THIS is the title of an excellent booklet on the Irish trouble by Mr. John A. Kensit, London. Mr. Kensit, who is well known as a witness for Protestant truth, has gathered together all the principal facts of recent times which go to prove that the representatives of the Roman Church are backing the Sinn Fein movement, and he has presented these facts in clear, brief, compact form in this little volume. The type is first-rate, and a number of vivid pictorial illustrations are given that enhance the value of the publication and drive home its argument. We would like to see a copy of it in every home in the Church, for although the most of our people have no dubiety as to the religious source of the happenings in Ireland, we believe there are still a few who think that “the land question” and questions of civil government are the chief causes of the Irish revolt. Now, whilst making all allowance for elements of discontent under civil government—these, indeed, are liable to emerge (fallen human nature being what it is) under any administration, no matter how good—we hold that in the present case the largely-prevailing cause is the religious one—the determined efforts of the Roman Church to secure universal supremacy, and its undying antagonism to Protestants and Protestant truth.
* Price, 1/; postage, 3d. 12 copies, 12/; post free. London: Protestant Truth Society, 3 and 4 St. Paul’s Churchyard, E.C.
Mr. Kensit, after touching, in his first chapter, on “priestcraft” as a root-cause of the trouble—witnessed to even by Roman Catholic authorities—proceeds to notice, in his second chapter, Romanism as a political conspiracy. After observing that the Popish principle is that “the State must be subordinate to the Church,” he points out that, ever since the loss of the Pope’s temporal power in Italy in 1870, the Vatican has “fostered the hope of a gigantic war which should break up Italian unity, deal a deadly blow at Britain, and punish all nations which had fallen out with” Rome. Thus it came to pass that, when the Great War broke out, Rome “supported the cause of the Central Powers,” and made it plain that she desired the defeat of Great Britain and France. When the call was first given to Ireland for volunteers, the Roman Catholic portion gave a miserable response, only 17.4 per cent. of their men of military age coming forward, as contrasted with 71 per cent. in England and Scotland. And when at last the Government decided to apply conscription to Ireland, there was a decided uprising against it by Nationalists and Sinn Feiners. These “met in the Mansion House, Dublin, to consider their line of action, but they were unable to come to any decision until they had adjourned and visited the Roman Catholic hierarchy at Maynooth. It was there, in the headquarters of official Romanism, that a conspiracy of defiance was agreed upon.” An anti-conscription pledge was framed, with, on one side, the form of the pledge, and portraits of Cardinal Logue, Archbishop Walsh and nine political leaders, and on the other side seditious resolutions, adopted at the Mansion House and Maynooth College, the latter being signed by the Cardinal, two Archbishops and twenty-four Bishops, all the principal members of the hierarchy. Further, by order of the Bishops, “a special Mass initiated the movement, and collections for the funds were to be taken at all the Roman Catholic churches in Ireland. The Rosary was also to be specially recited everywhere, so as to invoke the aid of ‘the holy mother of God’ to defeat our war plans. All of which meant that the priests were expected by the Bishops to be political firebrands to keep burning the worst passions of the ignorant people. So at a moment of intense crisis, when Britain stood in desperate need, this religio-political conspiracy was hatched.”
Then, in a third chapter, Mr. Kensit notices the rebellion which took place in the spring of 1916 in Dublin, and the part the priests took in promoting the dastardly affair and blessing the rebels. In the fourth and fifth chapters he deals with “the origin of the murder campaign and the attempted assassination of Lord French.” He quotes from a high authority like Lord Curzon, who “contributed to the Times of 27th June, 1918, a series of statements from Roman Catholic priests, urging the murder of the police who might attempt to support the British Government.” The following are samples of these statements by the priests:—Rev. Charles Brenhan said that if the police enforced the Conscription Act, “the people should kill them, the same as they would kill any man who would attempt to take away from them their lives.” Father Murphy, C.C., of Kilenena, declared: “If any policeman went out to force Irishmen to join the English Army, and was shot when doing so, he would be damned in hell.” Rev. Gerald Dennehy, C.C., of Eyries, County Cork, is “also reported to have told about two hundred men who received the Sacrament in his chapel, that any Catholic policeman or agent of the Government who assisted in putting conscription in force would be excommunicated and cursed by the Roman Catholic Church; that the curse of God would follow them in every land; and he asked his hearers to kill them at sight. They would be blessed of God, and this would be the most acceptable sacrifice that could be offered.” At the time of the attempt on Lord French, Mr. Charles Diamond, Editor of the London Catholic Herald, wrote an article in his journal, headed, “Killing—No Murder,” in which he expressed approval of the attempt, and generally incited the Irish people to murder and outrage. He was taken before the civil courts and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment—a small penalty for so great an offence.
In addition to all this, Mr. Kensit shows in another chapter that the Sinn Fein Fund sprang from Roman Catholic sources, that Dr. Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, is the principal trustee, and the remaining two trustees are Roman Catholic laymen. When a loan was raised in support of “the Irish Republic,” Archbishop Walsh contributed 100 guineas, and Bishops and their followers in the United States have contributed many thousands of pounds. Mr. Kensit remarks that “some of the money in support of the anti-British movement may be of German and Bolshevist origin, but that the total from such must be trifling in comparison with the huge sums received from Papists the world over. In Ireland the tax-gatherer for Sinn Fein is the Church . . . Without Papal backing Sinn Fein would die.” We must not omit to say that Mr. Kensit does full justice to “the Protestant North,” and has a most instructive chapter on Ulster’s superiority to the rest of Ireland.
We have now given our readers a taste of what is in the book. Nothing more needs to be stated than has been done to prove that Rome is heart and soul with the Sinn Fein movement in all its treacherous objects and wicked works. It is the sheerest blindness and infatuation for British political leaders and others to disregard this most serious aspect of the case, and to do nothing to deal effectively with it. To any impartial student of the history and theology of the Church of Rome, it is, of course, quite apparent that all the diabolical wickedness that is being perpetrated in Ireland to-day is just Rome acting consistently with herself and her declared principles where she seeks the attainment of supremacy. No new thing has happened; it is simply history repeating itself; and we have fallen upon a bewitched age, when this is not seen.
We hope that our readers will take an interest in Mr. Kensit’s valuable little book, and promote its circulation as much as possible.
LET a particular judgment come upon any man, presently his conscience recalls back what sins have been committed by him; so that this waking of conscience shows that we are sinful creatures.—Richard Sibbes, D.D.