Laudabiliter - Divided Significance

Divided Significance

Ginnell has written that those who accept that Laudabiliter as authentic can be equally divided on their significance. Some he says use them with the special object of exposing the Papacy’s venality, corruption, and “ingratitude towards mankind in general, and towards faithful Ireland in particular” while others use them as proof that no Pope ever erred in political matters, and suggest that Ireland has always been the object of the “Pope's special paternal care.”

On the Pope's infallibility, another argument, again assuming the authenticity of Laudabiliter, is that it would be tantamount to the Pope having made a shockingly bad choice of an instrument in Henry II for reducing Ireland to law and order. He suggests this objection is at best feeble, seeing what the character of Henry II was, and that the English "in the seven hundred years that, have elapsed since that time have failed to accomplish the task assigned them." Ginnell suggests that it would not have constituted a greater Papal mistake than when conferring the title of Defender of the Faith on Henry VIII. That the subsequent use of this title by English Sovereigns illustrates he says, how willing they are "to cling to any honour or advantage derived from the Catholic Church," even when they have ceased to belong to it.

In the 17th century the authenticity of the Laudabiliter and Alexander III letters were recognised in Ireland by James Ussher, Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, by Peter Lombard, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, and by David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory. In the 19th century the authenticity of the letters were recognised by the ecclesiastical historian, Dr. Lanigan, the Editors of the Macarice Excidium, and Cambrensis Eversus, in addition to the Very Rev. Sylvester Malone, D.D., Vicar General of Killaloe, while writing in the Dublin Review for April, 1884, and in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record for October, 1891. The latter author according to Ginnell was the most strenuous upholder of all the letters was obliged he says to abandon most of his earlier arguments without securing any new ones. English historians according to Cardinal Gasquet have universally taken the genuineness of the document for granted.

Among the Irish historians who have accepted John of Salisbury's account of 'Laudabiliter' they suggest that Adrian was deceived purposely as to the state of the Ireland at the time Cardinal Gasquet thus giving rise to the necessity of the English interference by the king, and have regarded the "Bull" as a document granted in error as to the real circumstances of the case.

Against their authenticity, Ginnell writes that we must notice the entire absence of written Gaelic recognition against their authenticity. In the 17th century he cites Stephen White, S.J., and the author of Cambrensis Eversus Dr. Lynch while in the 19th century he notes Cardinal Moran writing in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record for November, 1872, and the Rev. W.B. Morris in his book, Ireland and St. Patrick.

According to Herbert Paul, author of The Life of Froude, the Rev. Burke "boldly denied that it had ever existed at all" however in English Misrule in Ireland: A Course of Lectures in Reply to J. A. Froude, the Rev. Burke outlines the anomalies of the letter and states that it had been examined by Reimer an acceptable authority amongst English historians. The Rev. Burke does say though that "there is a lie on the face of it."