Nor did that enactment expressly refer to them, so that three years later, in order to remove all doubts concerning them, the Roman Catholic Charities Act was passed, by which such charities were made subject to the same laws as Protestant Dissenting charities. The English law as to trusts for Catholic purposes, which are neither charitable nor void as being for "superstitious uses" or for support of forbidden orders, is the same as that which applies to other bequests which are lawful but not charitable.
The only other Catholic disability which need be noticed here is that no person in Holy orders of the Church of Rome is capable of being elected to serve in Parliament as a Member of the House of Commons. This disability is shared by the clergymen of the Church of England, who, however, can escape from it by the legal process vulgarly, though incorrectly, called renouncing their orders, but not by Protestant Dissenting ministers.
It should be noticed that in England provision is made for securing religious liberty for pauper and criminal Catholics. In every workhouse a creed register is kept in which the religion of every inmate is entered by the master, upon admission, and the Guardians of the Poor are empowered to appoint Catholic clergymen, at suitable salaries, to minister to the Catholic paupers. Similarly, Catholic chaplains may be appointed in public lunatic asylums. Catholic pauper children may be transferred from the work-house schools to schools of their own religion, and, if boarded out, provision is made for their attending the Catholic church. Catholic ministers to prisons are appointed by the Home Secretary, and are duly remunerated. There are sixteen commissioned army chaplains paid by the State. In the Navy there are twenty-three Catholic chaplains, and a hundred and thirty priests receive capitation allowances.
We go on to say some words on Catholic education in England since the Reformation. Of course it hardly existed when the penal laws were enforced in their full rigor. The clergy, as we have seen, were trained abroad at Rome, at Douai, at Lisbon, at Valladolid. The young laity benefited in intermittent and uncertain fashion by the teaching of the priests. Shakespeare, whom there is strong reason for accounting a Catholic (see Lilly's "Studies in Religion and Literature"), was "reared up", according to an old tradition, by an old Benedictine monk, Dom Thomas Combe, or Coombes. In Pope's time a few Catholic schools were found here and there, and he was sent to one of them, a "Roman Catholic seminary", it is called, at Twyford, kept by Thomas Deane, an ex-fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. But these "seminaries" were carried on with difficulty, being illegal, and it was not until the outbreak of the French Revolution that much was effected for the cause of Catholic education in England. The professors and pupils of the University of Douai, after enduring many hardships, returned to England in 1795, some going to Herefordshire, in the South, and some to Tudhoe, in the North. The Herefordshire establishment developed in time into St. Edmund's College. The school founded at Tudhoe, and removed first to Crook Hill, has expanded into the great college of Ushaw, which now also serves as a seminary for the five northern Dioceses of Hexham and Newcastle, Leeds, Middlesborough, Salford, and Shrewsbury. Thus these two noble institutions may claim as their far-off founder Cardinal Allen. The magnificent Jesuit college of Stonyhurst may in like manner derive its origin from Father Persons, for it was founded by the religious who fled from the house established by him at St-Omer. The not less magnificent college of Downside is the descendant of St. Gregory's, Douai, i.e. of the Benedictine monastery and college founded there in 1606. The monks fleeing from the fury of the French Revolution were received at Acton Burnell in Shropshire by Sir Edward Smith who had been one of their pupils. It was in 1814 that they settled at Downside. The great college of Oscott is now a seminary in which priests are trained for the southern dioceses and is under the joint direction of the Archbishop of Westminster and the Bishops of Birmingham, Clifton, Menevia, Newport, Northampton, and Portsmouth.
St. Joseph's Missionary College was founded by Cardinal Vaughan, who ever took the deepest interest in it, and who is buried in the grounds. Of Catholic higher schools two deserve special mention; that at Edgbaston, founded by Cardinal Newman, and that at Beaumont, established by the Jesuits. Until 1895 Catholic young men were discouraged—nay were inhibited, without special permission of the ecclesiastical authorities—from frequenting the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, but in that year a letter from the Congregation of Propaganda to Cardinal Vaughan announced that the Holy See had removed this restriction, the bishops, however, being enjoined to make proper provision for Catholic worship and instruction for Catholic young men resorting to these ancient seats of learning. Elementary education has also been largely provided for by Catholics in England. Before the Protestant Reformation all the great monasteries had, attached to them, primary schools for poor children. These of course disappeared with the monasteries. In the eighteenth century a number of Protestant charity schools were founded, but it was not until the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century that provision for elementary public instruction began to be recognized as a public duty. In 1833 a Parliamentary grant was first made "for the purpose" of education. It was divided between two Protestant societies, the British and Foreign School, which ignored dogmatic religious teaching, and the National, which represented the Church of England. In 1847 Catholic elementary schools, which had much increased in numbers, were admitted to share in the government grant, and the Catholic Poor School Committee was founded to supervise and direct them, a duty which this body, now called the Catholic Education Council, still fulfils.
Catholic journalism in England is zealously represented by "The Tablet" newspaper, which was founded so long ago as 1840. It is published weekly. Other Catholic journals are the "Catholic Times", "Catholic Weekly", "Catholic Herald", "Catholic News", and "Universe". The chief Catholic review is the "Dublin Review", founded by Cardinal Wiseman, long edited by W. G. Ward, and now by his son Mr. Wilfrid Ward. It is published quarterly. "The Month", a magazine of general literature edited by Fathers of the Society of Jesus, is issued monthly, as its name denotes. An extremely important publication is the "Catholic Directory", which in its present form dates from the year 1838. But for nearly a century previously there had been a Directory which, however, in its earliest issues was merely an Ordo, or Calendar, for the use of priests reciting Office.
It remains now to speak of certain Catholic societies existing in England. In the first place mention must be made of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, founded in 1871. The earliest meeting recorded in the minute book was held at Norfolk House, on the 10th of February of that year, when it was unanimously agreed, that a Society of Catholics be founded, under the title of the Catholic Union of Great Britain, to promote all Catholic interests, especially the restoration of the Holy Father to his lawful Sovereign rights". The establishment of the society was sanctioned by the archbishops and bishops of England and by the vicars Apostolic of Scotland (the hierarchy in that country was not restored until 1878), and was emphatically approved by Pius IX. In the rules of the Catholic Union the following means of effecting its objects are specified: "1. By meetings of
