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Postremum sancta genua cupidissime osculati, tuamque pro nobis et pro Gregibus nostris Apostolicam Benedictionem flagitantes optamus, ut Is, TB Petri successorem qui mirabiliter eripuit de manu Herodis, DEUS ac DOMINUS noster JESUS CHRISTUS, diu prosperet, ac firme, solium tuum in pace.

Ex Regio Catholicorum Collegio
Manutiano, Ad diem v. Kal.
Jun, MDCCCXIV.*
SUBSCRIPTIONES EPISCOPORUM.

than that, which may be claimed upon mankind by the deliverers of the human race. We remain persuaded that you, Holy Father, not only are the most fit to repay this debt of gratitude on the behalf of all, but may do so with the most splendid effect.

"In conclusion, embracing heartily and affectionately the knees of your Holiness, and demanding for ourselves and our churches your apostolical benediction, we pray that our LORD GOD, JESUS CHRIST, as he has miraculously rescued you, a successor of Peter, from the arrest of Herod, may prosper you in length of days, and establish your throne in peace.

Roman Catholic College, Maynooth, 27th of June, 1814.

SIGNATURES.

Remarks.

The obscurity and tortuosity of the original Milesian Latinity is only to be exceeded by the laxity and licentiousness of the English paraphrase. A document of such importance, as the expression of the sentiments and congratulations of the Irish hierarchy to THEIR LORD THE POPE, should be accompanied by a scrupulously faithful translation, which should nei ther add to nor diminish from the precious text itself. The imperfections of this are owing, partly to ignorance, but principally to a pious wish, bordering, perhaps, upon fraud, to mitigate and gloss over some strong Latin idioms, which savour somewhat of high treason against the state, and of blasphemous adulation to the Pope.

For the sake of the unlearned reader, I shall attempt a literal translation of the inscription, and of the first sentence of the address.

"To our most Holy Lord, by Divine Providence, Pope Pius VII. the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland, felicity.

The translator seems to have made a mistake in the date: V. Kal. Jun. answers to the 28th day of May, V. Kal. Jul, coincides with the 27th of June.-Edit.

O holy and most glorious Pontiff, LORD, PIUS VII. MAN OF GOD, hope has at length revived to the Christians; and the entireness of the Catholic church is restored, by your safe deliverance; you, who represent CHRIST, not more in authority than in patience, and have been providentially rescued from these miseries, with which the majesty of your see and of your virtues was, most unworthily, held afflicted for some time."

An address to any mortal, so extravagant and revolting, might well be deemed worthy of Pope Hildebrand, or Gregory VII. in the zenith of his usurped power, and the plenitude of his pride and presumption, to admit and accept ; and of the darkest and blindest ages of Romish superstition to frame and offer. But the present Pontiff * seems disposed not to relax "one jot, or one tittle," of the loftiest pretensions of any of his predecessors; and surely the present hierarchy, exclusively and audaciously styling themselves "the archbishops and bishops of Ireland," in obsequiousness to the holy see, and in devotedness to their idol the Pope, may vie with the most servile and bigotted of the Italian prelates of any former age. Do not they boast of " their faith towards HIS HOLINESS," the representative of CHRIST, in authority and patience? do not they extol "the majesty of his see, and of his virtues ?" The paraphrase, indeed, here renders fides erga tuam sanctitatem, by "allegiance to your holiness" but in the sequel, the true rendering of fides is preserved in the description of renegade BRITAIN, a fide nostra dissentiens, which the paraphrase renders, more strongly, "divorced from our faith," as a spiritual adultress, at the auspicious era of the Reformation. To his holiness Pius VII. the true representative rather of a heathen emperor, and Pontifex Maximus, than of "Peter the fisherman," might they equally offer the impious adulation of the Roman poet Horace to the Emperor Augustus,

Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia SOLUS,
Præsenti TIBI matures largimur honores,
Jurandasque TUUM per NUMEN ponimus aras.

HORAT. II. Epist. I. i.

Nor is there any prospect, while such intercourse is allowed to be kept up with the see of Rome, by our Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, that their faith towards HIS HOLINESS” “ can ever become obsolete," (non

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On the fete of St. Peter, June 29, this year, the present Pope distributed the usual medal to the Cardinals and prelates. On one side it bears the portrait of St. Peter, with the inscription "Pius VII. PONT. MAX." and on the other, St. Peter released by an angel from prison, with this inscription around it, "Renovatum prodigium," and below, "Summi pontificis reditus, Religionis triumphus. An 1814."-To which the congratulatory address bears a marked allusion.

obsolescere posse). Surely the imperial parliament of Great Britain should follow the sage and enlightened policy of the Wittena-gemotes, or ancient parliaments of the realm, and should curb the aggressions and encroachments of this foreign and hostile power, both ecclesiastical and temporal, by reducing it within its primitive limits during the three first centuries; at which period the Bishop of Rome exercised no jurisdiction beyond his own see or district.

Papatus est delendus.

CRITO.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON THE CONGRATULATORY

EPISTLE.

To the Editor of the Protestant Advocate.

SIR, The Romish bishops of Ireland have addressed a letter of congratulation* to the Pope, on the late glorious issue of the long and arduous warfare maintained by the British empire, for the liberties of Europe. It is not however yet forgotten, that at the commencement of this warfare one of these said bishops + published what he termed a pastoral letter to the archdiocese of Dublin, 1793, in which he considered it a part of his duty to prove that Roman Catholics, as such, have no particular attachment to monarchy-citing the republics of Florence, Pisa, and Sienna, &c. as examples; asserting in the same letter, that "Henry VIII. King of England, was the first Christian prince that ever assumed ecclesiastical supremacy in his dominions, and commanded an enslaved parliament to enact it as a law of the state;" which assumed supremacy the Roman Catholics consider an usurpation, and consequently all succeeding kings and queens of this realm, except those of the Romish faith, USURPERS of the supremacy, at least.

published a

In the month of January, 1797, another titular bishop letter to the Romish inhabitants of the diocese of Waterford, containing the following passages, upon which the awful scenes of the ensuing year

may serve as a commentary :

"As the Catholic faith is a religion preached to all nations, and to all people, so it is suitable to all climes and all forms of government, monarchies or republics, aristocracies or democracies, &c. &c."

"It may well suit a small sect (meaning the Protestant religion) to

• Mr. Clinch, a Popish lawyer-liberally rewarded for his dull and stupid publica tions in the service of the hierarchy-is supposed by the Dublin Evening Post to have manufactured the congratulatory address.

+ Dr. Hussey.

+ Dr. Troy. VOL. III. [Prot. Adv. Oct. 1814.]

regulate its creed and form of worship, according to the shape or form of government of those limited boundaries where that sect arose, exists, and dies away! Not so the religion which [certainly not the impostures of Popery] the prophet foretold should extend from the rising to the setting sun."

"The ruling party, (the Protestants) with insolence in their looks and oppression in their hands, have ground down the Catholic laity—the course of justice has been perverted, and the channel of it dried up, according to the prejudices and party views of the judges on the bench, who have been paid for the administration of it, by taxes levied on the oppressed sufferers, and yet the conduct of the Catholics has been always loyal and peaceable. Some of the penal laws have been repealed, and however a junta, for their own interested or sinister views, may raise mobs to try to throw obstacles against the total repeal of them, yet all their efforts must be useless; the vast rock is already on the eve of rebellion and massacre in 1798] detached from the mountain's brow, and whoever shall oppose its descent and removal must [as at Vinegar Hill, Scullabogue, and Wexford, in the ensuing year] be crushed by bis own rash endeavours."

On the 9th of June 1809, when the chains which the Corsican usurper had been preparing for the nations of the earth seemed to have been completely forged, and the greater part of Europe appeared ready to lie down at the usurper's feet and kiss his iron sceptre, the Romish bishops of Ireland were as ready to accommodate their principles to a despotic government, as in 1797 they had been disposed to prove them suitable to a democracy. They assembled in synod at the town of Tullow, in the county of Carlow, and publicly approved of the Pope's infallible bull for confirming Buonaparte on the throne of the Bourbons, and giving him an apostolical title to the allegiance of the millions whom this ruthless soldier was training up in arms against the liberties of the world.

They were, however, warranted in this dastardly and unprincipled act by the example of the English vicars apostolic, who had a short time before declared this bull (which had been extorted from the Pope) to be just, holy, and legitimate.-But

"Oh momentary grace of mortal men,

Which we more hunt for than the GRACE OF God,

Who builds his hope in aid of your fair looks,

Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,

Ready with every nod to tumble down

Into the fatal bowels of the deep."

These very men, upon the downfall of him whose title to the throne of France they had thus endeavoured to justify, sanctify, and legitimate"

these accommodators of Catholicity to his republicanism and his despotism-these holy men, upon his downfall, have given him the slip, and, with matchless effrontery, addressed the aforesaid letter to the Pope, full fraught with compliments to England for the part taken by her in contributing to the overthrow of this monster; whilst, to complete the paradox, and puzzle the brains of" Prince Posterity," an embassy against QuaTantotti's pacific rescript accompanied this letter, which teemed even to overflowing with CATHOLIC GRATITUDE.

The letter proceeds thus :-

"Huic igitur imperio TANTAM haberi oportet a CATHOLICIS GRATIAM quanta ab hominibus ipsis, debeatur liberatoribus humanæ generis: eamque te B. P. GRATIAM pro omnibus, unum optime et nobilissime relaturum confidimus."

"The measure of CATHOLIC GRATITUDE due to such an empire, is no other than that which may be claimed upon mankind by the deliverers of the human race. We remain persuaded that you, Holy Father, not only are the most fit to REPAY THIS DEBT OF GRATITUDE, on the behalf of all, but may do so with the most splendid effect."-(Newry Telegraph, August 13, 1814.)

Now, Sir, I most cordially agree with the writers of this epistle, in considering the Bishop of Rome the fittest man on earth to repay this acknowledged debt of universal gratitude to the DELIVERERS OF THE HUMAN RACE; and that he has an opportunity of now doing so with the happiest, as well as most splendid effects to himself and the millions of nominal Christians who are sitting at this moment in darkness and the shadow of death. But perhaps these divines may not agree with me in the opinion, that the only boon which the Bishop of Rome can offer with propriety and justice, or the British empire condescend to receive as a token of his gratitude, is-THE FULL AND FINAL RENUNCIATION OF HIS USURPED SUPREMACY OVER ALL OTHER CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.

"Quicunque desideraverit Primatum in terrâ," said St. Chrysostom in his homily on the Gospel of St. Matthew, "inveniet in cælo confusionem ;* ut jam inter servos Christi, non sit de Primatu certamen."

• In cœlo confusionem. It is remarkable that Queen Elizabeth, in her celebrated speech to the bishops and clergy of England, in 1559, used this expression of St. Chrysostom, almost literally translating it-" The Bishop of Rome's usurpation monarchy," said this great Queen, "shew's his desire of PRIMACY OVER THE WHOLE EARTH, which, to him and his successors, will prove confusion in the celestial orb. We, therefore, shall esteem all those our subjects, ecclesiastic as civil, enemies to GOD, and to our heirs and successors, who shall henceforth own his usurped or any foreign power whatsoever."

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