Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791

The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 (31 Geo. 3. c. 32) is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1791 relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities. It admitted Catholics to the practice of law, permitted the exercise of their religion, and the existence of their schools. On the other hand, chapels, schools, officiating priests and teachers were to be registered, assemblies with locked doors, as well as steeples and bells to chapels, were forbidden; priests were not to wear vestments or celebrate liturgies in the open air; children of Protestants were not to be admitted to the schools; monastic orders and endowments of schools and colleges were prohibited.

The sentiment for reform was helped along by the signing of the Edict of Versailles in France in 1787, whereby non-Catholic French subjects were given full legal status in a kingdom where Catholicism had always been the state religion.

Terms
The 1791 Relief Act was significantly greater in scope than its predecessor, the Papists Act 1778. Once again, it required an oath, this time including a promise to support the Protestant Succession under the Act of Settlement 1701. Catholics who took the oath were protected from prosecution for their faith.

The Act also lifted a number of other strictures on Catholics. Catholics were no longer to be summoned to take the Oath of Supremacy, or to be removed from London; the legislation of King George I, requiring them to register their estates and wills, was absolutely repealed; while the professions of counsellor and barrister at law, attorney, solicitor, and notary were opened to them.

However, the Act required that Catholic assemblies should be certified at Quarter Sessions, with officiants recorded by the Clerk of the Peace. Buildings hosting such assemblies could not be locked, or have a steeple or bell.

The Relief Act of 1791 undoubtedly marked a great step in the removal of Catholic grievances, but the English statesmen felt, along with the Catholic body, that much more was required. William Pitt the Younger and his rival, Charles James Fox, were alike pledged to a full measure of Catholic Emancipation, but they were both thwarted by the obstinacy of King George III, who insisted that to agree to any such measure would be a violation of his coronation oath.

There were also at this period considerable dissensions within the Catholic ranks. These concerned first the question of Veto on the appointment of bishops in Ireland, which it was proposed to confer on the English Government, and belongs chiefly to the history of Emancipation in that country. There was another cause of dissension, more properly English, which was connected with the adjuration of the supposed Catholic doctrines contained in the oath imposed upon those who wished to participate in the benefits conferred by the Act of 1791, as previously by that of 1778. The lay members of the Catholic committee who had framed this disclaimer were accused by the Vicars Apostolic, who then administered the Catholic Church in England, of tampering with matters of ecclesiastical discipline; and although the bishops had their way in the matter of the oath, the feud survived, and was proclaimed to the world by the formation in 1792 of the Cisalpine Club, the members whereof were pledged "to resist any ecclesiastical interference which may militate against the freedom of English Catholics".

The Irish Act of 1793
The Act was followed by the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793, an Act of the Irish Parliament in 1793, with some local provisions such as allowing Catholics to vote in elections to the Irish House of Commons and to take degrees at Trinity College Dublin. Catholic schools had already been permitted again by the Irish Catholic Relief Act 1782, subject to the teachers taking the Oath of Allegiance and obtaining a licence from the local Church of Ireland (Protestant) Bishop.