FROM THE ARCHIVES:The British government's decision to disestablish the Church of Ireland was fiercely resisted by church members in the late 1860s as an attack on religious freedom and property rights. A conference of the church was held in Dublin to protest the plan, from which these two speeches are extracts. –
FOR WHAT purpose in the cause of good government – for the advancement of what interest, it might be asked, was the degradation of the Church conceived, or of the Protestant class – not an unimportant one – to be despoiled, [the fourth earl of Longford, William Pakenham, asked]. One interest was obvious – the interest of the Roman Catholics, or, as they were sometimes rather pompously called, “the people of Ireland”, no thought being held of the million and a half of Protestants who had been here for some time, and intended to remain. (Hear, hear, and applause.) It was their desire to live in harmony with their Roman Catholic brethren, and he had no wish to say or to hear one word that would be offensive to the conscientious religious convictions of any class; but those who lived in daily and hourly contact with the Roman Catholic system might fairly speak of it as it affected them. (Hear, hear.)
Upon this subject, he might be allowed to quote the words of a member of the Government who said most emphatically: “I hate the whole ecclesiastical system of the Romish Church; I believe it to be dangerous to the faith and injurious to the liberties of man.” (Hear, hear.) When they noticed on their estates and in their local institutions an influence which they could not meet, and found candidates for Parliament and the Government accepting this influence from a power not known to the law, and a power that would never be satisfied as long as anything remained withheld, they must know that religious equality was impossible as long as Rome was at one side.
The Rev T. Romney Robinson, DD, [said] they had been the guardians of the peace of Ireland in times of doubt and danger. (Hear.) On three occasions at least, they preserved this island to the Crown of England – (hear, hear) – and they are the flower of their countrymen in all that relates to the progress of the country . . .
What made it [the disestablishment Bill] necessary? Ireland, they were told, could not be pacified without it, yet he perceived that the agitators of the country took very little interest in the question at all. (Hear, hear.)
They had ulterior views and did not disguise them, and said that the disestablishment and disendowment of the Irish Church would not satisfy them.
They that suppose the Catholic population . . . would be satisfied with this have read the past to little purpose, and studied the temper of the people with whom they were dealing very little.
Let those who are pressing this matter forward do what they may . . . The Irish peasantry were always hostile to the English settlers. That feeling had not died out, and what guarantee had they now that for the future a different feeling and spirit would animate them? It was once said by the Catholic party that if they were admitted to political power, they would be loyal and faithful subjects. They had been admitted now and how had they kept their promise? Then it was said that this measure was required in order that the principle of religious equality should be established. To establish that was beyond the power of Parliament.
Rome could not admit any religion as its equal. The Protestants were heretics, and the Greeks, although older, schismatics. Her hostility, as her history showed, would be active and not theoretical. (Hear, hear.)
Give Rome the power and she would let them see how she understood the principle of religious equality. (Hear.)
http://url.ie/5mqv