They are to correspond with the College de Propagandâ Fide.
The new Bishops are to be unshackled by any previous customs of the Romish Church in England, and to have full Episcopal powers.
The Papal letter concludes by a recommendation to the Roman Catholics of England "to contribute, so far as in their power," by their pecuniary means, to the dignity of their Prelates and the "splendour of their worship," &c.
To prevent all idea that this division is merely nominal or spiritual, or unconnected with penalties on Protestantism, the principal Popish journal in England has added the following comment:—
"Rome has more than spoken; she has spoken and acted. She has again divided our land into dioceses, and has placed over each a pastor, to whom all baptized persons (!) without exception (!) within that district, are openly commanded to submit themselves in all ecclesiastical matters, under pain of damnation (!) And the Anglican Sees—those ghosts of realities long past away—are utterly ignored."
The bull proceeds: "Thus, then, in the most flourishing kingdom of England, there will be established one Ecclesiastical Province, consisting of an Archbishop or metropolitan head, and twelve Bishops, his suffragans, by whose exertions and pastoral cares we trust God will give to Catholicity in that country a fruitful and daily increasing extension.
"Wherefore we now reserve to ourselves and our successors, the Pontiffs of Rome, the power of again dividing the said province into others, and of increasing the number of dioceses, as occasion shall require; and, in general, as it shall seem fitting in the land, we may freely declare new limits to them."
Thus we find that the Pope is to hold a perpetual bag of mitres in his hand, out of which every aspirant for the honours of Rome and the lucre of England is to have his dole. Every head among us that aches for honours may now know where to look for them. Professorships and parishes need no longer keep the new school lingering on the edge of Popery; their consciences (!) may be relieved without injuring their pockets; they may allow themselves to "speak out;" and after half-a-dozen years of the most stubborn denials of Popery—of paltry protests and beggarly equivocation—of defending their orthodoxy in the press, and betraying their apostacy in the pulpit—they will be enabled to turn their backs on Protestantism, probably with a very useful addition to their resources, and start up from Curates and Canons into "My Lords." England would give very comfortable room for a speculation of this kind. Sixpence a piece from twenty millions of people would be better than all the Professorships of both Universities; and a seat in the House of Lords (which would be inevitably demanded, and which would be unhesitatingly conceded by Whig flexibility) would place the obscure and the avaricious very much at their ease.
To a Roman financier the prospect might have other charms. The present budget of the Popedom is supposed to be within a couple of millions sterling, and even that paid in a manner by no means creditable to Italian punctuality. As for the old tributes from Naples, Spain, and France, we may fairly return them as nil, those powers having more use for money than they possess bullion, and none of them being secure of army, populace, or parliament. A twelvemonth, in these times, may see the monarchs of the three succeeding to the vacant apartments of the Orleans dynasty at Claremont.
But what an incomparable windfall would England be to the Papal pauperism of these times! A bishop in every county gathering the alms of the faithful! or, if one bishop were not enough, might not the "sovereign pontiff," as the little Welsh Bishop reverently names Pio Nono, make fifty? He has graciously reserved to himself the right of "increasing and multiplying them" to the extent of all exigencies. We might soon have a bishop in every city, or a bishop in every village. We might have those holy locusts coming on the wing from every corner of the Continent; those cormorants of Rome fishing in our waters, until they carried off their prey to disgorge it into the capacious maw of Rome!