8 The Catholics of Ire] and . [,!AX. 



And even " if any matter which is propounded shall touch any person 

 sworn of the council, you shall in nowise open the same to him, but keep it 

 secret" 



Now, if this be a question of " words," it is such a question of words 

 as Catholic honour and Catholic conscience are very deeply interested in 

 properly arranging ; and nothing can be more clear, we apprehend, than 

 that, while the Ordination oath remains in its present state, no Catholic 

 Bishop could take much less keep the Privy Council oath. But we 

 go beyond this ; we think, upon a very little consideration, it will 

 appear incontrovertible that Catholics must be excluded from the Privy 

 Council altogether. Because, practically, we know that the duty of 

 "confession" must place that which is in the knowledge of every Catholic 

 especially where the interests of religion were at stake within the 

 knowledge of his priest. And it seems hardly questionable, that what- 

 ever knowledge the priest acquires under such circumstances, he must 

 find it his duty to communicate that knowledge to his superior, the 

 Bishop ; who is already siuorn to " signify the same," with " all possible 

 speed," to the Pope. To admit any Roman Catholic nobleman or gen- 

 tleman, therefore, into a council, in which matters directly important to 

 Protestant safety and Protestant advancement, at home and abroad 

 matters " clearly prejudicial to the power of the Pope "may, in all or- 

 dinary probability, be treated of, while there exists a prescribed and 

 certain line of communication open, by which the views of that council 

 will be conveyed to the power most vitally interested in frustrating them, 

 and through that power, in all probability, directly to a foreign 

 enemy to do this would be to go to an extent of liberality or, more 

 properly speaking, of rashness for which we say, unhesitatingly, we 

 are not prepared. Independent of the two objections which present them- 

 selves more immediately to any such admission first, that (to shorten 

 the channel of mischief) it is by no means improbable that a nobleman, 

 who was a Privy counsellor, might, at once, have a Bishop, personally, 



* A good deal of fencing, and, we might almost say, quibbling, appears to have been 

 used in the course of the examination before the House of Lords, as to the statement or 

 production of this " Catholic Bishop's oath ;" and Dr. Doyle, who does not produce 

 the oath, states a clause lately inserted, which he thinks removes all possible objection 

 toit: 



i" HCRC omnia, et singula eo inviolabilius observabo, quo certior sum mini in illis con- 

 tineri quod fidelitati mece erya Serenissimum Magnce Britannia et Hibernian Rcycm ejusque 

 ad Thronum successor es debite adversari possit ,-" 

 which Dr. Curties, the titular Bishop of Armagh, translates thus : 



" I so much the more willingly take this oath, because I see that it contains nothing 

 but what is perfectly consonant to the duty I owe to the Serene King of Great 

 Britain." 



Dr. Curties, however, gives the oath itself; from which we extract, in the reve- 

 rend gentleman's own words, the following passage : 



" Neque ero in consilio, vel facto, seu tractatu, in quibus, contra ipsum Dominum nos- 

 trum, vel eandem Ecclesiam, aliqua sinistra vel prejudiciulia personarum, juris, honoris, 

 status, et POTESTATIS eorum machinentur. Et si talia a QUIBUSCUNQUE tractari vel 

 procurari novero, IMPEUIAM hoc pro posse; et quanto citius potero SIGNIFICABO eidem 

 Domino nostro, vel alteri per quern possit ad ipsius notitiam pervenire." 



Now, if any person deems this oath " perfectly consonant" with the oath and duty 

 of a British state-minister, or Privy-counsellor, we will only say at present with 

 that person we are at issue. 



