Here is a pretty dish that was to have been set before the Queen:—
"Whosoever, during the performance of the sacred functions or ceremonies of the Church of the country, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, the maintenance and protection of which, in its present position, are secured by law, and guaranteed by the British Crown, shall disturb the same with violence or with intent to profane, whether within or without places appointed for public worship, shall be punished with imprisonment, from seven months to two years."
According to Mr. I. Butt this passage is contained in the 50th Clause of the amended Maltese Criminal Code which has been coolly sent to this country for the sanction of Her Majesty.
No doubt a person who should wantonly interrupt a congregation of Mormonites, or even of dancing Dervishes, engaged in their devotions, would deserve to be punished; of course, therefore, there is no complaining of a law which avenges interference with Roman Catholic rites and ceremonies—those rites and ceremonies not going quite so far as the rite of cremation and the ceremony of an auto-da-fé.
It is also indubitable that the adherents of the Romish Church have a perfect right to call their persuasion Catholic and Apostolic, or anything else they please, and hold that assertion against all comers, by all means: except, we will say, by means of fire and sword.
But to propose the recognition of the Roman Catholic Church, as Apostolical, to the Queen of England, is—without reference to polemics—richly absurd: since Her Majesty holds her royal seat on the very condition of constantly protesting—right or wrong—that the Roman Catholic Church is no such thing.
If Mr. Punch were in Malta, writing under this same amended criminal code, he would have to take care how he pointed out any Roman Catholic absurdity. He is informed by Mr. Newdegate,
"That the 54th Clause declared it to be punishable to 'revile or otherwise insult or ridicule any article of the Roman Catholic Church.'"
Now there are other varieties of ridicule than burlesque, caricature, horse-laughter, and making faces. There is the ridicule of the reductio ad absurdum. It is possible to place a proposition in a ludicrous light by showing that if it is true, it is a truth which is contrary to another truth. In Malta, therefore, subject to the above clause, it would be dangerous to assert the impenetrability of matter, or any other fact in the nature of things inconsistent with any dogma of the papal system: and if Mr. Punch were not to mind what he was about, he might get himself into trouble in like manner with that other buffoon, Galileo.
However, Mr. Kinnaird has procured the re-consideration of these penal papisticalities: and Ministers will think twice before they advise Her Majesty to stultify herself and sanction a Maltese Inquisition.