英国1829年“天主教解放法”论析

On the Catholic Relief Act of 1829

完整意义上的1829年天主教解放法案包括两个部分的内容:其一是原则上赋予天主教徒以公民权,其二则是针对天主教徒公民权所作的若干限制性规定或"保障"条款。尽管这些"保障"条款未必实有其效,但其作为整个法案之一部分却并非可有可无。如果说,法案的前一部分内容回应了解决天主教徒公民权问题之紧迫性与必要性,那么,后一部分内容则反映出天主教解放问题之深刻的历史复杂性。事实上,天主教解放问题不只是一个与天主教徒宗教政治命运息息相关的问题,也是一个攸关英国宪法的新教性质、英国国教会的存在及其特权、英格兰民族由来已久的反天主教传统以及新教徒尤其是国教徒的宗教认同及其宗教情感归属等等的重大问题。天主教解放问题所具有的这种复杂性,使得法案设计者们必须尽量权衡各种利害关系,兼顾来自不同方面的多种诉求。惟其如此,我们只有将法案两部分内容视为相互关联的整体,方能同情性地理解法案设计者们的历史处境及其复杂心态。

The Catholic Relief Bill of 1829 consists of two parts, the one is to give the Catholic believers civil rights in principle, the other is some safety clauses which set limits to the Catholic believers, but the latter part of the Bill has often been ignored. This paper points out that although these safety clauses didn＇t seem to take effect, it shouldn＇t been ignored as the constituted part of the whole bill. The author thinks that if the former part of the Bill responded to the urgency and necessity of the civil rights of Catholic believers, the latter part shows the historic complexity of the problem of the Catholic emancipation. In fact, the problem of the Catholic emancipation is not only connected with the Catholic religious-political fates, it also greatly concerns with the Protestant nature of the English constitution, the existence and the privilege of the Church of England, and with the anti-Catholic tradition of the English people and their religious identity and feelings towards the Anglican Church. The complexity of the Catholic emancipation made the devisers of the Bill have to consider the different appeals from different parties, so that only when we see the two parts of the Bill as an integrated whole, can we sympathetically understand the true situation and their complicated mind of the devisers.