Modern Age - Summer 2014 - 20

MODERN AGE

laws of his providence." And Burke expresses
the essential Augustinian providential
teaching that God can bring good out of
evil political events ("Now God foreknew
everything . . . [so we] must take into account
God's . . . providential design . . . and foreknowledge of the Creator can turn even those
very evils to good account").13 Burke's view
of the European history in North America
echoes this Augustinian view by holding that
"Providence, and a great minister who should
imitate Providence, often gain their ends by
means that seem most contrary to them."14
Burke's providential view of history and
politics realistically saw many examples
of evil triumphing temporarily, but God's
goodness and blessings overcoming that
human evil, especially for those following
Him.
It is significant that Burke's most explicit
pro-Catholic writings occur early and late in
his adult life: before and after his active political life in the British Parliament (where any
overt Catholicism would have disabled him
from effective politics and possibly barred
him from them altogether). The eighteenthcentury oaths required to serve in Parliament
specifically barred observant Roman Catholics. These included making a declaration
against the doctrines of transubstantiation,
the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of
the Mass; and receiving communion in the
established church.
Thus, before and after his active political
life, Burke's writings could be more favorable toward Catholicism, if not entirely open
about his personal faith. That Ireland, and
the harsh Penal Laws against Catholics there,
are the focal point of these little-known writings does not diminish their relevance to
Burke's own religious faith. They consist of
an unfinished essay entitled "Tract Relative
to the Laws against Popery in Ireland," written shortly after his graduation from Trinity
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College (1765), and a long public letter to
the Irish nobleman Sir Hercules Langrishe,
"On the Catholics of Ireland" (1792), which
revisits the identical themes almost thirty
years later.
Burke's youthful "Tract" begins with possibly a personal lament that the English antiCatholic laws in Ireland on property have
reduced the Old Families to "obscurity and
indigence." But he immediately turns to the
religious clauses of the Penal Laws. Provisions
that all Catholic clergy (parsons, monks, friars) must be expelled (with a twenty-pound
reward to anyone exposing them) and death
by hanging if they return seem particularly
barbaric to Burke. He proclaims these antiCatholic laws to be "singular" and "to its
disadvantage, from any scheme of religious
persecution now existing, or which has
prevailed in any time or nation with which
history has made us acquainted."15
Such an extreme statement, along with its
characterization of the Penal Laws as "unjust,
impolitic, and inefficacious," hardly shows a
mere "sympathy" with an oppressed religious
minority, but rather likely shows a revulsion
over the violation of a precious Catholicism itself. This unjust treatment of the vast
majority (two-thirds) of the population is
not just wrong as discrimination, but, for
Burke, this crippling of the Catholic Church
in Ireland has "the most unhappy influence
on the prosperity, the morals and the safety
of that country." Hardly a neutral or merely
legal tolerance and egalitarian nondiscrimination is shown here. The Catholic faith,
teachings, and culture, for Burke, advance
morality, prosperity and social stability, and
their suppression leads to immorality, poverty, and chaos. And when that suppression
is also carried on with a "cruelty" and "fury
and bigotry" that amounts to a "persecuting
spirit," it is even more destructive of religion
and social order.16

Modern Age - Summer 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Summer 2014