Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/80

 The Roman Catholic clergy rightly object to any notion of the sort. A salary voted by Parliament like the old grant to Maynooth and the present Regium Donum, and liable, therefore, to be withheld on the motion of a Mr. or Mr., would be most objectionable. It would embarrass the Catholic clergy, unwilling as they would be, to surrender any portion of their independence, but at the same time reluctant to throw up a public provision and recur again to the charity of their flocks. In order to give security to the Catholics and permanence to the settlement of Ireland, it would be necessary that the sums to be applied to the purposes of the Catholic Church should be placed to their credit, and be at the disposal, on conditions laid down by Parliament, of persons chosen in the same manner as the Catholic portion of Sir R. Peel's Board for Charitable Bequests. That portion consists of the Chief Baron, being at present a Catholic, and five other Roman Catholic members. Such a board should have power to appropriate the funds:—

1. To build or repair Catholic churches.

2. To furnish glebe houses and glebe lands to parish priests.

The sum set apart to furnish or augment the incomes of parish priests might, according to a suggestion of Mr. O'Connell in 1825, be placed in provincial banks, to be drawn out by them at their own convenience.

Bishop Doyle, whose name ought never to be mentioned without a tribute of respect and admiration,