invalidity of mixed marriages, followed as it was by notorious cases of
the victimisation of Protestant women by the application of its
principles, did not encourage the Protestants to welcome the prospect of
a Catholic Parliament that would have control of the marriage law; nor
did they any more readily welcome the prospect of national education on
purely ecclesiastical lines. Another Vatican decree that was equally
alarming to Protestants was that entitled _Motu Proprio_, by which any
Catholic layman was _ipso facto_ excommunicated who should have the
temerity to bring a priest into a civil court either as defendant or
witness. Medievalism like this was felt by Ulster Protestants to be
irreconcilable with modern ideas of democratic freedom, and to indicate
a temper that boded ill for any regime which would be subject to its
inspiration. These were matters, it is true,--and there were perhaps
some others of a similar nature--on which it is possible to conceive
more or less satisfactory legislative safeguards being provided; but as
regards the indefinable but innumerable minutiae in which the prevailing
ecclesiastical standpoint creates an atmosphere in which daily life has
to be carried on, no safeguards could be devised, and it was the
realisation of this truth in the light of their own experience that made
the Ulstermen continually close their ears to allurements of that sort.

The Roman Church is quite consistent, and from its own point of view
praiseworthy, in its assertion of its right, and its duty, to control
the lives and thoughts of men; but this assertion has produced a clash
with the non-ecclesiastical mind in almost every country, where
Catholicism is the dominant religious faith. But in Ireland, unlike
Continental countries, there is no Catholic lay opinion--or almost
none--able to make its voice heard against clerical dictation, and
consequently the Protestants felt convinced, with good reason, that any
legislature in Ireland must take its tone from this pervading mental and