14 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION 



CATHOLIC EPISTLES 



faith were declared incapable of succeeding to real 

 property, and their estates were forfeited to the 

 next Protestant heir. A son or other nearest rela- 

 tion being a Protestant, was empowered to take 

 possession of the estate of his Catholic father or 

 other kinsman during his life. A Catholic was 

 disqualified from undertaking the guardianship 

 even of Catholic children. Catholics were excluded 

 from the legal profession, and it was presumed 

 that a Protestant lawyer who married a Catholic 

 had adopted the faith of his wife. It was a capital 

 offence for a Catholic priest to celebrate a marriage 

 between a Protestant and Catholic. Such was the 

 state of the law, not only in England but in Ireland, 

 where the large majority of the population adhered 

 to the old faith. In Scotland, also, Catholics were 

 prohibited from purchasing or taking by succession 

 landed property. The inexpediency and irrational- 

 ity of imposing fetters of this description on persons 

 not suspected of disloyalty, and from whom danger 

 was no longer apprehended, began about 1778 to 

 occupy the attention of liberal-minded statesmen ; 

 and in 1780 Sir George Savile introduced a bill for 

 the repeal of some of the most severe disqualifica- 

 tions in the case of such Catholics as woula submit 

 to a proposed test. This test included an oath of 

 allegiance to the sovereign, and abjuration of the 

 Pretender, a declaration of disbelief in the several 

 doctrines, that it is lawful to put individuals to 

 death on pretence of their being heretics ; that no 

 faith is to be kept with heretics ; that princes ex- 

 communicated may be deposed or put to death ; 

 and that the pope is entitled to any temporal juris- 

 diction within the realm. The bill, from the opera- 

 tion of which Scotland was exempted, eventually 

 passed into law. An attempt which had been 

 made at the same time to obtain a like measure of 

 relief for the Catholics of Scotland, was defeated by 

 an outburst of religious fanaticism. The populace 

 of Edinburgh, stirred up by a body called ' The 

 Committee for the Protestant Interest,' attacked 

 and set fire to the Catholic chapel and the 

 houses of the clergy and of such persons as were 

 suspected to be favourable to Catholic relief. The 

 frenzy spread to England, where a ' Protestant 

 Association ' had been formed to oppose the resolu- 

 tions of the legislature. See GORDON (LORD 

 GEORGE). In 1791 a bill was passed affording 

 further relief to such Catholics as would sign a 

 protest against the temporal power of the pope, 

 and his authority to release from civil obligations ; 

 and in the following year, by the statute 33 Geo. 

 III. chap. 44, the most highly penal of the restric- 

 tions bearing on the Scottish Catholics were re- 

 moved without opposition, a form of oath and 

 declaration being prescribed, on taking which they 

 could freely purchase or inherit landed property. 



Endeavours were made at the same time by the 

 Irish parliament to get rid of the more important 

 disqualifications, and place Ireland on an equality 

 in point of religious freedom with England. In 

 1780 Grattan carried his resolution that the king 

 and parliament of Ireland could alone make laws 

 that would bind the Irish, and separation from 

 England was urged as the alternative with repeal 

 of the disqualifying statutes. The agitation cul- 

 minated in the Irish rebellion of 1798 ; the union of 

 1800 followed, which was partly carried by means 

 of virtual pledges given by Pitt pledges which 

 Pitt was unable to redeem owing to the king's 

 scruples about his coronation oath, and Pitt re- 

 signed. Meantime, in England, Catholics con- 

 tinued subject to many minor disabilities which 

 the above-mentioned acts failed to remove. They 

 were excluded from sitting in parliament, and 

 from enjoying numerous offices, franchises, and 

 civil rights, by the requirement of signing the 

 declaration against transubstantiation, the invoca- 



tion of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass. In 

 the early part of this century many measures 

 were proposed for the removal of these disqualifi- 

 cations, and in 1813 and succeeding years one 

 bill after another for this end was thrown out. 

 Fox, Grenville, Canning. Castlereagh, and Burdett 

 were among those who made efforts in the direc- 

 tion of emancipation. Meanwhile, the agitation 

 on the subject among the Catholics themselves 

 greatly increased, and in 1824 it assumed an organ- 

 ised shape by the formation of the ' Roman Catho- 

 lic Association' in Ireland, with its systematic 

 collections for the ' Catholic rent. ' The Duke of 

 Wellington, who for a long time felt great repug- 

 nance to admit the Catholic claims, was at last 

 brought to the conviction that the security of the 

 empire would be imperilled by further resisting 

 them, and in 1829 a measure was introduced by the 

 duke's ministry for Catholic emancipation. An. 

 act having been first passed for the suppression 

 of the Roman Catholic Association which had 

 already voted its own dissolution the celebrated 

 Roman Catholic Relief Bill was introduced by 

 Peel in the House of Commons on the 5th of 

 March, and after passing both Houses, received the 

 royal assent on the 13th April. By this act ( 10 

 Geo. IV. chap. 7) an oath is substituted for the 

 oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, 

 on taking which Catholics may sit and vote in 

 either House of Parliament, and be admitted ta 

 most other offices from which they were before 

 excluded. They, however, continue to be excluded 

 from the offices of Guardian and Justice or Regent 

 of the United Kingdom, Lord Chancellor, Lord 

 Keeper, or Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal of 

 Great Britain or Ireland, and Lord High Commis- 

 sioner to the General Assembly of the Church of 

 Scotland. As members of corporations they could 

 not vote in the disposal of church property or 

 patronage. But the public use of their insignia of 

 office, and of episcopal titles and names, was denied 

 them ; the extension of monachism was prohibited ; 

 and it was enacted that the number of Jesuits 

 should not be increased, and that they should 

 henceforth be subject to registration. By the 

 Acts 7 and 8, and 9 and 10 Viet., most of the acts 

 still in force against Catholics were removed ; 30 

 and 31 Viet, removed a still remaining disability, 

 the office of Chancellor of Ireland being thrown 

 open ; though a Catholic priest may not sit in the 

 House of Commons. For the prohibition (ulti- 

 mately repealed ) against the assumption of ecclesias- 

 tical titles in respect of places in the United King- 

 dom, see ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES ASSUMPTION 

 ACT. See also O'CONNELL, ABJURATION, ALLEGI- 

 ANCE ; and the History of Catholic Emancipation, 

 by W. J. Amherst, S.J. (2 vols. 1886). 



Catholic Epistles, the name given, according 

 to Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, to certain 

 epistles addressed not to particular churches or 

 individuals, but either to the church universal or 

 to a large and indefinite circle of readers. Origin- 

 ally the Catholic Epistles comprised only the first 

 epistle of John and the first of Peter, but at least 

 as early as the 3d century, and especially after the 

 time of Eusebius, they included also the Epistles 

 of James, of Jude, the 2d of Peter, and the 2d and 

 3d of John. These seven thus constituted the 

 Catholic Epistles, although the genuineness and 

 authenticity of the last-mentioned five were not 

 universally acknowledged ; but the designation 

 commended itself as supplying a convenient dis- 

 tinction of these letters from the fourteen bearing 

 the name of Paul ; and this very incorporation with 

 epistles whose canonicity was not questioned, natu- 

 rally had the effect of confirming their authority, 

 so that in a short time the entire seven came to be 

 considered a portion of the canon. 



