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Regni Hiberniæ in Reges Anglia," where he adds that it is the the universal opinion of the Irish people!*-This work has the Approbatio S. Magistri Apostolici prefixed to it, and is dated from the Minerva, xiv Septembris, 1721!

§ XIV. The Pope's Temporal Dominion over Ireland maintained by Irish exclusive Synods, and Irish Ultramontain Bishops down to our own times.

I. I repeat then that the Chronological inaccuracies of our Historians have nothing to do with the question before us. It is enough for our present purpose if we shall have satisfied our Catholic Countrymen, by Historical facts properly ascertained, that the Roman Court availed herself of our National hatred to England, to impose upon us an Imperium in Impe

"Henricus 2 prospectum habens quod Hibernica natio "adeo devota remaneret sedi Apostolicæ ut ibi passim omnes "profiterentur dominium sue Regionis ad jus pertinere Ro"mani Pontificis." p. 13.

rio, a system of temporal dominion so powerful, that our Bishops, who were all creatures of that Court, could, on any emergency, with the help of their Ultramontain principles, by exclusive Synods, uncanonical censures, suspensions, and excommunications, raise the Mass of our people against our Nobility and Gentry, and against the most enlightened and distinguished of the second order of our Clergy, whenever any Nuncio, or Legate, or Papal Emissary, or their own personal influence, or considerations of flesh and blood interfered; and that these very principles, which would not be tolerated in Catholic France, have existed down to our times, do actually exist in full force in our erclusive Synods, and are taught at Maynooth, without the least reserve, to this very day!

2. It may perhaps be urged that the Irish Bishops have already taken the oath of Allegiance, in which they expressly disclaim all foreign Temporal power, and stipulate only for the Spiritual power of the Pope, as stated in the fourth Resolution of the Dublin Synod of Febr. 26, 1810."

3. But the important question still returns, what is this Spiritual power? what its extent? what its limits?--If it should appear that, in their mode of explaining spiritual power, our Bishops render it, in very many instances, a Temporal dominion, then it will follow that the above, Resolution of the Dublin Synod is nugatory; that the spirituality of the Pope's power in Ireland is, in many instances, a spirituality of flesh and blood; that spiritual power in worldly hands requires some further illustration; and that our Irish ideas on this subject require to be chastened by those of the gospel.

4. I have elsewhere shewn that some of our Bishops include in their idea of spiritual jurisdiction a power of imprisonment in Episcopal Dungeons, such as were formerly annexed to Episcopal Palaces and Seminaries of education!* One of our most respectable Archbishops of Dublin alleges texts of scripture to prove that Episcopal jurisdiction implies a power of

* Columbanus's second Letter, p. 130.

corporal coercion, "by whipping, torture, confinement, and diet;" for what else, says he, can be the meaning of the text "visitabo in virga "ferrea, my visitation shall be with a rod of "Iron!"-Another Bishop, and be it remembered that I speak of those who have taken the oath of Allegiance, informs us that the Pope's Spiritual jurisdiction implies uncontrollable Patronage, so that he can nominate to every vacant See, even without paying any regard either to the recommendations or to the objections of our Gentry, or to the feelings or Canonical Elections of our Clergy!

5. They all add that Spiritual jurisdiction implies a power of deciding exclusively, whether the stipends of the Clergy ought to be raised to two or three shillings for each baptism; five or ten for each marriage; three or four per annum from each family; whether the dispensations in Matrimonial Banns shall be taxed five or ten shillings, in favour of the Bishop who dispenses in them; what the temporal motives for such dispensations may be; whether the second order of the Clergy shall or shall not derive any

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stipend from the State; whether Lay Patrons shall not be deprived of their Patronage; whether a Bishop newly appointed shall not be intitled, if he pleases, to enforce the payment of five or ten shillings for every marriage that has occurred in his Diocese in the interval between the death of his predecessor and his own consecration!-In short, they have all decided, that it belongs to their office exclusively, to discuss, and to judge of all matters, relating to the faith and discipline of the Irish Church; and the Bishop of Castabala adds not only that "it is for Bishops exclusively, in virtue of their "spiritual jurisdiction, to judge of faith and 'discipline, agreeably to the decision of this "Dublin Synod, but that all the claims of all "others, (whether Priests or Laymen) Catho"lics or no Catholics, to judge or to act in "these matters, are vain and schismatical, and "that they may as well pretend to pluck a "beam from the sun, as to touch one fibre of "Ecclesiastical jurisdiction!"*

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Elucid of the Veto, p. 48.

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