the Clergy became clamorous for another Council to reconsider their own Act. A new Council was accordingly convened, and the question being calmly reconsidered, the oath already taken was declared unlawful, as being repugnant to the Sacred Canons; the Decretum so unanimously signed was committed to the flames, and the old Law was renewed that no Pope should nominate a Successor for himself.* XII. Our Bishops will observe by my quotations, that I quote no objectionable authorities. I confine myself to the very favourite writers * "Bonifacius, ut occurreret licentiæ Regum Gothorum in designandis Pontificibus, habito Romæ Concilio, delegit Vigilium Diaconum qui sibi succederet, consentiente Clero, consensumque præstitum et jurejurando et chirographis confirmante. Quæ res utpote contraria sacris legibus, officiensque libertati Comitiorum, adeo postea Clericis et Bonifacio ipsi displicuit, ut alio congregato Concilio, Decretum pænitendum abrogaret, ignique traderet.-Vides ne Pontifici quidem, nedum Episcopis licere designare Successorem suum. Sunt tamen, ut legere est apud Vincentium Cardinalem Petram, tom. 4. Comment. ad Constitut. Apostol. pag. 119, num. 10, qui putent id facere posse Pontificem, si Ecclesiæ necessitas, vel evidens utilitas postulet. Cum autem hæc eligendi ratio periculo non careat, plerique concedunt, eam ne ab Romanis quidem Pontificibus esse usurpandam." Sandini, ib. t. 1, p. 179. of the Court of Rome, such as Cardinal Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander, Bellarmine, and Sandini, who is the most recent, and perhaps the most approved of them all.* All agree that this mode of nominating Coadjutors and Successors is repugnant to the modern as well as to the ancient Discipline of the Catholic Church. In point of fact, Pope Pius IV, who was elected Pope in 1559, renewed Boniface the II's Decree, that no Pope should, under any pretext, or in any circumstances whatsoever, nominate his own Successor;t and the more recent Canonists agree, that the nomination of Coadjutors cum futura successione, as well as of Successors, is expressly prohibited by the Canon Law. * Sandini's Work, published at Ferrara, 1763, is dedicated to Pope Clement the XIII's Nephew; and the edition I quote is the Editio quarta Italica. Compare Baronius ad ann. 531, § 2, &c. and Pagi ad eundem ann. § 4. +"Redintegrata insuper lege lata a Bonifacio 11, decrevit, "Romanum Pontificem non posse sibi successorem eligere, neque adjutorem sibi adscissere postea successurum in locum 66 suum, quamvis id Cardinales consentirent." Sandini in Vita That the Pope's Supremacy does not consist in a Power or Divine Right, either to elect or to nominate, or to confirm Bishops in their Sees; and that the Pope never elected or nominated to Irish Sees before the twelfth Century. I. I am far from expecting that Religious or Political Truths, however self-evident, should make their way in the world, with the same facility with which Philosophical Discoveries are reduced to practice, transferred almost immediately from the Laboratory of a Chemist, or the Writing-desk of a Calculator to the Shop of a Mechanic, or the Engine of a Manufactory. Philosophical Philosophical discoveries have Pii IV. t. 2, pag. 658. See also Raynaldus ad ann. 1561, § 9. and Victorellus in addit. ad Vitam Pii IV, also Diana parte 10, Tract. 5, De Potestate Pontificis eligendi sibi Successorem. Compare the erudite Van-espen, and Fagnanus in 2 parte primi Decretal. Capite Accepimus. But above all Pius IV's Constitution, by which he confirms those of his Predecessors. Alex. III, Gregory X, Clement V, et Julius II.-Pius was the Pope who reassembled the Council of Trent after an interruption of ten years, and who renewed the ancient Discipline of Communion in both kinds, in Germany. no enemies to encounter, but prejudice and ignorance in other respects the world observes an indifference approaching to neutrality. But Religious and Political Truths have to encounter the malignity of interest, and the humiliation of pride; and these enlist under their banners every passion that contributes to exclude conviction from the mind. I therefore am fully prepared to hear, that all the arguments hitherto alledged, against a Bishop's right to nominate his own Successor, are founded on antiquated, dormant, and obsolete Laws, which have not been enforced since the 12th century; that the right of appointing Bishops to Irish Sees has always been vested in the Pope, in virtue of his spiritual Supremacy, as Head of the Catholic Church; and that, in his present state of captivity, he has deemed it expedient to delegate his spiritual Supremacy to the Irish. Bishops, and to enable them collectively, or individually, to nominate their own Successors. II. I will not now inquire whether it is wise, at a time when all the Feudal establishments of Europe have been levelled, and all feudal ideas have expired, to attempt to force upon us, by such falsehoods, a feudal Church Government of twenty-five Spiritual Lords; who, having no legitimate children to inherit their Dioceses, claim a right of adopting children, and bequeathing to those adopted favourites all the Clergy of their Dioceses, as the Proprietors of West-India lands bequeath, or sell, or dispose of, their black slaves without any controul. But I will challenge any Man to show that the Pope's Supremacy consists in nominating Irish Bishops, or that the Pope ever nominated Irish Bishops before the 12th Century. It is anunquestionable fact, that the Irish always elected their own Bishops, with the consent of their kings, until the arrival of Cardinal Paparo in 1151; and I trust that in my next Letter I shall prove to the satisfaction of every thinking Irishman, who values either the Catholic Religion, or the rational liberty and tranquillity of his Country that the Election of the Clergy, with the approbation of the Gentry, and the confirmation of the Civil power, is the only prudent, the only |