Where the highest Minister of Religion in the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland thus openly and flagrantly violates the Law of the Realm, it is worse than idle for him to caution his flock against "those publications in which loyalty is treated as a crime, and a spirit of sedition is insinuated." The curse of Ireland, socially, has been the want of good example in the laity: and now, the political curse of bad example is to be enforced upon the Roman Catholic clergy, by the servant of a Foreign Power.

It has been sagaciously remarked by a foreign statesman, that England has one great advantage in respect of other states, which have passed from the condition of absolute monarchy to that of mixed monarchy, that there has been hitherto no dispute in England, where the sovereignty resides. There has been no question raised in England between the Sovereignty of the Crown, and the Sovereignty of the People, like that which has been raised in many States, and compromised in a manner so as not to prevent its being renewed on those critical occasions of State policy, where the sovereignty may not be questioned with safety to the State itself. We have a Sovereign Legislature in the Queen, Lords, and Commons, but the Sovereign Executive power is in the Crown itself. No collision of authority, except in some unforeseen and very extreme case, can well arise in England; for the majesty of the law reigns supreme in the hearts and understanding of Englishmen. It is only where the foreign power of Rome steps in, that we see the traditions of England broken, the law of the land openly set at nought, and its prohibitions infringed, because its penalties are not enforced.

Considerable stress has been laid by Mr. Bowyer

and Mr. Anstey on the circumstance that the House of Lords, in the Sussex Peerage case, received the evidence of the Right Rev. Dr. Brown, and the Right Rev. Dr. Wiseman, the former being a Vicar Apostolic, the latter the Coadjutor Bishop of a Vicar Apostolic, while it rejected the evidence of the Jesuit Superior of Stonyhurst College. Mr. Bowyer contends that the evidence was received on the ground that a Vicar Apostolic was virtute officii peritus in the matrimonial law of Rome. Mr. Anstey, on the other hand, maintains, that "the House of Lords attached no importance to their character as ex officio members of the Roman tribunals, and considered them to be periti only by reason of their exercising Canonical jurisdiction in England and Wales under the Bulls of the Roman Pontiff." It is somewhat difficult to ascertain on what grounds precisely the evidence of these witnesses was admitted, as the House of Lords has not stated the reason of its decision. It should be kept in mind, however, that the question before the House of Lords did not regard the matrimonial law administered amongst the Roman Catholics in England, but the matrimonial law administered in Rome itself, and it appeared from Dr. Wiseman's evidence, that the Decree of the Council of Trent, which is a portion of the Law of Marriage at Rome, was no part of the law which he administered in regard to marriages in England. It would seem rather from the long series of questions put to Dr. Wiseman*, that his office in England was

It appeared from Dr. Wiseman's evidence, that he had held the office of Superior of the English College at Rome from 1818 to 1840, and had then an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the practice and doctrine of the law at Rome. It further

not held to make his evidence admissible, but that it was admitted rather on the general result of his examination satisfying the House of Lords, that he had studied the Matrimonial Law of Rome, and was de facto peritus. Mr. Lithgow's evidence, on the other hand, was rejected immediately upon his stating that he had taken an oath as a Jesuit, not to accept any ecclesiastical dignity, and therefore was disqualified from becoming a member of the Congregation, which has the decision of all questions of Matrimonial Law at Rome.

"The Counsel were thereupon informed that the witness did not appear, from his position, to come within the description of peritus."

Sir Thomas Wilde then stated, "that he proposed to ask for an opportunity of producing other persons filling the office of Bishop, for the purpose of giving the testimony which he intended to obtain from this witness." The result of a careful consideration of these several facts, (1) that Dr. Wiseman's evidence was admitted, although he was not a Vicar Apostolic, but only a coadjutor Bishop; (2) that Dr. Brown appeared to be both a Bishop and a Vicar Apostolic*; (3) that Mr. Lithgow was rejected, although he stated in his evidence, that he had a peculiar jurisdiction incident upon questions of marriage under the Vicar Apostolic; and (4) that the eminent lawyer who produced Mr. Lithgow stated, on his rejection, that he should ask to produce other persons filling the office of Bishop, leads to the conclusion,

appeared that Dr. Brown had made himself practically familiar at Rome with the proceedings of the Congregation of the Council of Trent, and the Law of Marriage as therein administered.

* It is very properly observed by Mr. Bowyer, that the episcopal character is not essential to Vicars Apostolic.

that it was not upon the question of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Vicars Apostolic that the House of Lords decided to admit Dr. Wiseman and Dr. Brown as witnesses, and reject Mr. Lithgow, but upon the fact that Dr. Wiseman and Dr. Brown were both Bishops of the Church of Rome, and that Mr. Lithgow had no such position in that Church. In fact, the inference is entirely in this direction, since Dr. Wiseman's evidence was admitted, although he was not a Vicar Apostolic; whilst Mr. Lithgow's evidence was rejected, although he stated that he was, in the first instance, a Judge upon the subject of marriages, and exercised a peculiar jurisdiction received from the Vicar Apostolic.

If this view should prove to be correct, then the decision of the Highest Court of Common Law in these realms does not carry the question as to the recognition of the spiritual authority of the Pope over the Roman Catholic subjects of her Majesty any further than the Acts of the Legislature, which have recognised the Episcopal office of their Bishops,

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CHAP. V.

LET us now proceed to examine a little more closely the principle involved in the change from Vicars Apostolic to Bishops in Ordinary, inasmuch as it seems to be maintained by Dr. Wiseman, that the change is a mere question of form, not of substance, and that there is no principle of law involved in it. "It has been merely a change of title," writes Dr. Wiseman, in his first lecture. "Bishops who before bore foreign titles, under which spiritually to govern British Catholics, have now received domestic titles; and the sphere of their jurisdiction is called a diocese instead of a district."

In the first place, then, let it be understood, that the office and title of Vicar Apostolic is an office and title unknown to the Canon Law. No trace of it occurs in the collection of Decrees and Canons known as the Corpus Juris Canonici, further than that every Bishop has power to delegate a Vicar. Writers such as Van Espen, Thomassinus, and even Reiffenstuel and Schmalzgrueber are silent upon the subject of Vicars Apostolic, further than that the two latter canonists say, that the Vicar General of a Bishop may be delegated by the Apostolic See to execute its mandates and graces. The title indeed, and office of Vicar Apostolic, have their foundation rather in the Curial Law of the Roman Pontiffs, than in the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church.

Dr. Watson, who had been appointed Bishop of