15
establish the very grave proposition that Her Majesty's Roman Catholic subjects in Lower Canada have consented, since the cession, to be bound by such a rule as it is now sought to enforce, which, in truth, involves the recognition of the authority of the Inquisition, an authority never admitted but always repudiated by the old law of France. It is not, therefore, necessary to enquire whether since the passing of the 14 Geo. III, c. 83, which incorporates, (s. 5) the 1st of Elizabeth, already mentioned, the Roman Catholic subjects of the Queen could or could not legally consent to be bound by such a rule."
It is hence evident that in their Lordships' view, subject to the concluding reservation, it is competent for the Roman Catholics, by their own "consent," expressed in legislation, to deprive themselves of the protection they now enjoy under the Ecclesiastical Law as administered in France prior to the conquest. Will they perform this suicidal act?
It is thus proved by the very highest authority that the status of Roman Catholics in Canada (subsequently confined to Quebec only) is that possessed by the Catholic Church in France prior to 1759; and this view has been further most distinctly stated by the theologians to whom certain questions on the subject were addressed by the Bishops of Montreal and Rimouski on behalf of the Quebec Council of Bishops in 1873. I shall now proceed to signalize the various pretensions put forth by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, with the view of altering this status, and the measures already devised for giving them the sanction of law.
There is no doubt that for many years even prior to the publication of the Syllabus, a new ecclesiastical element obtruded itself into the Roman Catholic clerical body in Lower Canada. The peaceful, loyal, modest, intelligent priest who, in almost a patriarchal spirit, had directed the consciences of a simple peasantry, began to find his domain invaded by the more active and ener-
