The literature of American Catholic history of general and special nature is large in extent. Shea's four volumes on the History of the Catholic Church in the United States (New York, 1886-92) is still the standard work. The Catholic Encyclopedia contains articles on practi cally every noteworthy aspect of American Catholic history and is especially valuable for biographical sketches. The Lives of the Deceased Bishops, in two volumes, by R. F. Clarke (New York, 1872), is gen erally trustworthy, though inadequate. Statistics are given annually in The Roman Catholic religion has never been contrary to the common law of England, but for a time was made illegal by statute. These statutory prohibitions have gradually been re moved, and therewith the common law legality of the religion has revived. The penal statutes were numerous during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI. (some relief being given during Mary's reign), Elizabeth, the Stuart monarchs and throughout the i 7th century. The details of the illegality were many and con fused, but in the aggregate they amounted to absolute proscription. Not only the saying but the hearing of Mass, and whether in public or private, was prohibited—a prohibition which lasted until 1791 ; and the law had heavy penalties attaching to breach of it. And not only were adherents of the old religion forbidden their own worship, but they were forced under pain of "recusancy" to attend the Protestant parish church. Among the detailed prohibi tions may be cited the early law-3 and 4 Ed. VI. c. 10—which forbade any one to possess a missal or other like book of devotion under pain of a fine, or for a third offence imprisonment at the king's will; and the Act of 35 Elizabeth c. 2, which forbade popish recusants leaving or even travelling beyond five miles from their accustomed place of abode, under pain of forfeiting all their lands to the queen.
Further instances of legislation against the religion (connected with the dynasty) are to be found in the latter part of the 17th century in the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement, providing for a succession of Protestant sovereigns, who would join in com munion with the Church of England and make declarations against Transubstantiation. Even as late as 1715 an Act (I Geo. I. c. 5o) was passed "for appointing commissioners to enquire of the estates of certain traitors, and of popish recusants, and of estates given to superstitious uses in order to raise money out of them severally for the use of the public." But thereafter legislation was mostly of an ameliorative char acter, and the present legal position of Roman Catholics may be gauged from a summary of that legislation.
The Relief Act, 1791, was passed to "relieve, upon conditions, and under restrictions, the persons therein described from certain penalties and disabilities to which papists or persons professing the popish religion, are by law subject." It allowed such persons, on taking an oath of undivided allegiance to George the Third and his Hanoverian successors and of abjuration of a right to murder heretics, etc., to move out of their five-mile limit ; to live in London and Westminster; to stay away from the Protestant church; to say and hear Mass (but not in a building with a steeple or bell) ; to educate in the popish religion (but not to teach in endowed colleges, or to receive the child of a Protestant father in a school kept by a Roman Catholic, or to establish a Roman Catholic school) ; to join a religious order (but not to wear its habit out of doors or to found or endow an order) ; to be exempt (if in holy orders) from serving on juries; and to be protected from brawlers. The declaration against Transubstantiation, which
had been imposed by an Act of 1672 upon peers and civil and military officers, was abolished.
In 1829 this carefully restricted freedom again to practise the proscribed religion was extended by the statute commonly known as the Catholic Emancipation Act (io Geo. IV., c. 7). It further disestablished oaths and declarations against Transubstantiation, the invocation of saints and the sacrifice of the mass, by making such oaths and declarations no longer a qualification for member ship of parliament or the holding of any office, franchise or civil right, except offices in or connected with the Established churches, or in any educational institution in regard to which such oaths obtained. But a new oath, against any attempt to subvert the Protestant religion, was imposed upon Members of Parliament, naval, military and municipal officers and electors. Priests were forbidden to sit in the House of Commons, but all civil and mili tary offices were thrown open to Catholics, except the regency of the kingdom, the lord chancellorship, the lord-lieutenancy of Ire land and the high commissionership of the Church of Scotland.
Also they could not present to livings in the Church of England.
Many other restrictions upon religious liberty were maintained. Judicial and municipal officers were forbidden to attend in their insignia any public worship, except in a building of the Established Church; priests and monks were prohibited from conducting ceremonies or wearing habits save in their churches or private houses. Jesuits and all other male persons under religious vows already in the country were to register themselves—they did so for many years—and the entry into the country of those not already there was forbidden, with the exception of those of them who, being natural born British subjects, had left the country temporarily, and of others who might get a licence from a Protes tant secretary of State to come into the country for a period not exceeding six months. To admit a person into a religious order was made a misdemeanour; the admitted person was to be ban ished for life, and transported for life if he had not gone within three months after the sentence of banishment. An attempt (ap parently the only attempt) to enforce this law against religious orders was made as late as 1902, but the magistrate refused a summons and was upheld by the High Court : R. v. Kennedy; 86 Law Times Rep. 753. In 1898 parliament had declined to pass a bill for repealing the law, but it has now been repealed by the Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1926.