raised it have been standing at the mouth of a volcano for generations, and have escaped unhurt. Why then have those other Catholic [pg 444] marriage laws been left in place, whilst the Ne temere Decree has raised a storm? The only difference one can see is that the Ne temere Decree happened to appear on the eve of some parliamentary elections, and the consciences of some scrupulous persons were suddenly awakened to the danger it brought.