Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 11

TJic Celtic Magar^ine.
head of all the churches in Europe, to the very sweet Pope, to the
pastor of pastors, the lowliest to the highest, the last to the first,
to Boniface, the father, dareth to write Columbanus." He calls the
Pope "the first pastor set higher than all mortals." "The pilot
of the spiritual ship," he says, "that his sentences strengthen the
traditions of our elders." "The Irish are bound to the chair of
Peter." " It is only through this chair that Rome is great and
bright among the Irish." " Rome is the principal seat of the
orthodox faith." " The Irish are the sons, the scholars, the servants
of the Pope." Could words be plainer or stronger than these?
Could the most pronounced ultramontane of the present day
describe in more explicit language the supremacy of Rome } Is
it not a most gratuitous assertion to declare, in the face of these
expressions, that the Church in Ireland was ever anything but
loyal and submissive to Rome } And, must we not conclude, as
a consequence, that the Celtic Church in Scotland, which came
from Ireland, and was in everything, if I may use the expression,
ultra Irish, was equally with the parent Church — the child, the
.scholar, the .servant of the Pope }
To put the matter beyond the possibility of a doubt, we have
a confession of faith, made in the name of the whole Church in
Great Britain and Ireland, before the Pope in Rome.
Bede informs us (lib. 5, C. 19) that Bishop Wilfrid went to
Rome about the year 679, to appeal against Archbishop Theodore.
He arrived while a council was being held by 125 bishops, under
Pope Agatho, against the Monotholite heresy. On being called
in to the council, his case heard, and he himself acquitted, he was
requested to make a confession of faith, his own as well as that of
the several Churches of the Island whence he came ; and Bede
.says that this declaration which he made was inserted in the acts
of the council in these words : — " Wilfrid, the beloved of God,
Bi.shop of York, appealing to the Apostolic See in his cause, and
being by that authority acquitted of certain and uncertain things,
and seated in judgment with the other 125 bishops in the Synod,
made confession of the true and Catholic faith, and subscribed thel
same, in the name of all the Northern parts, to wit, the Isles of
Britain and Ireland, which are inhabited by the nations of the
English and Britons, and by those of the Picts and Scots, and in