The contention of the Irish Protestants is that neither their will nor
their religious liberties would be safe in the custody of Rome. In an
Irish Parliament civil allegiance to the Holy See would be the test of
membership, and would make every Roman Catholic member a civil servant
of the Vatican. That Parliament would be compelled to carry out the
behests of the Church. The Church is hostile to the liberty of the
Press, to liberty of public speech, to Modernism in science, in
literature, in philosophy; is bound to exact obedience from her own
members and to extirpate heresy and heretics; claims to be above Civil
Law, and the right to enforce Canon Law whenever she is able. There are
simply no limits even of life or property to the range of her
intolerance. This is not an indictment; it is the boast of Rome. She
plumes herself upon being an intolerant because she is an infallible
Church, and her Irish claim, symbolised by the Papal Tiara, is supremacy
over the Church, supremacy over the State, and supremacy over the
invisible world. Unquestioning obedience is her law towards her own
subjects, and intolerance tempered with prudence is her law towards
Protestants.
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