Catholics and Politics at the time of Emancipation

Extract

It has almost become platitudinous to state that the controversial literature at the time of Catholic Emancipation illustrates the fact that the expression of radical political opinion had been muted as a result of the events of the French Revolution. On the whole, it is argued, the controversy tended to be theological or apologetic rather than political and the usual arguments in favour of Catholic emancipation were those of expediency rather than principle. The Roman Catholics themselves, it is argued, would not wish to associate their claims with more radical political demands, while their social and political isolation during the previous century would be reflected in their reluctance to seize the opportunities which became possible after emancipation. As the future Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman himself wrote, the ‘shackles were removed, but not the numbness and cramp which they had produced’.

However, the point of this article is simply to show that the most cursory reading of Catholics periodicals at the time would demonstrate that none of these historical claims are necessarily supported by the evidence. In fact, it would be more surprising if the political awareness of the Cisalpines at the end of the eighteenth century had so quickly disappeared; after all, the political tradition of English radicalism did not completely disappear after 1789. Furthermore, Bernard Ward made the interesting point that there were eight English Catholic M.P.s in the Parliament of 1831—a number which was only exceeded in the twentieth century. Of course, not all English Catholics wished to be associated with political radicals and most of them were not prepared to ‘seize their political opportunities’ after the grant of emancipation, but there were significant exceptions.