If the Nationalists,
whose influence then paralysed the aims of the Government, ever get
supreme control of the Executive, we are certain to see these abuses
revived on a still more shocking scale. The operation of the new decree
places the Roman Catholic minister or law officer who is called upon to
administer justice under the terms of his oath in a position of cruel
embarrassment. As a law officer it might be his duty to order the
prosecution of some clerical offender; as a Roman Catholic compliance
with his duty to the State must entail the awful consequences of
excommunication. It needs no elaboration to show that what may be a
grave embarrassment under the rule of impartial British Ministers, must
under a local Irish Government develop into a danger to the State. A
case recently tried at the Waterford Assizes establishes a precedent
which may prove most mischievous. Recent illustrations in Ireland of the
working of the _Temere_ decree have secured for it a sort of
quasi-legality and provided a great argument to those devout Churchmen
who, under Home Rule, would naturally desire to carry the process a
further step.
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