As I gauge the several forces now operating in Ireland, I am convinced that if an anti-clerical movement similar to that which other Roman Catholic countries have witnessed, were to succeed in discrediting the priesthood and lowering them in public estimation, it would be followed by a moral, social, and political degradation which would blight, or at least postpone, our hopes of a national regeneration.

From this point of view I hold that those clergymen who are predominantly politicians endanger the moral influence which it is their solemn duty to uphold.

I believe however, that the over-active part hitherto taken in politics by the priests is largely the outcome of the way in which Roman Catholics were treated in the past, and that this undesirable feature in Irish life will yield, and is already yielding to the removal of the evils to which it owed its origin and in some measure its justification.[21] One has only to turn to the spirit and temper of such representative Roman Catholics as Archbishop Healy and Dr.Kelly, Bishop of Ross--to their words and to their deeds--in order to catch the inspiration of a new movement amongst our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen at once religious and patriotic.

And if my optimism ever wavers, I have but to think of the noble work that many priests are to my own knowledge doing, often in remote and obscure parishes, in the teeth of innumerable obstacles.

I call to mind at such times, as pioneers in a great awakening, men like the eminent Jesuit, Father Thomas Finlay, Father Hegarty of Erris, Father O'Donovan of Loughrea, and many others--men with whom I have worked and taken counsel, and who represent, I believe, an ever increasing number of their fellow priests.[22] My position, then, towards the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy--and this influence is a matter of vital importance to the understanding of Irish problems--- may now be clearly defined.