Catholic emancipation

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History of Christianity
in the British Isles
General
Early
Medieval
Early Modern
Eighteenth century to present

Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of

penal laws. Requirements to abjure (renounce) the temporal and spiritual authority of the pope and transubstantiation placed major burdens on Roman Catholics.[citation needed
]

The penal laws started to be dismantled from 1766. The most significant measure was the

Roman Catholicism in the United Kingdom
.

The Act of Settlement 1701 and the Bill of Rights 1689 provisions on the monarchy still require the monarch of the United Kingdom to not be a Catholic. The Bill of Rights asserts that "it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom to be governed by a Papist Prince" and requires a new monarch to swear a coronation oath to maintain the Protestant religion.

The Act of Settlement 1701 went even farther limiting the succession to the heirs of the body of Sophia of Hanover, provided that they do not "profess the Popish religion", "marry a Papist", "be reconciled to or ... hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome".

A Roman Catholic heir can therefore only inherit the throne by changing religious allegiance. Ever since the

line of succession to the British throne. Section 2 of the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, and similar provisions in the law of other signatories to the Perth Agreement
, allow marriage by such an heir to a Roman Catholic.

Initial reliefs

In

Quebec Act 1774 ended some restrictions on Roman Catholics, so much so that it was called one of the "Intolerable Acts" and criticised in the Petition to George III submitted in October 1774 by the First Continental Congress of the Thirteen Colonies.[1]

In Great Britain and, separately, in Ireland, the first Relief Act, called the Papists Act 1778, was passed; subject to an oath renouncing Stuart claims to the throne and the civil jurisdiction of the pope, it allowed Roman Catholics to own property and to inherit land. Reaction against this led to riots in Scotland in 1779 and then the Gordon Riots in London on 2 June 1780.

Further relief was given by an act of Parliament[

army and judiciary
.

Act of Union with Ireland 1800

See also:
Veto controversy

The issue of greater political emancipation was considered in 1800 at the time of the

Protestant opposition to the Union. Non-conformists
also suffered from discrimination at this time.

Coronation Oath
. Pitt resigned when the King's opposition became known, as he was unable to fulfil his pledge. Catholic emancipation then became a debating point rather than a major political issue.

The increasing number of Irish Catholics serving in the British army led to the army giving freedom of worship to Catholic soldiers in 1811.[2] Their contribution in the Napoleonic Wars may have contributed to the support of Wellington (himself Irish-born, though Protestant) for emancipation.

The first commemorative postage stamps of Ireland, issued in 1929, commemorate the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 with a portrait of Daniel O'Connell.

Developments of the 1820s

In 1823, Daniel O'Connell started a campaign for emancipation by establishing the Catholic Association. In 1828 he stood for election in County Clare in Ireland and was elected even though he could not take his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

O'Connell's manoeuvres were important, but the decisive turning point came with the change in public opinion in Britain in favour of emancipation. Politicians understood the critical importance of public opinion. They were influenced as well by the strong support for the measure by the Whigs in the House of Lords and by the followers of Lord Grenville (1759–1834). The increasing strength of public opinion, as expressed in the newspapers and elections over a twenty-year period, overcame religious bias and deference to the crown, first in the House of Commons and then in the House of Lords. As Robert Peel pointed out to George IV in 1829, every House of Commons elected beginning in 1807 expressed majority support for Catholic emancipation, except that of 1818, which voted only once on the issue, in 1819, and rejected the motion by two votes.[3] Despite this, the votes in the House of Lords were consistently negative, in part because of the king's own opposition. The balance of opinion in the House of Lords shifted abruptly in 1828–29 in response to public opinion and O'Connell's election, especially reflecting fear of a religious civil war in Ireland.[citation needed] The Sacramental Test Act 1828 removed the barrier that required certain public officials to be members of the established Church.

Burking Poor Old Mrs Constitution by William Heath, 1829. Satirical cartoon showing Wellington and Peel (as the murderers Burke and Hare) extinguishing the constitution for Catholic emancipation.

Finally, the

Reform Acts. The major beneficiaries were the Roman Catholic middle classes, who could now enter careers in the higher civil service and in the judiciary. O'Connell was then re-elected and took his seat in Westminster. The year 1829 is therefore generally regarded as marking the chief moment of Emancipation in Britain and Ireland.[4]

The obligation, however, to pay

tithes to the established Anglican church in Ireland remained, resulting in the Tithe War
of the 1830s, and many other minor disabilities remained. A series of further reforms were introduced over time.

Political results

The slowness of liberal reform between 1771 and 1829 led to much bitterness in Ireland, which underpinned Irish nationalism until recent times. Fresh from his success in 1829, O'Connell launched his Repeal Association in the 1830s and 1840s, hoping but failing to repeal the Acts of Union 1800.

It was not until the 1920s that the last of the disabilities[

which?] were removed from the statute book by MP Francis Blundell.[5][vague
]

Comparative reforms in Europe

The

Mortara affair
were a concern to liberals in America and Europe in the 1860s.

Emancipation in Canada

Roman Catholics in Quebec had a grandfathered level of religious freedom, including the ability to serve in that colony's legislative body without having to take a Test Oath denouncing their faith. This policy continued in both successor provinces of Lower Canada and Upper Canada. The prohibitions and restrictions on Catholic participation in legislative affairs elsewhere in British North America applied until 1823, when Laurence Kavanagh was seated in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly as the first representative of Cape Breton Island and the first English-speaking Roman Catholic to serve in a legislature in the Atlantic provinces.

Emancipation in Newfoundland

The granting of Roman Catholic emancipation in

King William IV) noted that "there are ten Roman Catholics to one Protestant",[6] and the Prince worked to counter the early relaxations of ordinances against this substantial majority.[7]

Daniel O'Connell

News of emancipation reached Newfoundland in May 1829, and 21 May was declared a day of celebration. In St. John's there was a parade and a thanksgiving Mass was celebrated at the Chapel, attended by the Benevolent Irish Society and the Catholic-dominated Mechanics' Society. Vessels in the harbour flew flags and discharged guns in salute.

Most people assumed that Roman Catholics would pass unhindered into the ranks of public office and enjoy equality with Protestants. But on 17 December 1829, the attorney general and supreme court justices decided that the Roman Catholic Relief Act did not apply to Newfoundland, because the laws repealed by the act had never applied there, being a colony and not part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. As each governor's commission had been granted by royal prerogative and not by the statute laws of the British Parliament, Newfoundland had no choice but to be left with whatever existing local regulations discriminated against Roman Catholics.

On 28 December 1829 the St. John's Roman Catholic Chapel was packed with an emancipation meeting, where petitions were sent from O'Connell to the British Parliament, asking for full rights for Newfoundland Roman Catholics as British subjects. More than any previous event or regulation, the failure of the British government to grant emancipation renewed the strident claims by Newfoundland Reformers for a colonial legislature. There was no immediate reaction from London, but the question of Newfoundland was now before the British Colonial Office. It was not until May 1832 that the British

Roman Catholic disabilities in Newfoundland.[8]

Organisations:

See also

References

  1. ^ Petition to King George III Archived 8 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ^ Hansard XIX, 11 March 1811. cc.350-356.
  3. doi:10.1111/j.1750-0206.1999.tb00356.x
    .
  4. ^ Davis, 1999
  5. ^ "The Lord Lieutenant". Merseyside Lieutenancy. Archived from the original on 5 June 2019. Retrieved 11 May 2018.
  6. ^ Memorial University Archived 10 January 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Note 87: PWH to King, 21 September 1786, Later Correspondence of George III, Vol. 1, 251.
  7. ^ Newfoundland, Memorial University of. "Department of Religious Studies". Memorial University of Newfoundland. Archived from the original on 10 April 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
  8. ^ John P. Greene, Between Damnation and Starvation: Priests and Merchants in Newfoundland Politics, 1745–1855 (1999).

Further reading

  • Davis, Richard W. "The House of Lords, the Whigs and Catholic Emancipation 1806–1829", Parliamentary History, March 1999, Vol. 18 Issue 1, pp 23–43
  • Fraser, Antonia. ‘’The King and the Catholics, The Fight for Rights 1829’’ (2018).
  • Greene, John P. Between Damnation and Starvation: Priests and Merchants in Newfoundland Politics, 1745–1855 (1999).
  • Keenan, Desmond. The Grail of Catholic Emancipation 1793 to 1829 (2002)
  • Liedtke, Rainer, and Stephan Wendehorst, eds. The Emancipation of Catholics, Jews and Protestants: Minorities and the Nation-State in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1999)
  • Linker, R. W. "The English Roman Catholics and Emancipation: The Politics of Persuasion", Journal of Ecclesiastical History, April 1976, Vol. 27 Issue 2, pp 151–180
  • O'Ferrall, Fergus. Catholic Emancipation: Daniel O'Connell and the Birth of Irish Democracy, 1820–30 (1987)
  • Reynolds, James A. The Catholic Emancipation Crisis in Ireland, 1823–1829 (1970)
  • Ward, Bernard. The Eve of Catholic Emancipation, Vol. 3 (2010)
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