According to the proposal, any restoration of the full episcopal hierarchy of the Catholic Church, in United Kingdom, should be subject to a veto of the Crown over the appointment of any bishop who was suspected to the involved in political activities hostile to the state.
Although similar vetos, as a survival from the Medieval Investiture Controversy, existed elsewhere in countries such as France and there was some acceptance among the clerical hierarchy, there was a strong backlash to the proposal from the growing Irish Catholic middle-class laity, who did not want anything resembling Caesaropapism, such as a State veto on Irish bishops (and thus preferred them to be directly approved from Rome).
Although the penal laws enacted against the Catholics of Ireland and of Britain were still on the statute book towards the close of the eighteenth century, they were less strictly administered than before.
On 15 June 1799, Cardinal Stefano Borgia, prefect of Propaganda, having heard a report that John Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, was leader of a party which was disposed to compromise the jurisdiction of the Holy See by assenting to some plan about church discipline, wrote to him asking him for the facts.
On 17 August 1799, Troy replied to the cardinal declaring it was quite false that any plan had been arranged, and having given an account of the meeting and resolutions of the Maynooth trustees he added: "As to the proposal itself, the Prelates were anxious to set aside or elude it; but being unable to do so, they determined to have the rights of the Church secured."
In the spring of 1800, Troy, writing on the same topic to his agent at Rome, R. Luke Concanen, says: We all wish to remain as we are; and we would so, were it not that too many of the clergy were active in the wicked rebellion, or did not oppose it.
If the Prelates had refused to consider the proposal, they would be accused of a design to exercise an influence over the people, independent of government, for seditious purposes.
In 1805 Charles James Fox and Lord Grenville presented to Parliament a petition to relieve the Irish Catholics from their civil disabilities.
On 1 February the English Catholic Board held a meeting in London at which a series of resolutions were carried, including one which involved the veto.
In 1813 Grattan, George Canning, and Castlereagh brought in what purported to be a Catholic Relief Bill, with a condition which would practically place the appointment of bishops in the hands of a board of commissioners to be named by the king; it also provided that anyone exercising special functions or receiving documents from the Holy See without the knowledge and approbation of that Board, was to be considered guilty of a misdemeanour.
They therefore represented to Propaganda the great benefit which the Catholic religion would derive from Emancipation, and the harmlessness of the veto conditions on which the Government had offered it.
In the light of these representations, Quarantotti, in his rescript of February 1814, whilst rejecting certain conditions of the Relief Bill as not lawful, declared that securities for the loyalty of bishops which the Government claimed might be allowed.
It did not contain an order, but rather a permission, its words being Haec cum ita sint, indulgemus etc, thus leaving the Catholics free to accept or refuse Emancipation on the condition offered.
As to the appointment of bishops, it said that quite enough provision had been made for their loyalty in the Catholic oath; but for their greater satisfaction it permits "those to whom it appertains" to present to the king's ministers a list of the candidates they select for bishoprics; it insisted, however, that if those names were presented, the Government must, if it should think any of them "obnoxious or suspected" name him "at once"; moreover, that a sufficient number, from amongst whom the pope would appoint the bishop, must always remain even after the government objection.
The Catholic cause grew so hopeless that in December, 1821, O'Connell submitted to Dr. Blake, the Vicar-General of Dublin, a sort of veto plan, to get his opinion on it.