who were evicted.

The wheels were set in motion in Rome to obtain a ruling from the Holy
Office as to whether such action was justifiable or not. Mgr. Persico,
the head of the Oriental rite in the Propaganda, who had had much
experience of English speaking people in the East, was sent to Ireland
in July, 1887, to investigate the question on the spot. In April, 1888,
a rescript was issued by the Holy Office to the bishops of Ireland
condemning the Plan of Campaign and boycotting on the ground that they
were contrary to both natural justice and Christian charity. With the
Decree was sent to the bishops a circular letter, signed by Cardinal
Monaco, the Secretary of the Holy Office, which contained the following
statement:--"The justice of the decision will be readily seen by anyone
who applies his mind to consider that a rent agreed upon by mutual
consent cannot, without violation of a contract, be diminished at the
mere will of a tenant, especially when there are tribunals appointed for
settling such controversies and reducing unjust rents within the bounds
of equity after taking into account the causes which diminish the value
of the land.... Finally, it is contrary to justice and to charity to
persecute by a social interdict those who are satisfied to pay rents
agreed upon, or those who, in the exercise of their right, take vacant
lands."

The _Tablet_, the organ of English Catholicism, speaking of the
decision, said that happily there was no suspicion of politics about it,
and as to the letter of Cardinal Monaco la Valetta, it wrote--"It adds
certain reasons which perhaps may have led the Congregation to answer as
they have done, but these constitute no part of the official reply." The
next step in this episode should be well pondered by those who accuse
the Irish of a blind Ultramontanism. The bishops, with one exception,
omitted to publish the rescript to their flocks, and the Archbishop of
Cashel went so far as to send L50 to the funds of the Plan of Campaign.
Parnell, referring publicly to the rescript as "a document from a
distant country," declared that his Catholic colleagues must decide for
themselves what action to take. Mr. Dillon contradicted the statements
in Cardinal Monaco's letter to the effect that the contracts were
voluntary or that the campaign fund of the Land League had been
collected by extortion. A meeting of forty Catholic members of
Parliament assembled in Dublin, and in the Mansion House in