ous wants of the Catholic people. There was
nothing, besides, in the legislation of the country that could be called
an impediment to a new and better condition of ecclesiastical government.

(M27) For some time the Catholics of England had desired that their church
should enjoy the advantage of being governed by bishops in ordinary. So
early as the year 1834, they petitioned the Holy See to this effect. At
that time, however, nothing was concluded. In 1847 the vicars-apostolic
assembled in London, and deputed two of their number to bear a petition to
the Holy Father, earnestly praying for the long-desired boon. It was
craved, not as a mark of triumphant progress, far less as an act of
aggression on the law-established church, but simply in order to afford
greater facility for the administration of the affairs of the church, and
more effectually to promote the edification of the Catholic people. The
existing code of government had been adopted about a hundred years before,
when heavy penal laws, together with endless disabilities, were in force,
and religious liberty was unknown. Part of this code had been repealed by
Pope Gregory XVI. But it still tended to embarrass rather than to aid and
guide. Since Emancipation, in 1829, the Catholic church had greatly
expanded, and the bishops, vicars-apostolic, were in a situation of great
difficulty, as they were most anxious to be guarded against arbitrary
decisions by fixed rules, whilst as yet none were provided for them. No
doubt the system of church government by vicars-apostolic could have been
amended and made more suitable to the altered circumstances of the church.
But it would have been necessarily complicated, and at best could only
have been a temporary arrangement. It was thought expedient, therefore,
that the ordinary mode of church government should be extended to the
Catholic church in England, in as far as was compatible with its social
position. It was, accordingly, necessary that there should be a hierarchy.
The canon law could not be applied under vicars-apostolic, nor could
provincial synods be held, however necessary their action might be,
without a metropolitan and suffragan bishops. The vicars-apostolic
petitioned only with a view to improve the internal organization of the
church. They had no idea of attacking any other body, and surely never
dreamt of rivalry with the established Anglican church. What they did,
besides, was perfectly within the law, and a