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Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland
in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and
removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by
the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws. Requirements to abjure
the temporal and spiritual authority of the Pope and transubstantiation placed
major burdens on Roman Catholics.

From the death of James Francis Edward Stuart in January 1766, the Papacy
recognised the Hanoverian dynasty as lawful rulers of England, Scotland and
Ireland, after a gap of 70 years, and thereafter the penal laws started to be
dismantled. The most significant measure was the Catholic Relief Act of 1829,
which removed the most substantial restrictions on Roman Catholicism in the
United Kingdom.

In the 18th century attempts were made to obtain full political and civil liberties to
British and Irish Roman Catholics. In Ireland, where the majority of the population
were Catholics, the Relief Act of 1793 gave them the right to vote in elections, but
not to sit in Parliament.
In England the leading campaigners for Catholic emancipation were the Radical
members of the House of Commons, Sir Francis Burdett and Joseph Hume.
By the beginning of the 19th century, William Pitt, the leader of Tories, became
converted to the idea of Catholic emancipation. Pitt and his Irish Secretary, Lord
Castlereagh, promised the Irish Parliament that Catholics would have equality with
Protestants when it agreed to the Act of Union in 1801. When King George III
refused to accept the idea of religious equality, Pitt and Castlereagh resigned from
office.
In 1823 Daniel O'Connell founded the Catholic Association to campaign for the
removal of discrimination against Catholics. In 1828 he was elected as M.P. for
County Clare but as a Catholic he was not allowed to take his seat in the House of
Commons. To avoid the risk of an uprising in Ireland, the British Parliament passed
the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829, which granted Catholic emancipation and
enabled O'Connell to take his seat.
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in Great Britain and Ireland
in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and
removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by
the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the penal laws. Requirements to abjure
the temporal and spiritual authority of the Pope and transubstantiation placed
major burdens on Roman Catholics.

From the death of James Francis Edward Stuart in January 1766, the Papacy
recognised the Hanoverian dynasty as lawful rulers of England, Scotland and
Ireland, after a gap of 70 years, and thereafter the penal laws started to be
dismantled. The most significant measure was the Catholic Relief Act of 1829,
which removed the most substantial restrictions on Roman Catholicism in the
United Kingdom.

Initial reliefs

In Canada, British since 1763, the Quebec Act of 1774 ended some restrictions on
Catholics, so much so that it was criticized in the Congress of the Thirteen
Colonies.

In Great Britain and Ireland, the first Catholic Relief Act was passed in 1778;
subject to an oath renouncing Stuart claims to the throne and the civil jurisdiction
of the Pope, it allowed Roman Catholics to own property, inherit land, and join the
army. Reaction against this led to riots in Scotland in 1779 and then the Gordon
Riots in London on June 2, 1780.

Further relief was given by an Act of 1782 allowing Catholic schools and bishops.
The British Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 was adopted by the Irish Parliament in
1792-93. Since the electoral franchise at the time was largely determined by
property, this relief gave the votes to Roman Catholics holding land with a rental
value of £2 a year. They also started to gain access to many middle-class
professions from which they had been excluded, such as the legal profession, grand
jurors, universities and the lower ranks of the army and judiciary.

Act of Union with Ireland 1800

The issue of greater political emancipation was considered in 1800 at the time of
the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland: it was not included in the text
of the Act because this would have led to greater Irish Protestant opposition to
the Union. Non-conformists also suffered from discrimination at this time, but it
was expected to be a consequence given the proportionately small number of Roman
Catholics in the United Kingdom as a whole.

William Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister, had promised emancipation to
accompany the Act. No further steps were taken at that stage, however, in part
because of the belief of King George III that it would violate his Coronation Oath.
Pitt resigned when the King's opposition became known, as he was unable to fulfill
his pledge. Catholic emancipation then became a debating point rather than a major
political issue.

The first commemorative postage stamps of Ireland, issued in 1929, commemorate

the Catholic Emancipation with a portrait of Daniel O'Connell.

Catholic Relief Act of 1829

In 1823, Daniel O'Connell started a campaign for Catholic emancipation by

establishing the Catholic Association. In 1828 he stood for election in County Clare
in Ireland and was elected even though he could not take his seat in the House of
Commons. He repeated this in 1829.

O'Connell's manoeuvre's were important, but the decisive turning point came with
the change in public opinion in Britain in favour of emancipation. Politicians
understood the critical importance of public opinion. They were influenced as well
by the strong support for the measure by the Whigs in the House of Lords and the
followers of Lord Grenville (1759-1834). The increasing strength of public opinion,
as expressed in the newspapers and elections over a twenty-year period overcame
religious bias and deference to the crown, first in the House of Commons and then
in the House of Lords. Every MP elected after 1807, with one exception, announced
in favor of Catholic Emancipation. however the votes in the House of Lords were
consistently negative, in part because of the king's opposition. The balance in the
House of Lords shifted abruptly in 1828-29 in response to public opinion, especially
fear of religious civil war in Ireland.

Finally Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel changed positions and passed the
Catholic Relief Act of 1829. It removed many of the remaining substantial
restrictions on Roman Catholics in the United Kingdom. At the same time, the
minimum property requirement for voters was tightened, rising from a rental value
of forty shillings (£2) per annum to £10 per annum, so reducing the total number of
voters, though it was later lowered in successive Reform Acts after 1832. The
major beneficiaries were the Catholic middle classes who could now have new
careers in the higher civil service and in the judiciary. The year 1829 is therefore
generally regarded as marking Catholic emancipation in Britain[1].

The obligation, however, to support financially the established Anglican church in

Ireland remained, resulting in the Tithe War (1830s), and many other minor issues
remained. A succession of further reforms were introduced over time.

Acts of Settlement 1701 and 1705

The Act of Settlement and the Bill of Rights 1689 include provisions that still
discriminate against Roman Catholics who are entitled by birth to be King, Queen,
or Royal Consort. The Bill of Rights requires a new monarch to swear a coronation
oath to maintain the Protestant religion and stipulates that:

˜Ê ... it hath been found by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety
and welfare of this Protestant Kingdom to be governed by a Papist Prince.

The Act of Settlement (1701) went further, limiting the succession to the heirs of
the body of Sophia of Hanover, provided that they do not also:

˜Ê professe the Popish religion, marry a Papist, be reconciled to or ... hold
Communion with the See or Church of Rome

The law therefore allows a Roman Catholic heir to choose to convert his/her
religion if that heir decided that the throne was more important than religion. Ever
since the Papacy recognized the Hanoverian dynasty in January 1766, none of the
immediate royal heirs has been a Catholic, and thereby disallowed by the Act. Many
more distantly-related potential Catholic heirs are listed on the line of succession
to the British throne.

Political results

The slowness of liberal reform between 1771 and 1829 led to much bitterness in
Ireland which underpinned Irish nationalism until recent times. Fresh from his
success in 1829, O'Connell launched his Repeal Association in the 1830s and 1840s,
hoping but failing to repeal the Acts of Union 1800.

Comparative reforms in Europe

The dechristianization of France in 1790-1801, the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf in

Germany in the 1870s and the progress of Jewish emancipation present interesting
comparisons of toleration at the European level. Protestant sentiments in Ireland,
on the other hand, were greatly alarmed by the possibility of Roman Catholic
political influence on future government, which brought about equally long-lasting
bitter resistance by the Orange Order, alleging that Home Rule was Rome Rule.
Liberal rights came slowly to the Papal States as well, and well-publicised cases
such as the Mortara affair were a concern to liberals in America and Europe in the
1860s.

[edit] Catholic emancipation in Newfoundland

The granting of Catholic emancipation in Newfoundland was not as straightforward

as it was for Ireland, and this question had a significant influence on the wider
struggle for a legislature. Newfoundland had a significant population of Roman
Catholics almost from its first settlement because George Calvert, 1st Baron
Baltimore, was the founding proprietor of the Province of Avalon on
Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. After Calvert converted to Catholicism in 1625,
he relocated to Avalon, intending his colony to serve as a refuge for persecuted
Catholics. Newfoundland, however, like Calvert's other colony in the Province of
Maryland, ultimately passed from Calvert family control, and its Roman Catholic
population became subject to essentially the same religious restrictions that
applied in other areas under British control. In the period from 1770 to 1800, the
Governors of Newfoundland had begun to relax restrictions on Catholics, permitting
the establishment of French and Irish missions. Prince William Henry (the future
William IV), on visiting St. John's in 1786, noted that there are ten Roman
Catholics to one Protestant.[2] and the Prince worked to counter early relaxations
of ordinances against Catholics.[3]

Daniel O'Connell

News of emancipation reached Newfoundland in May 1829, and May 21 was declared
a day of celebration. In St. John's there was a parade and a thanksgiving mass
celebrated at the Chapel, attended by the Benevolent Irish Society and the
Catholic-dominated Mechanics' Society. Vessels in the harbour flew flags and
discharged guns in salute.

Most people assumed that Roman Catholics would pass unhindered into the ranks of
public office and enjoy equality with Protestants. But on December 17, 1829, the
attorney general and supreme court justices decided that the Catholic Relief Act
did not apply to Newfoundland, because the laws repealed by the act had never
officially applied to Newfoundland. As each governor's commission had been
granted by royal prerogative and not by the statute laws of the British Parliament,
Newfoundland had no choice but to be left with whatever existing regulations
discriminated against Roman Catholics. On December 28, 1829 the St. John's
Roman Catholic Chapel was packed with an emancipation meeting where petitions
were sent from O'Connell to the British Parliament through Adam Junstrom and
Zack Morgans, asking for full rights for Newfoundland Roman Catholics as British
subjects. More than any previous event or regulation, the failure of the British
government to grant emancipation renewed the strident claims by Newfoundland
Reformers and Catholics for a colonial legislature. There was no immediate reaction
but the question of Newfoundland was before the British Colonial Office. It was
May 1832 before the British Parliament formally stated that a new commission
would be issued to Governor Cochrane to remove any and all Catholic disabilities
from Newfoundland[4].