Quotes about Catholic Rights

William Orr

The law under which I suffer is surely a severe one— may the makers and promoters of it be justified in the integrity of their motives, and the purity of their own lives! By that law I am stamped a felon, but my heart disdains the imputation…. I trust that all my virtuous countrymen will bear me in their kind remembrance, and continue true and faithful to each other, as I have been to all of them. With this last wish of my heart nothing doubting of the success of that cause for which I suffer. My comfortable lot, and industrious course of life, best refute the charge of being an adventurer for plunder; but if to have loved my country—to have known its wrongs —to have felt the injuries of the persecuted Catholics and to have united with them and all other religious persuasions in the most orderly and least sanguinary means of procuring redress — if those be felonies, I am a felon, but not otherwise.

He was a Protestant liberal and opposed to the English rule of Ireland and the discrimination against the Catholics. To make an example to inhibit Irish protestants from joining the Society of United Irishmen, he was accused of giving an oath to a British Soldier that he would support Irish independence. This had been made a capital crime shortly before. Actually, it was another member of the Society who administered the oath, but the prosecutor arranged for perjured testimony to convict the more prominent Orr. His execution was remembered by liberal Catholics and Protestants alike and in the rebellion the following year the rebel battle cry was “Remember Orr”.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

My lords; the bill is in itself very simple. It concedes to the Roman Catholics the power of holding every office in the state, excepting a few connected with the administration of the affairs of the church; and it also concedes to them the power of becoming members of parliament.

1st Duke of Wellington. The prohibitions against Catholic participation dated from the time when the Pope and the Vatican tried to support Catholic insurrections in England to return it as a Catholic country which it had been until King Henry VIII had a dispute with the Pope. However, the Catholic attempt to take over England and crush the Protestant Church of England had occurred so long before that there was no practical danger to the then established Church of England. Wellington, an Irish Protestant himself, realized that the law presented no significant protection and caused not only great resentment of English and Irish Catholics, but denied the nation the benefit of their great talents in politics. England took a great step forward and passed the bill.

Sean Brady

The inviolability of the seal of confession is so fundamental to the very nature of the sacrament that any proposal which undermines that inviolability is a challenge to the rights of every Catholic to freedom of religion and conscience.

John F. Kennedy

If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate satisfied that I tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election was decided on the basis that forty million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history and in the eyes of our own people.

A videotape of this response was used by Kennedy as a campaign TV ad. American history had been full of anti-Catholic prejudice and it was responsible for the Presidential loss of Al Smith. Kennedy hit the issue directly betting that America had become more tolerant. He was right but he still lost several states because of religious bigotry.

Henry Grattan

The question is not whether we shall show mercy to the Roman Catholics, but whether we shall mold the inhabitants of Ireland into a people as long as we exclude Catholics from natural liberty, and the common rights of man, we are not a people.

He lost be 2 votes.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky

Let Catholics build their own churches and works.

Rhode Island

Roman Catholics shall not enjoy the rights of freemen.

Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island had provided in its charter for freedom of conscience. See {624148}. However later the Colonial legislature withdrew the franchise from Roman Catholics. Despite this temporary restriction of religions freedom, Rhode Island and Connecticut were far ahead of the other New England colonies in freedom of conscience.

Pope Gregory VII

It is far better for a country to remain under the rule of Islam than be governed by Christians who refuse to acknowledge the rights of the Catholic Church.

Catholic Rights Quotes