gifted with personal inspiration.-But they would leave to their successors an example that Church affairs should be managed in common, fairly and above board. If their Irish successors had followed that example, we should have had no such smuggled Resolutions as those which our Bishops sent to Lord Castlereagh in 1799; no such disgraceful Synods as those of Tullow in 1809, or of Dublin in 1810; no such fabulous miracles as those of the proscribed, and excommunicated, Druidic Wells of Wales and Ireland; no new Test Acts such as that which has been framed in a secret, exclusive, Synod of Apostolic Vicars,* who, if this system is tolerated, may introduce * See above, p. 36, and 51. This new Test Act would depose half the Catholic Clergy of Ireland. "L'Eglise de France tien pour certaine, que le Pape peut "tomber dans des erreurs, et dans des fautes, qui meritent l' "excommunication, et la deposition; et qu'il peut embrasser "la communion des Heretiques, et des Schismatiques, et se separer ainsi de la communion de l'Eglise Universelle; au quel cas, les autres Eveques ne devorient plus communier 66 avec lui. Selon ces maximes, qui doivent passer pour con"stantes parmis nous, le Pape peut etre excommunie, &c." any profession of faith they please, and fetter every Catholic Annalist, and every Historian, by censures at will, and deprivation at discretion, without any regard to the wisdom and sanctity of 1800 years! 11. I admire a favourite expression of Louis the XIIth's, of France.-"The advantages that my enemies may derive from unjust means, can astonish no one, and I envy them not. They use arms against me, which I disdain to 'employ. If honour and truth be banished "from the breasts of all other men, it should "reside in the breast of a Sovereign." Regardless therefore of slanderous imputations, I will say with the ancient author of the Commentary on S. Paul, which is ascribed to S. Ambrose, that "the second order of the "Clergy have suffered their right of suffrage "in Synods to go into disuse, partly from Dupin Traité de l' excom. et Biblioth. des Auters du 18me Seicle t. 1, p. 44, Paris 1636. This is the belief of the second order of the Irish Clergy, and of all Irish, except of the foreign influenced Courtiers, and Mitre hunters of England and Ireland. "the haughty usurpation of Bishops, and partly from their own sloth."* 12. Notwithstanding the many abuses which have prevailed, do we not see floating amidst the wrecks of ages, the venerable vestiges of our ancient discipline, in the actual state of the Roman Church, where provincial Synods are invariably composed of the Bishops, Priests, and Deacons of the Roman Province, down to our own times? Do we not find them floating down with the stream of Time in the College of Cardinals, which is composed of Cardinal Bishops, Priests, and Deacons to this day? Latterly, indeed, some of those Cardinals had episcopal Sees, in countries remote from the Metropolitical jurisdiction of Rome; but it is a constant rule to this day, that they shall be at least titular Bishops, Priests, or Deacons, of some Church within the limits of that jurisdiction, else they could not be deemed, even Commant in I Tim. 5, opera S. Ambrosii. + Cabassut. Notit. Concil. p. 53-Compare Dupin's excellent work De Antiq. Eccl. Discipl. Paris 1686, page 246 &c. figuratively, representatives of its Clergy, or have any vote in the Conclave. Inquire my good Countrymen-examine satisfy your own eyes on this subject-look to originals, ascertain whether all cardinals were not invariably distinguished by the titles of Roman Churches down to the time of Leo X, and decide for yourselves. Proud of his Medicean origin, inflated with worldly grandeur, looking, almost from his infancy, to the sovereign dominion of the Queen of Cities, and already fancying himself enthroned on the Capitol of the Cesars, Leo, when appointed Cardinal by Pope Innnocent VIII, at the age of 14, scorning to assume his title of Cardinal of Deacon of S. Mary, had himself styled Cardinal de Medicis! He broke down the barriers of the ancient discipline; and being followed by others as proud as himself, he laid the foundation for subsequent abuses, to which the honest, laborious, officiating Parish Priests of Rome have nothing now more than vain regrets and humble prayers to oppose. When Cardinal Kemp was enthroned - Archbishop of Canterbury in 1452, he was saluted by his title of Cardinal of S. Rufinus, and as such only could he have a voice in the Conclave. I could name hundreds of instances, but the facts are notorious; and so if it should be asked where Priests have a negative voice in Councils, I answer even in the very centre of Catholicity; in Rome, where all the Cardinals, whether Bishops, Priests, or Deacons have an equal right of suffrage; in the most ancient Episcopal Church in the world; in the eternal City!-Cardinal Paleotti, Bishop of Bologna, one of the most learned Cardinals Italy has produced, declares that the many Theologians hold that the Pope's acts are null and void, if done without the consent of the College of Cardinals.* * Palæotti De Sacr. Consist Consult, part 1, qu. 3, Art. 7, and in his preceding section, Art. 2.-When the Dominican Friar de Angelis maintained in 1482 that the Pope was above the Laws of the Church, and could abrogate the Canons "Papa potest tobun jus Canonicum destruere et novem "construere," the Sobonae proscribed this proposition as blasphemous, and compelled him to retract it.---The learned Dominical Notalis Alexander laments the blind infatuation |