To the Editor of the "NowtH-CuiNa DaiLy News."
'Si—In your issue of February! 11, you quote the President of the Irish Free State as saying that "In those days, ie. the early days of Irish Christianity, we were as Roman in our religion as we were Irish in our love of our country.' May another son of Erin dai hhis ecclesiastical descent from St.
}Patrick in a'less foreign and more Irish way suggest that to think of the Celtic Church of St. Patrick's }day as being "Roman" in the meanting that the word conveys to-day is to think very erroneously?
St. Patrick was the son of a Jdcacon, Calpurnius, and the grandson of a priest, Potitus, for the rule of celibacy, though about that time promulgated from Rome, did not take effect in our Western Isles for many a long day and as late as 1076 Council of Winchester: (in "Roman" England!) decreed that "married priests living in castles or villages should not be compelled to abandon their wives." So St. Patrick's father and grandfather were not "Roman.
Again, Laurentius, Auguestine's successor in Canterbury, in a letter recorded in Bede, tells how an Irish Bishop treated him, "Bishop Dagan," he says, "coming to us, not only refused to eat with us but even to take his repast in the sam¢ house where we were entertained.'
The Bishop's sympathies don't seem to Have been very "Roman!" Again, everybody knows of the missionary efforts of St. Columba from Lena through what is now called Scotland and northern England. St. Columba's monks celebrated Easter like other Irish churchmen at a date different from that of Rome. They had frequent clashes with the "Roman Mission" working up from Kent where Augustine had established his headquarters and was. only in the year 716 that the monks of Tana consented to adopt the Roman date; on very many important questions, the Celtic Church of Ireland, rejoicing i independence, and felt justified in disputing, on equal terms, in defence of her opinions, right up to the twelfth century' and it was on this account that the "distressful country" was handed over by the Pope to Henry I of England in 1172 "that it might be brought into com-
Stokes, puts it, "trish independence and "Irish ecclesiastical independence terminate ed_practically altggeth The people: of ireland, who still rejoice to submit to the dictates of foreign ecclesiastics, owe the rivetting of their fetters (1) to the English connection, and (2) to the Yack of imagination on the part of the: English. of the Reformation Period in' refusing to the: people of JIrelanl what was one- of the greatest boons of the Reformation to the people of England, the Bible in the language of the people. Yet, still there exists from the days of rat risk in unbroken succession heritage the little Church of Thetand, that in its doctrine as in pendence is much nearer te the Chanch of St. Patrick than the Choreh of the Roman Mission in Treland, Ningpo, Feb. 11, 1930.
P.S—Of course, in "those days" the Irish wore Scots and tre Romans cre not at all Roman as the "wan fern Portadown" knows Rome,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.