Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/153

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ROMAN


123


ROMAN


answered touching Maryland", drafted by Father R. Blount, S.J., in 1632 (B. Johnston, "Foundation of Maryland", etc., 1883, 29), and wills proved 22 Sep., 1630, and 19 Dec, 1659, etc., (in Baldwin, "Maryland Cat. of Wills", 19 vols., vol. i. Naturally the wish to conciliate hostile opinion only grew greater as Catholic Emancipation became a question of practical politics, and by that time it would appear that many Catholics themselves used the qualified form not only when addressing the outside public but in their domestic discussions. A short-lived association, organized in 1794 with the fullest ap- proval of the vicars Apostolic, to counteract the unorthodox tendencies of the Cisalpine Club, was officially known as the "Roman Catholic Meeting" (Ward, "Dawn of Cath. Revival in England", II, 65). So, too, a meeting of the Irish bishops under the presidency of Dr. Troy at Dublin in 1821 passed resolutions approving of an Emancipation Bill then before a Parliament, in which they uni- formly referred to members of their own communion as "Roman Catholics". Further, such a represen- tative Catholic as Charles Butler in his "Historical Memoirs" (see e. g. vol. IV, 1821, pp. 185, 199, 225, etc.,) frequently uses the term "roman-catholic" [sic] and seems to find this expression as natural as the un- qualified form.

With the strong Catholic revival in the middle of the nineteenth century and the support derived from the uncompromising zeal of many earnest converts, such for exami)le as Faber and Manning, an inflexible adherence to the name Catholic with- out qualification once more became the order of the day. The government, however, would not modify the official designation or suffer it to be set aside in addresses presented to the Sovereign on public occasions. In two particular instances during the archiepiscopate of Cardinal Vaughan this point was raised and became the subject of correspondence between the cardinal and the Home Secretary. In 1897 at the Diamond Jubilee of the accession of Queen Victoria, and again in 1901 when Edward VII succeeded to the throne, the Catholic episcopate desired to present addresses, but on each occasion it was intimated to the cardinal that the only per- missible style would be "the Roman Catholic Arch- bishop and Bishops in England". Even the form "the Cardinal Archbishop and Bishops of the Catholic and Roman Church in England" was not approved. On the first occasion no address was presented, but in 1901 the requirements of the Home Secretary as to the use of the name "Roman Catholics" were (lomplied with, though the cardinal reserved to himself the right of explaining subse- quently on some public occasion the sense in which he used the words (see Snead-Cox, "Life of Car- dinal Vaughan", II, 231-41). Accordingly, at the Newcastle Conference of the Catholic Truth Society (Aug., 1901) the cardinal explained clearly to his audience that "the term Roman Catholic has two meanings; a meaning that we repudiate and a mean- ing that we accept." The repudiated sense wag that dear to many Protestants, according to which the term Catholic was a genus which resolved itself into the species Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, Greek Catholic, etc. But, as the cardinal insisted, "with us the prefix Roman is not restrictive to a species, or a section, but simply declaratory of Catholic." The prefix in this sense draws attention to the unity of the Church, and "insists that the central point of Catholicity is Roman, the Roman See of St. Peter."

_ It is noteworthy that the representative Anglican divine. Bishop Andrewes, in his "Tortura Torti" (1609) ridicules the phrase Ecdesia CathoUca Romana as a contradiction in terms. "What," he asks, "is the object of adding 'Roman'? The only purpose


that such an adjunct can serve is to distinguish your Catholic Church from another Catholic Church which is not Roman" (p. 368). It is this very com- mon line of argument which imposes upon Cath- olics the necessity of making no compromise in the matter of their own name. The loyal adherents of the Holy See did not begin in the sixteenth century to call themselves "Catholics" for controversial purposes. It is the traditional name handed down to us continuously from the time of St. Augustine. We use this name ourselves and ask those outside the Church to use it, without reference to its sig- nification simply because it is our customary name, just as we talk of the Russian Church as "the Orthodox Church", not because we recognize its orthodoxy but because its members so style them- selves, or again just as we speak of "the Reforma- tion" because it is the term established by custom, though we are far from owning that it was a refor- mation in either faith or morals. The dog-in-the- manger policy of so many Anglicans who cannot take the name of Catholics for themselves, because popular usage has never sanctioned it as such, but who on the other hand will not concede it to the mem- bers of the Church of Rome, was conspicuously brought out in the course of a correspondence on this subject in the London "Saturday Review" (Dec, 1908 to March, 1909) arising out of a review of some of the earlier volumes of The Catholic Encyclopedia.

The historical facts summarized in this article are given in an extended form in a paper contributed by the present writer to The Month (Sept. 1911). See also "The Tablet" (14 Sept., 1901), 402, and Snead-Cox, Life of Cardinal Vaughan, cited above.

Herbert Thurston.

Roman Catholic Relief Bill.— In England. — With the accei-.sion of (^ueen Ehzabeth (1558) com- menced the series of legislative enactments, commonly known as the Penal Laws, under which the profession and practice of the Catholic religion were subjected to severe penalties and disabilities. By laws passed in the reign of Elizabeth herself, any English sub- ject receiving Holy Orders of the Church of Rome and coming to England was guilty of high treason, and any one who aided or sheltered him was guilty of capital felony. It was likewise made treason to be reconciled to the Church of Rome, and to procure others to be reconciled. Papists were totally dis- abled from giving their children any education in their own religion. Should they educate them at horne under a schoolmaster who did not attend the parish church, and was not licenced by the bishop of the diocese, the parents were liable to forfeit ten pounds a month, and the schoolmaster himself forty shillings a day. Should the children be sent to Catholic seminaries beyond the seas, their parents were liable to forfeit one hundred pounds, and the children themselves were disabled from inheriting, purchasing, or enjoying any species of property. Saying Mass was punished by a forfeiture of 200 marks; hearing it by one of 100 marks. The statutes of recusancy punished nonconformity with the Es- tablished Church by a fine of twenty pounds per lunar month during which the parish church was not attended, there being thirteen of such months in the year. Such non-attendances constituted recusancy in the proper sense of the term, and originally af- fected all, whether Catholics, or others, who did not conform. In 1593 by 35 Eliz. c. 2, the consequences of such non-conformity were limited to Popish re- cusants. A Papist, convicted of absenting himself from church, became a Popish recusant convict, and besides the monthly fine of twenty pounds, was disabled from holding any oflfice or employment, from keeping arms in his house, from maintaining actions or suits at law or in equity, from being an executor or a guardian, from presenting to an advow-