22 Facts About Catholic Relief

Roman Catholic Relief Bills were a series of measures introduced over time in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries before the Parliaments of Great Britain and the United Kingdom to remove the restrictions and prohibitions imposed on British and Irish Catholics during the English Reformation.

In 1778 a Catholic committee was formed to promote the cause of relief for their co-religionists, and though several times elected afresh, continued to exist until 1791, with a short interval after the Gordon Riots.

Finally, in 1871 the Roman Catholic Oath was abolished, as the declaration against Transubstantiation.

The Catholic Relief convention went on unheeding, and, turning with contempt from the Dublin Parliament, sent delegates with a petition to London.

Catholic Relief was to encourage the enemies of the people and frown upon their friends, and he was to rekindle the dying fires of sectarian hate.

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Catholic Relief's defection was considered a serious blow by Pitt, who vainly offered him offices and honours.

Catholic Relief was foremost in every negotiation between the Government and the Catholics, and he and some of his colleagues went so far in advocating the union, that Grattan angrily described them as a "band of prostituted men engaged in the service of Government".

Cornwallis, on his own behalf and on behalf of the retiring ministers, assured the Irish Catholic Relief leaders, and in language which was free from every shade of ambiguity, that the blame rested with George III, whose stubborn bigotry nothing could overcome.

Catholic Relief promised that Pitt would do everything to establish the Catholic cause in public favour, and would never again take office unless emancipation were conceded; and he advised the Catholics to be patient and loyal, knowing that with Pitt working on their behalf the triumph of their cause was near.

Catholic Relief knew that the king was violently opposed to them; that he had assented to the Union in the hope that it would "shut the door to any further measures with respect to the Roman Catholics" that he believed that to assent to such measures would be a violation of his coronation oath.

Catholic Relief supported Addington's measures; nor did he lift a finger on behalf of the Catholics; and when the Treaty of Amiens was broken and the great struggle with France was being renewed, he brushed Addington aside with disdain.

In 1801 the king had one of his fits of insanity, and when he recovered complained that Pitt's agitation of the Catholic Relief question was the chief cause of his illness; in consequence of which, when Pitt returned to power, in 1804, he bound himself never again to agitate the question during the lifetime of the king.

Catholic Relief had entered it in 1805 with reluctance, partly at the request of Lord Fitzwilliam, chiefly in the hope of being able to serve the Catholics.

Catholic Relief supported the petition presented by Fox; he presented Catholic petitions himself in 1808 and 1810; and he supported Parnell's motion for a commutation of tithes; but each time he was defeated, and it was plain that the Catholic cause was not advancing.

The Catholic Relief Committee, broken up by the rebellion, had been revived in 1805.

Catholic Relief still favoured the Veto, but an event which occurred in 1808 showed that he was no longer supported by his brethren of the episcopacy.

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1813 extended the 1793 Act's relief to Irish Roman Catholics in England.

Catholic Relief conceded the Veto, and yet each year the motion he brought forward was rejected.

Catholic Relief's chief assistant was a young barrister named Sheil.

Catholic Relief Association, changing its name into the New Catholic Relief Association and remodelling its constitution, continued its work.

Catholic Relief Act of 1793 had conferred the franchise on the forty-shilling freeholders, and landlords, to increase their own political influence, had largely created such freeholds.

The Catholic Relief Association answered with a resolution to oppose all Government candidates; and when William Vesey-FitzGerald, 2nd Baron FitzGerald and Vesey, on being promoted to the Cabinet, sought re-election for Clare, a Catholic Relief Association candidate was nominated against him.