The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional, by
Father Chiniquy
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Title: The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional
Author: Father Chiniquy
Release Date: December 16, 2006 [EBook #20120]
Language: English
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THE PRIEST, THE WOMAN
AND
THE CONFESSIONAL.
By FATHER CHINIQUY.
Montreal:
F. E. GRAFTON, BOOKSELLER.
CORNER CRAIG ST. AND VICTORIA SQUARE.
1875.
* * * * *
ENTERED according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
One
thousand eight hundred and seventy-five, by F. E. GRAFTON of
Montreal, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE STRUGGLE BEFORE THE SURRENDER OF WOMANLY SELF-RESPECT IN THE
CONFESSIONAL
CHAPTER II.
AURICULAR CONFESSION A DEEP PIT OF PERDITION FOR THE PRIEST
CHAPTER III.
THE CONFESSIONAL IS THE MODERN SODOM
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE VOW OF CELIBACY OF THE PRIESTS IS MADE EASY BY AURICULAR CONFESSION
CHAPTER V.
THE HIGHLY EDUCATED AND REFINED WOMAN IN THE CONFESSIONAL.--WHAT BECOMES OF
HER AFTER HER UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.--HER IRREPARABLE RUIN
CHAPTER VI.
AURICULAR CONFESSION DESTROYS ALL THE SACRED TIES OF MARRIAGE AND HUMAN
SOCIETY
CHAPTER VII.
SHOULD AURICULAR CONFESSION BE TOLERATED AMONG CIVILIZED NATIONS?
CHAPTER VIII.
DOES AURICULAR CONFESSION BRING PEACE TO THE SOUL?
CHAPTER IX.
THE DOGMA OF AURICULAR CONFESSION A SACRILEGIOUS IMPOSTURE
CHAPTER X.
GOD COMPELS THE CHURCH OF ROME TO CONFESS THE ABOMINATIONS OF AURICULAR
CONFESSION
CHAPTER XI.
SOME OF THE MATTERS ON WHICH THE PRIEST OF ROME MUST QUESTION HIS
PENITENTS.--A CHAPTER FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF LEGISLATORS, HUSBANDS,
FATHERS, &C.
* * * * *
PREFACE.
* * * * *
EZEKIEL.
CHAPTER VIII.
1 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth _month_, in the fifth
_day_ of the month, _as_ I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat
before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.
2 Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire; from the
appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even
upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber.
3 And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head;
and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought
me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that
looketh toward the north; where _was_ the seat of the image of jealousy,
which provoketh to jealousy.
4 And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel _was_ there, according to the
vision that I saw in the plain.
5 Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward
the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold
northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
6 He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? _even_
the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I
should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, _and_ thou
shalt see greater abominations.
7 And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a
hole in the wall.
8 Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall; and when I had
digged in the wall, behold a door.
9 And he said unto me. Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they
do here.
10 So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and
abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed
upon the wall round about.
11 And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of
Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with
every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.
12 Then said he unto me. Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of
the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his
imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the
earth.
13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, _and_ thou shalt see greater
abominations that they do.
14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house which
_was_ toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.
15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen _this_, O Son of man? turn thee yet
again, _and_ thou shalt see greater abominations than these.
16 And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold,
at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar,
_were_ about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the
LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward
the east.
17 Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen _this_, O Son of man? Is it a light
thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they
commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned
to provoke me to anger; and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.
18 Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither
will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, _yet_
will I not hear them.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
THE STRUGGLE BEFORE THE SURRENDER OF WOMANLY SELF-RESPECT IN THE
CONFESSIONAL.
* * * * *
There are two women who ought to be the constant objects of the compassion
of the disciples of Christ, and for whom daily prayers ought to be offered
at the mercy-seat--the Brahmin woman, who, deceived by her priests, burns
herself on the corpse of her husband to appease the wrath of her wooden
gods; and the Roman Catholic woman, who, not less deceived by her priests,
suffers a torture far more cruel and ignominious in the confessional-box to
appease the wrath of her wafer-god.
For I do not exaggerate when I say that for many noble-hearted,
well-educated, high-minded women to be forced to unveil their hearts before
the eyes of a man, to open to him all the most sacred recesses of their
souls, all the most sacred mysteries of their single or married life, to
allow him to put to them questions which the most depraved woman would
never consent to hear from her vilest seducer, is often more horrible and
intolerable than to be tied on burning coals.
More than once I have seen women fainting in the confessional-box, who told
me, afterwards, that the necessity of speaking to an unmarried man on
certain things, on which the most common laws of decency ought to have for
ever sealed their lips, had almost killed them! Not hundreds, but thousands
of times I have heard from the dying lips of single girls, as well as of
married women, the awful words: "I am for ever lost! All my past
confessions and communions have been as many sacrileges! I have never dared
to answer correctly the questions of my confessors! Shame has sealed my
lips and damned my soul!"
How many times I remained as one petrified by the side of a corpse when,
these last words having hardly escaped the lips of one of my female
penitents, she was snatched out of my reach by the merciless hand of death,
before I could give her pardon through the deceitful sacramental
absolution! I then believed, as the dead sinner herself believed, that she
could not be forgiven except by that absolution.
For there are not only thousands, but millions, of Roman Catholic girls and
women whose keen sense of modesty and womanly dignity are above all the
sophisms and diabolical machinations of their priests. They never can be
persuaded to answer "Yes" to certain questions of their confessors. They
would prefer to be thrown into the flames, and burnt to ashes with the
Brahmin widows, rather than to allow the eyes of a man to pry into the
sacred sanctuary of their souls. Though sometimes guilty before God, and
under the impression that their sins will never be forgiven if not
confessed, the laws of decency are stronger in their hearts than the laws
of their cruel and perfidious Church. No consideration, not even the fear
of eternal damnation, can persuade them to declare to a sinful man sins
which God alone has the right to know, for He alone can blot them out with
the blood of His Son shed on the cross.
But what a wretched life that of those exceptional noble souls, which Rome
keeps in the dark dungeons of her superstition! They read in all their
books, and hear from all their pulpits, that if they conceal a single sin
from their confessors they are for ever lost! But, being absolutely unable
to trample under their feet the laws of self-respect and decency which God
Himself has impressed in their souls, they live in constant dread of
eternal damnation. No human words can tell their desolation and distress
when, at the feet of their confessors, they find themselves between the
horrible necessity of speaking of things on which they would prefer to
suffer the most cruel death rather than to open their lips, or to be for
ever damned if they do not degrade themselves for ever in their own eyes by
speaking on matters which a respectable woman will never reveal to her own
mother, much less to a man!
I have known only too many of these noble-hearted women, who, when alone
with God, in a real agony of desolation and with burning tears, had asked
Him to grant them what they considered the greatest favour, which was to
lose so much of their self-respect as to be enabled to speak of those
unmentionable things just as their confessors wanted them to speak; and,
hoping that their petition had been granted, they went again to the
confessional-box, determined to unveil their shame before the eyes of that
inexorable man. But, when the moment had come for the self-immolation,
their courage failed, their knees trembled, their lips became pale as
death. Cold sweat flowed from all their pores! The voice of modesty and
womanly self-respect was speaking louder than the voice of their false
religion. They had to go out of the confessional-box unpardoned--nay, with
the burden of a new sacrilege on their conscience.
Oh, how heavy is the yoke of Rome--how bitter is human life--how cheerless
is the mystery of the cross to those deluded and perishing souls! How
gladly they would rush into the blazing piles with the Brahmin women, if
they could hope to see the end of their unspeakable miseries through the
momentary tortures which would open to them the gates of a better life!
I do here publicly challenge the whole Roman Catholic priesthood to deny
that the greater part of their female penitents remain a certain period of
time--some longer, some shorter--under that most distressing state of mind.
Yes, by far the greater majority of women, at first, find it next to
impossible to pull down the sacred barriers of self-respect which God
Himself has built around their hearts, intelligences, and souls, as the
best safeguard against the snares of this polluted world. Those laws of
self-respect, by which they cannot consent to speak an impure word into the
ears of a man, and which shut all the avenues of their hearts against his
unchaste questions, even, when speaking in the name of God--those laws of
self-respect are so clearly written in their conscience, and they are so
well understood by them to be a most Divine gift, that, as I have already
said, many prefer to run the risk of being for ever lost by remaining
silent.
It takes many years of the most ingenious (I do not hesitate to call it
diabolical) efforts on the part of the priests to persuade the majority of
their female penitents to speak on questions which even pagan savages would
blush to mention among themselves. Some persist in remaining silent on
those matters during the greatest part of their lives, and many prefer to
throw themselves into the hands of their merciful God and die without
submitting to the defiling ordeal, even after they have felt the poisonous
stings of the enemy, rather than receive their pardon from a man who, as
they feel, would have surely been scandalized by the recital of their human
frailties. All the priests of Rome are aware of this natural disposition of
their female penitents. There is not a single one--no, not a single one of
their moral theologians, who does not warn the confessors against that
stern and general determination of the girls and married women never to
speak in the confessional on matters which may, more or less, deal with
sins against the seventh commandment. Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, Bailly,
&c.--in a word, all the theologians of Rome--own that this is one of the
greatest difficulties which the confessors have to contend with in the
confessional-box.
Not a single Roman Catholic priest will dare to deny what I say on this
matter; for they know that it would be easy for me to overwhelm them with
such crowd of testimonies that their grand imposture would for ever be
unmasked.
I intend, some future day, if God spares me and gives me time for it, to
make known some of the innumerable things which the Roman Catholic
theologians and moralists have written on this question. It will form one
of the most curious books ever written; and it will give an unanswerable
evidence of the fact that, instinctively, without consulting each other,
with an unanimity which is almost marvellous, the Roman Catholic women,
guided by the honest instincts which God has given them, shrink from the
snares put before them in the confessional-box; and that everywhere they
struggle to nerve themselves with a superhuman courage against the torturer
who is sent by the Pope to finish their ruin and to make shipwreck of their
souls. Everywhere woman feels that there are things which ought never to be
told, as there are things which ought never to be done, in the presence of
the God of holiness. She understands that, to recite the history of certain
sins, even of thoughts, is not less shameful and criminal than to do them;
she hears the voice of God whispering into her ears, "Is it not enough that
thou hast been guilty once, when alone, in My presence, without adding to
thine iniquity, by allowing that man to know what should never have been
revealed to him? Do you not feel that you make that man your own accomplice
the very moment that you throw into his heart and soul the mire of your
iniquities? He is as weak as you are; he is not less a sinner than
yourself; what has tempted you will tempt him; what has made you weak will
make him weak? what has polluted you will pollute him; what has thrown you
down into the dust will throw him down into the dust. Is it not enough that
My eyes had to look upon your iniquities? must my ears to-day listen to
your impure conversation with that man? Were that man as holy as My prophet
David, may he not fall before the unchaste unveiling of the new Bathsheba?
Were he as strong as Sampson, may he not find in you his tempting Delilah?
Were he as generous as Peter, may he not become a traitor at the
maid-servant's voice?"
Perhaps the world has never seen a more terrible, desperate, solemn
struggle than the one which is going on in the soul of the poor trembling
young woman, who, at the feet of that man, has to decide whether or not she
will open her lips on those things which the infallible voice of God,
united to the no less infallible voice of her womanly honour and
self-respect, tell her never to reveal to any man!
The history of that secret, fierce, desperate, and deadly struggle has
never yet, so far as I know, been fully given. It would draw the tears of
admiration and compassion of the whole world, if it could be written with
its simple, sublime, and terrible realities.
How many times I have wept as a child when some noble-hearted and
intelligent young girl, or some respectable married woman, yielding to the
sophisms with which I, or some other confessor, had persuaded them to give
up their self-respect, their womanly dignity, to speak with me on matters
on which a decent woman would never say a word with a man! They told me of
their invincible repugnance, their horror of such questions and answers,
and they asked me to have pity on them. Yes! I often wept bitterly on my
degradation when a priest of Rome! I felt all the strength, the grandeur,
the holiness of their motives for being silent on those defiling matters. I
could not but admire them. It seemed, at times, that they were speaking the
language of angels of light; that I ought to fall at their feet, and ask
their pardon for having spoken to them of questions on which a man of
honour ought never to converse with a woman whom he respects.
But, alas! I had soon to reproach myself and regret these short instances
of my wavering faith in the infallible voice of my Church; I had soon to
silence the voice of my conscience, which was telling me, "Is it not a
shame that you, an unmarried man, dare to speak on those matters with a
woman? Do you not blush to put such questions to a young girl? Where is
your self-respect? where is your fear of God? Do you not promote the ruin
of that girl by forcing her to speak with a man on such questions?"
I was compelled by all the Popes, the moral theologians, and the Councils
of Rome, to believe that this warning voice of my merciful God was the
voice of Satan; I had to believe, in spite of my own conscience and
intelligence, that it was good, nay, necessary, to put those polluting,
damning questions. My infallible Church was mercilessly forcing me to
oblige those poor, trembling, weeping, desolated girls and women to swim
with me and all her priests in those waters of Sodom and Gomorrha, under
the pretext that their self-will would be broken down, their fear of sin
and humility increased, and that they would be purified by our absolutions.
In the beginning of my priesthood, I was not a little surprised and
embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady, whom I
used to meet almost every week in her father's house, entering the box of
my confessional. She used to go to confess to another young priest of my
acquaintance, and she was looked upon as one of the most pious girls of the
city. Though she had disguised herself as much as possible, that I might
not know her, I thought that I was not mistaken--she was the amiable Mary
* * * *
Not being absolutely sure of the correctness of my impressions, I left her
entirely under the hope that she was a perfect stranger to me. At the
beginning she could hardly speak; her voice was suffocated by her sobs;
and, through the little apertures of the thin partition between her and me,
I saw two streams of big tears trickling down her cheeks.
After much effort, she said: "Dear Father, I hope you do not know me, and
that you will never try to know me. I am a desperately great sinner. Oh! I
fear that I am lost! But if there is still any hope for me to be saved, for
God's sake, do not rebuke me! Before I begin my confession, allow me to ask
you not to pollute my ears by the questions which our confessors are in the
habit of putting to their female penitents. I have already been destroyed
by those questions. Before I was seventeen years old, God knows that His
angels are not more pure than I was; but the chaplain of the Nunnery where
my parents had sent me for my education, though approaching old age, put to
me in the confessional a question which, at first, I did not understand;
but, unfortunately, he had put the same questions to one of my young
class-mates, who made fun of them in my presence, and explained them to me;
for she understood them too well. This first unchaste conversation of my
life plunged my thoughts into a sea of iniquity, till then absolutely
unknown to me; temptations of the most humiliating character assailed me
for a week, day and night; after which, sins which I would blot out with my
blood, if it were possible, overwhelmed my soul as with a deluge. But the
joys of the sinner are short. Struck with terror at the thought of the
judgments of God, after a few weeks of the most deplorable life, I
determined to give up my sins and reconcile myself to God. Covered with
shame, and trembling from head to foot, I went to confess to my old
confessor, whom I respected as a saint and cherished as a father. It seems
to me that with sincere tears of repentance I confessed to him the greatest
part of my sins, though I concealed one of them through shame, and respect
for my spiritual guide. But I did not conceal from him that the strange
questions he had put to me at my last confession were, with the natural
corruption of my heart, the principal cause of my destruction.
"He spoke to me very kindly, encouraged me to fight against my bad
inclinations, and, at first, gave me very kind and good advice. But when I
thought he had finished speaking, and as I was preparing to leave the
confessional-box, he put to me two new questions of such a polluting
character that I fear neither the blood of Christ nor all the fires of hell
will ever be able to blot them out from my memory. Those questions have
achieved my ruin; they have stuck to my mind as two deadly arrows; they are
day and night before my imagination; they fill my very arteries and veins
with a deadly poison.
"It is true that, at first, they filled me with horror and disgust; but,
alas! I soon got so accustomed to them that they seemed to be incorporated
with me, and as though becoming a second nature. Those thoughts have become
a new source of innumerable criminal thoughts, desires, and actions.
"A month later, we were obliged, by the rules of our convent, to go to
confess; but this time, I was so completely lost that I no longer blushed
at the idea of confessing my shameful sins to a man; it was the very
contrary. I had a real, diabolical pleasure in the thought that I should
have a long conversation with my confessor on those matters, and that he
would ask me more of his strange questions.
"In fact, when I had told him everything, without a blush, he began to
interrogate me, and God knows what corrupting things fell from his lips
into my poor criminal heart! Every one of his questions was thrilling my
nerves, and filling me with the most shameful sensations. After an hour of
this criminal _tête-á-tête_ with my old confessor (for it was nothing else
but a criminal _tête-á-tête_), I perceived that he was as depraved as I was
myself. With some half-covered words, he made me a criminal proposition,
which I accepted with covered words also; and during more than a year, we
have lived together in the most sinful intimacy. Though he was much older
than I, I loved him in the most foolish way. When the course of my convent
instruction was finished, my parents called me back to their home. I was
really glad of that change of residence, for I was beginning to be tired of
my criminal life. My hope was that, under the direction of a better
confessor, I should reconcile myself to God and begin a Christian life.
"Unfortunately for me, my new confessor, who was very young, began also his
interrogations. He soon fell in love with me, and I loved him in a most
criminal way. I have done with him things which I hope you will never
request me to reveal to you, for they are too monstrous to be repeated,
even in the confessional, by a woman to a man.
"I do not say these things to take away the responsibility of my iniquities
with this young confessor from my shoulders, for I think I have been more
criminal than he was. It is my firm conviction that he was a good and holy
priest before he knew me; but the questions he put to me, and the answers I
had to give him, melted his heart--I know it--just as boiling lead would
melt the ice on which it flows.
"I know this is not such a detailed confession as our holy Church requires
me to make, but I have thought it necessary for me to give you this short
history of the life of the greatest and the most miserable sinner who ever
asked you to help her to come out from the tomb of her iniquities. This is
the way I have lived these last few years. But last Sabbath, God, in His
infinite mercy, looked down upon me. He inspired you to give us the
Prodigal Son as a model of true conversion, and as the most marvelous proof
of the infinite compassion of the dear Saviour for the sinner. I have wept
day and night since that happy day, when I threw myself into the arms of my
loving, merciful Father. Even now I can hardly speak, because my regret for
my past iniquities, and my joy that I am allowed to bathe the feet of my
Saviour with my tears, are so great that my voice is as choked.
"You understand that I have for ever given up my last confessor. I come to
ask you the favour to receive me among your penitents. Oh! do not reject
nor rebuke me, for the dear Saviour's sake! Be not afraid to have at your
side such a monster of iniquity! But before going farther, I have two
favours to ask from you. The first is, that you will never do anything to
know my name; the second is, that you will never put me any of those
questions by which so many penitents are lost and so many priests for ever
destroyed. Twice I have been lost by those questions. We come to our
confessors that they may throw upon our guilty souls the pure waters which
flow from heaven to purify us; and, instead of that, with their
unmentionable questions, they pour oil on the burning fires which arc
already raging in our poor sinful hearts. Oh! dear father, let me become
your penitent, that you may help me to go and weep with Magdalene at the
Saviours feet! Do respect me, as He respected that true model of all the
sinful but repenting women! Did Our Saviour put to her any question? did He
extort from her the history of things which a sinful woman cannot say
without forgetting the respect she owes to herself and to God? No! You told
us, not long ago, that the only thing our Saviour did was to look at her
tears and her love. Well, please do that, and you will save me!"
I was a very young priest, and never had any words so sublime come to my
ears in the confessional-box. Her tears and her sobs, mingled with the so
frank declaration of the most humiliating actions, had made upon me such a
profound impression that I was, for some time, unable to speak. It had come
to my mind also that I might be mistaken about her identity, and that
perhaps she was not the young lady that I had imagined. I could, then,
easily grant her first request, which was to do nothing by which I could
know her. The second part of her prayer was more embarrassing; for the
theologians are very positive in ordering the confessors to question their
penitents, particularly those of the female sex, in many circumstances.
I encouraged her, in the best way I could, to persevere in her good
resolutions by invoking the blessed Virgin Mary and St. Philomène, who was
then the _Sainte à la mode_, just as Marie Alacoque is to-day, among the
blind slaves of Rome. I told her that I would pray and think over the
subject of her second request; and I asked her to come back, in a week, for
my answer.
The very same day, I went to my own confessor, the Rev. Mr. Baillargeon,
then curate of Quebec, and afterwards Archbishop of Canada. I told him the
singular and unusual request she had made that I should never put to her
any of those questions suggested by the theologians, to insure the
integrity of the confession. I did not conceal from him that I was much
inclined to grant her that favour; for I repeated what I had already
several times told him, that I was supremely disgusted with the infamous
and polluting questions which the theologians forced us to put to our
female penitents. I told him, frankly, that several young and old priests
had already come to confess to me; and that, with the exception of two,
they had all told me that they could not put those questions and hear the
answers they elicited without falling into the most damnable sins.
My confessor seemed to be much perplexed about what he could answer. He
asked me to come the next day, that he might review his theological books
in the interval. The next day, I took down in writing his answer, which I
find in my old manuscripts; and I give it here in all its sad crudity:--
"Such cases of the destruction of female virtue by the questions of the
confessors is an unavoidable evil. It can not be helped; for such questions
are absolutely necessary in the greatest part of the cases with which we
have to deal. Men generally confess their sins with so much sincerity that
there is seldom any need for questioning them, except when they are very
ignorant. But St Liguori, as well as our personal observation, tells us
that the greatest part of girls and women, through a false and criminal
shame, very seldom confess the sins they commit against purity. It requires
the utmost charity in the confessors to prevent those unfortunate slaves of
their secret passions from making sacrilegious confessions and communions.
With the greatest prudence and zeal, he must question them on those
matters; beginning with the smallest sins, and going, little by little, as
much as possible, by imperceptible degrees, to the most criminal actions.
As it seems evident that the penitent referred to in your questions of
yesterday is unwilling to make a full and detailed confession of all her
iniquities, you cannot promise to absolve her without assuring yourself, by
wise and prudent questions, that she has confessed everything.
"You must not be discouraged when, through the confessional or any other
way, you learn the fall of priests into the common frailties of human
nature with their penitents. Our Saviour knew very well that the occasions
and the temptations we have to encounter, in the confessions of girls and
women, are so numerous, and sometimes so irrepressible, that many would
fall. But He has given them the Holy Virgin Mary, who constantly asks and
obtains their pardon; He has given them the sacrament of penance, where
they can receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. The vow of
perfect chastity is a great honour and privilege; but we cannot conceal
from ourselves that it puts on our shoulders a burden which many cannot
carry for ever. St Liguori says that we must not rebuke the penitent priest
who falls only once a month; and some other trustworthy theologians are
still more charitable."
This answer was far from satisfying me. It seemed to me composed of
soft-soap principles. I went back with a heavy heart and an anxious mind;
and God knows that I made many fervent prayers that this girl should never
come again to give me her sad history. I was hardly twenty-six years old,
full of youth and life. It seemed to me that the stings of a thousand wasps
to my ears would not do me so much harm as the words of that dear,
beautiful, accomplished, but lost girl.
I do not mean to say that the revelations which she made had, in any way,
diminished my esteem and my respect for her. It was just the contrary. Her
tears and her sobs, at my feet; her agonizing expressions of shame and
regret; her noble words of protest against the disgusting and polluting
interrogations of the confessors, had raised her very high in my mind. My
sincere hope was that she would have a place in the kingdom of Christ with
the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene, and all those who have washed their
robes in the blood of the Lamb.
At the appointed day, I was in my confessional, listening to the confession
of a young man, when, I saw Miss Mary entering the vestry, and coming
directly to my confessional-box, where she knelt by me. Though she had,
still more than at the first time, disguised herself behind a long, thick,
black veil, I could not be mistaken; she was the very same amiable young
lady in whose father's house I used to pass such pleasant and happy hours.
I had so often heard, with breathless attention, her melodious voice when
she was giving us, accompanied by her piano, some of our beautiful Church
hymns. Who could see her without almost worshipping her? The dignity of her
steps, and her whole mien, when she advanced towards my confessional,
entirely betrayed her and destroyed her incognito.
Oh! I would have given every drop of my blood, in that solemn hour, that I
might have been free to deal with her just as she had so eloquently
requested me to do--to let her weep and cry at the feet of Jesus to her
heart's content! Oh! if I had been free to take her by the hand, and
silently show her her dying Saviour, that she might have bathed His feet
with her tears, and spread the oil of her love on His head, without my
saying anything else but "Go in peace: thy sins are forgiven!"
But there, in that confessional-box, I was not the servant of Christ, to
follow His divine, saving words, and obey the dictates of my honest
conscience. I was the slave of the Pope! I had to stifle the cry of my
conscience, to ignore the inspirations of my God! There, my conscience had
no right to speak; my intelligence was a dead thing! The theologians of the
Pope, alone, had a right to be heard and obeyed! I was not there to save,
but to destroy; for, under the pretext of purifying, the real mission of
the confessor, often in spite of himself, is to scandalize and damn the
souls.
As soon as the young man, who was making his confession at my left hand,
had finished, I, without noise, turned myself towards her, and said,
through the little aperture, "Are you ready to begin your confession?"
But she did not answer me. All that I could hear was, "Oh, my Jesus, have
mercy upon me! Dear Saviour, here I am with all my sins; do not reject me!
I come to wash my soul in Thy blood; wilt Thou rebuke me?"
During several minutes, she raised her hands and her eyes to heaven, and
wept and prayed. It was evident that she had not the least idea that I was
observing her; she thought the door of the little partition between her and
me was shut. But my eyes were fixed upon her; my tears were flowing with
her tears, and my ardent prayers were going to the feet of Jesus with her
prayers. I would not have interrupted her, for any consideration, in this
her sublime communion with her merciful Saviour.
But, after a pretty long time, I made a little noise with my hand, and,
putting my lips near the opening of the partition which was between us, I
said, in a low voice, "Dear sister, are you ready to begin your
confession?"
She turned her face a little towards me, and said, with a trembling voice,
"Yes, dear Father, I am ready."
But she then stopped again to weep and pray, though I could not hear what
she said.
After some time of silent prayer, I said, "My dear sister, if you are
ready, please begin your confession."
She then said, "My dear Father, do you remember the prayers which I made to
you, the other day? Can you allow me to confess my sins without forcing me
to forget the respect I owe to myself, to you, and to God, who hears us?
And can you promise that you will not put to me any of those questions
which have already done me such irreparable injury? I frankly declare to
you that there are sins in me that I cannot reveal to any man, except to
Christ, because He is my God, and that He already knows them all. Let me
weep and cry at His feet, and do forgive me without adding to my iniquities
by forcing me to say things that the tongue of a Christian woman cannot
reveal to a man!"
"My dear sister," I answered, "were I free to follow the voice of my own
feelings I would be too happy to grant you your request; but I am here only
as the minister of our holy Church, and bound to obey her laws. Through her
most holy popes and theologians, she tells me that I cannot forgive you
your sins, if you do not confess them all just as you have committed them.
The Church tells me also that you must give the details which may add to
the malice or change the nature of your sins. I am also sorry to tell you
that our most holy theologians make it a duty of the confessor to question
his penitent on the sins which he has good reason to suspect have been
voluntarily or involuntarily omitted."
With a piercing, cry she exclaimed, "Then, O my God, I am lost--for ever
lost!"
This cry fell upon me as a thunderbolt; but I was still more
terror-stricken when, looking through the aperture, I saw she was fainting;
and I heard the noise of her body falling upon the floor, and of her head
striking against the sides of the confessional-box.
Quick as lightning, I ran to help her, took her in my arms, and called a
couple of men, who were at a little distance, to assist me in laying her on
a bench. I washed her face with some cold water and vinegar. She was as
pale as death, but her lips were moving, and she was saying something which
nobody but I could understand,--
"I am lost--lost for ever!"
We took her to her disconsolate family, where, during a month, she lingered
between life and death.
Her two first confessors came to visit her: but, having asked every one to
go out of the room, she politely but absolutely requested them to go away
and never come again. She asked me to visit her everyday, "for," she said,
"I have only a few more days to live. Help me to prepare myself for the
solemn hour which will open to me the gates of eternity!"
Every day I visited her, and I prayed and I wept with her.
Many times, with tears, I requested her, when alone, to finish her
confession; but, with a firmness which then seemed to me mysterious and
inexplicable, she politely rebuked me.
One day when, alone with her, I was kneeling by the side of her bed to
pray, I was unable to articulate a single word, because of the
inexpressible anguish of my soul on her account; she asked me, "Dear
Father, why do you weep?"
I answered, "How can you put such a question to your murderer? I weep
because I have killed you, dear friend."
This answer seemed to trouble her exceedingly. She was very weak that day.
After she had wept and prayed in silence, she said, "Do not weep for me,
but weep for so many priests who destroy their penitents in the
confessional. I believe in the holiness of the sacrament of penitence,
since our holy Church has established it. But there is, somewhere,
something exceedingly wrong in the confessional. Twice I have been
destroyed, and I know many girls who have also been destroyed by the
confessional. This is a secret, but will that secret be kept for ever? I
pity the poor priests the day that our fathers will know what becomes of
the purity of their daughters in the hands of their confessors. Father
would surely kill my two last confessors, if he could know how they have
destroyed his poor child."
I could not answer except by weeping.
We remained mute for a long time; then she said, "It is true that I was not
prepared for the rebuke you have given me, but you acted conscientiously as
a good and honest priest. I know you must be bound by certain laws."
She then pressed my hand with her cold hand and said, "Weep not, dear
Father, because that sudden storm has wrecked my too fragile back. This
storm was to take me out from the bottomless sea of my iniquities to the
shore where Jesus was waiting to receive and pardon me. The night after you
brought me, half dead, here to father's house, I had a dream. Oh, no, it
was not a dream, it was a reality. My Jesus came to me; He was bleeding.
His crown of thorns was on His head, the heavy cross was bruising His
shoulders. He said to me, with a voice so sweet that no human tongue can
imitate it, "I have seen thy tears, I have heard thy cries, and I know thy
love for Me: thy sins are forgiven. Take courage; in a few days thou shalt
be with Me!'"
She had hardly finished her last word when she fainted, and I feared lest
she should die just then when I was alone with her.
I called the family, who rushed into the room. The doctor was sent for. He
found her so weak that he thought proper to allow only one or two persons
to remain in the room. He requested us not to speak at all, "For," said he,
"the least emotion may kill her instantly; her disease is, in all
probability, an aneurism of the aorta, the big vein which brings the blood
to the heart; when it breaks she will go as quick as lightning."
It was nearly ten at night when I left the house, to go and take some rest.
But it is not necessary to say that I passed a sleepless night. My dear
Mary was there, pale, dying from the deadly blow which I had given her in
the confessional. She was there, on her bed of death, her heart pierced
with the dagger which my Church had put into my hands! And instead of
rebuking, cursing me for my savage, merciless fanaticism, she was blessing
me! She was dying from a broken heart, and I was not allowed by my Church
to give her a single word of consolation and hope, for she had not yet made
her confession! I had mercilessly bruised that tender plant, and there was
nothing in my hands to heal the wounds I had made!
It was very probable that she would die the next day, and I was forbidden
to show her the crown of glory which Jesus has prepared in His kingdom for
the repenting sinner!
My desolation was really unspeakable, and I think I would have been
suffocated, and have died that night, if the stream of tears which
constantly flowed from my eyes had not been as a balm to my distressed
heart.
How dark and long the hours of that night seemed to me!
Before the dawn of day I arose, to read my theologians again, and see if I
could not find some one who would allow me to forgive the sins of that dear
child without forcing her to tell me everything she had done. But they
seemed to me more than ever unanimously inexorable, and I put them back on
the shelves of my library with a broken heart.
At nine a.m. the next day I was by the bed of our dear sick Mary. I cannot
sufficiently tell the joy I felt when the doctor and the whole family said
to me, "She is much better; the rest of last night has wrought a marvelous
change indeed."
With a really angelic smile she extended her hand towards me, that I might
press it in mine; and she said, "I thought, last evening, that the dear
Saviour would take me to Him, but He wants me, dear Father, to give you a
little more trouble; but be patient, it cannot, be long before the solemn
hour of the appeal will ring. Will you please read me the history of the
sufferings and death of the beloved Saviour which you read me the other
day? It does me so much good to see how He has loved me, such a miserable
sinner."
There was a calm and a solemnity in her words which struck me singularly,
as well as all those who were there.
After I had finished reading, she exclaimed, "He has loved me so much that
He died for my sins!" And she shut her eyes as if to meditate in silence,
but there was a stream of big tears rolling down her cheeks.
I knelt down by her bed with her family to pray, but I could not utter a
single word. The idea that this dear child was there, dying from the cruel
fanaticism of my theologians and my own cowardice in obeying them, was as a
mill-stone to my neck. It was killing me.
Oh! if by dying a thousand times I could have added a single day to her
life, with what pleasure I would have accepted those thousand deaths!
After we had silently prayed and wept by her bed-side, she requested her
mother to leave her alone with me.
When I saw myself alone, under the irresistible impression that this was
her last day, I fell on my knees again, and with tears of the most sincere
compassion for her soul, I requested her to shake off her shame and to obey
our holy Church, which requires every one to confess their sins if they
want to be forgiven.
She calmly, but with an air of dignity which no human words can express,
said, "Is it true that, after the sin of Adam and Eve, God Himself made
coats of skins, and clothed them, that they might not see each other's
nakedness?"
"Yes," I said, "this is what the Holy Scriptures tell us."
"Well, then, how is it possible that our confessors dare to take away from
us that holy, divine coat of modesty and self-respect? Has not Almighty God
Himself made with His own hands that coat of womanly modesty and
self-respect that we might not be to you and to ourselves a cause of shame
and sin?"
I was really stunned by the beauty, simplicity, and sublimity of that
comparison. I remained absolutely mute and confounded. Though it was
demolishing all the traditions and doctrines of my Church, and pulverizing
all my holy doctors and theologians, that noble answer found such an echo
in my soul that it seemed to me a sacrilege to try to touch it with my
finger.
After a short time of silence, she continued, "Twice I have been destroyed
by priests in the confessional. They took away from me that divine coat of
modesty and self-respect which God gives to every human being who comes
into this world, and twice I have become for those very priests a deep pit
of perdition, into which they have fallen, and where, I fear, they are for
ever lost! My merciful Heavenly Father has given me back that coat of
skins, that nuptial robe of modesty, self-respect, and holiness, which had
been taken away from me. He cannot allow you, or any other man, to tear
again and spoil that vestment which is the work of His hands."
These words had exhausted her; it was evident to me that she wanted some
rest. I left her alone, but I was absolutely beside myself. Filled with
admiration for the sublime lessons which I had received from the lips of
that angel, who, it was evident, was soon to fly away from us, I felt a
supreme disgust for myself, my theologians, and--shall I say it? yes--I
felt, in that solemn hour, a supreme disgust for my Church, which was so
cruelly defiling me and all the priests, in the confessional-box. I felt in
that hour a supreme horror for that auricular confession, which is so often
such a pit of perdition and supreme misery for the confessor and the
penitent. I went out, walked two hours on the Plains of Abraham, to breathe
the pure and refreshing air of the mountain. There alone I sat on a stone,
on the very spot where Wolf and Montcalm had fought and died, and wept to
my heart's content on my irreparable degradation, and the degradation of
all the priests through the confessional.
At four o'clock in the afternoon I went back again to the house of my dear
dying Mary. The mother took me apart, and very politely said, "My dear Mr.
Chiniquy, do you not think that it is time that our dear child should
receive the last sacraments? She seemed to be much better this morning, and
we were full of hope; but she is now rapidly sinking. Please lose no time
in giving her the holy viaticum and the extreme unction."
I said, "Yes, Madam; let me pass a few minutes alone with our poor dear
child, that I may prepare her for the last sacraments."
When alone with her, I again fell on my knees, and, amidst torrents of
tears, I said, "Dear sister, it is my desire to give you the holy viaticum
and the extreme unction; but tell me, how can I dare to do a thing so
solemn against all the prohibitions of our holy Church? How can I give you
the holy communion without first giving you absolution? and how can I give
you absolution when you earnestly persist in telling me that you have
committed sins which you will never declare either to me or any other
confessor?
"You know that I cherish and respect you as if you were an angel sent to me
from heaven. You told me the other day that you blessed the day that you
first saw and knew me. I say the same thing. I bless the day that I have
known you; I bless every hour that I have passed by your bed of suffering;
I bless every tear which I have shed with you on your sins and on my own; I
bless every hour that we have passed together in looking to the wounds of
our beloved, dying Saviour; I bless you for having forgiven me your death!
for I know it, and I confess it a thousand times in the presence of God, I
have killed you, dear sister. But now I prefer a thousand times to die than
to say to you a word which would pain you in any way, or trouble the peace
of your soul. Please, my dear sister, tell me what I can and must do for
you in this solemn hour."
Calmly, and with a smile of joy, such as I had never seen before, nor have
seen since, she said, "I thank and bless you, dear father, for the parable
of the Prodigal Son, on which you preached a month ago. You have brought me
to the feet of the dear Saviour; there, I have found a peace and a joy
which surpass anything which human heart can feel; I have thrown myself
into the arms of my heavenly Father, and I know He has mercifully accepted
and forgiven His poor prodigal child! Oh, I see the angels with their
golden harps around the throne of the Lamb! Do you not hear the celestial
harmony of their songs? I go--I go to join them in my Father's house. I
shall not be lost!"
While she was thus speaking to me, my eyes were really turned into two
fountains of tears, and I was unable, as well as unwilling, to see
anything, so entirely overcome was I by the sublime words which were
flowing from the dying lips of that dear child, who was no more a sinner,
but a real angel of Heaven to me. I was listening to her words; there was a
celestial music in every one of them. But she had raised her voice in such
a strange way, when she had begun to say, "I go to my Father's house," and
she had made such a cry of joy when she had let the last words, "not be
lost," escape her lips, that I raised my head and opened my eyes to look at
her. I suspected that something strange had occurred.
I got upon my feet, passed my handkerchief over my face, to wipe away the
tears which were preventing me from seeing with accuracy, and looked at
her.
Her hands were crossed on her breast, and there was on her face the
expression of a really superhuman joy; her beautiful eyes were fixed as if
they were looking on some grand and sublime spectacle; it seemed to me at
first that she was praying.
In that very same instant the mother rushed into the room, crying, "My God!
my God! what does that cry 'lost' mean?"--for her last words, "not be
lost," particularly the last one, had been pronounced with such a powerful
voice that they had been heard almost everywhere in the house.
I made a sign with my hand to prevent the distressed mother from making any
noise, and troubling her dying child in her prayer, for I really thought
that she had stopped speaking, as she used so often to do, when alone with
me, in order to pray. But I was mistaken. That redeemed soul had gone, on
the golden wings of love, to join the multitudes of those who have washed
their robes in the blood of the Lamb, to sing the eternal Alleluia.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
AURICULAR CONFESSION A DEEP PIT OF PERDITION FOR THE PRIEST
* * * * *
It was some time after our Mary had been buried. The terrible and
mysterious cause of her death was known only to God and to me. Though her
loving mother was still weeping over her grave, she had soon been
forgotten, as usual, by the greatest part of those who had known her: but
she was constantly present to my mind. I never entered the confessional-box
without hearing her solemn, though so mild, voice telling me, "There must
be somewhere something wrong in the auricular confession. Twice I have been
destroyed by my confessors; and I have known several others who have been
destroyed in the same way."
More than once, when her voice was ringing in my ears from her tomb, I had
shed bitter tears on the profound and unfathomable degradation into which
I, with the other priests, had to fell in the confessional-box. For many,
many times, stories as deplorable as that of this unfortunate girl were
confessed to me by city as well as country females.
One night I was awakened by the rumbling noise of thunder, when I heard
some one knocking at the door. I hastened out of bed to ask who was there.
The answer was that the Rev. Mr. ---- was dying, and that he wanted to see
me before his death. I dressed myself, and was soon on the highway. The
darkness was fearful; and often, had it not been for the lightning which
was almost constantly tearing the clouds, we should not have known where we
were. After a long and hard journey through the darkness and the storm, we
arrived at the house of the dying priest. I went directly to his room, and
really found him very low; he could hardly speak. With a sign of his hand
he bade his servant-girl and a young man who were there go out, and leave
him alone with me.
Then, with a low voice, he said, "Is it you who prepared poor Mary to die?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Please tell me the truth. Is it the fact that she died the death of a
reprobate, and that her last words were, 'Oh, my God! I am lost'?"
I answered: "As I was the confessor of that girl, and we were talking
together on matters which pertained to her confession, in the very moment
that she was unexpectedly summoned to appear before God, I cannot answer
your question in any way; please, then, excuse me if I cannot say any more
on that subject: but tell me who can have assured you that she died the
death of a reprobate."
"It was her own mother," answered the dying man. "She came, last week, to
visit me, and when she was alone with me, with many tears and cries, she
said how her poor child had refused to receive the last sacraments, and how
her last cry was, 'I am lost!'" She added that that cry, 'Lost!' was
pronounced with such a frightful power that it was heard through all the
house."
"If her mother has told you that," I replied, "you may believe what you
please about the way that poor child died. I cannot say a word--you know
it--about that matter."
"But if she is lost," rejoined the old, dying priest, "I am the miserable
one who has destroyed her. She was an angel of purity when she came to the
convent. Oh! dear Mary, if you are lost, I am a thousandfold more lost! Oh,
my God, my God! what will become of me? I am dying; and I am lost!"
It was indeed an awful thing to see that old sinner tearing his own hands,
rolling on his bed as if he had been on burning coals, with all the marks
of the most frightful despair on his face, crying, "I am lost! Oh, my God,
I am lost!"
I was glad that the claps of thunder, which were shaking the house and
roaring without ceasing, prevented the people outside the room from hearing
those cries of desolation from that priest, whom every one considered a
great saint.
When it seemed to me that his terror had somewhat subsided, and that his
mind was calmed a little, I said to him, "My dear friend, you must not give
yourself up to such despair. Our merciful God has promised to forgive the
repenting sinner who comes to Him, even at the last hour of the day.
Address yourself to the Virgin Mary, she will ask and obtain your pardon."
"Do you not think that it is too late to ask pardon? The doctor has
honestly warned me that death is very near, and I feel I am just now dying!
Is it not too late to ask and obtain pardon?" asked the dying priest.
"No, my dear sir, it is not too late, if you sincerely regret your sins.
Throw yourself into the arms of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; make your
confession without any more delay, and you will be saved."
"But I have never made a good confession. Will you help me to make a
general one?"
It was my duty to grant him his request, and the rest of the night was
spent by me in hearing the confession of his whole life.
I do not want to give many particulars of the life of that priest. I will
only mention two things. First: It was then that I understood why poor
young Mary was absolutely unwilling to mention the iniquities which she had
done with him. They were simply surpassingly horrible--unmentionable. No
human tongue can express them--few human ears would consent to hear them.
The second thing that I am bound in conscience to reveal is almost
incredible, but it is nevertheless true. The number of married and
unmarried females he had heard in the confessional was about 1500, of which
he said he had destroyed or scandalized at least 1000 by his questioning
them on most depraving things, for the simple pleasure of gratifying his
own corrupted heart, without letting them know anything of his sinful
thoughts and criminal desires towards them. But he confessed that he had
destroyed the purity of ninety-five of those penitents, who had consented
to sin with him.
And would to God that this priest had been the only one whom I have known
to be lost through the auricular confession! But, alas! how few are those
who have escaped the snares of the tempter compared with those who have
perished! I have heard the confessions of more than 200 priests, and, to
say the truth, as God knows it, I must declare that only twenty-one had not
to weep over the secret or public sins committed through the irresistibly
corrupting influences of auricular confession!
I am sixty six years old; in a short time I shall be in my grave. I shall
have to give an account of what I say to-day. Well, it is in the presence
of my great Judge, with my tomb before my eyes, that I declare to the world
that very few--yes, very few--priests escape from falling into the pit of
the most horrible moral depravity the world has ever known, through the
confession of females.
I do not say this because I have any bad feelings against those priests:
God knows that I have none. The only feelings I have are of supreme
compassion and pity. I do not reveal these awful things to make the world
believe that the priests of Rome are a worse set of men than the rest of
the innumerable fallen children of Adam. No, I do not entertain any such
views; for, everything considered and weighed in the balance of religion,
charity, and common sense--I think that the priests of Rome are far from
being worse than any other set of men who would be thrown into the same
temptations, dangers and unavoidable occasions of sin.
For instance, let us take lawyers, merchants, or farmers, and, preventing
them from living with their lawful wives, let us surround each of them from
morning to night by ten, twenty, and sometimes more, beautiful women and
tempting girls, who would speak to them of things which can pulverize a
rock of Scotch granite, and you will see how many of those lawyers,
merchants or farmers will go out of that terrible moral battle-field
without being mortally wounded.
The cause of the supreme--I dare say incredible, though
unsuspected--immorality of the priests of Rome is a very evident and
logical one. By the diabolical power of the Pope, the priest is put out of
the ways which God has offered to the generality of men to be honest,
upright, and holy[1]. And after the Pope has deprived them of the grand,
holy, I say Divine (in this sense that it comes directly from God) remedy
which God has given to man against his own concupiscence--holy marriage,
they are placed unprotected, unguarded in the most perilous, difficult,
irresistible moral dangers which human ingenuity or depravity can conceive.
Those unmarried men are forced to be, from morning to night, in the midst
of beautiful girls, and tempting, charming women, who have to tell them
things which would melt the hardest steel. How can you expect that they
will cease to be men, and become stronger than angels?
Not only are the priests of Rome deprived by the devil of the _only_ remedy
which God has given to help them to stand up, but they have, in the
confessional, the greatest facility which can possibly be imagined for
satisfying all the bad propensities of fallen human nature. In the
confessional _they know_ those who are strong, and they know those who are
weak among the females by whom they are surrounded; they know who would
resist any attempt from the enemy; and they know who are ready--nay, who
are longing after the deceitful charms of sin. If they still retain the
fallen nature of man, what a terrible hour for them! what frightful battles
inside the poor heart! What superhuman efforts and strength would be
required to come out a conqueror from that battle field, where a David, a
Samson, have fallen, mortally wounded!
It is simply an act of supreme stupidity on the part of the Protestant, as
well as Catholic public, to suppose, or suspect, or hope, that the
generality of the priests can stand that trial. The pages of the history of
Rome herself are filled with the unanswerable proofs that the great
_generality_ of the confessors fall. If it were not so, the miracle of
Joshua, stopping the march of the sun and the moon, would be a childish
play compared with the miracle which would stop and reverse all the laws of
our common fallen nature in the hearts of the 100,000 Roman Catholic
confessors of the Church of Rome. Were I attempting to prove by public
facts what I know of the horrible depravity caused by the confessional-box
among the priests of France, Canada, Spain, Italy, England, I should have
to write many big volumes in folio. For brevity's sake, I will speak only
of Italy. I take that country because, being under the very eyes of their
infallible and most holy (?) Pontiff, being in the land of daily miracles,
of painted Madonnas, who weep and turn their eyes left and right, up and
down, in a most marvellous way, being in the land of miraculous medals and
heavenly spiritual favors, constantly flowing from the chair of St. Peter,
the confessors in Italy are in the best possible circumstances to be
strong, faithful, and holy. Well, let us hear an eye-witness, a
contemporary, an unimpeachable witness about the way the confessors deal
with their penitent females, in the only holy, apostolical, infallible (?)
Church of Rome.
The witness we will hear is of the purest blood of the princes of Italy.
Her name is Henrietta Carracciolo, daughter of the Marshal Carracciolo,
Governor of the Province of Bari, in Italy. Let us hear what she says of
the Father Confessors, after twenty years of personal experience in
different nunneries of Italy, in her remarkable book, "Mysteries of the
Neapolitan Convents," pp. 150, 151, 152: "My confessor came the following
day, and I disclosed to him the nature of the troubles which beset me.
Later in the day, seeing that I had gone down to the place where we used to
receive the holy communion, called Communichino, the conversa of my aunt
rang the bell for the priest to come with the pyx.[2] He was a man of about
fifty years of age, very corpulent, with a rubicund face, and a type of
physiognomy as vulgar as it was repulsive.
"I approached the little window to receive the sacred wafer on my tongue,
with my eyes closed, as it is customary. I placed it upon my tongue; and,
as I drew back, I felt my cheeks caressed. I opened my eyes, but the priest
had withdrawn his hand, and, thinking I had been deceived, I gave it no
more attention.
"On the next occasion, forgetful of what had occurred before, I received
the sacrament with closed eyes again, according to precept. This time I
distinctly felt my chin caressed again; and on opening my eyes suddenly, I
found the priest gazing rudely upon me, with a sensual smile on his face.
"There could be no longer any doubt: these overtures were not the result of
accident.
"The daughter of Eve is endowed with a greater degree of curiosity than
man. It occured to me to place myself in a contiguous apartment, where I
could observe if this libertine priest was accustomed to take similar
liberties with the nuns. I did so, and was fully convinced that only the
old left him without being caressed!
"All the others allowed him to do with them as he pleased; and even, in
taking leave of him, did so with the utmost reverence.
"'Is this the respect,' said I to myself, 'that the priests and the spouses
of Christ have for the sacrament of the Eucharist? Shall the poor novice be
enticed to leave the world in order to learn, in this school, such lessons
of self-respect and chastity?'"
Page 163, we read, "The fanatical passion of the nuns for their confessors,
priests, and monks, exceeds belief. That which especially renders their
incarceration endurable is the illimitable opportunity they enjoy of seeing
and corresponding with those persons with whom they are in love. This
freedom localizes and identifies them with the convent so closely that they
are unhappy when, on account of any serious sickness, or while preparing to
take the veil, they are obliged to pass some months in the bosom of their
own families, in company with their fathers, mothers, brothers, and
sisters. It is not to be presumed that these relatives would permit a young
girl to pass many hours each day in a mysterious colloquy with a priest, or
a monk, and maintain with him this continual correspondence. This is a
liberty which they can enjoy in the convent only.
"Many are the hours which the Heloïse spends in the confessional, in
agreeable pastime with her Abelard in cassock.
"Others, whose confessors happen to be old, have in addition a spiritual
director, with whom they amuse themselves a long time every day,
_tête-à-tête_, in the parlatorio. When this is not enough, they simulate an
illness, in order to have him alone in their own rooms."
Page 166, we read:--"Another nun, being somewhat infirm, her priest
confessed her in her own room. After a time, the invalid penitent found
herself in what is called an interesting situation, on which account, the
physician declaring that her complaint was dropsy, she was sent away from
the convent."
Page 167:--"A young educanda was in the habit of going down every night to
the convent burial-place, where, by a corridor which communicated with the
vestry, she entered into a colloquy with a young priest attached to the
church. Consumed by an amorous impatience, she was not deterred from these
excursions either by bad weather or the fear of being discovered.
"She heard a great noise one night near her. In the thick darkness which
surrounded her, she imagined that she saw a viper winding itself around her
feet. She was so much overcome by fright that she died from the effects of
it a few months later."
Page 168:--"One of the confessors had a young penitent in the convent.
Every time he was called to visit a dying sister, and on that account
passed the night in the convent, this nun would climb over the partition
which separated her room from his, and betake herself to the master and
director of souls.
"Another, during the delirium of a typhoid fever, from which she was
suffering, was constantly imitating the action of sending kisses to her
confessor, who stood by the side of her bed. He, covered with blushes on
account of the presence of strangers, held a crucifix before the eyes of
the penitent, and in a commiserating tone exclaimed,--
"'Poor thing! kiss thy own spouse!'"
Page 168:--"Under the bonds of secrecy, an educanda, of fine form and
pleasing manners, and of a noble family, confided to me the fact of her
having received, from the hands of her confessor, a very interesting book
(as she described it), which related to the monastic life. I expressed the
wish to know the title, and she, before showing it to me, took the
precaution to lock the door.
"It proved to be the Monaca, by Dalembert, a book, as all know, filled with
the most disgusting obscenity."
Page 169:--"I received once from a monk, a letter in which he signified to
me that he had hardly seen me, when 'he conceived the sweet hope of
becoming my confessor.' An exquisite of the first water, a fop of scents
and euphuism, could not have employed phrases more melodramic, to demand
whether he might hope or despair."
Page 169:--"A priest who enjoyed the reputation of being an incorruptible
sacerdote, when he saw me pass through the parlatorio, used to address me
as follows:--
"'Ps, dear, come here! Ps, Ps, come here!'
"These words, addressed to me by a priest, were nauseous in the extreme.
"Finally, another priest, the most annoying of all for his obstinate
assiduity, sought to secure my affections at all cost. There was not an
image profane poetry could afford him, nor a sophism he could borrow from
rhetoric, nor wily interpretation he could give to the Word of God, which
he did not employ to convert me to his wishes. Here is an example of his
logic:--
"'Fair daughter,' said he to me one day, 'knowest thou who God truly is?'
"'He is the Creator of the Universe,' I answered drily.
"'No,--no,--no,--no! that is not enough,' he replied, laughing at my
ignorance. 'God is love, but love in the abstract, which receives its
incarnation in the mutual affection of two hearts which idolize each other.
You, then, must not only love God in His abstract existance, but must also
love Him in His incarnation, that is, in the exclusive love of a man who
adores you. _Quod Deus est amor, nec colitur, nisi amando._'
"'Then,' I replied, 'a woman who adores her own lover would adore Divinity
itself?'
"'Assuredly,' reiterated the priest over and over again, taking courage
from my remark, and chuckling at what seemed to him to be the effect of his
catechism.
"'In that case,' said I hastily, 'I should select for my lover rather a man
of the world than a priest.'
"'God preserve you, my daughter! God preserve you from that sin!' added my
interlocutor, apparently frightened. 'To love a man of the world, a sinner,
a wretch, an unbeliever, an infidel! Why, you would go immediately to hell.
The love of a priest is a sacred love, while that of a profane man is
infamy; the faith of a priest emanates from that granted to the holy
Church, while that of the profane is false,--false as the vanity of the
world. The priest purifies his affections daily in communion with the Holy
Spirit: the man of the world (if he ever knows love at all) sweeps the
muddy crossings of the street with it day and night.
"'But it is the heart, as well as the conscience, which prompts me to fly
from the priests,' I replied.
"'Well, if you cannot love me because I am your confessor, I will find
means to assist you to get rid of your scruples. We will place the name of
Jesus Christ before all our affectionate demonstration, and thus our love
will be a grateful offering to the Lord, and will ascend fragrant with
perfume to Heaven, like the smoke of the incense of the sanctuary. Say to
me, for example, "I love you in Jesus Christ; last night I dreamed of you
in Jesus Christ;" and you will have a tranquil conscience, because in doing
this you will sanctify every transport of your love.'
"Several circumstances not indicated here, by the way, compelled me to come
in frequent contact with this priest afterwards, and I do not therefore
give his name.
"Of a very respectable monk, respectable alike for his age and his moral
character, I inquired what signified the prefixing the name of Jesus Christ
to amorous apostrophes.
"'It is,' he said, 'an expression used by a horrible sect, and one
unfortunately only too numerous, which, thus abusing the name of our Lord,
permits to its members the most unbridled licentiousness.'"
And it is my sad duty to say, before the whole world, that I know that by
far the greater part of the confessors in America, Spain, France and
England, reason and act just like that licentious Italian priest.
Christian nations! if you could know what will become of the virtue of your
fair daughters if you allow secret or public slaves of Rome to restore the
auricular confession, with what a storm of holy indignation you would
defeat their plans!
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
THE CONFESSIONAL IS THE MODERN SODOM.
* * * * *
If any one wants to hear an eloquent oration, let him go when the Roman
Catholic priest is preaching on the divine institution of auricular
confession. There is no subject, perhaps, on which the priests display so
much zeal and earnestness, and of which they speak so often. For this
institution is really the corner-stone of their stupendous power; it is the
secret of their almost irresistible influence. Let the people to-day open
their eyes to the truth, and understand that auricular confession is one of
the most stupendous impostures which Satan has invented to corrupt and
enslave the world; let the people desert the confessional-box to-day, and
tomorrow Romanism will fall into the dust. The priests understand this very
well; hence their constant efforts to deceive the people on that question.
To attain their object, they have recourse to the most egregious
falsehoods; the Scriptures are misrepresented; the holy Fathers are brought
to say the very contrary of what they have ever thought or written; the
most extraordinary miracles and stories are invented. But two of the
arguments to which they have more often recourse are the great and
perpetual miracles which God makes to keep the purity of the confessional
undefiled, and its secrets marvellously sealed. They make the people
believe that the vow of perpetual chastity changes their nature, turns them
into angels, and puts them above the common frailties of the fallen
children of Adam.
Bravely and with a brazen face, when they are interrogated on that subject,
they say that they have special graces to remain pure and undefiled in the
midst of the greatest dangers; that the Virgin Mary, to whom they are
consecrated, is their powerful advocate to obtain from her Son that
superhuman virtue of chastity; that what would be a cause of sure perdition
to common men is without peril and danger for a true son of Mary; and, with
amazing stupidity, the people consent to be duped, blinded, and deceived by
those fooleries.
But here let the world hear the truth as it is, from one who knows
perfectly everything inside and outside the walls of that Modern Babylon;
though many, I know, will disbelieve me and say, "We hope you are mistaken.
It is impossible that the priests of Rome should turn out to be such
impostors. They may be mistaken; they may believe and repeat things which
are not true, but they are honest; they cannot be such impudent deceivers."
Yes! though I know that many will hardly believe me, I must say the truth.
Those very men who, when speaking to the people in such glowing terms of
the marvellous way they are kept pure in the midst of the dangers which
surround them, honestly blush, and often weep, when they speak to each
other (when they are sure that nobody except priests hears them). They
deplore their moral degradation with the utmost sincerity and honesty. They
ask from God and men pardon for their unspeakable depravity.
I have here in my hands, and under my eyes, one of their most remarkable
secret books, written, or at least approved, by one of their greatest and
best bishops and cardinals, the Cardinal De Bonald, Archbishop of Lyons.
The book is written for the use of the priests alone. Its title is in
French, "Examen de Conscience des Prêtres." At page 34 we read:--
"Have I left certain persons to make the declarations of their sins in such
a way that the imagination, once taken and impressed by pictures and
representations, could be dragged into a long course of temptations and
grievous sins? The priests do not pay sufficient attention to the continual
temptations caused by the hearing of confessions. The soul is gradually
enfeebled in such a way that, at the end, the virtue of chastity is for
ever lost."
Here is the address of a priest to other priests when he suspects that
nobody but his co-sinner brethren hear him. Here is the honest language of
truth.
In the presence of God, those priests acknowledge that they have not a
sufficient fear of those _constant_ (what a word--what an
acknowledgment--constant!) temptations, and they honestly confess that
those temptations come from the hearing of the confessions of so many
scandalous sins. Here the priests honestly acknowledge that those constant
temptations, at the end, destroy _for ever_ in them the holy virtue of
purity![3]
Ah! would to God that all the honest girls and women whom the devil entraps
into the snares of auricular confession could hear the cries of distress of
those poor priests whom they have tempted--_for ever destroyed!_ Would to
God that they could see the torrents of tears shed by so many priests
because, from the hearing of confessions, they had _for ever_ lost the
virtue of purity! They would understand that the confessional is a snare, a
pit of perdition, a Sodom for the priest; and they would be struck with
horror and shame at the idea of the _continual_, shameful, dishonest,
degrading temptations by which their confessor is tormented day and
night--they would blush on account of the shameful sins which their
confessors have committed--they would weep over the irreparable loss of
their purity--they would promise before God and men that the
confessional-box should never see them any more--they would prefer to be
burned alive, if any sentiment of honesty and charity remained in them,
rather than consent to be a cause of _constant_ temptation and damnable sin
to that man.
Would that respectable lady go any more to confess to that man if, after
her confession, she could hear him lamenting the continual, shameful
temptations which assail him day and night, and the damning sins which he
has committed on account of what she has confessed to him? No--a thousand
times no!
Would that honest father allow his beloved daughter to go any more to that
man to confess if he could hear his cries of distress, and see his tears
flowing because the hearing of those confessions is the source of constant,
shameful temptations and degrading iniquities?
Oh! would to God that the honest Romanists all over the world--for there
are millions who, though deluded, are honest--could see what is going on in
the heart, the imagination of the poor confessor when he is, there,
surrounded by attractive women, and tempting girls, speaking to him from
morning to night on things which a man cannot hear without falling! Then
that modern but grand imposture called the Sacrament of Penance would soon
be ended.
But here, again, who will not lament the consequence of the total
perversity of our human nature? Those very same priests who, when alone in
the presence of God, speak so plainly of the constant temptations by which
they are assailed, and who so sincerely weep over the irreparable loss of
their virtue of purity, when they think that nobody hears them, will yet in
public deny with a brazen face those temptations. They will indignantly
rebuke you as a slanderer if you say anything to lead them to suppose that
you fear for their purity when they hear the confessions of girls or
married women. There is not a single one of the Roman Catholic authors who
have written on that subject for the priests, who has not deplored their
innumerable and degrading sins against purity on account of the auricular
confession; but those very men will be the first to try to prove the very
contrary when they write books for the people. I have no words to say what
was my surprise when, for the first time, I saw that this strange duplicity
seemed to be one of the fundamental stones of my Church.
It was not very long after my ordination, when a priest came to me to
confess the most deplorable things. He honestly told me that there was not
a single one of the girls or married women whom he had confessed who had
not been a secret cause of the most shameful sins in thoughts, desires, or
actions; but he wept so bitterly over his degradation, his heart seemed so
sincerely broken on account of his own iniquities, that I could not refrain
from mixing my tears with his. I wept with him, and I gave him the pardon
of all his sins, as I thought, then, I had the power and right to give it.
Two hours afterwards, that same priest, who was a good speaker, was in the
pulpit. His sermon was on "The Divinity of Auricular Confession;" and, to
prove that it was an institution coming directly from Christ, he said that
the Son of God was making a _constant_ miracle to strengthen His priests,
and prevent them from falling into sins, on account of what they might have
heard in the confessional!
The daily abominations, which are the result of auricular confession, are
so horrible and so well known by the popes, the bishops, and the priests,
that several times, public attempts have been made to diminish them by
punishing the guilty priests; but all these have failed.
One of the most remarkable of those efforts was made by Pius IV. about the
year 1500. A Bull was published by him, by which all the girls and the
married women who had been seduced into sins by their confessors were
ordered to denounce them; and a certain number of high church officers of
the Holy Inquisition were authorized to take the depositions of the fallen
penitents. The thing was at first tried at Seville, one of the principal
cities of Spain. When the edict was first published the number of women who
felt bound in conscience to go and depose against their father confessors
was so great that, though there were thirty notaries and as many
inquisitors to take the depositions, they were unable to do the work in the
appointed time. Thirty days more were given, but the inquisitors were so
overwhelmed with the numberless depositions that another period of time of
the same length was given. But this, again, was found insufficient. At the
end, it was found that the number of priests who had destroyed the purity
of their penitents was so great that it was impossible to punish them all.
The inquest was given up, and the guilty confessors remained unpunished.
Several attempts of the same nature have been tried by other popes, but
with about the same success.
But if those honest attempts, on the part of some well-meaning popes, to
punish the confessors who destroy the purity of their penitents, have
failed to touch the guilty parties, they are, in the good providence of
God, infallible witnesses to tell to the world that auricular confession is
nothing else than a snare to the confessor and his dupes. Yes, those Bulls
of the popes are an irrefragable testimony that auricular confession is the
most powerful invention of the devil to corrupt the heart, pollute the
body, and damn the soul of the priest and his female penitent!
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE VOW OF CELIBACY OF THE PRIESTS IS MADE EASY BY AURICULAR
CONFESSION.
* * * * *
Are not facts the best arguments? Well, here is an undeniable, a public
fact, which is connected with a thousand collateral ones to prove that
auricular confession is the most powerful engine of demoralization which
the world has ever seen.
About the year 183--, there was in Quebec a fine-looking young priest; he
had a magnificent voice, and was a pretty good speaker.[4] Through regard
for his family, which is still numerous and respectable, I will not give
his name, I will call him Rev. Mr. D----. Having been invited to preach in
a parish of Canada, about 100 miles distant from Quebec, called Verchères,
he was also requested to hear the confessions during a few days of a kind
of Novena (nine days of prayer), which was going on in that place. Among
his penitents was a beautiful young girl, about nineteen years old. She
wanted to make a general confession of all her sins from the first age of
reason, and the confessor granted her request. Twice every day she was
there, at the feet of her handsome young spiritual physician, telling all
her thoughts, her deeds, her desires. Sometimes she was remarked to have
remained a whole hour in the confessional-box, in accusing herself of all
her human frailties. What did she say? God only knows; but what became
hereafter known by the entire of Canada is that the confessor fell in love
with his fair penitent, and that she burned with the same irresistible
fires for her confessor, as it so often happens.
It was not an easy matter for the priest and the young girl to meet each
other in as complete a _tête-à-tête_ as they both wished, for there were
too many eyes upon them. But the confessor was a man of resources. The last
day of the Novena he said to his beloved penitent, "I am going to Montreal,
but three days after I will take the steamer back to Quebec. That steamer
is accustomed to stop here. At about twelve a.m., be on the wharf, dressed
as a young man. Let no one know your secret. You will embark in the
steamboat, where you will not be known, if you have any prudence. You will
come to Quebec, where you will be engaged as a servant-boy by the curate,
of whom I am the vicar. Nobody will know your sex except myself, and we
will there be happy together."
The fifth day after this there was a great desolation in the family of the
girl, for she had suddenly disappeared and her robes had been found on the
shores of the St. Lawrence river. There was not the least doubt in the
minds of all relations and friends, that the general confession she had
made had entirely upset her mind, and, in an excess of craziness, she had
thrown herself into the deep and rapid waters of the St. Lawrence. Many
searches were made to find her body, but all in vain; many public and
private prayers were offered to God to help her to escape from the flames
of Purgatory, where she might be condemned to suffer for many years, and
much money was given to the priest to sing high masses, in order to
extinguish the fires of that burning prison, where every Roman Catholic
believes he must go to be purified before entering the regions of eternal
happiness.
I will not give the name of the girl, though I have it, through compassion
for her family; I will call her Geneva.
Well, when father and mother, brothers, sisters, and friends were shedding
tears on the sad end of Geneva, she was in the rich parsonage of the Curate
of Quebec, well paid, well fed and dressed; happy and cheerful with her
beloved confessor. She was exceedingly neat in her person, always obliging,
ready to run and do what you wanted at the very twinkling of your eye. Her
new name was Joseph, by which I will now call her.
Many times I have seen the smart Joseph at the parsonage of Quebec, and
admired his politeness and good manners; though it seemed to me sometimes
that he looked too much like a girl, and that he was a little too much at
ease with Rev. Mr. D----, and also with the Right Rev. M----. But every
time the idea came to me that Joseph was a girl, I felt indignant with
myself. The high respect I had for the Coadjutor Bishop made it impossible
to think that he would ever allow a beautiful girl to sleep in the
adjoining room to his own, and to serve him day and night; for Joseph's
sleeping-room was just by the one of the Coadjutor, who, for several bodily
infirmities, which were not a secret to every one, wanted the help of his
servant several times at night, as well as during the day.
Things went on very smoothly with Joseph during two or three years in the
Coadjutor Bishop's house; but at the end it seemed to many people outside
that Joseph was taking too great airs of familiarity with the young vicars,
and even with the venerable Coadjutor. Several of the citizens of Quebec,
who were going more often than others to the parsonage, were surprised and
shocked at the familiarity of that servant-boy with his masters; he really
seemed sometimes to be on equal terms with, if not somewhat above them.
An intimate friend of the Bishop, a most devoted Roman Catholic, who was my
near relative, took one day upon himself to respectfully say to the Right
Rev. Bishop that it would be prudent to turn out that impudent young man
from his palace; that he was the object of strong and deplorable
suspicions.
The position of the Right Rev. Bishop and his vicars was not a very
agreeable one. Their barque had evidently drifted among dangerous rocks. To
keep Joseph among them was impossible, after the friendly advice which had
come from such a high quarter, and to dismiss him was not less dangerous;
he knew too much of the interior and secret lives of all those holy (?)
celibates to deal with him as with another common servant-man. With a
single word of his lips he could destroy them; they were as if tied to his
feet by ropes, which at first seemed made with sweet cakes and ice-cream,
but had suddenly turned into burning steel chains. Several days of anxiety
passed away; many sleepless nights succeeded the too-happy ones of better
times. But what to do? There were breakers ahead; breakers on the right, on
the left, and on every side. But when every one, particularly the venerable
(?) Coadjutor, felt as criminals who expect their sentence, and that their
horizon seemed surrounded absolutely by only dark and stormy clouds, on a
sudden, a happy opening presented itself to the anxious sailors.
The curate of "Les Eboulements," the Rev. Mr. ----, had just come to Quebec
on some private business, and had taken his quarters in the hospitable
house of his old friend, the Right Rev. ----, Bishop Coadjutor. Both had
been on very intimate terms for many years, and, in many instances, they
had been of great service to each other. The Pontiff of the Church of
Canada, hoping that his tried friend would perhaps help him out of the
terrible difficulty of the moment, frankly told him all about Joseph, and
asked him what he ought to do under such difficult circumstances.
"My Lord," said the curate of the Eboulements, "Joseph is just the servant
I want. Pay him well, that he may remain your friend, and that his lips may
be sealed, and allow me to take him with me. My housekeeper left me a few
weeks ago; I am alone in my parsonage with my old servant-man. Joseph is
just the person I want."
It would be difficult to tell the joy of the poor Bishop and his vicars,
when they saw that heavy stone they had on their neck removed.
Joseph, once installed into the parsonage of the pious (?) parish priest of
the Eboulements, soon gained the favour of the whole people by his good and
winning manners, and every parishioner complimented his curate on the
smartness of his new servant. But the priest, of course, knew a little more
of that smartness than the rest of the people. Three years passed on very
smoothly. The priest and his servant seemed to be on the most perfect
terms. The only thing which marred the happiness of that lucky couple was
that, now and then, some of the farmers, whose eyes were sharper than those
of their neighbours, seemed to think that the intimacy between the two was
going a little too far, and that Joseph, was really keeping in his hands
the sceptre of the little priestly kingdom. Nothing could be done without
his advice; he was meddling in all the small and big affairs of the parish,
and the curate seemed sometimes to be rather the servant than the master in
his own house and parish. Those who had at first made those remarks
privately began little by little to convey their views to the next
neighbour, and this one to the next. In that way, at the end of the third
year, grave and serious suspicions began to spread from one to the other in
such a way that the Marguilliers (a kind of Elders) thought proper to say
to the priest that it would be better for him to turn Joseph out than to
keep him any longer. But the old curate had passed so many happy hours with
his faithful Joseph that it was as hard as death to give him up.
He knew, by confession, that a girl in the vicinity was given to an
unmentionable abomination, to which Joseph was also addicted. He went to
her and proposed that she should marry Joseph, and that he (the priest)
would help them to live comfortably. Joseph, in order to continue to live
near his good master, consented also to marry that girl. Both knew very
well what the other was. The banns were published during three Sabbaths,
after which the old curate, blessed the marriage of Joseph with the girl
his parishioner.
They lived together as husband and wife in such harmony that nobody could
suspect the horrible depravity which was concealed behind that union.
Joseph continued with his wife to work often for his priest, till after
sometime that priest was removed, and another curate, called Tétreau, was
sent in his place.
This new curate, knowing absolutely nothing of that mystery of iniquity,
employed also Joseph and his wife several times. One day when Joseph was
working at the door of the parsonage, in the presence of several people, a
stranger arrived, and inquired of him if the Rev. Mr. Tétreau, the curate,
was there.
Joseph answered, "Yes, sir. But as you seem to be a stranger, would you
allow me to ask you whence you come?"
"It is very easy, sir, to satisfy you. I come from Verchères," replied the
stranger.
At the word "Verchères" Joseph turned so pale that the stranger could not
be but struck with his sudden change of colour.
Then, fixing his eyes on Joseph, he cried out, "Oh, my God! what do I see
here? Geneva! Geneva! I recognize you, and here you are in the disguise of
a man!"
"Dear uncle (for it was her uncle), for God's sake," she cried, "do not say
a word more!"
But it was too late. The people who were there had heard the uncle and
niece. Their long secret suspicions were well-founded--one of their former
priests had kept a girl under the disguise of a man in his house! and, to
blind his people more thoroughly, he had married that girl to another one,
in order to have them both in his house, when he pleased, without awakening
any suspicion!!
The news went almost as quick as lightning from one end to the other of the
parish, and spread all over the northern country watered by the St Lawrence
river.
It is more easy to imagine than express the sentiments of surprise and
horror which filled every one. The justices of the peace took up the
matter; Joseph was brought before the civil tribunal, which decided that a
physician should be charged to make, not a _post-mortem_, but _ante-mortem_
inquest. The Honourable L----, who was called and made the proper inquiry,
declared upon oath that Joseph was a girl! and the bonds of marriage were
legally dissolved.
During that time the honest Rev. Mr. Tétreau, struck with horror, had sent
an express to the Right Reverend Bishop Coadjutor of Quebec, informing him
that the young man whom he had kept in his house several years, under the
name of Joseph, was a girl.
Now, what were they to do with the girl, after all was discovered? Her
presence in Canada would for ever compromise the holy (_?_) Church of Rome.
She knew too well how the priests, through the confessional, select their
victims, and help themselves, in their company, in keeping their solemn
vows of celibacy! What would have become of the respect paid to the priest,
if she had been taken by the hand and invited to speak, bravely, boldly,
before the people of Canada?
The holy (?) Bishop and his vicars understood these things very well.
They immediately sent a trustworthy man with £500 to say to the girl that,
if she remained in Canada, she could be prosecuted and severely punished;
that it was her interest to leave the country, and emigrate to the United
States. They offered her the £500 if she would promise to go and never
return.
She accepted the offer, crossed the lines, and we have never since heard
anything of her.
In the providence of God, I was invited to preach in that parish soon
after, and I learned these facts accurately.
The Rev. Mr. Tétreau, under whose pastorate this great iniquity was
detected, began from that time to have his eyes opened to the awful
depravity of the priests of Rome through the confessional. He wept and
cried over his own degradation in the midst of that modern Sodom. Our
merciful God looked down with compassion upon him, and sent him His saving
grace. Not long after, he sent to the Bishop his renunciation of the errors
and abominations of Romanism.
To-day he is working in the vineyard of the Lord with the Methodists in the
city of Montreal, where he is ready to prove the correctness of what we
say.
Let those who have ears to hear, and eyes to see, understand, by this fact,
that Pagan nations have not known any institution so depraving as Auricular
Confession!
* * * * *
CHAPTER V.
THE HIGHLY EDUCATED AND REFINED WOMAN IN THE CONFESSIONAL.--WHAT BECOMES OF
HER AFTER HER UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.--HER IRREPARABLE RUIN.
* * * * *
The most skilful warrior has never had to display so much skill and so many
_ruses de guerre_; he has never had to use more tremendous efforts to
reduce and storm an impregnable citadel, as the confessor who wants to
reduce and storm the citadel of self-respect and honesty which God Himself
has built around the soul and the heart of every daughter of Eve.
But, as it is through woman that the Pope wants to conquer the world, it is
supremely important that he should enslave and degrade her by keeping her
at his feet as his footstool, that she may become a passive instrument in
the accomplishment of his vast and profound scheme.
In order perfectly to master women in the higher circles of society, every
confessor is ordered by the Pope to learn the most complicated and perfect
strategy. He has to study a great number of treatises on the art of
persuading the fair sex to confess to him plainly, clearly, and in detail,
every thought, every secret desire, word, and deed, just as they occurred.
And that art is considered so important and so difficult that all the
theologians of Rome call it "the art of arts."
Dens, St. Liguori, Chevassu, the author of the "Mirror of the Clergy,"
Debreyne, and a multitude of authors too numerous to mention, have given
the curious and scientific rules of that secret art.
They all agree in declaring that it is a most difficult and dangerous art;
they all confess that the least error of judgment, the least imprudence or
temerity, when storming the impregnable citadel, is sure death (spiritual,
of course) to the confessor and the penitent.
The confessor is taught to make the first steps towards the citadel with
the utmost caution, in order that his female penitent may not suspect at
first what he wants her to reveal; for this would generally induce her to
shut for ever the door of the fortress against him. After the first steps
of advance, he is advised to make several steps back, and to put himself in
a kind of spiritual ambuscade, to see the effect of his first advance. If
there is any prospect of success, then the word "March on!" is given, and a
more advanced post of the citadel must be tried and stormed if possible. In
that way, little by little, the whole place is so well surrounded, so well
crippled, denuded, and dismantled, that any more resistance seems
impossible on the part of the rebellious soul.
Then the last charge is ordered, the final assault is given; and if God
does not perform a real miracle to save that soul, the last walls crumble,
the doors are beaten down! Then the confessor makes a triumphant entry into
the place; the very heart, soul, conscience, and intelligence, are
conquered.
When once master of the place, the priest visits all its most secret
recesses and corners; he pries into its most sacred chambers. The conquered
place is entirely, absolutely in his hands; he does what he pleases within
its precincts; he is the supreme master, for the surrender has been
unconditional. The confessor has become the _only_ infallible ruler in the
conquered place--nay, he has become its only God--for it is in the name of
God that he has besieged, stormed, and conquered it, it is in the name of
God that, hereafter, he will speak and be obeyed.
No human words can adequately give an idea of the irreparable ruin which
follows the successful storming and unconditional surrender of the once so
noble fortress. The longer the resistance has been, the more terrible and
complete is the destruction of its beauty and strength; the nobler the
struggle has been the more irretrievable are the ruin and loss. Just as the
higher and stronger the dam is built to stem the current of the rapid and
deep waters of the river, the more awful the disasters which follow its
destruction, so it is with that noble soul. A mighty dam has been built by
the very hand of God, called self-respect and womanly modesty, to guard her
against the pollutions of this sinful world; but the day that the priest of
Rome succeeds, after long efforts, in destroying it, the soul is carried by
an irresistible power into unfathomable abysses of iniquity. Then it is
that the once most respectable lady will consent to hear, without a blush,
things against which the most degraded woman would indignantly shut her
ears. Then it is that she freely speaks on matters for repeating which a
printer in England has lately been sent to jail.
At first, in spite of herself, but soon with a real sensual pleasure, that
fallen angel will think, when alone, on what she has heard and what she has
said in the confessional-box. In spite of herself, the vilest thoughts will
at first irresistibly fill her mind; and soon the thoughts will engender
temptations and sins. But those vile temptations and sins, which would have
filled her with horror and regret before her entire surrender into the
hands of the foe, beget very different sentiments now that she is no more
her own self-possessor and guide, under the eyes of God. The conviction of
her sins is no more connected with the thought of a God, infinitely holy
and just, whom she must serve and fear. The conviction of her sins is now
immediately connected with the thought of the man with whom she will have
to speak, and who will easily make everything right and pure in her soul by
his absolution.
When the day of going to confess comes, instead of being sad and uneasy and
bashful, as she used to be formerly, she feels pleased and delighted to
have a new opportunity of conversing on those matters, without impropriety
and sin to herself; for she is now fully persuaded that there is no
impropriety, no shame, no sin, nay, she believes, or tries to believe, that
it is a good, honest, Christian, and godly thing to converse with her
priest on those matters.
Her most happy hours are when she is at the feet of that spiritual
physician showing him all the newly made wounds of her soul; explaining all
her constant temptations, her bad thoughts, her most intimate secret
desires and sins.
Then it is that the most sacred mysteries of the married life are revealed;
then it is that the mysterious and precious pearls which God has given as a
crown of mercy to those whom He has made one body, one heart, one soul, by
the blessed ties of a christian union, are lavishly thrown before swine.
Whole hours are thus passed by the fair penitent in speaking to her Father
Confessor with the utmost freedom on matters which would rank her among the
most profligate and lost women, if it were only suspected by her friends
and relatives. A single word of those intimate conversations would be
followed by an act of divorce on the part of the husband, if it were known
by him.
But the betrayed husband knows nothing of the dark mysteries of auricular
confession; the duped father suspects nothing; a cloud from hell has
obscured the intelligence of both, and made them blind. It is just the
contrary: husbands and fathers, friends and relations, feel edified and
pleased with the touching spectacle of the piety of Madam and Miss ----. In
the village, as well as in the city, every one has a word to speak in their
praise. Mrs. ---- is so often seen humbly prostrated at the feet, or by the
side, of her confessor! Miss ---- remains so long in the confessional-box!
they receive the holy communion so frequently; they both speak so
eloquently and so often of the admirable piety, modesty, holiness,
patience, charity, of their incomparable spiritual Father!
Every one congratulates them on their new and exemplary life; and they
accept the compliment with the utmost humility, attributing their rapid
progress in Christian virtues to the holiness of their confessor. He is
such a spiritual man! who could not make rapid strides under such a holy
guide?
The more constant the temptations are, the more the secret sins overwhelm
the soul, and the more airs of peace and holiness are put on. The more foul
the secret emanations of the heart, the more the fair and refined penitent
surrounds herself by an atmosphere of the sweetest perfumes of a sham
piety. The more polluted the inside of the sepulchre is, the more shining
and white the outside will be kept.
Then it is that, unless God performs a miracle to prevent it, the ruin of
that soul is sealed. She has drunk in the poisonous cup filled by "the
mother of harlots," and she has found the wine of her prostitution sweet.
She will henceforth delight in her spiritual and secret orgies.
Her holy (?) confessor has told her that there is no impropriety, no shame,
no sin, in that cup. The Pope has sacrilegiously written the word "Life" on
that cup of "Death." She has believed the Pope: the terrible mystery of
iniquity is accomplished!
"The mystery of iniquity doth already work ... whose coming is after the
working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they
received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this
cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. ii. 7-12).
Yes: the day that the rich, well-educated lady gives up her self-respect,
and unconditionally surrenders the citadel of womanly modesty into the
hands of a man, whatever be his name or titles, that he may freely put to
her questions of the vilest character which she must answer, she is lost
and degraded, just as if she were the humblest and poorest servant-girl.
I purposely say "the rich and well-educated woman," for I know that there
is a prevalent opinion that the social position of her class places her
above the corrupting influences of the confessional, as if she were out of
reach of the common miseries of our poor fallen and sinful nature.
So long as the well-educated lady makes use of her accomplishments to
defend the citadel of her womanly self-respect against the foe--so long as
she sternly keeps the door of her heart shut against her deadly enemy--she
is safe. But let no one forget this: she is safe only so long as she does
_not_ surrender. When the enemy is once master of the place, I emphatically
repeat, the ruinous consequences are as great, if not greater, and more
irreparable than in the lowest classes of society. Throw a piece of
precious gold into the mud, and tell me if it will not plunge deeper than
the piece of rotten wood.
What woman could be nobler, purer, and stronger than Eve when she came from
the hands of her Divine Creator? But how quickly she fell when she gave ear
to the seducing voice of the tempter! How irreparable was her ruin when she
complacently looked on the forbidden fruit, and believed the lying voice
which told her there was "_no sin_" in eating of it!
I solemnly, in the presence of the great God who ere long will judge me,
give my testimony on this grave subject. After 25 years' experience in the
confessional, I declare that the confessor himself encounters more terrible
dangers when hearing the confessions of refined and highly-educated ladies,
than when listening to those of the humbler classes of his female
penitents.
I solemnly testify that the well-educated lady, when she has once
surrendered herself to the power of her confessor, becomes, as a general
rule, at least as vulnerable to the arrows of the enemy as the poorer and
less educated. Nay, I must say that, once on the down-hill road of
perdition, the high-bred lady runs headlong into the pit with a more
deplorable rapidity than her humbler sister.
All Canada is witness that a few years ago it was among the highest ranks
of society that the Grand Vicar Superior of one of the richest and most
influential colleges of Canada, was choosing his victims, when the public
cry of indignation and shame forced the Bishop to send him back to Europe,
where he soon after died. Was it not also among the higher classes of
society that a Superior of the Seminary of Quebec was destroying souls,
when he was detected, and forced, during a dark night, to fly and conceal
himself behind the walls of the Trappist Monastery of Iowa?
Many would be the folio volumes which I should have to write, were I to
publish all that my twenty-five years' experience in the confessional has
taught me of the unspeakable secret corruption of the _greatest_ part of
the so-called respectable ladies who have unconditionally surrendered
themselves into the hands of their holy (?) confessors. But the following
fact will suffice for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and an
intelligence to understand.
In one of the most beautiful and thriving towns along the St. Lawrence
River lived a rich merchant. He was young, and his marriage with a most
lovely, rich, and accomplished young lady had made him one of the happiest
men in the land.
A few years after his marriage, the Bishop appointed to that town a young
priest, really remarkable for his eloquence, zeal, and amiable qualities,
and the merchant and the priest soon became connected by links of the most
sincere friendship.
The young, accomplished wife of the merchant soon became the model woman of
the place, under the direction of her new confessor.
Many and long were the hours she used to pass by the side of her spiritual
Father, to be purified and enlightened by his godly advices. She soon was
seen at the head of the few who had the privilege of receiving the holy
communion once a week. The husband, who was a good Roman Catholic himself,
blessed God and the Virgin Mary that he had the privilege of living with
such an angel of piety.
Nobody had the least suspicion of what was going on under that holy and
white mantle of the most exalted piety. Nobody, except God and His angels,
could hear the questions put by the priest to his fair pentitent, and the
answers made during the long hours of their _tête-à-tête_, in the
confessional-box. Nobody but God could see the hellish fires which were
devouring the hearts of the confessor and his victim! For nearly one year,
both the young priest and his spiritual patient enjoyed, in those intimate
and private secret conversations, all the pleasures which lovers feel, when
they can speak freely to each other of their secret thoughts and love.
But this was not enough for them. They both wanted something more real,
though the difficulties were great and seemed even insurmountable. The
priest had his mother and sister with him, whose eyes were too sharp to
allow him to invite the lady to his own house for any criminal object, and
the young husband had no business at a distance which could keep him long
enough out of his happy home to allow the Pope's confessor to accomplish
his diabolical designs.
But when a poor fallen daughter of Eve has a mind to do a thing, she very
soon finds the means, particularly if high education has added to her
natural shrewdness.
And in this case, as in many others of a similar nature which have been
revealed to me, she soon found how to attain her object without
compromising herself or her holy (?) confessor. A plan was soon found, and
cordially agreed to, and both patiently awaited their opportunity.
"Why have you not gone to mass to-day and received the holy communion, my
dear?" said the husband: "I had ordered the servant-man to put the horse in
the buggy for you as usual."
"I am not very well, my beloved; I have passed a sleepless night from
head-ache."
"I will send for the physician," replied the husband.
"Yes, my dear; do send for the physician--perhaps he will do me good."
One hour after, the physician called. He found his fair patient a little
feverish, pronounced that there was nothing serious, and that she would
soon be well. He gave her a little powder, to be taken three times a day,
and left; but at nine p.m., she complained of a great pain in the chest,
and soon fainted and fell on the floor.
The doctor was again immediately sent for, but he was from home: it took
nearly half an hour before he could come. When he arrived the alarming
crisis was over--she was sitting in an arm-chair, with some neighbouring
women, who were applying cold water and vinegar to her forehead.
The physician was really at a loss what to say of the cause of such a
sudden illness. At last he said that it might be an attack of the "ver
solitaire" (tape-worm). He declared that it was not dangerous; that he knew
how to cure her. He ordered some new powder to be taken, and left, after
having promised to return the next day. Half an hour after she began to
complain of a most terrible pain in her chest, and fainted again; but
before doing so she said to her husband,--
"My dear, you see that the physician understands absolutely nothing of the
nature of my disease. I have not the least confidence in him, for I feel
that his powders make me worse. I do not want to see him any more. I suffer
more than you suspect, my beloved; and if there is not soon a change I may
be dead tomorrow. The only physician I want is our holy confessor; please
make haste to go and get him. I want to make a general confession, and to
receive the holy viaticum (communion) and extreme unction before I grow
worse."
Beside himself with anxiety, the distracted husband ordered the horse to be
put in the buggy, and made his servant accompany him on horseback, to ring
the bell, while his pastor carried "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) to his
dear sick wife.
He found the priest piously reading his _breviarium_ (his book of daily
prayers); and admired the charity and promptitude with which his good
pastor, in that dark and chilly night, was ready to leave his warm and
comfortable parsonage at the first appeal of the sick. In less than an hour
the husband had taken the priest with "the good god" from the church to the
bedroom of his wife.
All along the way the servant-man had rung a big hand-bell to awaken the
sleeping farmers, who, at the noise, had to jump, half naked out of their
beds and worship, on their knees, with their faces prostrate in the dust,
"the good god" which was being carried to the sick.
On his arrival, the confessor, with every appearance of sincere piety,
deposited "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) on a table, richly prepared for
such a solemn occasion, and, approaching the bed, leaned his head towards
his penitent, and inquired how she felt.
She answered him, "I am very sick, and want to make a general confession
before I die."
Speaking to her husband, she said with a fainting voice, "Please, my dear,
tell my friends to withdraw from the room, that I may not be distracted
when making what may be my last confession."
The husband respectfully requested the friends to leave the room with him,
and shut the door, that the holy confessor might be _alone_ with his
penitent during her general confession.
One of the most diabolical schemes under the cover of auricular confession
had perfectly succeeded. The mother of harlots, that great enchantress of
souls, whose seat is on the city of the "seven hills," had, there, her
priest to bring shame, disgrace, and damnation, under the mask of
Christianity.
The destroyer of souls, whose masterpiece is auricular confession, had
there, for the millionth time, a fresh opportunity of insulting the God of
purity, through one of the most criminal actions which the dark shades of
night can conceal.
But let us draw the veil over the abominations of that hour of iniquity,
and let us leave to hell its dark secrets.
After he had accomplished the ruin of his victim, and most cruelly and
sacrilegiously abused the confidence of his friend, the young priest opened
the door of the room and said, with a sanctimonious air, "You may enter to
pray with me, while I give the last sacrament to our dear sick sister."
They came in; "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) was given to the woman; and
the husband, full of gratitude for the considerate attention of his priest,
took him back to his parsonage, and thanked him most sincerely for having
so kindly come to visit his wife in so chilly a night.
Ten years later, I was called to preach a retreat (a kind of revival) in
that same parish. That lady, then an absolute stranger to me, came to my
confessional-box and confessed to me those details as I now give them. She
seemed to be really penitent, and I gave her absolution and the entire
pardon of her sins, as my Church told me to do. On the last day of the
revival, the merchant invited me to a grand dinner. Then it was that I came
to know who my penitent had been. I must not forget to mention that she had
confessed to me that, of her four children, the last three belonged to her
confessor! He had lost his mother, and, his sister having married, his
parsonage had become more accessible to his fair penitents, many of whom
had availed themselves of that opportunity to practise the lessons they had
learned in the confessional. The priest had been removed to a higher
position, where he, more than ever, enjoyed the confidence of his
superiors, the respect of the people, and the love of his female penitents.
I never felt so embarrassed in my life as when at the table of that
cruelly-victimised man. We had hardly begun to take our dinner when he
asked me if I had known their late pastor, the amiable Rev. Mr. ----
I answered, "Yes, sir, I know him."
"Is he not a most accomplished priest?"
"Yes, sir, he is a most accomplished man," I answered.
"Why is it," rejoined the good merchant, "that the Bishop has taken him
away from us? He was doing so well here! He had so deservedly earned the
confidence of all by his piety and gentlemanly manners that we made every
effort to keep him with us. I drew up a petition myself, which all the
people signed, to induce the Bishop to let him remain in our midst; but in
vain. His lordship answered us that he wanted him for a more important
place on account of his rare ability, and we had to submit. His zeal and
devotedness knew no bounds. In the darkest and most stormy nights he was
always ready to come to the first call of the sick. I shall never forget
how quickly and cheerfully he responded to my appeal when, a few years ago,
I went, in the midst of one of our most chilly nights, to request him to
visit my wife, who was very sick."
At this stage of the conversation, I must confess that I nearly laughed
outright. The gratitude of that poor dupe of the confessional to the priest
who had come to bring shame and destruction to his house, and the idea of
that very man going himself to convey to his home the corrupter of his own
wife, seemed to me so ludicrous that, for a moment, I had to make a
superhuman effort to control myself.
But I was soon brought to my better senses by the shame which I felt at the
idea of the unspeakable degradation and secret infamy of the clergy of
which I was a member. At that instant hundreds of cases of similar, if not
greater, depravity, which had been revealed to me through the confessional,
came to my mind and distressed and disgusted me so much that my tongue was
almost paralyzed.
After dinner the merchant asked his lady to call the children, that I might
see them, and I could not but admire their beauty; but I do not need to say
that the pleasure of seeing those dear and lovely little ones was much
marred by the secret though sure knowledge I had that the three youngest
were the fruits of the unspeakable depravity of auricular confession in the
higher ranks of society.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI.
AURICULAR CONFESSION DESTROYS ALL THE SACRED TIES OF MARRIAGE AND HUMAN
SOCIETY.
* * * * *
Would the banker allow his priest to open, when alone, the safe of his
bank, manipulate and examine his papers, and pry into the most secret
details of his banking business?
No! surely not.
How is it, then, that the same banker allows that priest to open the heart
of his wife, manipulate her soul, and pry into the sacred chambers of her
most intimate and secret thoughts?
Are not the heart, the soul, the purity, and the self-respect of his wife
as great and precious treasures as the safe of his bank? Are not the risks
and dangers of temptations, imprudences, indiscretions, much greater and
more irreparable in the second than in the first case?
Would the jeweller, or goldsmith, allow his priest to come when he pleases,
and handle the rich articles of his stores, ransack the desk where his
money is deposited, and play with it as he pleases?
No! surely not.
But are not the heart, the soul, and the purity of his dear wife and
daughter a thousandfold more valuable than his precious stones, or silver
and gold wares? Are not the dangers of temptation and indiscretions, on the
part of the priest, more formidable and irresistible in the second than in
the first of these cases?
Would the livery-man allow his priest to take his most valuable and
unmanageable horses as he wishes, and drive alone, without any other
consideration and security than the discretion of his pastor?
No! surely not.
That livery-man knows that he would soon be ruined if he should do so.
Whatever may be his confidence in the discretion, honesty, and prudence of
his priest, he will never push his confidence so far as to give him the
unreserved control of the noble and fiery animals which are the glory of
his stables and the support of his family.
How, then, can the same man trust the entire, absolute management of his
wife and dear daughters to the control of that one to whom he would not
entrust his horses?
Are not his wife and daughters as precious to him as those horses? Is there
not greater danger of indiscretions, mismanagement, irreparable and fatal
errors on the part of the priest, dealing alone with the wife and
daughters, than when driving the horses? No human act of folly, moral
depravity, and want of common sense, can equal the permission given by a
man to his wife to go and confess to the priest.
That day he abdicates the royal--I had almost said divine--dignity of
husband; for it is from God that he holds it: his crown is forever lost,
his sceptre broken!
What would you do to any one mean enough to peep or listen through the
key-hole of your door, in order to hear or see everything that was said or
done within? Would you show so little self-respect as to tolerate such
indiscretion? Would you not rather take a whip or a cane, and drive away
the villain? Would you not even expose your life to free yourself from
impudent curiosity?
But what is the confessional, if not the key-hole of your house and of your
very chamber, through which the priest can hear and see your most secret
words and actions, nay, more, know your most intimate thoughts and
aspirations?
Are you men to submit to such sly and insulting inquisition? Do you deserve
the name of men who consent to put up with such ignoble affront and
humiliation?
"The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the
Church." "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands, in everything" (Eph. v.) If these solemn words
are the true oracles of divine wisdom, is not the husband divinely
appointed the _only_ adviser, counsellor, help of his wife, just as Christ
is the _only_ adviser, counsellor, and help of His Church?
If the Apostle was not an impostor when he said that the wife is to her
husband what the body is to the head, and that the husband is to his wife
what the head is to the body--is not the husband appointed by God to be the
light, the guide of his wife? Is it not his duty, as well as his privilege
and glory, to console her in her afflictions, strengthen her in her hours
of weakness, keep her up when she is in danger of fainting, and encourage
her when she is on the rough and uphill ways of life?
If Christ has not come to deceive the world through His Apostle, must not
the wife go to her husband for advice? Ought she not to expect from him,
and him alone, after God, the light she wants and the consolation she is in
need of? Is it not to her husband, and to him alone, after God, she ought
to look in her days of trial for help? Is it not under his leadership alone
she must fight the battle of life and conquer? Are not this mutual and
daily sharing of the anxieties of life, this constant shouldering on the
battle-field, and this reciprocal and mutual protection and help renewed at
every hour of the day, which form, under the eyes and by the mercy of God,
the holiest and the purest charms of the married life? Is it not that
unreserved confidence in each other which binds together those golden links
of Christian love that make them happy in the very midst of the trials of
life? Is it not through this mutual confidence alone that they are _one_ as
God wants them to be _one_? Is it not in this unity of thoughts, fears and
hopes, joys and love, which come from God, that they can cheerfully cross
the thorny valley, and safely reach the Promised Land?
The Gospel says that the husband is to his wife what Christ is to His
Church! Is it not, then, a most sacrilegious iniquity for a wife to look to
another rather than to her own husband for such advice, wisdom, strength,
and life, as he is entitled, qualified, and ready to afford? As no other
has the right to her love, so no other man has any right to her absolute
confidence. As she becomes an adulteress the day that she gives her body to
another man, is she any the less an adulteress, the day that she gives her
confidence and trusts her soul to a stranger? The adultery of the heart and
soul is not less criminal than the adultery of the body; and every time the
wife goes to the feet of the priest to confess, does she not become guilty
of that iniquity?
In the Church of Rome, through the confessional, the priest is much more
the husband of the wife than the man to whom she was wedded at the foot of
the altar. The priest has the best part of the wife. He has the marrow,
when the husband has the bones. He has the juice of the orange, the husband
has the rind. He has the soul and the heart; the husband has the skeleton.
He has the honey; the husband has the wax cell. He has the succulent
oyster; the husband has the dry shell. As much as the soul is higher than
the body, so much are the power and privileges of the priest higher than
the power and privileges of the husband in the mind of the penitent wife.
As the husband is the lord of the body which he feeds, so the priest is the
lord of the soul, which he also feeds. The wife, then, has two lords and
masters, whom she must love, respect, and obey. Will she not give the best
part of her love, respect, and submission to the one who is as much above
the other as the heavens are above the earth? But as one cannot serve two
masters together, will not the master who prepares and fits her for an
eternal life of glory, certainly be the object of her constant, real, and
most ardent love, gratitude, and respect, when the worldly and sinful man
to whom she is married will have _only_ the appearance or the crumbs of
those sentiments? Will she not, naturally, instinctively serve, love,
respect, and obey, as lord and master, the godly man whose yoke is so
light, so holy, so divine, rather than the carnal man whose human
imperfections are to her a source of daily trial and suffering?
In the Church of Rome the thoughts and desires, the secret joys and fears
of the soul, the very life of the wife, are sealed things to the husband.
He has no right to look into the sanctuary of her heart; he has no remedy
to apply to the soul; he has no mission from God to advise her in the dark
hours of her anxieties; he has no balm to apply to the bleeding wounds, so
often received in the daily battles of life; he must remain a perfect
stranger in his own house.
The wife, expecting nothing from her husband, has no revelation to make to
him, no favour to ask, no debt of gratitude to pay. Nay, she shuts all the
avenues of her soul, all the doors and windows of her heart, against her
husband. The priest, and the priest alone, has a right to her entire
confidence; to him, and him alone, she will go and reveal all her secrets,
show all her wounds; to him, and him alone, she will turn her mind, her
heart and soul, in the hour of trouble and anxiety; from him, and him
alone, she will ask and expect the light and consolation she wants. Every
day, more and more, her husband will become as a stranger to her, if he
does not become a real nuisance, and an obstacle to her happiness and
peace.
Yes, through the confessional, an unfathomable abyss has been dug, by the
Church of Rome, between the heart of the wife and the heart of the husband!
Their bodies may be very near each other, but their souls, their real
affections and their confidence, are at greater distance than the north is
from the south pole of the earth. The confessor is the master, the ruler,
the king of the soul; the husband, as the grave-yard keeper, must be
satisfied with the carcase!
The husband has the permission to look on the outside of the palace; he is
allowed to rest his head on the cold marble, of the outdoor steps; but the
confessor triumphantly walks into the mysterious starry rooms, examines at
leisure their numberless and unspeakable wonders; and, alone, he is allowed
to rest his head on the soft pillows of the unbounded confidence, respect,
and love of the wife.
In the Church of Rome, if the husband asks a favour from his wife, nine
times in ten she will inquire from her father confessor whether or not she
can grant him his request, and the poor husband will have to wait patiently
for the permission of the master or the rebuke of the lord, according to
the answer of the oracle which had to be consulted! If he gets impatient
under the yoke, and murmurs, the wife will soon go to the feet of her
confessor; to tell him how she has the misfortune to be united to a most
unreasonable man, and how she has to suffer from him! She reveals to her
"dear father" how she is unhappy under such a yoke, and how her life would
be an unsupportable burden, had she not the privilege and happiness of
coming often to his feet, to lay down her sorrows, hear his sympathetic
words, and get his so affectionate and paternal advice! She tells him, with
tears of gratitude, that it is only when by his side, and at his feet, she
finds rest to her weary soul, balm to her bleeding heart, and peace to her
troubled conscience.
When she comes from the confessional, her ears are long filled as with a
heavenly music, the honeyed words of her confessor ring for many days in
her heart, she feels it lonesome to be separated from him, his image is
constantly before her mind, and the _souvenir_ of his amiabilities is one
of her most pleasant thoughts. There is nothing which she likes so much as
to speak of his good qualities, his patience, his piety, his charity, she
longs for the day when she will again go to confess, and pass a few hours
by the side of that angelic man, in opening to him all the secrets of her
heart, and in revealing all her _ennuis_. She tells him how she regrets
that she cannot come oftener to see him, and receive the benefit of his
charitable counsels; she does not even conceal from him how often, in her
dreams, she feels too happy to be with him! More and more, every day, the
gap between her and her husband widens; more and more, each day, she
regrets that she has not the happiness to be the wife of such a holy man as
her confessor! Oh! if it were possible...! But, then, she blushes or
smiles, and sings a song.
Then again, I ask it, Who is the true lord, ruler, and master in that
house? For whom does that heart beat and live?
Thus it is that that stupendous imposture, the dogma of auricular
confession, does completely destroy all the links, the joys, the
responsibilities, and divine privileges of the married life, and transforms
it into a life of perpetual, though disguised, adultery. It becomes utterly
impossible, in the church of Rome, that the husband should be _one_ with
his wife, and that the wife should be _one_ with her husband: a "monstrous
being" has been put between them both, called the confessor! Born in the
darkest ages of the world, that being has received from hell his mission to
destroy and contaminate the purest joys of the married life, to enslave the
wife, to outrage the husband, and to damn the world!
The more auricular confession is practised, the more the laws of public and
private morality are trampled under feet. The husband wants his wife to be
_his_--he does not, and could not, consent to share his authority over her
with anybody: he wants to be the _only_ man who will have her confidence
and her heart, as well as her respect and love. And so, the very moment
that he anticipates the dark shadow of the confessor coming between him and
the woman of his choice, he prefers silently to shrink from entering into
the sacred bond; the holy joys of home and family lose their divine
attractions; he prefers the cold life of an ignominious celibacy to the
humiliation and opprobrium of the questionable privileges of an uncertain
paternity.
France, Spain, and many other Roman Catholic countries, thus witness the
multitude of those bachelors increasing every year. The number of families
and births, in consequence, is fast decreasing in their midst; and, if God
does not perform a miracle to stop those nations on their downward course,
it is easy to calculate the day when they will owe their existence to the
tolerance and pity of the mighty Protestant nations by which they are
surrounded.
Why is it that the Irish Roman Catholic people are so irremediably degraded
and clothed in rags? Why is it that that people, whom God has endowed with
so many noble qualities, seem to be so deprived of intelligence and
self-respect that they glory in their own shame? Why is it that their land
has been for centuries the land of bloody riots and cowardly murders? The
principal cause is the enslaving of the Irish women, by means of the
confessional. Every one knows that the spiritual slavery and degradation of
the Irish woman has no bounds. After she has been enslaved and degraded,
she, in turn, has enslaved and degraded her husband and her sons. Ireland
will be an object of pity; she will be poor, miserable, riotous,
blood-thirsty, degraded, so long as she rejects Christ, to be ruled by the
father confessor planted in every parish by the Pope.
Who has not been amazed and saddened by the downfall of France? How is it
that her once so mighty armies have melted away, that her brave sons have
so easily been conquered and disarmed? How is it that France, fallen
powerless at the feet of her enemies, has frightened the world by the
spectacle of the incredible, bloody, and savage follies of the Commune? Do
not look for the causes of the downfall, humiliation, and untold miseries
of France anywhere else than in the confessional. For centuries has not
that great country obstinately rejected Christ? Has she not slaughtered or
sent into exile her noblest children, who wanted to follow the Gospel? Has
she not given her fair daughters into the hands of the confessors, who have
defiled and degraded them? How could women, in France, teach her husbands
and sons to love liberty, and die for it, when she was herself a miserable,
an abject slave? How could she form her husbands and sons to the manly
virtues of heroes, when her own mind was defiled and her heart corrupted?
The French woman had unconditionally surrendered the noble and fair citadel
of her heart, intelligence, and womanly self-respect, into the hands of her
confessor long before her sons surrendered their sword to the Germans at
Sedan and Paris. The first unconditional surrender had brought the second.
The complete moral destruction of woman by the confessor in France has been
a long work. It has required centuries to bow down, break, and enslave the
noble daughters of France. Yes; but those who know France know that that
destruction is now as complete as it is deplorable. The downfall of woman
in France, and her supreme degradation through the confessional, is now _un
fait accompli_, which nobody can deny; the highest intellects have seen and
confessed it. One of the most profound thinkers of that unfortunate
country, Michelet, has depicted that supreme and irretrievable degradation
in a most eloquent book, "The Priest, The Woman, The Family;" and not a
voice has been raised to deny or refute what he has said. Those who have
any knowledge of history and philosophy know very well that the moral
degradation of the woman is soon followed, everywhere, by the moral
degradation of the nation; and the moral degradation of the nation is very
soon followed by ruin and overthrow.
That French nation had been formed by God to be a race of giants. They were
chivalrous and brave; they had bright intelligences, stout hearts, strong
arms, and a mighty sword. But as the hardest granite rock yields and breaks
under the drop of water which incessantly falls upon it, so that great
nation had to break and to fall into pieces under, not the drop, but the
rivers of impure waters which for centuries have incessantly flowed in upon
it from the pestilential fountain of the confessional. "Righteousness
exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach, to any people." (Proverbs xiv.)
Why is it that Spain is so miserable, so weak, so poor, so foolishly and
cruelly tearing her own bosom, and reddening her fair valleys with the
blood of her own children? The principal, if not the only, cause of the
downfall of that great nation is the confessional. There, also, the
confessor has defiled, degraded, enslaved women, and women in turn have
defiled and degraded their husbands and sons. Women have sown broadcast
over their country the seeds of that slavery, of that want of Christian
honesty, justice, and self-respect with which they had themselves been
first imbued in the confessional.
But when you see, without a single exception, the nations whose women drink
the impure and poisonous waters which flow from the confessional sinking
down so rapidly, do you not wonder how fast the neighbouring nations, who
have destroyed those dens of impurity, prostitution, and abject slavery,
are rising up? What a marvellous contrast is before our eyes! On one side,
the nations who allow the woman to be degraded and enslaved at the feet of
the confessor--France, Spain, Romish Ireland, Mexico, &c., &c.--are, there,
fallen into the dust, bleeding, struggling, powerless, like the sparrow
whose entrails are devoured by the vulture. On the other side, see how the
nations whose women go to wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb are
soaring up, as on eagle wings, in the highest regions of progress, peace,
and liberty!
If legislators could once understand the respect and protection they owe to
woman, they would soon, by stringent laws, prohibit auricular confession as
contrary to good morals and the welfare of society; for, though the
advocates of auricular confession have succeeded to a certain extent in
blinding the public, and in concealing the abominations of the system under
a lying mantle of holiness and religion, it is nothing else than a school
of immorality.
I say more than that. After twenty-five years of hearing the confessions of
the common people and of the highest classes of society, of the laymen and
the priests, of the grand vicars and bishops and the nuns, I
conscientiously say before the world that the immorality of the
confessional is of a more dangerous and degrading nature than that which we
attribute to the social evil of our great cities. The injury caused to the
intelligence and to the soul in the confessional, as a general rule, is of
a more dangerous nature and more irremediable, because it is neither
suspected nor understood by its victims.
The unfortunate woman who lives an immoral life knows her profound misery;
she often blushes and weeps over her degradation; she hears from every side
voices which call her out of those ways of perdition. Almost at every hour
of day and night the cry of her conscience warns her against the desolation
and suffering of an eternity passed far away from the regions of holiness,
light, and life. All those things are often so many means of grace, in the
hands of our merciful God, to awaken the mind and to save the guilty soul.
But in the confessional the poison is administered under the name of a pure
and refreshing water; the deadly wound is inflicted by a sword so well
oiled that the blow is not felt; the vilest and most impure notions and
thoughts, in the form of questions and answers, are presented and accepted
as the bread of life! All the notions of modesty, purity, and womanly
self-respect and delicacy, are set aside and forgotten to propitiate the
god of Rome. In the confessional the woman is told, and she believes, that
there is no sin for her in hearing things which would make the vilest
blush--no sin to say things which would make the most desperate villain of
the streets of London to stagger--no sin to converse with her confessor on
matters so filthy that if attempted in civil life would for ever exclude
the perpetrator from the society of the virtuous.
Yes, the soul and the intelligence defiled and destroyed in the
confessional are often hopelessly defiled and destroyed. They are sinking
into a complete, an irretrievable perdition; for, not knowing the guilt,
they will not cry for mercy--not suspecting the fatal disease that is being
fostered, they will not call for the true Physician. It was evidently when
thinking of the unspeakable ruin of the souls of men through the wickedness
culminating in the "Pope's confessors," that the Son of God said:--"If the
blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." To every woman, with
very few exceptions, coming out from the feet of her confessor, the
children of light may say:--"I know thy works, that thou hast a name that
thou livest, but thou art dead!" (Revelations iii.)
Nobody has yet been, nor ever will be, able to answer the few following
lines, which I addressed some years ago to the Rev. Mr. Bruyère, Roman
Catholic Vicar-General of London, Canada:--
"With a blush on my face and regret in my heart, I confess, before God and
man, that I have been like you, and with you, through the confessional,
plunged twenty-five years in that bottomless sea of iniquity, in which the
blind priests of Rome have to swim day and night.
"I had to learn by heart, like you, the infamous questions which the Church
of Rome forces every priest to learn. I had to put those impure, immoral
questions to old and young females who were confessing their sins to me.
These questions--you know it--are of such a nature that no prostitute would
dare to put them to another. Those questions, and the answers they elicit,
are so debasing that no man in London--you know it--except a priest of
Rome, is sufficiently lost to every sense of shame as to put them to any
woman.
"Yes, I was bound, in conscience, as you are bound to-day, to put into the
ears, the mind, the imagination, the memory, the heart and soul of females,
questions of such a nature, the direct and immediate tendency of which--you
know it well--is to fill the minds and the hearts of both priests and
female penitents with thoughts, phantoms, and temptations of such a
degrading nature, that I do not know any words adequate to express them.
Pagan antiquity has never seen any institution so polluting as the
confessional. I know nothing more corrupting than the law which forces a
female to tell all her thoughts, desires, and most secret feelings and
actions to an unmarried priest. The confessional is a school of perdition.
You may deny that before the Protestants; but you cannot deny it before me.
My dear Mr. Bruyère, if you call me a degraded man because I have lived
twenty-five years in the atmosphere of the confessional, you are right. I
was a degraded man, just as yourself and all the priests are to-day, in
spite of your denegations. If you call me a degraded man, because my soul,
my mind and my heart were, as your own are to-day, plunged into the deep
waters of iniquity which flow from the confessional, I confess 'Guilty!' I
was degraded and polluted by the confessional just as you and all the
priests of Rome are.
"It has required the whole blood of the great Victim, who died on Calvary
for sinners, to purify me; and I pray that, through the same blood, you may
be purified also."
If the legislators knew the respect and protection they owe to women--I
repeat it--they would by the most stringent laws prohibit auricular
confession as a crime against society.
Not long ago, a printer in England was sent to jail and severely punished
for having published in English the questions put by the priests to the
women in the confessional; and the sentence was equitable, for all who will
read those questions will conclude that no girl or woman who brings her
mind into contact with the contents of that book can escape from moral
death. But what are the priests of Rome doing in the confessional? Do they
not pass the greatest part of their time in questioning females, old and
young, and hearing their answers, on those very matters? If it were a
crime, punishable by law, to present those questions in a book, is it not a
crime far more punishable by law to present those very things to married
and unmarried women through the auricular confession?
I ask it from every man of common sense, What is the difference between a
woman or a girl learning those things in a book, or learning them from the
lips of a man? Will not those impure, demoralizing suggestions sink more
deeply into their minds, and impress themselves more forcibly in their
memory, when told to them by a man of authority, speaking in the name of
Almighty God, than when read in a book which has no authority?
I say to the legislators of Europe and America: "Read for yourselves those
horrible, unmentionable things;" and remember that the Pope has 100,000
priests whose principal work is to put those very things into the
intelligence and memory of the women whom they entrap into their snares.
Let us suppose that each priest hears the confessions of only five female
penitents (though we know that the daily average is ten). It gives us the
awful number of 500,000 women whom the priests of Rome have the legal right
to pollute and destroy every day!
Legislators of the so-called Christian and civilized nations, I ask it
again from you, Where is your consistency, your justice, your love of
public morality, when you punish so severely the man who has printed the
questions put to the women in the confessional, while you honour and let
free, and often pay the men whose public and private life is spent in
spreading the very same moral poison in a much more efficacious, scandalous
and shameful way, under the sacrilegious mask of religion?
The confessional is in the hands of the devil what West Point is to the
United States, and Woolwich is to Great Britain, a training of the army to
fight and conquer the enemy. It is in the confessional that 500,000 women
every day, and 182,500,000 every year are trained by the Pope in the art of
fighting against God, by destroying themselves and the whole world, through
every imaginable kind of impurity and filthiness.
Once more, I request the legislators, the husbands, and the fathers in
Europe, as well as in America, to read in Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, in every
theological book of Rome, what their wives and their daughters have to
learn in the confessional.
In order to screen themselves, the priests of Rome have recourse to the
following miserable subterfuge:--"Is not the physician forced," they say,
"to perform certain delicate operations on women? Do you complain of this?
No; you let the physicians alone; you do not abuse them in their arduous
and conscientious duties. Why, then, do you insult the physician of the
soul, the confessor, in the accomplishment of his holy, though delicate,
duties?
I answer, first, The art and science of the physician are approved and
praised in many places of the Scriptures. But the art and science of the
confessor are nowhere to be found in the holy records. Auricular confession
is nothing else than a most stupendous imposture. The filthy and impure
questions of the confessor, with the polluting answers they elicit, were
put among the most diabolical and forbidden actions by God Himself the day
that the Spirit of Truth, Holiness, and Life wrote the imperishable
words,--"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth" (Eph. iv.
29).
Secondly, The physician is not bound by a solemn oath to remain ignorant of
the things which it will be his duty to examine and cure. But the priest of
Rome is bound, by the most ridiculous and impious oath of celibacy, to
remain ignorant of the very things which are the daily objects of his
inquiries, observations, and thoughts! The priest of Rome has sworn never
to taste of the fruits with which he feeds, his imagination, his memory,
his heart, and his soul day and night! The physician is honest in the
performance of his duties; but the priest of Rome becomes in fact a
perjured man every time he enters the confessional-box.
Thirdly, If a lady has a little sore on her small finger, and is obliged to
go to the physician, for a remedy, she has only to show her little finger,
allow the plaister or ointment to be applied, and all is finished. The
physician _never_--no, never--says to that lady, "It is my duty to suspect
that you have many other parts of your body which are sick; I am bound in
conscience, under pain of death, to examine you from head to foot, in order
to save your precious life from those _secret_ diseases, which may kill you
if they are not cured just now. Several of those diseases are of such a
nature that you never dared perhaps to examine them with the attention they
deserve, and you are hardly conscious of them. I know, madam, that this is
a very painful and delicate thing for both you and me, that I should be
forced to make that thorough examination of your person, but there is no
help; I am in duty bound to do it. But you have nothing to fear. I am a
holy man, who has made a vow of celibacy. We are alone; neither your
husband nor your father will ever know the secret infirmities I will find
in you; they will never even suspect the perfect investigation I will make,
and they will, for ever, be ignorant of the remedy I will apply."
Has any physician ever been authorized to speak or act in this way with any
of his female patients? No; never! never!
But this is just the way the spiritual physician, with whom the devil
enslaves and corrupts women, acts. When the fair, honest, and timid
spiritual patient has come to her confessor, to show him the little sore
she has on the small finger of her soul, the confessor _is bound_ in
conscience to suspect that she has other sores,--secret, shameful sores!
Yes, he is bound, nine times in ten; and he is _always allowed_ to suppose
that she does not dare to reveal them! Then he is advised by the Church to
induce her to let him search every corner of the heart, and of the soul,
and to inquire about every kind of contaminations, impurities, secret and
shameful unspeakable matters! The young priest is drilled in the diabolical
art of going into the most sacred recesses of the soul and the heart,
almost in spite of his penitents. I could bring hundreds of theologians as
witnesses to what I say.--But it is enough just now to cite three.
"Lest the Confessor should indolently hesitate in tracing out the
circumstances of any sin, let him have the following versicle of
circumstances in readiness:
"Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando. Who, which, where,
with whom, why, how, when." (Dens, vol. 6, p. 123. Liguori, vol. 2, p.
464.)
The celebrated book of the Priests, "The Mirror of the Clergy," page 357,
says:
"Oportet ut Confessor solet cognoscere quid quid debet judicare. Deligens
igitur inquisitor et subtilis investigator sapienter quasi astute
interrogat a peccatore quod ignorat, vel verecundia volit occultare."
"It is necessary that the Confessor should know everything on which he has
to exercise his judgment. Let him then, with wisdom and subtility,
interrogate the sinners on the sins which he may ignore, or conceal through
shame!"
The poor, unprotected girl is thus thrown into the power of the priest,
soul and body, to be examined on all the sins she may ignore, or which,
through shame, she may conceal! On what boundless sea of depravity the poor
fragile bark is launched by the priest! On what bottomless abysses of
impurities she will have to pass and travel, in company with the priest
alone, before he will have interrogated her on all the sins she may ignore,
and which she may have concealed through shame!! Who can tell the
sentiments of surprise and shame and distress, of a timid, honest young
girl, when, for the first time, she is initiated to infamies which are
ignored even in houses of prostitution!!!
But such is the practice, the sacred duty of the spiritual physician. "Let
him (the priest confessor) with wisdom and subtlety interrogate the sinner
on the sins he may ignore or conceal with shame."
And there are 100,000 men, not only allowed, but petted, and often paid by
the governments to do that, under the name of the God of the Gospel!
Fourthly, I answer to the sophism of the priest, When the physician has any
delicate and dangerous operation to perform on a female patient, he is
_never_ alone; the husband, or the father, the mother, the sister, or some
friends of the patient are there, whose scrutinizing eyes and attentive
ears make it _impossible_ for the physician to say or do any improper
thing.
But, when the poor deluded spiritual patient comes to be treated by her
so-called spiritual physician, and shows him her diseases, is she not
alone--shamefully alone--with him? Where are the protecting ears of the
husband, the father, the mother, the sisters, or the friends? Where is the
barrier interposed between this sinful, weak, tempted, and often depraved
man and his victim?
Would the priest so freely ask _this_ and _that_ from that married woman,
if he knew that the husband could hear him? No, surely not; for he is well
aware that the enraged husband would blow out the brains of the villain
who, under the sacrilegious pretext of purifying the soul of his wife, is
filling her honest heart with every kind of pollution and infamy.
Fifthly, When the physician performs a delicate operation on one of his
female patients, the operation is usually accompanied with pain, cries, and
often with bloodshed. The sympathetic and honest physician suffers almost
as much pain as his patient; those cries, acute pains, tortures, and
bleeding wounds make it morally impossible that the physician should be
tempted to any improper thing.
But the sight of the spiritual wounds of that fair penitent! Is the poor
depraved human heart really sorry to see and examine them? Oh, no! it is
just the contrary!
The dear Saviour weeps over those wounds; the angels are distressed at the
sight. Yes. But the deceitful and corrupt heart of man, is it not rather
apt to be pleased at the sight of wounds which are so much like the ones he
has himself, so often been pleased to receive from the hand of the enemy?
Was the heart of David pained and horror-struck at the sight of the fair
Bath-sheba, when imprudently and too freely exposed in her bath? Was not
that holy prophet smitten and brought down to the dust by that guilty look?
Was not the mighty giant, Samson, undone by the charms of Delilah? Was not
the wise Solomon ensnared and befooled in the midst of the women by whom he
was surrounded?
Who will believe that the bachelors of the Pope are made of stronger metal
than the Davids, the Samsons, and the Solomons? Where is the man who has so
completely lost his common sense as to believe that the priests of Rome are
stronger than Samson, holier than David, wiser than Solomon? Who will
believe that confessors will stand up on their feet amidst the storms which
prostrate in the dust those giants of the armies of the Lord? To suppose
that, in the generality of cases the confessor can resist the temptations
by which he is daily surrounded in the confessional, that he will
constantly refuse the golden opportunities which offer themselves to him,
to satisfy the almost irresistible propensities of his fallen human nature,
is neither wisdom nor charity; it is simply folly.
I do not say that all the confessors and their female penitents fall into
the same degree of abject degradation; thanks be to God, I have known
several who nobly fought their battles and conquered on that field of so
many shameful defeats. But these are the exceptions. It is just as when the
fire has ravaged one of our grand forests of America--how sad it is to see
the numberless noble trees fallen under the devouring element! But, here
and there the traveller is not a little amazed and pleased to find some
which have proudly stood the fiery trial without being consumed.
Has not the world at large been struck with terror when they heard of the
fire which a few years ago had reduced the great city of Chicago to ashes?
But those who have visited that doomed city, and seen the desolating ruins
of her 16,000 houses, had to stand in silent admiration before a few which,
in the very midst of an ocean of fire, had escaped untouched by the
destructive element.
It is so that, owing to a most marvellous protection of God, some
privileged souls do escape, here and there, the fatal destruction which
overtakes so many others in the confessional.
The confessional is just as the spider's web. How many too unsuspecting
flies find death when seeking rest on the beautiful framework of their
deceitful enemy! How few escape! and this only after a most desperate
struggle. See how the perfidious spider looks harmless in his retired, dark
corner; how motionless he is; how patiently he waits for his opportunity!
But look how quickly he surrounds his victim with his silky, delicate, and
imperceptible links! how mercilessly he sucks its blood and destroys its
life!
What does remain of the imprudent fly, after she has been entrapped into
the nets of her foe? Nothing but a skeleton. So it is with your fair wife,
your precious daughter; nine times in ten nothing but a moral skeleton
returns to you, after the Pope's black spider has been allowed to suck the
very blood of her heart and soul. Let those who would be tempted to think
that I do exaggerate read the following extracts from the memoirs of the
Venerable Scipio de Ricci, Roman Catholic Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, in
Italy. They were published by the Italian Government, to show to the world
that some measures ought to be taken by the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities to prevent the nation from being entirely swept away by the
deluge of corruption flowing from the confessional, even among the most
perfect of Rome's followers, the monks and the nuns. The priests have never
dared to deny a single iota of those terrible revelations. In page 115 we
read the following letter from Sister Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of St
Catherine, to Dr. Thomas Comparini, Rector of the Episcopal Seminary of
Pistoia:--
"_January 22, 1775._--In compliance with the request which you made me this
day, I hasten to say something, but I know not how.
"Of those who are gone out of the world I shall say nothing. Of those who
are still alive and have very little decency of conduct there are many,
among whom there is an ex-provincial named Father Dr. Ballendi, Calvi,
Zoratti, Bigliaci, Guidi, Miglieti, Verde, Bianchi, Ducci, Seraphini,
Bolla, Nera di Luca, Quaretti, &c. But wherefore any more? With the
exception of three or four, all those whom I have ever known, alive or
dead, are of the same character; they have all the same maxims and the same
conduct.
"They are on more intimate terms with the nuns than if they were married to
them! I repeat it, it would require a great deal of time to tell half of
what I know. It is the custom now, when they come to visit and hear the
confession of a sick sister, to sup with the nuns, sing, dance, play, and
sleep in the convent. It is a maxim of theirs that God has forbidden
hatred, but _not love_, and that man is made for woman and woman for man.
"I say that they can deceive the innocent and the most prudent and
circumspect, and that it would be a miracle to converse with them and not
fall!"
Page 117.--"The priests are the husbands of the nuns, and the lay brothers
of the lay sisters. In the chamber of one of the nuns I have mentioned, one
day, a man was found; he fled away, but, soon after, they gave him to us as
our confessor extraordinary.
"How many bishops are there in the Papal States, who have come to the
knowledge of those disorders, have held examinations and visitations, and
yet never could remedy; it, because the monks, our confessors, tell us that
those are excommunicated who reveal what passes in the Order!
"Poor creatures! they think they are leaving the world to escape dangers,
and they only meet with greater ones. Our fathers and mothers have given us
a good education, and here we have to unlearn and forget what they have
taught us."
Page 118.--"Do not suppose that this is the case in our convent alone. It
is just the same at St. Lucia, Prato, Pisa, Perugia, &c. I have known
things that would astonish you. Everywhere it is the same. Yes, everywhere
the same disorders, the same abuses prevail. I say, and I repeat it, let
the superiors suspect as they may, they do not know the smallest part of
the enormous wickedness that goes on between the monks and the nuns whom
they confess. Every monk who passed by on his way to the chapter entreated
a sick sister to confess to him, and...!"
Page 119.--"With respect to Father Buzachini I say that he acted just as
the others, sitting up late in the nunnery, diverting himself, and letting
the usual disorders go on. There were several nuns who had love affairs on
his account. His own principal mistress was Odaldi, of St. Lucia, who used
to send him continual treats. He was also in love with the daughter of our
factor, of whom they were very jealous here. He ruined also poor
Cancellieri, who was sextoness. The monks are all alike with their
penitents.
"Some years ago, the nuns of St. Vincent, in consequence of the
extraordinary passion they had for their father confessors Lupi and
Borghiani, were divided into two parties, one calling themselves Le Lupe,
the other Le Borghieni.
"He who made the greatest noise was Donati. I believe he is now at Rome.
Father Brandi, too, was also in great vogue. I think he is now prior of St.
Gemignani. At St. Vincent, which passes for a very holy retreat, they have
also their lovers...."
My pen refuses to reproduce several things which the nuns of Italy have
published against their father confessors. But this is enough to show to
the most incredulous that the confession is nothing else but a school of
perdition, even among those who make a profession to live in the highest
regions of Roman Catholic holiness--the monks and the nuns.
Now, from Italy let us go to America and see again the working of auricular
confession, not between the holy (?) nuns and monks of Rome, but among the
humblest classes of country women and priests. Great is the number of
parishes where women have been destroyed by their confessors, but I will
speak only of one.
When curate of Beauport, I was called by the Rev. Mr. Proulx, curate of St.
Antoine, to preach a retreat (a revival) with the Rev. Mr. Aubry, to his
parishioners, and eight or ten other priests were also invited to come and
help us to hear the confessions.
The very first day after preaching and passing five or six hours in the
confessional, the hospitable curate gave us a supper before going to bed.
But it was evident that a kind of uneasiness pervaded the whole company of
the father confessors. For my own part, I could hardly raise my eyes to
look at my neighbour, and when I wanted to speak a word it seemed that my
tongue was not free as usual; even my throat was as if it were choked; the
articulation of the sounds was imperfect. It was evidently the same with
the rest of the priests. Instead, then, of the noisy and cheerful
conversation of the other meals, there were only a few insignificant words
exchanged with a half-supressed tone.
The Rev. Mr. Proulx (the curate) at first looked as if he were partaking
also of that singular though general despondent feeling. During the first
part of the lunch he hardly said a word; but at last, raising his head and
turning his honest face towards us, in his usual gentlemanly and cheerful
manner, he said:--
"Dear friends, I see that you are all under the influence of the most
painful feelings. There is a burden on you that you can neither shake off
nor bear as you wish. I know the cause of your trouble, and I hope you will
not find fault with me if I help you to recover from that disagreeable
mental condition. You have heard in the confessional the history of many
great sins, but I know that this is not what troubles you. You are all old
enough in the confessional to know the miseries of poor human nature.
Without any more preliminaries I will come to the subject. It is no more a
secret in this place that one of the priests who has preceded me has been
very unfortunate, weak, and guilty with the greatest part of the married
women whom he has confessed. Not more than one in ten have escaped him. I
would not mention this fact had I got it only from the confessional, but I
know it well from other sources, and I can speak of it freely without
breaking the secret seal of the confessional. Now what troubles you is
that, probably, when a good number of those women have confessed to you
what they had done with their confessor, you have not asked them how long
it was since they had sinned with him, and in spite of yourselves you think
that I am the guilty man. This does, naturally, embarrass you when you are
in my presence and at my table. But please ask them, when they come again
to confess, how many months or years have passed away since their last love
affair with a confessor, and you will see that you may suppose that you are
in the house of an honest man. You may look me in the face and have no fear
to address me as if I were still worthy of your esteem; for, thanks be to
God, I am not the guilty priest who has ruined and destroyed so many souls
here."
The curate had hardly pronounced the last word when a general "We thank
you; for you have taken away a mountain from our shoulders," fell from
almost every lip. "It is a fact that, notwithstanding the good opinion we
had of you," said several, "we were in fear that you had missed the right
track, and fallen down with your fair penitents into the ditch."
I felt myself much relieved; for I was one of those who, in spite of
myself, had my secret fears about the honesty of our host. When, very early
the next morning, I had begun to hear the confessions, one of those
unfortunate victims of the confessor's depravity came to me, and in the
midst of many tears and sobs, she told me with great details what I repeat
here in a few lines:--
"I was only nine years old when my first confessor began to do very
criminal things with me when I was at his feet, confessing my sins. At
first I was ashamed and much disgusted; but soon after I became so depraved
that I was looking eagerly for every opportunity of meeting him either in
his own house, or in the church, in the vestry, and many times in his own
garden when it was dark at night. That priest did not remain very long; he
was removed, to my great regret, to another place, where he died. He was
succeeded by another one, who seemed at first to be a very holy man. I made
to him a general confession with, it seems to me, a sincere desire to give
up for ever that sinful life, but I fear that my confessions became a cause
of sin to that good priest; for not long after my confession was finished,
he declared to me in the confessional his love, with such passionate words
that he soon brought me down again into my former criminal habits with him.
This lasted six years, when my parents removed to this place. I was very
glad of it, for I hoped that, being far away from him, I should not be any
more a cause of sin to him, and that I might begin a better life. But the
fourth time that I went to confess to my new confessor, he invited me to go
to his room, where we did things so horrible together that I do not know
how to confess them. It was two days before my marriage, and the only child
I have had is the fruit of that sinful hour. After my marriage I continued
the same criminal life with my confessor. He was the friend of my husband;
we had many opportunities of meeting each other, not only when I was going
to confess, but when my husband was absent and my child was at school. It
was evident to me that several other women were as miserable and criminal
as I was myself. This sinful intercourse with my confessor went on till God
Almighty stopped it with a real thunderbolt. My dear only daughter had gone
to confess and receive the holy communion. As she had come back from church
much later than I expected, I inquired the reason which had kept her so
long. She then threw herself into my arms, and with convulsive cries said:
'Dear mother, do not ask me any more to go to confess.... Oh! if you could
know what my confessor has asked me when I was at his feet! and if you
could know what he has done with me, and he has forced me to do with him
when he had me alone in his parlour!'
"My poor child could not speak any longer, she fainted in my arms.
"But as soon as she recovered, without losing a minute, I dressed myself,
and, full of an inexpressible rage, I directed my steps towards the
parsonage. But before leaving my house, I had concealed under my shawl a
sharp butcher's knife to stab and kill the villain who had destroyed my
dearly beloved child. Fortunately for that priest, God changed my mind
before I entered his room--my words to him were few and sharp.
'You are a monster!' I said to him. 'Not satisfied to have destroyed me,
you want to destroy my own dear child, which is yours also! Shame upon you!
I had come with this knife to put an end to your infamies, but so short a
punishment would be too mild a one for such a monster. I want you to live,
that you may bear upon your head the curse of the too unsuspecting and
unguarded friends whom you have so cruelly deceived and betrayed; I want
you to live with the consciousness that you are known by me and many
others, as one of the most infamous monsters who have ever defiled this
world. But know that if you are not away from this place before the end of
this week, I will reveal everything to my husband, and you may be sure that
he will not let you live twenty-four hours longer, for he sincerely thinks
that your daughter is his, and he will be the avenger of her honour! I go
to denounce you this very day to the bishop, that he may take you away from
this parish, which you have so shamelessly polluted.'
"The priest threw himself at my feet, and, with tears, asked my pardon,
imploring me not to denounce him to the bishop, promising that he would
change his life and begin to live as a good priest. But I remained
inexorable. I went to the bishop, made my deposition, and warned his
lordship of the sad consequences which would follow, if he kept that curate
any longer in this place, as he seemed inclined to do. But before the eight
days had expired, he was put at the head of another parish, not very far
away from here."
The reader will, perhaps, like to know what has become of this priest.
He has remained at the head of that most beautiful parish of ----, as
curate, where I know it, he continued to destroy his penitents, till a few
years before he died, with the reputation of a good priest, an amiable man,
and a holy confessor!"
* * * * *
"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work:....
"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His
coming:
"Even Him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and
signs and lying wonders,
"And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish;
because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie:
"That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. ii. 7-12.)
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII.
SHOULD AURICULAR CONFESSION BE TOLERATED AMONG CIVILIZED NATIONS?
* * * * *
Let my readers who understand Latin peruse the extracts I give from Bishop
Kenrick, Debreyne, Burchard, Dens or Liguori, and the most incredulous will
learn for themselves that the world, even in the darkest ages of old
paganism, has never seen anything so infamous and degrading as auricular
confession.
To say that auricular confession purifies the soul is not less ridiculous
and silly than to say that the white robe of the virgin, or the lily of the
valley, will become whiter by being dipped into a bottle of black ink.
Has not the Pope's celibate, by studying his books before he goes to the
confessional-box, corrupted his own heart, and plunged his mind, memory,
and soul into an atmosphere of impurity which would have been intolerable
even to the people of Sodom?
We ask it not only in the name of religion, but of common sense. How can
that man, whose heart and memory are just made the reservoir of all the
grossest impurities the world has ever known, help others to be chaste and
pure?
The idolaters of India believe that they will be purified from their sins
by drinking the water with which they have just washed the feet of their
priests.
What monstrous doctrine! The souls of men purified by the water which has
washed the feet of a miserable, sinful man! Is there any religion more
monstrous and diabolical than the Brahmin religion?
Yes, there is one more monstrous, deceitful, and contaminating than that.
It is the religion which teaches that the soul of man is purified by a few
magical words (called absolution), which come from the lips of a miserable
sinner, whose heart and intelligence have just been filled by the
unmentionable impurities of Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, Kenrick, &c., &c. For
if the poor Indian's soul is not purified by the drinking of the holy (?)
water which has touched the feet of his priest, at least that soul cannot
be contaminated by it. But who does not clearly see that the drinking of
the vile questions of the confessor contaminate, defile, and damn the soul?
Who has not been filled with deep compassion and pity for those poor
idolaters of Hindustan who believe that they will secure to themselves a
happy passage to the next life if they have the good luck to die when
holding in their hands the tail of a cow? But there are people among us who
are not less worthy of our supreme compassion and pity, for they hope that
they will be purified from their sins and be for ever happy if a few
magical words (called absolution) fall upon their souls from the polluted
lips of a miserable sinner sent by the Pope of Rome. The dirty tail of a
cow and the magical words of a confessor to purify the souls and wash away
the sins of the world are equally inventions of the Devil. Both religions
come from Satan, for they equally substitute the magical power of vile
creatures for the blood of Christ to save the guilty children of Adam. They
both ignore that the blood of the Lamb _alone_ cleanseth us from all sin.
Yes! auricular confession is a public act of idolatry, it is asking from a
man what God _alone_, through His Son Jesus, can grant: forgiveness of
sins. Has the Saviour of the world ever said to sinners, "Go to this or
that man for repentance, pardon, and peace"? No; but He has said to all
sinners, "Come unto Me." And from that day to the end of the world all the
echoes of heaven and earth will repeat these words of the merciful Saviour
to all the lost children of Adam, 'Come unto Me.'
When Christ gave to His disciples the power of the keys in these words,
"Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever
ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt. xviii. 18), He
had just explained His mind by saying, "If thy brother shall trespass
against thee" (v. 15). The Son of God Himself in that solemn hour protested
against the stupendous imposture of Rome by telling us positively that that
power of binding and loosing, forgiving and retaining sins, was _only_ in
reference to sins committed against _each other_. Peter had correctly
understood his Master's words when he asked, "How oft shall my brother sin
_against me_ and I forgive him?"
And in order that His true disciples might not be shaken by the sophisms of
Rome, or by the glittering nonsense of that band of silly half-Popish sect
called Tractarians, or Ritualists, the merciful Saviour gave the admirable
parable of the poor servant, which He closed by what He has so often
repeated, "So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye
from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses."
(Matt. xviii. 35).
Not long before, He had again mercifully given us his whole mind about the
obligation and _power_ which every one of His disciples had of forgiving
"For if ye forgive even their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also
forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses" (Matt. vi. 14, 15).
"Be ye therefore merciful as your father also is merciful, forgive and ye
shall be forgiven" (Luke vi. 36, 37).
Auricular Confession, as the Rev. Dr. Wainwright has so eloquently put it
in his "Confession not Auricular," is a diabolical caricature of the
forgiveness of sin through the blood of Christ, just as the impious dogma
of Transubstantiation is a monstrous caricature of the salvation of the
world through His death.
The Romanists and their ugly tail, the Ritualistic party in the Episcopal
Church, make a great noise about the words of our Saviour in St. John:
"Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them: and whose soever
sins ye retain, they are retained" (John xx. 23).
But again, our Saviour had Himself, once for all, explained what He meant
by forgiving and retaining sins--(Matt. xviii. 35; Matt. vi. 14, 15; Luke
vi. 36, 37).
Nobody but wilfully-blind men could misunderstand Him. Besides that, the
Holy Ghost Himself has mercifully taken care that we should not be deceived
by the lying traditions of men on that important subject, when in St. Luke
He gave us the explanation of the meaning of John xx. 23, by telling us,
"Thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." (Luke xxiv. 46, 47).
In order that we may better understand the words of our Saviour in St. John
xx. 23, let us put them face to face with his own explanations (Luke xxiv.
46, 47):--
LUKE XXIV. JOHN XX.
33. And they rose up the same hour, 18. Mary Magdalene came and told
and returned to Jerusalem, and the disciples that she had seen the
found the eleven gathered together, Lord, and that he had spoken these
and them that were with them, things unto her.
34. Saying, The Lord is risen
indeed, and hath appeared to
Simon....
36. And as they thus spake, Jesus 19. Then the same day at evening,
himself stood in the midst of them, being the first day of the week,
and saith unto them, Peace be unto when the doors were shut where the
you. disciples were assembled for fear
of the Jews, came Jesus and stood
37. But they were terrified and in the midst, and said unto them,
affrighted, and supposed that they Peace be unto you.
had seen a spirit.
38. And he said unto them, Why are
ye troubled? and why do thoughts
arise in your hearts?
39. Behold my hands and my feet, 20. And when he had so said, he
that it is I myself: handle me, and shewed unto them his hands and his
see; for a spirit hath not flesh side. Then were the disciples glad,
and bones, as ye see me have. when they saw the Lord.
40. And when he had thus spoken, he
shewed them his hands and his feet.
41. And while they yet believed not
for joy, and wondered, he said unto
them, Have ye here any meat?
42. And they gave him a piece of a
broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.
43. And he took it, and did eat
before them.
44. And he said unto them, These 21. Then said Jesus to them again,
are the words which I spake unto Peace be unto you: as my Father
you, while I was yet with you, that hath sent me, even so send I you.
all things must be fulfilled, which
were written in the law of Moses,
and in the prophets, and in the
psalms, concerning me.
45. Then opened he their 22. And when he had said this, he
understanding, that they might breathed on them, and saith unto
understand the scriptures, them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost:
46. And said unto them, Thus it is
written, and thus it behoved Christ
to suffer, and to rise from the
dead the third day:
47. And that repentance and 23. Whose soever sins ye remit,
remission of sin should be preached they are remitted unto them; whose
in his name among all nations, soever sins ye retain, they are
beginning at Jerusalem. retained.
Three things are evident from comparing the report of St. John and St.
Luke:--
1. They speak of the same event, though one of them gives certain details
omitted by the other, as we find in the rest of the gospels.
2. The words of St. John, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained," are
explained by the Holy Ghost Himself, in St. Luke, as meaning that the
apostles shall preach repentance and forgiveness of sins through Christ. It
is just what our Saviour has Himself said in St. Matt. ix. 13: "But go ye
and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am
not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
It is just the same doctrine taught by Peter (Acts ii. 38): "Then Peter
said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost."
Just the same doctrine of the forgiveness of sins, not through auricular
confession or absolution, but through the preaching of the Word: "Be it
known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is
preached unto you the forgiveness of sins" (Acts xiii. 38).
3. The third thing which is evident is that the Apostles were not alone
when Christ appeared and spoke, but that several of His other disciples,
even some women, were there.
If the Romanists, then, could prove that Christ established auricular
confession, and gave the power of absolution, by what He said in that
solemn hour, women as well as men--in fact, every believer in Christ--would
be authorized to hear confessions and give absolution. The Holy Ghost was
not promised or given only to the Apostles, but to every believer, as we
see in Acts i. 15, and ii. 1, 2, 3.
But the Gospel of Christ, as the history of the first ten centuries of
Christianity, is the witness that auricular confession and absolution are
nothing else but a sacrilegious as well as a most stupendous imposture.
What tremendous efforts the priests of Rome have made these last five
centuries, and are still making, to persuade their dupes that the Son of
God was making of them a privileged caste, a caste endowed with the Divine
and exclusive power of opening and shutting the gates of Heaven, when He
said, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven."
But our adorable Saviour, who perfectly foresaw those diabolical efforts on
the part of the priests of Rome, entirely upset every vestige of their
foundation by saying immediately, "Again I say unto you, That if two of you
shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be
done for them of my Father which is in Heaven. For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt.
xviii. 19, 20).
Would the priests of Rome attempt to make us believe that these words of
the 19th and 20th verses are addressed to them exclusively? They have not
yet dared to say it. They confess that these words are addressed to all His
disciples. But our Saviour positively says that the other words,
implicating the so-called power of the priests to hear the confession and
give the absolution, are addressed to the _very same persons_--"I say unto
you," &c., &c. The _you_ of the 19th and 20th verses is the same _you_ of
the 18th. The power of loosing and unloosing is, then, given to all--those
who would be offended and would forgive. Then, our Saviour had not in His
mind to form a caste of men with any marvellous power over the rest of His
disciples. The priests of Rome, then, are impostors, and nothing else, when
they say that the power of loosing and unloosing sins was exclusively
granted to them.
Instead of going to the confessor, let the Christian go to his merciful
God, through Christ, and say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them
that trespass against us." This is the Truth, not as it comes from the
Vatican, but as it comes from Calvary, where our debts were paid, with the
only condition that we should believe, repent, and love.
Have not the Popes publicly and repeatedly anathematized the sacred
principle of Liberty of Conscience? Have they not boldly said, in the teeth
of the nations of Europe, that _Liberty_ of Conscience must be
destroyed--killed at any cost? Has not the whole world heard the sentence
of death to Liberty coming from the lips of the old man of the Vatican? But
where is the scaffold on which the doomed Liberty must perish? That
scaffold is the confessional-box. Yes, in the confessional, the Pope had
his 100,000 high executioners! There they are, day and night, with-sharp
daggers in hand, stabbing Liberty to the heart.
In vain will noble France expel her old tyrants to be free; in vain will
she shed the purest blood of her heart to protect and save Liberty! True
Liberty cannot live a day there so long as the executioners of the Pope are
free to stab her on their 100,000 scaffolds.
In vain chivalrous Spain will call Liberty to give a new life to her
people. She cannot set her feet there except to die, so long as the Pope is
allowed to strike her in his 50,000 confessionals.
And free America, too, will see all her so dearly-bought liberties
destroyed the day that the confessional-box is reared in her midst.
Auricular Confession and Liberty cannot stand together on the same ground;
either one or the other must fall.
Liberty must sweep away the confessional, as she has swept away the demon
of slavery, or she is doomed to perish.
Can a man be free in his own house, so long as there is another who has the
legal right to spy all his actions, and direct not only every step, but
every thought of his wife and children? Can that man boast of a home whose
wife and children are under the control of another? Is not that unfortunate
man really the slave of the ruler and master of his household? And when a
whole nation is composed of such husbands and fathers, is it not a nation
of abject, degraded slaves?
To a thinking man, one of the most strange phenomena is that our modern
nations allow all their most sacred rights to be trampled under feet, and
destroyed by the Papacy, the sworn enemy of Liberty, through a mistaken
respect and love for that same Liberty!
No people have more respect for Liberty of Conscience than the Americans;
but has the noble State of Illinois allowed Joe Smith and Brigham Young to
degrade and enslave the American women under the pretext of Liberty of
Conscience, appealed to by the so-called "Latter-day Saints?" No! The
ground was soon made too hot for the tender conscience of the modern
prophets. Joe Smith perished when attempting to keep his captive wives in
his chains, and Brigham Young had to fly to the solitudes of the Far West,
to enjoy what he called his liberty of conscience with the thirty women he
had degraded and enchained under his yoke. But even in that remote solitude
the false prophet has heard the distant peals of the roaring thunder. The
threatening voice of the great Republic has troubled his rest, and he
wisely speaks of going as much as possible out of the reach of Christian
civilization, before the dark and threatening clouds which he sees on the
horizon will hurl upon him their irresistible storms.
Will any one blame the American people for so going to the rescue of woman?
No, surely not.
But what is this confessional-box? Nothing but a citadel and stronghold of
Mormonism.
What is this Father Confessor, with few exceptions, but a lucky Brigham
Young?
I do not want to be believed on my _ipse dixit_. What I ask from serious
thinkers is, that they should read the encyclicals of the Piuses, the
Gregorys, the Benoits, and many other Popes, "De Sollicitantibus." There
they will see, with their own eyes, that, as a general thing, the confessor
has more women to serve him than the Mormon prophets ever had. Let them
read the memoirs of one of the most venerable men of the Church of Rome,
Bishop de Ricci, and they will see, with their own eyes, that the
confessors are more free with their penitents, even nuns, than husbands are
with their wives. Let them hear the testimony of one of the noblest
princesses of Italy, Henrietta Carraciolo, who still lives, and they will
know that the Mormons have more respect for women than the greater part of
the confessors have. Let them hear the lamentations of Cardinal Baronius,
Saint Bernard, Savanarola, Pius, Gregory, St. Therese, St. Liguori, on the
unspeakable and irreparable ruin spread all along the ways and all over the
countries haunted by the Pope's confessors, and they will know that the
confessional-box is the daily witness of abominations which would hardly
have been tolerated in the lands of Sodom and Gomorrha. Let the
legislators, the fathers and husbands of every nation and tongue,
interrogate Father Gavazzi, Hyacinthe, and the thousands of living priests
who, like myself, have miraculously been taken out from that Egyptian
servitude to the promised land, and they will tell you the same old, old
story--that the confessional-box is for the greatest part of the confessors
and female penitents, a real pit of perdition, into which they
promiscuously fall and perish. Yes; they will tell you that the soul and
heart of your wife and daughter are purified by the magical words of the
confessional, just as the souls of the poor idolaters of Hindoostan are
purified by the tail of the cow which they hold in their hands when they
die. Study the pages of the past history of England, France, Italy, Spain,
&c., &c., and you will see that the gravest and most reliable historians
have everywhere found mysteries of iniquity in the confessional-box which
their pen refused to trace.
In the presence of such public, undeniable, and lamentable facts, have not
the civilized nations a duty to perform? Is it not time that the children
of light, the true disciples of the Gospel, all over the world, should
rally round the banners of Christ, and go, shoulder to shoulder, to the
rescue of women?
Woman is to society what the roots are to the most precious trees of your
orchard. If you knew that a thousand worms are biting the root of those
noble trees, that their leaves are already fading away, their rich fruits,
though yet unripe, are falling on the ground, would you not unearth the
roots and sweep away the worms?
The confessor is the worm which is biting, polluting, and destroying the
very roots of civil and religious society, by contaminating, debasing, and
enslaving woman.
Before the nations can see the reign of peace, happiness, and liberty,
which Christ has promised, they must, like the Israelites, pull down the
walls of Jericho. The confessional is the modern Jericho, which proudly and
defiantly dares the children of God!
Let, then, the people of the Lord, the true soldiers of Christ, rise up and
rally around His banners; and let them fearlessly march, shoulder to
shoulder, on the doomed city: let all the trumpets of Israel be sounded
around its walls: let fervent prayers go to the throne of Mercy, from the
heart of every one for whom the Lamb has been slain: let such a unanimous
cry of indignation be heard, through the length and breadth of the land,
against that greatest and most monstrous imposture of modern times, that
the earth will tremble under the feet of the confessor, so that his very
knees will shake, and soon the walls of Jericho will fall, the confessional
will disappear, and its unspeakable pollutions will no more imperil the
very existance of society.
Then the multitudes who were kept captive will come to the Lamb, who will
make them pure with His blood and free with His word.
Then the redeemed nations will sing a song of joy: "Babylon, the great, the
mother of harlots and abominations of the earth, is fallen! fallen!"
* * * * *
CHAPTER VIII.
DOES AURICULAR CONFESSION BRING PEACE TO THE SOUL?
* * * * *
The connecting of Peace with Auricular Confession is surely the most cruel
sarcasm ever uttered in human language.
It would be less ridiculous and false to admire the calmness of the sea,
and the stillness of the atmosphere, when a furious storm raises the
foaming waves to the skies, than to speak of the Peace of the soul either
during or after the confession.
I know it; the confessors and their dupes chorus every tune by crying
"Peace, peace"! But the God of truth and holiness answers, "There is no
peace for the wicked!"
The fact is, that no human words can adequately express the anxieties of
the soul before confession, its unspeakable confusion in the act of
confessing, or its deadly terrors after confession.
Let those who have never drunk of the bitter waters which flow from the
confessional box, read the following plain and correct recital of my own
first experiences in auricular confession. They are nothing else than the
history of what nine tenths of the penitents[5] of Rome old and young are
subject to; and they will know what to think of that marvellous Peace about
which the Romanists, and their silly copyists, the Ritualists, have written
so many eloquent lies.
In the year 1819, my parents had sent me from Murray Bay (La Mal Baie)
where they lived, to an excellent school, at St. Thomas. I was then, about
ten years old. I boarded with an uncle, who, though a nominal Roman
Catholic, did not believe a word of what his priest preached. But my Aunt
had the reputation of being a very devoted woman. Our School-master, Mr.
John Jones, was a well educated Englishman: and a staunch PROTESTANT. This
last circumstance had excited the wrath of the Roman Catholic Priest
against the teacher and his numerous pupils to such an extent, that they
were often denounced from the pulpit with very hard words. But if he did
not like us, I must admit that we were paying him with his own coin.
But let us come to my first lesson in Auricular Confession, No! No words
can express to those who have never had any experience in the matter, the
consternation, anxiety and shame of a poor Romish child, when he hears his
priest saying from the pulpit, in a grave and solemn tone; "This week, you
will send your children to confession. Make them understand that this
action is one of the most important of their lives, that for every one of
them, it will decide their eternal happiness or ruin. Fathers, Mothers and
guardians of those children, if, through your fault or theirs, your
children are guilty of a false confession: if they do not confess every
thing to the priest who holds the place of God, Himself, this sin is often
irreparable: the Devil will take possession of their hearts: they will lie
to their father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ, of whom he is the
representative: Their lives will be a series of sacrileges, their death and
eternity, those of reprobates. Teach them therefore to examine thoroughly
all their actions, words, thoughts and desires, in order to confess every
thing just as it occurred, without any disguise."
I was in the Church of St. Thomas, when these words fell upon me like a
thunderbolt. I had often heard my mother say, when at home and my aunt,
since I had come to St. Thomas, that upon the first confession depended my
eternal happiness or misery. That week was, therefore, to decide the vital
question of my eternity!
Pale and dismayed, I left the church after the service, and returned to the
house of my relations. I took my place at the table, but could not eat, so
much was I troubled. I went to my room for the purpose of commencing my
examination of conscience, and to try to recall every one of my sinful
actions, thoughts and words!
Although scarcely over ten years of age, this task was really overwhelming
to me. I knelt down to pray to the Virgin Mary for help, but I was so much
taken up with the fear of forgetting something or making a bad confession,
that I muttered my prayers without the least attention to what I said. It
became still worse, when I commenced counting my sins, my memory, though
very good, became confused: my head grew dizzy: my heart beat with a
rapidity which exhausted me, and my brow was covered with perspiration.
After a considerable length of time, spent in those painful efforts, I felt
bordering on despair from the fear that it was impossible for me to
remember exactly every thing, and to confess each sin as it occurred. The
night following was almost a sleepless one: and when sleep did come, it
could hardly be called sleep, but a suffocating delirium. In a frightful
dream, I felt as if I had been cast into hell, for not having confessed all
my sins to the priest. In the morning, I awoke fatigued, and prostrate by
the phantoms and emotions of that terrible night. In similar troubles of
mind were passed the three days which preceeded my first confession.
I had constantly before me the countenance of that stern priest who had
never smiled upon me. He was present to my thoughts during the days, and in
my dreams during the nights, as the minister of an angry God, justly
irritated against me, on account of my sins. Forgiveness had indeed been
promised to me, on condition of a good confession; but my place had also
been shown to me in hell, if my confession was not as near perfection as
possible.
Now, my troubled conscience told me that there were ninety chances against
one that my confession would be bad, either if by my own fault, I forget
some sins, or if I was without that contrition of which I had heard so
much, but the nature and effects of which were a perfect chaos in my mind.
At length came the day of confession, or rather of judgment and
condemnation. I presented myself to the priest, the Rev. Mr. Beaubien.
He had then, the defects of lisping and stammering which we, often turned
into ridicule. And as nature had unfortunately endowed me with admirable
powers as a mimic, the infirmities of this poor priest afforded only too
good an opportunity for the exercise of my talent. Not only was it one of
my favorite amusements to imitate him before the pupils amidst roars of
laughter but also, I preached portions of his sermons before his
parishioners of villages, with similar results. Indeed, many of them came
from considerable distances to enjoy the amusement of listening to me, and
they rewarded me, more than once, with cakes of maple sugar, for my
performances.
These acts of mimicry were, of course, among my sins; and it became
necessary for me to examine myself upon the number of times I had mocked
the priests. This circumstance was not calculated to make my confession
easier or more agreeable.
At last, the dread moment arrived, I knelt for the first time, at the side
of my confessor, my whole frame trembled: I repeated the prayer preparatory
to confession, scarcely knowing what I said, so much was I troubled by
fears.
By the instructions which had been given us before confession, we had been
made to believe that the priest was the true representative, yea, almost
the personification of Jesus Christ. The consequence was that I believed my
greatest sin was that of mocking the priest--and I, as I had been told that
it was proper first to confess the greatest sins, I commenced thus: "Father
I accuse myself of having mocked a priest!"
Hardly had I uttered these words, "mocked a priest", when this pretended
representative of the humble Jesus, turning towards me, and looking in my
face, in order to know me, better, asked abruptly; "what priest did you
mock, my boy?"
I would have rather chosen to cut my own tongue than to tell him to his
face who it was. I, therefore, kept silent for a while, but my silence made
him very nervous, and almost angry. With a haughty tone of voice, he said:
"what priest did you take the liberty of thus mocking, my boy?" I saw that
I had to answer. Happily his haughtiness had made me bolder and firmer; I
said: "sir, you are the priest whom I mocked!"
"But how many times did you take upon you to mock me, my boy?" asked he
angrily.
"I tried to find out the number of times, but I never could."
"You must tell me how many times, for to mock one's own priest is a great
sin."
"It is impossible for me to give you the number of times," I answered.
"Well, my child, I will help your memory by asking you questions. Tell me
the truth. Do you think you mocked me ten times?"
"A great many times more," I answered.
"Have you mocked me fifty times?"
"Oh! many more still!"
"A hundred times?"
"Say, five hundred, and perhaps more;" I answered.
"Well, my boy, do you spend all your time in mocking me?"
"Not all my time: but unfortunately, I have done it very often."
"Yes may you say: "unfortunately!" for to mock, your priest, who holds the
place of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a great sin and a great misfortune for
you. But tell me, my little boy, what reason have you for mocking me,
thus?"
In my examination of conscience, I had not forseen that I should be obliged
to give the reasons for mocking the priest, and I was thunderstruck by his
questions. I dared not answer, and I remained for a long time dumb, from
the shame that overpowered me. But, with a harassing perseverance, the
priest insisted upon my telling why I had mocked him: assuring me that I
would be damned if I did not speak the whole truth. So, I decided to speak,
and I said: "I mocked you for several things."
"What made you, first mock me?" asked the priest.
"I laughed at you, because you lisp: among the pupils of the school, and
other people, it often happens that we imitate your preaching to laugh at
you," I answered.
"For what other reasons did you laugh at me, my little boy!"
For a long time I was silent. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, my
courage failed me. But the priest continued to urge me, I said at last; "It
is rumoured in town, that you love girls: that you visit the Misses
R's----almost every night; and this, often made us laugh."
The poor priest was evidently overwhelmed by my answer, and ceased
questioning me on that subject. Changing the conversation, he said: "what
are your other sins?"
I began to confess them according to the order in which they came to my
memory. But the feeling of shame which overpowered me, in repeating all my
sins to that man, was a thousand times greater than that of having offended
God. In reality, this feeling of human shame, which absorbed my thoughts,
nay, my whole being, left no room for any religious feeling at all.
When I had confessed all the sins I could remember, the priest began to put
to me the strangest questions about matters on which my pen must be
silent.... I replied "Father, I do not understand what you ask me."
"I question you," he answered, "on the the sins of the sixth commandment of
God, (the seventh in the Bible) Do confess all, my little boy, for you will
go to hell if, through your fault you omit any thing."
And thereupon he dragged my thoughts into regions of iniquity which, thanks
be to God, had been hitherto quite unknown to me.
I answered him again, "I do not understand you," or "I have never done
those wicked things."
Then, skillfully shifting to some secondary matters, he would soon slyly
and cunningly come back to his favorite subject, namely, sins of
licentiousness.
His questions were so unclean that I blushed and felt nauseated with
disgust and shame. More than once, I had been to my great regret, in the
company of bad boys, but not one of them had offended my moral nature so
much as this priest had done. Not one of them had ever approached the
shadow of the things from which that man tore the veil, and which he placed
before the eyes of my soul. In vain I told him that I was not guilty of
those things; that I did not even understand what he asked me; but he would
not let me off.
Like a vulture bent upon tearing the poor defenceless bird that falls into
its claws, that cruel priest seemed determined to defile and ruin my heart.
At last, he asked me a question in a form of expression so bad that I was
really pained and put beside myself. I felt as if I had received the shock
from an electric battery: a feeling of horror made me shudder. I was filled
with such indignation that speaking loud enough to be heard by many, I told
him: "Sir, I am very wicked, but I was never guilty of what you mention to
me: please don't ask me any more of those questions which will teach me
more wickedness than I ever knew."
The remainder of my confession was short. The stern rebuke I had given him
had evidently made that priest blush, if it had not frightened him. He
stopped short, and gave me some very good advice which might have done me
good, if the deep wounds which his questions had inflicted upon my soul,
had not so absorbed my thoughts, as to prevent me from giving attention to
what he said. He gave me a short penance and dismissed me.
I left the confessional irritated and confused. From the shame of what I
had just heard, I dared not raise my eyes from the ground. I went into a
corner of the church to do my penance, that is to recite the prayers which
he had indicated to me. I remained for a long time in the church. I had
need of a calm, after the terrible trial through which I had just passed.
But vainly sought I for rest. The shameful questions which had just been
asked from me, the new world of iniquity into which I been introduced, the
impure phantoms by which my childish head had been defiled, confused and
troubled my mind so strongly, that I began to weep bitterly.
I left the church only when forced to do so by the shades of night, and
came back to my uncle's house, with a feeling of shame and uneasiness, as
if I had done a bad action and feared lest I should be detected. My trouble
was much increased when my uncle, jestingly, said: "now that you have been
to confess, you will be a good boy. But if you are not a better boy, you
will be a more learned one, if your confessor has taught you what mine did
when I confessed for the first time."
I blushed and remained silent. My aunt said: "you must feel happy, now that
you have made your confession: do you not?"
I gave an evasive answer, but could not entirely conceal the confusion
which overwhelmed me. I went to bed early; but I could hardly sleep.
I thought that I was the only boy whom the priest had asked these polluting
questions: but great was my confusion, the next day when on going to
school, I learned that my companions had not been happier than I had been.
The only difference was that, instead of being grieved as I was, they
laughed at it.
"Did the priest ask you this and that," they would demand laughing
boisterously; I refused to reply, and said: "are you not ashamed to speak
of these things."
"Ah! Ah! how scrupulous you are:" continued they, "if it is not a sin for
the priest to speak to us on these matters, how can it be a sin for us to
laugh at it." I felt confounded, not knowing what to answer. But my
confusion increased not a little, when soon after, I perceived that the
young girls of the school had not been less polluted, or scandalized than
the boys. Although keeping at a sufficient distance from us to prevent us
from understanding every thing they had to say on their confessional
experience, those girls were sufficiently near to let us hear many things
which it would have been better for us not to know. Some of them seemed
thoughtful, sad and shameful: but several laughed heartily at what they had
learned in the confessional box.
I was very indignant against the priest; and thought in myself, that he was
a very wicked man, for having put to us such repelling questions. But I was
wrong. That priest was honest; he was only doing his duty, as I have known
since, when studying the theologians of Rome. The Rev. Mr. Beaubien was a
real gentleman, and if he had been free to follow the dictates of his
honest conscience it is my strong conviction he would never have sullied
our young hearts with such impure ideas. But what has the honest conscience
of a priest to do in the confessional, except to be silent and dumb? The
priest of Rome is an automaton, tied to the feet of the Pope by an iron
chain. He can move, go right or left, up or down; he can think and act, but
only at the bidding of the infallible god of Rome. The priest knows the
will of his modern divinity only through his approved emissaries,
embassadors and theologians. With shame on my brow, and bitter tears of
regret flowing just now, on my cheeks, I confess that I have had myself to
learn by heart those damning questions, and put them to the young and the
old; who like me, were fed with the diabolical doctrines of the church of
Rome, in reference to auricular confession.
Some time after, some people waylaid and whipped that very same priest,
when during a very dark night he was coming back from visiting his fair
young penitents the Misses Rs.... And the next day, the conspirators having
met at the house of Dr. Stephen Taché, to give a report of what they had
done to the half _secret_ society to which they belonged, I was invited by
my young friend Louis Casault[6] to conceal myself with him, in an
adjoining room, where we could hear every thing without being seen. I find
in the old manuscripts of "my young year's recollections" the following
address of Mr. Dubord.
Mr. President--"I was not among those who gave to the priest the expression
of the public feelings with the eloquent voice of the whip: but I wish I
had been, I would heartily have co-operated to give that so well deserved
lesson to the father confessors of Canada, and let me give you my reasons
for that.
"My child who is hardly twelve years old, went to confess, as did the other
girls of the village, some time ago. It was against my will. I know, by my
own experience, that of all actions, confession is the most degrading of a
person's life. I can imagine nothing so well calculated to destroy forever
one's self-respect, as the modern invention of the confessional. Now, what
is a person without self-respect? Especially a woman? Is not all forever
lost without this?
"In the confessional every thing is corruption of the lowest grade. There,
the girl's thoughts, lips, hearts and souls are forever polluted. Do I need
to prove you this? No! for though you have given up, long since auricular
confession, as below the dignity of man, you have not forgotten the lessons
of corruption which you have received from it. Those lessons have remained
on your souls as the scars left by the red hot iron upon the brow of the
slave to be a perpetual witness of his shame and servitude.
"The confessional box is the place where our wives and daughters learn
things which would make the most degraded woman of our cities blush!
"Why are all Roman Catholic nations inferior to nations belonging to
Protestanism? only in the confessional can the solution of that problem be
found. And why are Roman Catholic nations degraded in proportion to their
submission to their priests? It is because the more often the individuals
composing those nations go to confess, the more rapidly they sink in the
sphere of intelligence and morality. A terrible example of the auricular
confession depravity has just occurred in my own family.
"As I have said a moment ago, I was against my own daughter going to
confession, but her poor mother, who is under the control of the priest,
earnestly wanted her to go. Not to have a disagreeable scene in my house, I
had to yield to the tears of my wife.
"On the following day of the confession, they believed I was absent, but I
was in my office, with the door sufficiently opened to hear every thing
which could be said by my wife and the child. And the following
conversation took place:
"What makes you so thoughtful and sad my dear Lucy, since you went to
confess? It seems to me you should feel happier since you had the privilege
of confessing your sins."
My child answered not a word, she remained absolutely silent.
After two or three minutes of silence, I heard the mother saying: "Why do
you weep, my dear Lucy? are you sick?"
But no answer yet from the child!
"You may well suppose that I was all attention, I had my secret suspicions
about the dreadful mystery which had taken place. My heart throbbed with
uneasiness and anger.
"After a short silence, my wife spoke again to her child, but with
sufficient firmness to decide her to answer at last. In a trembling voice,
she said:
"Oh I dear Mamma, if you knew what the priest has asked me and what he said
to me when I confessed, you would perhaps be sad as I am."
"But what can he have said to you? He is a holy man, you must have
misunderstood him, if you think that he has said anything wrong."
"My child threw herself in her mother's arms, and answered with a voice
half suffocated with her sobs: "Do not ask me to tell you what the priest
has said--it is so shameful that I can not repeat it--His words have stuck
to my heart as the leech put upon the arm of my little friend, the other
day."
"What does that priest think of me, for having put to me such questions?"
My wife answered: "I will go to the priest and will teach him a lesson. I
have noticed myself that he goes too far when questioning old people, but I
had the hope he was more prudent with children. I ask of you, however,
never to speak of this to anybody, especially; let not your poor father
know anything about it; for he has little enough of religion already, and
this would leave him without any at all."
"I could not refrain myself any longer: I abruptly entered the parlor. My
daughter threw herself into my arms: my wife screamed with terror, and
almost fell into a swoon. I said to my child: If you love me, put your hand
on my heart, and promise never to go again to confess. Fear God, my child,
love Him and walk in his presence. For his eyes see you everywhere.
Remember that He is always ready to forgive and bless you every time you
turn your heart to him. Never place yourself again at the feet of a priest
to be defiled and degraded."
"This my daughter promised to me.
"When my wife had recovered from her surprise, I told her.
"Madame, it is long since the priest is everything, and your husband
nothing to you! There is a hidden and terrible power which governs you, it
is the power of the priest: this you have often denied, but it can not be
denied any longer, the Providence of God has decided, to day, that this
power should forever be destroyed in my house, I want to be the only ruler
of my family: from this moment the power of the priest over you is forever
abolished. Whenever you go and take your heart and your secrets to the feet
of the priest, be so kind as not to come back any more into my house as my
wife."
This is one of the thousand and thousand specimens of the peace of
conscience brought to the soul through auricular confession. I could give
many similar instances, if it were my intention to publish a treatise on
this subject, but as I only desire to write a short chapter, I will adduce
but one other fact to show the awful deception practised by the Church of
Rome when she invites persons to come to confession under the pretext that
_peace_ to the soul will be the reward of their obedience. Let us hear the
testimony of another living and unimpeachable witness about this peace of
the soul, before, during, and after auricular confession. In her remarkable
book "Personal experience of Roman Catholicism" Miss Eliza Richardson,
writes, (Page 34 and 35.)
"Thus I silenced my foolish quibbling, and went on to the test of a
convert's fervour and sincerity in confession. And here was assuredly a
fresh source of pain and disquiet, and one not so easily vanquished. "The
theory had appeared, as a whole, fair and rational, but the reality, in
some of its details, _was terrible_!"
"Divested, for the public gaze, of its darkest ingredients, and dressed up,
in their theological works, in false and meretricious pretentions to truth
and purity, it exhibited a dogma only calculated to exert a beneficial
influence on mankind, and to prove a source of morality and usefulness.
_But oh, as with all ideals, how unlike was the actual!_"
"Here, however, I may remark, in passing, the effect produced upon my mind
by the first sight of the _older_ editions of "the Garden of the Soul". I
remember the stumbling-block it was to me, my sense of womanly delicacy was
shocked. It was a dark page in my experience, when first I knelt at the
feet of a mortal man to confess what should have been poured into the ear
of God alone. I cannot dwell upon this...."
"Though I believe my Confessor was, on the whole, as guarded as his manners
were kind; at some things I was strangely startled, utterly confounded."
"The purity of mind and delicacy in which I had been nurtured, had not
prepared me for such an ordeal; and my own sincerity, and dread of
committing a sacrilege, tended to augment the painfulness of the occasion.
One circumstance especially I will recall, which my fettered conscience
persuaded me I was obliged to name. My distress and terror, doubtless, made
me less explicit than I otherwise might have been. The questioning,
however, it elicited, and the ideas supplied by it, outraged my feelings to
such an extent, that, forgetting all respect for my Confessor, and
careless, even, at the moment, whether I received absolution or not, I
hastily exclaimed, "I cannot say a word more," while the thought rushed
into my mind, "all is true that their enemies say of them." Here, however
prudence dictated to my questioner to put the matter no further; and the
kind and almost respectful tone he _immediately_ assumed, went far towards
effacing an impression so injurious. On rising from my knees, when I should
have gladly fled to any distance rather than have encountered his gaze, he
addressed me in the most familiar manner on different subjects, and
detained me some time in talking. What share I took in the conversation, I
never knew and all that I remember, was my burning cheek, and inability to
raise my eyes from the ground.
"Here I would not be supposed to be intentionally casting a stigma upon an
individual. Nor am I throwing unqualified blame upon the priesthood. _It is
the system which is at fault_, a system which teaches that things, even at
the _remembrance_ of which degraded humanity must blush in the presence of
heaven and its angels, should be laid open, _dwelt upon, and exposed in
detail_, to the sullied ears of a corrupt and fallen fellow-mortal who of
like passions with the penitent at his feet, is thereby exposed to
temptations the most dark and dangerous. But what shall we say of woman?
Draw a veil! Oh purity, modesty! and every womanly feeling! a veil as
oblivion, over the fearfully, dangerous experience thou art called to pass
through! (page 37, and 38.")
"Ah! there are things that cannot be recorded! facts too startling, and at
the same time, too delicately intricate, to admit a public portrayal, or
meet the public gaze; But the cheek can blush in secret at the true images
which memory evokes, and the oppressed mind shrinks back, in horror, from
the dark shadows which have saddened and overwhelmed it. I appeal to
converts, to converts of the gentler sex, and ask them, fearlessly ask
them, what was the first impression made on your minds and feelings by the
confessional? I do not ask how subsequent familiarization has weakened the
effects: but when acquaintance was first made with it, how were you
affected by it? I ask not the impure, the already defiled, for to such, it
is sadly susceptible of being made a darker source of guilt and shame;--but
I appeal to the pure minded and delicate, the pure in heart and sentiment.
Was not your _first_ impression one of inexpressible dread and
bewilderment, followed by a sense of humiliation and degradation, not
easily to be defined or supported? (page 39.) "The memory of that time
(first auricular confession) will ever be painful and abhorent to me;
though subsequent experience has thrown, even that, far into the back
ground. It was my initiatory lesson upon subjects which ought never to
enter the imagination of girlhood: my introduction into a region which
should never be approached by the guileless and the pure." (page 61) One or
two individuals (Roman Catholic) soon formed a close intimacy with me, and
discoursed with a freedom and plainness I had never, before encountered. My
acquaintances, however, had been brought up in convents, or familiar with
them for years, and I could not gainsay their statement.
"I was reluctant to believe more than I had experienced the proof, however,
was destined to come in no dubious shape at a no distant day.... A dark and
sullied page of experience was fast opening upon me; but so unaccustomed
was the eye which scanned it, that I could not at all, at once, believe in
its truth! And it was of hypocrisy so hateful, of sacrilege so terrible,
and abuse so gross of all things pure and holy, and in the person of one
bound by his vows, his position, and every law of his church, as well as of
God, to set a high example, that, for a time, all confidence in the very
existence of sincerity and goodness was in danger of being shaken,
sacraments, deemed the most sacred, were profaned; vows disregarded,
vaunted secrecy of the confessional covertly infringed, and its sanctity
abused to an unhallowed purpose; while even private visitation was
converted into a channel for temptation, and made the occasion of unholy
freedom of words and manner. So ran the account of evil and a dire account
it was. By it, all serious thoughts of religion were well nigh
extinguished. The influence was fearful and polluting, the whirl of
excitement inexpressible: I cannot enter into minute particulars here,
every sense of feminine delicacy and womanly feeling shrink from such a
task. This much, however, I can say that I, in conjunction with two other
young friends, took a journey to a confessor, an inmate of a religious
house, who lived at some distance, to lay the affair before him; thinking
that he would take some remedial measures adequate to the urgency of the
case. He heard our united statements, expressed great indignation, and, at
once, commended us each to write and detail the circumstances of the case
to the Bishop of the district. This we did; but of course, never heard the
result. The reminiscences of these dreary and wretched months seem now like
some hideous and guilty dream. It was actual familiarization with unholiest
things! (page 63.)
"The romish religion teaches that if you omit to name anything in
confession, however repugnant or revolting to purity, which you even doubt
having committed, your subsequent confessions are thus rendered null and
sacrilegious; while it also inculcates that sins of thought should be
confessed in order that the confessor may judge of their mortal or venial
character. What sort of a chain this links around the strictly
conscientious I would attempt to portray, if I could. But it must have been
worn to understand its torturing character! Suffice it to say that, for
months past, according to this standard, I had not made a good confession
at all! And now, filled with remorse for my past sacrilegious sinfulness, I
resolved on making a new general confession to the _religieux_ alluded to.
But this confessor's scrupulosity exceeded everything I had, hitherto,
encountered. He told me some things were mortal sins, which I had never
before imagined could be such: and thus threw so many fetters around my
conscience, that a host of anxieties for my first general confession was
awakened within me. I had no resource then, but to re-make that, and thus I
afresh entered on the bitter path I had deemed I should never have occasion
again to tread. But if my first confession had lacerated my feelings, what
was it to this one? Words have no power, language has no expression to
characterise the emotion that marked it!
"The difficulty I felt in making a full and explicit avowal all that
distressed me, furnished my confessor with a plea for his assistance in the
questioning department, and fain would I conceal much of what passed then,
as a foul blot on my memory. I soon found that he made mortal sins of what
my first confessor had professed to treat but lightly, and he did not
scruple to say that I had never yet made a good confession at all. My ideas
therefore became more complicated and confused as I proceeded, until, at
length, I began to feel doubtful of ever accomplishing my task in any
degree satisfactorily: and my mind and memory were positively racked to
recall every iota of every kind, real or imaginary, that might, if omitted,
hereafter be occasion of uneasiness. Things heretofore held comparatively
trifling were recounted, and pronounced damnable sins: and as, day after
day, I knelt at the feet of that man, answering questions and listening to
admonitions calculated to bow my very soul to the dust, I felt as though I
should hardly be able to raise my head again!" (page 63.)
This is the peace which flows from auricular confession. I solemnly declare
that except in a few cases, in which the confidence of the penitents is
bordering on idiocy, or in which they have been transformed into immoral
brutes, nine-tenths of the multitudes who go to confess, are obliged to
recount some such desolate narrative as that of Miss Richardson, when they
are sufficiently honest to say the truth.
The most fanatical apostles of auricular confession cannot deny that the
examination of conscience, which must precede confession, is a most
difficult task; a task which, instead of filling the mind with peace, fills
it with anxiety and serious fears. Is it then only after confession that
they promise such peace? But they know very well that this promise is also
a cruel deception ... for to make a good confession, the penitent has to
relate not only all his bad actions, but all his bad thoughts and desires,
their number, and various aggravating circumstances. But have they found a
single one of their penitents who was certain to have remembered all the
thoughts, the desires, all the criminal aspirations of the poor sinful
heart? They are well aware that to count the thoughts of the mind for days
and weeks gone by, and to narrate those thoughts accurately at a subsequent
period, are just as easy as to weigh and count the clouds which have passed
over the sun, in a three days storm, a month after that storm is over. It
is simply impossible, absurd! This has never been, this will never be done.
But there is no possible peace so long as the penitent _is not sure_ that
he has remembered, counted and confessed every past sinful thought, word
and deed. It is then impossible, yes! it is morally and physically
_impossible_ for a soul to find peace through auricular confession. If the
law which says to every sinner: "You are bound, under pain of eternal
damnation, to remember all your bad thoughts and confess them to the best
of your memory", were not so evidently a satanic invention, it ought to be
put among the most infamous ideas which have ever come out from the brain
of fallen man. For, who can remember and count the thoughts of a week, of a
day, nay, of an hour of his sinful life?
Where is the traveller who has crossed the swampy forests of America, in
the three months of a warm summer, who could tell the number of musquitoes
which have bitten him and drawn the blood from the veins?
What should that traveller think of the man who, seriously, would tell him:
"You must prepare yourself to die, if you do not tell me, to the best of
your memory, how many times you have been bitten by the musquitoes, the
last three summer months, when you crossed the swampy lands along the
shores of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers?
Would he not suspect that his merciless inquirer had just escaped from a
lunatic asylum?
But it would be much more easy for that traveller to say how many times he
has suffered from the bitings of the musquitoes, than for the poor sinner
to count the bad thoughts which have passed through his sinful heart,
through any period of his life.
Though the penitent is told that he must confess his thoughts only
according to his _best_ recollection,--he will _never, never_ know if he
has done his _best_ efforts to remember everything: he will constantly fear
lest he has not done his _best_ to count and confess them correctly.
Every honest priest will at once admit that his most intelligent and pious
penitents, particularly among women, are constantly tortured by the fear of
having omitted to disclose some sinful deeds or thoughts. Many of them,
after having already made several general confessions, are constantly urged
by the pricking of their conscience, to begin afresh, in the fear that
their first confessions had some serious defects. Those past confessions,
instead of being a source of spiritual joy and peace, are, on the contrary,
like, so many Damocles' swords, day and night suspended over their heads,
filling their souls with the terrors of an eternal death! Sometimes the
terror-stricken consciences of those honest and pious women tell them that
they were not sufficiently contrite; at another time, they reproach them
for not having spoken sufficiently plain on some things fitter to make them
blush.
On many occasions, too, it has happened that sins which one confessor had
declared to as venial, and which had long ceased to be confessed, another
more scrupulous than the first would declare to be damnable. Every
confessor thus knows perfectly well that he proffers what is flagrantly
false every time he dismisses his penitents, after confession, with the
salutation:--"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee."
But it is a mistake to say that the soul does not find peace in auricular
confession: in many cases, peace is found. And if the reader desires to
learn something of that peace, let him go to the grave-yard, open the
tombs, and peep into the sepulchres. What awful silence! What profound
quiet! What terrible and frightful peace! You hear not even the motion of
the worms that creep in, and the worms that creep out, as they feast upon
the dead carcase! Such is the peace of the confessional! The soul, the
intelligence, the honor, the self-respect, the conscience, are there
sacrificed. There they must die! Yes, the confessional is a veritable tomb
of human conscience, a sepulchre of human honesty, dignity and liberty; the
grave-yard of human soul! By its means, man, whom God hath made in his own
image, is converted into the likeness of the beast that perishes; woman,
created by God to be the glory and help-mate of man, is transformed into
the vile and trembling slave of the priest. In the confessional, man and
woman attain to the highest degree of popish perfection: they become as dry
sticks, as dead branches, as silent corpses, in the hands of their
confessors. Their spirits are destroyed, their consciences are stiff, their
souls are ruined.
This is the supreme and perfect result achieved, in its highest victories,
by the Church of Rome.
There is, verily, peace to be found in auricular confession--yes, but it is
the peace of the grave!
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX.
THE DOGMA OF AURICULAR CONFESSION A SACRILEGIOUS IMPOSTURE.
* * * * *
Both Roman Catholics and Protestants have fallen into very strange errors
in reference to the words of Christ: "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are
remitted unto them; _and_ whose soever _sins_ ye retain, they are
retained." (St. John xx. 23.)
The first have seen in this text the inalienable attributes of God of
forgiving and retaining sins transferred to sinful men; the second have
most unwisely granted their position, even while attempting to refute their
errors.
A little more attention to the translation of the 3rd and 6th verses of
chapter xiii. of Leviticus by the Septuagint would have prevented the
former from falling into their sacrilegious errors, and would have saved
the latter from wasting so much time in refuting errors which refute
themselves.
Every one knows that the Septuagint Bible was the Bible that was generally
read and used by Jesus Christ and the Hebrew people, in our Saviour's days.
Its language was evidently the one spoken by Christ and understood by his
hearers. When addressing his apostles and disciples on their duties towards
the spiritual lepers to whom they were to preach the ways of salvation,
Christ constantly followed the very expression of the Septuagint. It was
the foundation of his doctrine and the testimonial of his divine mission to
which he constantly appealed: the book which was the greatest treasure of
the nation.
From the beginning to the end of the Old and the New Testament, the bodily
leprosy, with which the Jewish priest had to deal, is presented as the
figure of the spiritual leprosy, sin, the penalty of which our Saviour had
taken upon himself, that we might be saved by his death. That spiritual
leprosy was the very thing for the cleansing of which he had come to this
world--for which he lived, suffered and died. Yes! the bodily leprosy with
which the priests of the Jews had to deal, was the figure of the sins which
Christ was to take away by shedding his blood, and with which his apostles
were to deal till the end of the world.
When speaking of the duties of the Hebrew priests towards the leper, our
modern translations say: (Lev. xiii. v. 6.) "They will pronounce him clean"
or (v. 3d.) "They will pronounce him unclean."
But this action of the priests was expressed in a very different way by the
Septuagint Bible, used by Christ and the people of his time. Instead of
saying, "The priest shall pronounce the leper clean," as we read in our
Bible, the Septuagint version says, "The priest shall clean (_katharei_,)
or shall unclean (_mianei_,) the leper.
No one had ever been so foolish, among the Jews, as to believe that because
their Bible said _clean_, (_katharei_) their priests had the miraculous and
supernatural power of taking away and curing the leprosy: and we nowhere
see that the Jewish priests ever had the audacity to try to persuade the
people that they had ever received any supernatural and divine power to
"cleanse" the leprosy, because their God through the Bible, had said of
them: "They will cleanse the leper." Both priest and people were
sufficiently intelligent and honest to understand and acknowledge that by
that expression, if was only meant that the priests had the legal right to
see if the leprosy was gone or not, they had only to look at certain marks
indicated by God Himself, through Moses, to know whether, or not, God had
cured the leper before he presented himself to his priest. The leper, cured
by the mercy and power of God alone, before presenting himself to the
priest, was only declared to be clean by that priest. Thus the priest was
said, by the Bible, to "clean" the leper, or the leprosy;--and, in the
opposite case, to "unclean." (Septuagint, Leviticus xiii. v. 3. 6.)
Now, let us put what God has said, through Moses, to the priests of the old
law, in reference to the bodily leprosy, face to face with what God has
said, through his Son Jesus, to his apostles and his whole church, in
reference to the spiritual leprosy from which Christ has delivered us on
the cross.
Septuagint Bible, Levit. xiii. | New Testament, John xx., 23.
|
"And the Priest shall look on the | "Whose soever sins ye remit, they
plague, in the skin of the flesh, | are remitted unto them; and whose
and when the hair in the plague is | soever sins ye retain, they are
turned white, and the plague in | retained."
sight be deeper than the skin of |
his flesh, it is a plague of |
leprosy: and the priest shall look |
on him and UNCLEAN HIM (_mianei_). |
|
"And the Priest shall look on him |
again the seventh day, and if the |
plague is somewhat dark and does |
not spread on the skin, the Priest |
shall CLEAN HIM (_katharei_): and |
he shall wash his clothes and BE |
CLEAN," (katharos.) |
The analogy of the diseases with which the Hebrew priests and the disciples
of Christ had to deal, is striking: so the analogy of the expressions
prescribing their respective duties is also striking.
When God said to the priests of the Old Law, "You shall clean the leper,"
and he shall be "cleaned," or, "you shall unclean the leper," and he shall
be "uncleaned," He only gave the legal power to see if there were any signs
or indications by which they could say that God had cured the leper before
he presented himself to the priest. So, when Christ said to his apostles
and his whole church, "Whose soever sins ye shall forgive, shall be
forgiven unto them," He only repeated what Moses had said in an analagous
case: He only gave them the authority to say when the spiritual lepers, the
sinners, had reconciled themselves to God, and received their pardon from
Him and Him alone, previous to their coming to the apostles.
It is true that the priests of the Old Law had regulations from God,
through Moses, which they had to follow, by which they could see and say
whether, or not, the leprosy was gone.
"If the plague spread not on the skin ... the priest shall clean him ...
but if the priest see that the scab spread on the skin, it is leprosy: he
shall "unclean" him. (Septuagint, Levit. xiii. 3. 6.)
So Christ had given to his apostles and his whole church equally,
infallible rules and marks to determine whether, or not, the spiritual
leprosy was gone, that they might clean the leper and tell him,
I clean thee, | I forgive thy sins,
or | or
I unclean thee. | I retain thy sins.
I would have, indeed, many passages of the Old and New Testaments to copy,
were it my intention to reproduce all the marks given by God Himself,
through his prophets, or by Christ and apostles, that His ambassadors might
know when they should say to the sinner that he was delivered from his
iniquities. I will give only a few.
First: "And he said unto them, go ye into all the world and preach the
gospel to every creature:
"He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved: but he that believeth
not shall be damned." (Mark xvi. 15, 16.)
What a strange want of memory in the Saviour of the world! He has entirely
forgotten that "Auricular Confession," besides Faith and Baptism are
necessary to be saved! To those who believe and are baptised, the apostles
and the church are authorised by Christ to say: "You are saved! your sins
are forgiven! I clean you!"
Second: "And when ye come into an house, salute it.
"And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not
worthy, let your peace return to you.
"And whose soever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye
depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
"Verily, verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of
Sodom and Gomorrha, in the day of Judgment, than for that city." (Math x.
12-15.)
Here again the Great Physician tells his disciples when the leprosy will be
gone, the sins forgiven, the soul purified. It is when the lepers, the
sinners, will have welcomed his messengers, heard and received their
message. Not a word about auricular confession: this great panacea of the
Pope's was evidently ignored by Christ.
Third: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you--But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your
Father forgive your trespasses." (Math vi. 14, 15.)
Was it possible to give a more striking and simple rule to the Apostles and
the Disciples that they might know when they could say to a sinner: "Thy
sins are forgiven!" or, "Thy sins are retained?" Here the double keys of
heaven are most solemnly and publicly given to every child of Adam! As sure
as there is a God in heaven and that Jesus died to save sinners, so it is
sure that if one forgives the trespasses of his neighbor for the dear
Saviour's sake, his own sins have been forgiven! To the end of the world,
then, let the disciples of Christ say to the sinner, "Thy sins are
forgiven," not because you have confessed your sins to me, but for Christ's
sake; the evidence of which is that you have forgiven those who had
offended you.
Fourth: "And behold, a certain one stood up and tempted him, saying:
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
"He said unto him: What is written in the law? how readest thou?
"And he, answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.
"And He said unto him, thou hast answered right; this do and thou shalt
live." (Luke x. 25-28.)
What a fine opportunity for the Saviour to speak of "auricular confession"
as a means given by him to be saved! But here again, Christ forgets that
marvellous medicine of the Popes. Jesus, speaking absolutely, like the
Protestants, bids his messengers to proclaim pardon, forgiveness of sins,
not to those who confess their sins to a man, but to those who love God and
their neighbor. And so will his true disciples and messengers do to the end
of the world!
Fifth: "And when he (the prodigal son) came to himself, he said: ... I will
arise and go to my father and I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned
against Heaven and before thee: and I am not worthy to be called thy son:
make me as one of thy hired servants.
"And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off,
his father saw him and had compassion and ran; and he fell on his neck and
kissed him.
"And the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight,
and am not worthy to be called thy son.
"But the father said to his servants: Bring forth his best robe, and put it
on him: put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the
fat calf. For this my son was dead, and he is alive again, he was lost and
he is found." (Luke xv, 17-24.)
Apostles and disciples of Christ, wherever you will hear, on this land of
sin and misery, the cry of the Prodigal Son: "I will arise and go to my
Father" every time you see him, not at your feet, but at the feet of his
true Father, crying: "Father I have sinned against thee," unite your hymns
of joy to the joyful songs of the angels of God; repeat into the ears of
that redeemed sinner the sentence just fallen from the lips of the Lamb,
whose blood cleanses us from all our sins; say to him, "Thy sins are
forgiven."
Sixth: "Come unto me all ye who labour, and are heavy-laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and
lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light." (Math. xi, 28-30.)
Though these words were pronounced more than 1800 years ago, they were
pronounced this very morning; they come at every hour of day and night from
the lips and the heart of Christ to every one of us sinners. It is just now
that Jesus says to every sinner, "Come to me and I will give ye rest."
Christ has never said and he will never say to any sinner: "Go to my
priests and they will give you rest!" But he has said, "Come to me and I
will give you rest."
Let the apostles and disciples of the Saviour, then, proclaim peace,
pardon, rest, not to the sinners who come to confess to them all their most
secretly sinful thoughts, desires, or actions, but to those who go to
Christ and Him alone, for peace, pardon and rest. For "Come to me," from
Jesus lips, has never meant, it will never mean, "Go and confess to the
priests."
Christ would never have said: "My yoke is easy and my burden light" if he
had instituted auricular confession. For the world has never seen a yoke so
heavy, humiliating and degrading as auricular confession.
Seventh: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of man be lifted up; that who soever believeth in him should not
perish, but have eternal life." (John iii. 14.)
Did Almighty God require any auricular confession in the wilderness, from
the sinners, when He ordered Moses to lift up the serpent? No! Neither did
Christ speak of auricular confession as a condition of salvation to those
who look to Him when He dies on the Cross to pay their debts. A free pardon
was offered to the Israelites who looked to the uplifted serpent. A free
pardon is offered by Christ crucified to all those who look to Him with
faith, repentance and love. To such sinners the ministers of Christ, to the
end of the world, are authorised to say: "Your sins are forgiven--we
"clean" your leprosy."
Eighth: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
"For God sent not His Son to condemn the world, but that the world, through
him, might be saved.
"He that believeth in him is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God.
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world and man
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every
one that doeth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest
his deeds should be reproved.
"But he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be
manifest, that they are wrought in God." (John iii, 16-21.)
In the religion of Rome, it is only through auricular confession that the
sinner can be reconciled to God; it is only after he has heard a most
detailed confession of all the thoughts, desires and actions of the guilty
one that he can tell him: "Thy sins are forgiven." But in the religion of
the Gospel, the reconciliation of the sinner with his God is absolutely and
entirely the work of Christ. That marvellous forgiveness is a free gift
offered not for any outward act of the sinner: nothing is required from him
but faith, repentance and love. These are marks by which the leprosy is
known to be cured and the sins forgiven. To all those who have these marks,
the ambassadors of Christ are authorized to say, "Your sins are forgiven,"
we "clean" you.
Ninth: "The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his
eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying: God! be merciful to me a
sinner!
"I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified." (Luke xviii 13,
14.). Yes! justified! and without auricular confession!
Ministers and disciples of Christ, when you see the repenting sinner
smiting his breast and crying: "Oh, God! have mercy upon me a sinner!" shut
your ears to the deceptive words of Rome who tells you to force that
redeemed sinner to make to you a special confession of all his sins, to get
his pardon. But go to him and deliver the message of love, peace and mercy,
which you received from Christ: "Thy sins are forgiven! I "clean" thee!
Tenth: "And one of the malefactors which were hanged, railed on him,
saying: "If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.
"But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying: Doest not thou fear God,
seeing thou art in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly, but this
man hath done nothing amiss.
"And he said unto Jesus: Remember me, when thou art in thy Kingdom. And
Jesus said unto him: Verily, I say Unto thee: to-day, shalt thou be with me
in Paradise." (Luke xxii, 39-43.)
Yes, in the Paradise or Kingdom of Christ without auricular confession!
From Calvary, when his hands are nailed to the cross, and his blood is
poured out, Christ even then protests against the great imposture of
auricular confession. Jesus will be to the end of the world what he was
there on the cross: the sinner's friend; always ready to hear and pardon
those who invoke his name and trust in him.
Disciples of the gospel, wherever you hear the cry of the repenting sinner
to the crucified Saviour: "Remember me when thou comest to thy Kingdom," go
and give the assurance to that penitent and redeemed child of Adam that
"his sins are forgiven"--clean the leper.
Eleventh: "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his
thoughts: and let him return to the Lord; and he will have mercy upon him
and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (Isa. lv. 7. 8.)
"Wash you, and make you clean, put away the evils of your doings from
before mine eyes: cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment,
relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be
as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool." (Isa. i, 16-18.)
Here are the landmarks of the mercy of God, put by his own almighty hands!
Who will dare to remove them in order to put others in their place? Has
ever Christ touched those landmarks? Has he ever intimated that anything
but faith, repentance and love, with their blessed fruits, were required
from the sinners to secure his pardon? No--never.
Have the prophets of the Old Testament or the apostles of the New ever said
a word about "auricular confession" as a condition for pardon? No--never.
What does David say? "I confess my sins unto thee, and mine iniquity have I
not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, and thou
forgavest the iniquity of my sin." (Psalm xxxii, 5.)
What does the Apostle John say? "If we say that we have fellowship with
Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.
"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from
sin;
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us.
"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to
CLEANSE us from all unrighteousness." (i. John i, 6-9.)
This is the language of the prophets and apostles. This is the language of
the Old and the New Testament. It is to God and Him alone that the sinner
is requested to confess his sins. It is from God and Him alone that he can
expect his pardon.
The apostle Paul writes fifteen epistles, in which he speaks of all the
duties imposed upon human conscience by the laws of God and the
prescriptions of the Gospel of Christ. A thousand times he speaks to
sinners and tells them how they may be reconciled to God. But does he say a
word about auricular confession? No, not one!
The apostles Peter, John, Jude address six letters to the different
churches--in which they state with the greatest detail what the different
classes of Christians have to do. But again, not a single word comes from
them about auricular confession.
St. James says, "confess your faults one to another." But this is so
evidently the repetition of what the Saviour had said about the way of
reconciliation between those who had offended one another, and it is so far
from the dogma of a secret confession to the priest, that the most zealous
supporters of auricular confession have not dared to mention that text in
favour of their modern invention.
But if we look in vain in the Old and New Testament for a word in favour of
auricular confession as a dogma, will it be possible to find that dogma in
the records of the first thousand years of Christianity? No! for the more
one studies the records of the Christian church during the first ten
centuries, the more he will be convinced that auricular confession is a
miserable imposture, of the darkest days of the world and the church.
We have the life of Paul, the hermit, of the third century, by one of the
early fathers of the church. But not a word is said in it of his confessing
his sins to any one, though a thousand things are said of him which are of
a far less interesting character.
So it is with the life of St. Mary, the Egyptian. The minute history of her
life, her public scandals, her conversion, long prayers and fastings in
solitude, the detailed history of her last days and of her death, all these
we have; but not a single word is said of her confessing to any one. It is
evident that she lived and died without ever having thought of going to
confess.
The deacon Pontius wrote also the life St. Cyprien, who lived in the third
century; but he does not say a word of his ever having gone to confession,
or having heard the confession of any one. More than that, we learn from
this reliable historian that Cyprien was excommunicated by the Pope of
Rome, called Stephen, and that he died without having ever asked from any
one absolution from that excommunication; a thing which has not seemingly
prevented him from going to Heaven, since the infallible Popes of Rome, who
succeeded Stephen, have assured us that he is a saint.
Gregory of Nyssa has given us the life of St. Gregory of Neo-Cæsarea, of
the 3rd century, and of St. Basil, of the 4th century. But neither speak of
their having gone to confess, or having heard the confession of any one. It
is thus evident that those two great and good men, with all the Christians
of their times, lived and died without ever knowing any thing about the
dogma of auricular confession.
We have the interesting life of St Ambrose, of the 4th century, by
Paulinus; and from that book it is as evident as two and two make four,
that St. Ambrose never went to confess.
The history of St Martin of Tours, of the 4th century by Severus Sulpicius
of the 5th century, is another monument left by antiquity to prove that
there was no dogma of auricular confession in those days; for St. Martin
has evidently lived and died without ever going to confess.
Pallas and Theodoret have left us the history of the life, sufferings and
death of St. Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, who died at the
beginning of the 5th century, and both are absolutely mute about that
dogma. No fact is more evident, by what they say, than that holy and
eloquent bishop lived and died also without ever thinking of going to
confess.
No man has ever more perfectly entered into the details of a Christian
life, when writing on that subject, than the learned and eloquent St
Jerome, of the 5th century. A great number of his admirable letters are
written to the priests of his day, or to some Christian ladies and virgins,
who had requested him to give them some good advices about the best way to
lead a Christian life. His letters, which form five volumes, are most
interesting monuments of the manners, habits, views, morality, practical
and dogmatical faith of the first centuries of the church; and they are a
most unanswerable evidence that auricular confession, as a dogma, had then
no existence, and is quite a modern invention. Would it be possible that
Jerome could have forgotten to give some advices or rules about auricular
confession, to the priests of his time who asked his counsel about the best
way to fulfil their ministerial duties, if it had been one of their duties
to hear the confessions of the people? But we challenge the most devoted
modern priest of Rome to find a single line in all the letters of St Jerome
in favour of auricular confession. In his admirable letter to the priest
Nepotianus, on the life of priests, vol. II, p. 203, when speaking of the
relations of priests with women, he says: "Solus cum sola, secreto et
absque arbitrio vel teste, non sedeas. Si familiarus est aliquid loquendum,
habet nutricem majorem domus, virginem, viduam, vel maritatam; non est tam
inhumana ut nullum præter te habeat cui se audeat credere."
"Never sit in secret, alone, in a retired place, with a female who is alone
with you. If she has any particular thing to tell you, let her take the
female attendant of the house, a young girl, a widow, or a married woman.
She can not be so ignorant of the rules of human life as to expect to have
you as the only one to whom she can trust those things."
It would be easy to cite a great number of other remarkable passages where
Jerome shows himself the most determined and implacable opponent of those
secret "tête-à-tête" between a priest and a female, which, under the
plausible pretext of mutual advice and spiritual consolation, are generally
nothing but bottomless pits of infamy and perdition for both. But this is
enough.
We have also the admirable life of St. Paulina, written by St. Jerome. And
though in it he gives us every imaginable detail of her life when young,
married and widow, though he tells us even how her bed was composed of the
simplest and rudest materials, he has not a word about her ever having gone
to confess. Jerome speaks of the acquaintances of St. Paulina and gives
their names; he enters into the minutest details of her long voyages, her
charities, her foundations of monasteries for men and women, her
temptations, human frailties, heroic virtues, her macerations and her holy
death: but he has not a word to say about the frequent or rare auricular
confessions of St. Paulina; not a word about her wisdom in the choice of a
prudent and holy (?) confessor.
He tells us that after her death, her body was carried to her grave on the
shoulders of bishops and priests, as a token of their profound respect for
the saint. But he never says that any of those priests sat there in a dark
corner with her, and forced her to reveal to their ears the secret history
of all the thoughts, desires, and human frailties of her long and eventful
life. Jerome is an unimpeachable witness that his saintly and noble friend
St. Paulina lived and died without having ever thought of going to confess.
Possidius has left us the interesting life of St. Augustine, of the fifth
century; and again it is in vain that we look for the place or the time
when that celebrated bishop of Hippo went to confess, or heard the secret
confessions of his people.
More than that, St. Augustine has written a most admirable book, called:
"Confessions," in which he gives us the history of his life. With that
marvellous book in hand, we follow him, step by step, wherever he goes; we
are the witnesses of what he does and thinks; we attend with him those
celebrated schools, where his faith and morality were so sadly wrecked; he
takes us with him into the garden where, wavering between heaven and hell,
bathed in tears, he goes under the fig-tree and cries, "Oh Lord! how long
will I remain in my iniquities!" Our soul thrills with emotions, with his
soul, when we hear, with him, the sweet and mysterious voice: "Tolle!
lege!" take and read. We run with him to the places where he had left his
gospel book; with a trembling hand, we open it, and we read: "Let us walk
honestly as in the day ... put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ..." (Rom. xiii,
13, 14.)
That incomparable book of Augustine makes us weep and shout with joy with
him; it initiates us into all, his most secret actions, to all his sorrows,
anxieties and joys, it reveals and unvails his whole life. It tells us
where he goes, with whom he sins, and with whom he praises God; it makes us
pray, sing and bless the Lord with him. Is it possible that Augustine could
have been to confess without telling us when, where and to whom he made
confession? Could he have received the absolution and pardon of his sins
from his confessor, without making us partakers of his joys, and requesting
us to bless that confessor with him.
But, it is in vain that you look in that book for a single word about
auricular confession. That book is an unimpeachable witness that neither
Augustine nor his saintly mother Monica, whom it mentions so often, lived
and died without ever having been to confess. That book may be called the
most crushing evidence to prove that, "the dogma of auricular confession"
is a modern imposture.
From the beginning to the end of that book, we see that Augustine believed
and said that God alone could forgive the sins of men, and that it was to
Him alone that men had to confess in order to be pardoned. If he writes his
confession, it is only that the world might know how God had been merciful
to him, and that they might help him to praise and bless the merciful
Heavenly Father. In the tenth book of his Confessions, chapter III,
Augustine protests against the idea that men could do anything to cure the
spiritual leper, or forgive the sins of their fellow-men; here is his
eloquent protest: "Quid mihi ergo est cum hominibus ut audiant confessiones
meas, quasi ipsi sanaturi sint languores meas? Curiosum genus ad
cognoscendam vitam alienam; desidiosum ad corrigendam."
"What have I to do with men that I might be obliged to confess my sins to
them, as if they were able to heal my infirmities? Oh Lord! that human race
is very fond of knowing the sins of their neighbors; but they are very
neglectful in correcting their own lies."
Before Augustine had built up that sublime and imperishable monument
against auricular confession, St. John Chrysostom had raised his eloquent
voice against it, in his homily on the 50th Psalm, where, speaking in the
name of the Church, he said: "We do not request you to go to confess your
sins to any of your fellow-men, but only to God!"
Nestorius, of the 4th century, the predecessor of John Chrysostom, had, by
a public defense, which the best Roman Catholic historians have had to
acknowledge, solemnly forbidden the practice of auricular confession. For,
just as there has always been thieves, drunkards and malefactors in the
world, so there has always been men and women who, under the pretext of
opening their minds to each other for mutual comfort and edification, were
giving themselves to every kind of iniquity and lust. The celebrated
Chrysostom was only giving the sanction of his authority to what his
predecessor had done when, thundering against the newly born monster, he
said to the Christians of his time, "We do not ask you to go and confess
your iniquities to a sinful man for pardon--but only to God." (Homily on
50th Psalm.)
Auricular confession originated with the early heretics, especially with
Marcion. Bellarmin speaks of it as something to be practiced. But let us
hear what the contemporary writers have to say on the question:
"Certain women were in the habit of going to the heretic Marcion to confess
their sins to him. But, as he was smitten with their beauty, and they loved
him also, they abandoned themselves to sin with him."
Listen now to what St. Basil, in his commentary on Ps. xxxvii, says of
confession:
"I have not to come before the world to make a confession with my lips. But
I close my eyes, and confess my sins in the secret of my heart. Before
thee, O God, I pour out my sighs, and thou alone art the witness. My groans
are within my soul. There is no need of many words to confess: sorrow and
regret are the best confession. Yes, the lamentations of the soul, which
thou art pleased to hear, are the best confession."
Chrysostom, in his homily: De pænitentia, vol. IV., col. 901, has the
following: "You need no witnesses of your confession. Secretly acknowledge
your sins, and let God alone hear you."
In his homily V., De incomprehensibili Dei naturâ, vol. I, he says:
"Therefore, I beseech you, always confess your sins to God! I in no way ask
you to confess them to me. To God alone should you expose the wounds of
your souls, and from him alone expect the cure. Go to him, then; and you
shall not be cast off, but healed. For, before you utter a single word, God
knows your prayer."
In his commentary on Heb. xii., hom. xxxi., vol. xii., p. 289, he further
says: "Let us not be content with calling ourselves sinners. But let us
examine and number our sins. And then, I do not tell you to go and confess
them, according to the caprice of some; but I will say to you, with the
prophet: "Confess your sins before God, acknowledge your iniquities at the
feet of your Judge; pray in your heart and your mind, if not with your
tongue, and you shall be pardoned."
In his homily on Ps. I., vol. V., p. 589, the same Chrysostom says:
"Confess you sins every day in prayer. Why should you hesitate to do so? I
do not tell you to go and confess to a man, sinner as you are, and who
might despise you if he knew your faults. But confess them to God, who can
forgive them to you."
In his admirable homily IV., De Lazaro, vol. I., p. 757, he explains: "Why,
tell me, should you be ashamed to confess your sins? Do we compel you to
reveal them to a man, who might, one day, throw them into your face? Are
you commanded to confess them to one of your equals, who could publish them
and ruin you? What we ask of you, is simply to show the sores of your soul
to your Lord and Master, who is also your friend, your guardian and
physician."
In a small work of Chrysostom's, intitled: "Catechesis ad illuminandos,"
vol. II., p. 210, we read these remarkable words: "What we should most
admire, is not that God forgives our sins, but that he does not disclose
them to any one, nor wishes us to do so. What he demands of us, is to
confess our transgressions to him alone to obtain pardon."
St. Augustine, in his beautiful homily on the 31st Ps., says: "I shall
confess my sins to God, and he will pardon all my iniquities. And such
confession is made not with the lips, but with the heart only. I had hardly
opened my mouth to confess my sins, when they were pardoned; for God had
already heard the voice of my heart."
In the edition of the Fathers by Migne, vol. 67, p. 614, 615, we read:
"About the year 390, the office of penitentiary was abolished in the
church, in consequence of a great scandal given by a woman who publicly
accused herself of having committed a crime against chastity with a
deacon."
The office of penitentiary was this: in every large city, a priest or
minister was specially appointed to preside over the church meetings where
the members who had committed public sins were obliged to confess them
publicly before the assembly, in order to be reinstated in the privileges
of their membership; and that minister had the charge of reading or
pronouncing the sentence of pardon granted by the church to the guilty
ones, before they could be admitted again to communion. This was perfectly
in accordance with what St. Paul had done with regard to the incestuous one
of Corinth, that scandalous sinner, who had cast obloquy on the Christian
name; but who, after confessing and weeping over his sins, before the
church, obtained his pardon--not from a priest in whose ears he had
whispered all the shocking details of his incestuous intercourse, but from
the whole church assembled. St. Paul gladly approves the Church of Corinth
in thus receiving again in their midst a wandering but repenting brother.
There is as much difference between such public confessions and auricular
confessions, as there is between heaven and hell, between God and his great
enemy, Satan.
Public confession, then, dates from the time of the apostles, and is still
practised in protestant churches of our day. But auricular confession was
unknown by the disciples of Christ; as it is rejected, to-day, with horror
by all the true followers of the Son of God.
Erasmus, one of the most learned Roman Catholics which opposed the
Reformation in the 16th century, so admirably begun by Luther and Calvin,
fearlessly and honestly makes the following declaration in his treaty: De
Pænitantia, Dis 5. "This institution of penance began rather of some
tradition of the Old or New Testament. But our divines, not advisedly
considering what the old doctors do say, are deceived: that which they say
of general and open confession, they wrest by and by to this secret and
privy kind of confession.
It is a public fact, which no learned Roman Catholic has ever denied, that
auricular confession became a dogma and obligatory practice of the church
only at the council of Lateran in the year 1215, under the Pope Innocent
III. Not a single trace of auricular confession, as a dogma, can be found
before that year.
Thus, it has taken more than twelve hundred years of efforts for Satan to
bring out that master-piece of his inventions to conquer the world and
destroy the souls of men.
Little by little, that imposture had crept into the world, just as the
shadows of a stormy night creep without any one being able to note the
moment when the first rays of light give way before the dark clouds. We
know very well when the sun was shining, we know when it was very dark all
over the world, but no one can tell positively when the first ray of light
faded away. So saith the Lord:
"The Kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his
field.
"But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and
went his way.
"But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, there appeared
the tares also.
"So the servants of the house-holder came and said unto him: Sir, dist not
thou sow good seed in the field? From whence then hath it tares?
"He said unto them: The enemy hath done this." (Mat. xiii, 24-28.)
Yes, the Good Master tells us that the enemy sowed those tares in his field
during the night--when men were sleeping.
But he does not tell us precisely the hour of the night when the enemy cast
the tares among the wheat.
If any one likes to know how fearfully dark was the night which covered the
"Kingdom," and how cruel, implacable and savage was the enemy who sowed the
tares, let him read the testimony of the most devoted and learned cardinal
whom Rome has ever had, Baronius, Annals, Anno 900:
"It is evident that one can scarcely believe what unworthy, base, execrable
and abominable things the holy Apostolical See, which is the pivot upon
which the whole Catholic Church revolves, was forced to endure, when
princes of the age, though Christians, arrogated to themselves the election
of the Roman Pontiffs. Alas, the shame! alas, the grief! What monsters,
horrible to behold, were then intruded on the Holy See! What evils ensued!
What tragedies they perpatrated! With what pollutions was this See, though
itself without spot, then stained! With what corruptions infected! _With
what filthiness defiled! And by these things blackened with perpetual
infamy!_ (Baronius, Annals, Anno 900.)
"Est plane, ut vix aliquis credat, immo, nec vix quidem sit crediturus,
nisi suis inspiciat ipse oculis, manibusque contractat, quam indigna,
quamque turpia, atque deformia, execranda, insuper et abominanda sit coacta
pati sacrosancta apostolica sedes, in cujus cardine universa Ecclesia
catholica vertitur, cum principes sæculi hujus, quantumlibet christiani,
hac tamen ex parte dicendi tyranni sævissimi, arrogaverunt sibi tirannice
electionem Romanorum pontificum. Quot tunc ab eis, proh pudor! proh dolor!
in eandem sedem, angelis reverandam, visu horrenda intrusa sunt monstra!
Quot ex eis oborta sunt mala, consummatæ tragediæ! Quibus tunc ipsam sine
maculâ et sine rugâ contigit aspergi sordibus, putoribus infici, quinati
spurcitiis, ex hisque perpetuâ infamiâ denigrari!"
* * * * *
CHAPTER X.
GOD COMPELS THE CHURCH OF ROME TO CONFESS THE ABOMINATIONS OF AURICULAR
CONFESSION.
* * * * *
Romish priests will resort to various means in order to deceive the people
on the immorality resulting from auricular confession. One of their
favorite stratagems is to quote some disconnected passages from
theologians, recommending caution on the part of the priest in questioning
his penitents on delicate subjects, should he see or apprehend any danger
for the latter of being shocked by his questions. True, there are such
prudent theologians, who seem to realize more than others the real danger
for the priest in confession. But those wise counsellors resemble very much
a father who would allow his child to put his fingers in the fire while
advising him to be cautious lest he should burn his fingers. There is just
as much wisdom in the one case as there would be in the other. Or what
would you say of a brutal parent casting a young, weak, and inexperienced
boy among wild beasts, with the foolish and cruel expectation that his
prudence might save him from all injury?
Such theologians may be perfectly honest in giving such advice, although it
is anything but wise or reasonable. But those are far from being honest or
true who contend that the Church of Rome, in commanding every one to
confess all his sins to the priests, has made an exception in favor of sins
against chastity. This is only so much dust thrown in the eyes of ignorant
people to prevent them from seeing through the frightful mysteries of
confession.
When the council of Latran decided that every adult, of either sex, should
confess all their sins to a priest, at least once a year, there was no
provision made for any special class of sins, not even for those committed
against modesty or purity. And the council of Trent, when ratifying or
renewing the previous decision, no exception was made, either, of the sins
in question. They were expected and had to be confessed, as all other sins.
The law of both councils is still unrepealed and binding for all sins,
without any exception. It is imperative, absolute; and every good Catholic,
man or woman, must submit to it by confessing _all_ his or her sins at
least once a year.
I have in my hand Butler's Catechism, approved by several bishops of
Quebec. On page 61, it reads that all penitents should examine themselves
on the capital sins, and confess them "all, without exception, under
penalty of eternal damnation."
Therefore, the young and timid girl, the chaste and modest woman must think
of shameful deeds and fill their minds with impure ideas, in order to
confess to an unmarried man whatever they may be guilty of, however
repugnant may be to them such confession, or dangerous for the priest who
is bound to hear, and even demand it. No one is exempt from the loathsome
and often polluting task. Both priest and penitent are required and
compelled to go through the fiery ordeal of contamination and shame. They
are bound, on every particular, the one to ask, and the other to answer,
under penalty of eternal damnation.
Such is the rigorous, inflexible law of the Church of Rome with regard to
confession. It is taught not only in works on theology or from the pulpit,
but in prayer-books and various other religious publications. It is so
deeply impressed in the minds of Romanists as to have become a part of
their religion. Such is the law which the priest himself has to obey, and
which puts his penitents at his own discretion.
But there are husbands with a jealous disposition, who would little fancy
the idea of bachelors confessing their wives, if they knew exactly what
questions they have to answer in confession. There are fathers and mothers
who don't like much to see their daughters alone with a man, behind a
curtain, and who would certainly tremble for their honor and virtue if they
knew all the abominable mysteries of confession. It is necessary,
therefore, to keep the people, as much as possible, in ignorance, and
prevent light from reaching that empire of darkness, the confessional. In
that view, confessors are advised to be cautious "on those matters;" to
"broach these questions in a sort of covert way, and with the greatest
reserve." For it is very desirable "not to shock modesty, neither frighten
the penitent nor grieve her." "Sins, however, _must_ be confessed."
Such is the prudent advice given to the confessor on certain occasions. In
the hands or under the command of Liguori, Father Gury, Scavani, or other
casuists, the priest is a sort of general, sent, with his army, during the
night, to storm a citadel or a strong position, having for order to operate
cautiously and before daylight. His mission is one of darkness and cunning,
violence and cruelty; for when the pope commands, the priest, as his loyal
soldier, must be ready to obey. But many a time, after the place has been
captured by dint of strategy and secrecy, the poor soldier is left, badly
wounded and completely disabled, on the battle-field. He has paid dearly
for his victory; and the conquered citadel has received an injury from
which it may never recover. But the crafty priest has gained his point: he
has succeeded in persuading his lady penitent that there was no
impropriety, that it was even necessary for them to have a parley on things
that made her blush a few moments before. She is so well convinced that she
would swear that there is nothing wrong in confession. Truly this is a
fulfilment of the words:
"Abyssus abyssum invocat."
Have the Romish theologians Gury, Scavani, Liguori, etc., ever been honest
enough, in their works on confession, to say that the Most Holy God could
never command or require woman to degrade and pollute herself and the
priest in pouring in the ear of a frail and sinful mortal, words unfit even
for an angel? No; they were very careful not to say so; for from that very
moment, their shameless lies would have been exposed; the stupendous but
weak structure of auricular confession would fall to the ground with sad
havoc and ruin to its upholders. Men and women would open their eyes, and
see its weakness and fallacy. "If God," they might say, "can forgive our
most grievous sins, against modesty, he can and will certainly do the same
with those of less gravity; therefore there is no necessity or occasion for
us to confess to a priest."
But those shrewd casuists know too well that by such frank confession, they
would soon lose their hold on Catholic populations, especially on women, by
whom, through confession, they rule the world. They much prefer to keep
their gripe on benighted minds, frightened consciences, and trembling
souls. No wonder, then, that they fully endorse and confirm the decisions
of the councils of Latran and Trent ordering "that all sins must be
confessed such as God knows them." No wonder that they try their best or
worst to overcome the natural repugnance of women for making such
confessions, and to conceal the terrible dangers for the priests in hearing
the same.
But God, in His infinite mercy, and for the sake of truth, has compelled,
as it were, the Church of Rome to acknowledge the moral dangers and
corrupting tendencies of auricular confession. In His eternal wisdom, he
knew that Roman Catholics would close their ears to whatever might be said
of the demoralizing influence of that institution; that they would even
reply with insult and fallacy to the words of truth kindly addressed to
them: as the Jews of old returned hatred and insult to the good Saviour who
was bringing to them the glad tidings of a free salvation. He knew that
Romish devotees, led astray by their priests, as were the poor blinded
Jews, would call the apostles of truth liars, seducers, possessed of the
devil, as Christ was constantly called a demoniac, an impostor, and finally
put to death by his false accusers.
But God, just as compassionate now as he was then for the poor benighted
and deluded souls, has wrought a real miracle to open the eyes of their
minds, and compel them, as it were, to believe us, when we say, on his
authority, that auricular confession was invented by Satan to ruin both the
priest and his female penitents, for time and eternity. For, what we would
never have dared to say of ourself to the Roman Catholics with regard to
what frequently happens between their priests and their wives and
daughters, either during or after confession, God has constrained the
Church of Rome to acknowledge herself in revealing things that would have
seemed incredible had they come simply from our mouth or our pen. In this,
as in other instances, that apostate church has unwittingly been the
mouth-piece of God for the accomplishment of his great and merciful ends.
Listen to the questions that the Church of Rome, through her theologians,
puts to every priest after he has heard the confession of your wives or
daughters:
1. "_Nonne inter audiendas confessiones quasdam proposui questiones circa
sextum decalogi præceptum cum intentione lubidinosâ?_" (Miroir du Clergé,
p. 582.)
While hearing confessions, have I not asked questions on sins against the
sixth (the seventh in the Decalogue) commandment with the intention of
satisfying my evil passions?
Such is the man, O mothers and daughters, to whom you dare to unbosom the
most secret as well as the most shameful actions. You kneel down at his
feet and whisper in his ear your most intimate thoughts and desires, and
your most polluting deeds; because your church, by dint of cunning and
sophistry, has succeeded in persuading you that there was no impropriety or
danger in doing so; that the man whom you chose for your spiritual guide
and confident could never be tempted or tainted by such foul recitals. But
that same church, through some mysterious providences, is made to
acknowledge, in her own books, her own lies. In spite of herself, she
admits that there is real danger in confession, both for the woman and for
the priest; that willingly or otherwise, and sometimes both unawares, they
lay for each other dangerous snares. The Church of Rome, as if she had an
evil conscience for allowing her priest to hold such close and secret
converse with a woman, on such delicate subjects, keeps, as it were, a
watchful eye on him while the poor misguided woman is pouring in his ear
the filthy burthen of her soul; and as soon as she is off, questions the
priest as to the purity of his motives, the honesty of his intentions in
putting the requisite questions. Have you not, she asks him immediately,
under the pretence of helping that woman in her confession, put to her
certain questions simply in order to gratify your lust, and with the object
of satisfying your evil propensities?
2. "_Nonne munus audiendi confessione suscepi, aut peregi ex pravâ
incontinentiæ appetâ?_" (Idem, p. 582.)
Have I not repaired to the confessional and heard confessions with the
intention of gratifying my evil passions?
O, ye women, who tremble like slaves at the feet of the priests, you
sometimes admire the patience and charity of those good (?) priests, who
are willing to spend so many long and tedious hours in hearing the
confession of your secret sins; and you hardly know how to express your
gratitude for so much kindness and charity. But hush! Listen to the voice
of God speaking to the conscience of the priest, through the Church of
Rome! "Have you not" she asks him, "heard the confession of women simply to
foster or gratify the groveling passions of your fallen nature and corrupt
heart?"
Please notice, it is not I, or the enemies of your religion, who put to
your priests the above questions: it is God himself who, in his pity and
compassion, compels your own church to ask such questions; that your eyes
may be opened, and that you may be rescued from all the dangerous
obscenities and the humiliating and degrading slavery of auricular
confession. It is God's will to deliver you from such bondage and
degradation. In his tender mercies, he has provided means to drag you out
of that cess-pool called confession; to break the chains which bind you to
the feet of a miserable and blasphemous sinner called confessor, who, under
the presence of being able to pardon your sins, usurps the place of your
Saviour and your God! For while you are whispering your sins in his ear,
God says to him, through his church, in tones loud enough to be heard: "In
hearing the confession of these women, are you not actuated by lust,
spurred by evil passions?"
Is this not sufficient to warn you of the danger of auricular confession?
Can you now with any sense of safety or propriety, come to that priest, for
whom your very confession may be a snare, a cause of fall or fearful
temptation? Can you with a particle of honor or modesty willingly expose
yourself to impure desires or shameful deeds? Can you, with any sort of
womanly dignity consent to entrust that man with your inmost thoughts and
desires, your most humiliating and secret actions, when you know that that
man may not have any higher object in listening to your confession than a
lustful curiosity or a sinful desire of exciting his evil passions?
3. "_Nonne ex auditis in confessiones occasionem sumpsi pænitentes
utriusque sexûs ad peccandam sollicitandi?_" (Idem, p. 582)
Have I not availed myself of what I heard in confession to induce my
penitents to commit sin?
I would run a great risk of being treated with the utmost contempt, should
I dare to put to your priests such a question. You would very likely call
me a scoundrel for daring to question the honesty and purity of such holy
men. You would perhaps go as far as to contend that it is utterly
impossible for them to be guilty of such sins as are alluded to in the
above question; that never such shameful deeds have been perpetrated
through confession. And you would, maybe, emphatically deny that your
confessor has ever said or done anything that might lead you to sin or even
commit any breach of propriety or modesty. You feel perfectly safe on that
score, and see no danger to apprehend.
Let me tell you, good ladies, that you are altogether too confident and in
the most fatal delusion. Your own church, through the merciful and warning
voice of God speaking to the conscience of your own theologians, tells you
that there is a real and eminent danger where you fancy yourself in perfect
security. You may never have suspected the danger, but it is there, within
the walls of the confessional; nay, more, it is lurking in your very hearts
and that of your confessor. He may hitherto have refrained from
temptations; he may, at least, have kept within the proper limits of
outward morality or decency. But nothing warrants you that he may not be
tempted; and nothing could shield you from his attempts on your virtue
should he give way to temptation; as cases are not wanting to prove the
truth of my assertion. You are sadly mistaken, in a false and dangerous
security. You are perhaps, although unawares, on the very brink of a
precipice, where so many have fallen through their blind confidence in
their own strength or their confessor's prudence and sanctity. Your own
church is very anxious about your safety; she trembles for your innocence
and purity. In her fear, she cautions the priest to be watchful over his
wicked passions and human frailty. How dare you pretend to be stronger and
more holy? Why should you so wilfully imperil your chastity or modesty? Why
expose yourself to danger, when it could be so easily avoided? How can you
be so rash, so devoid of common prudence and modesty as to shamelessly put
yourselves in a position to tempt and be tempted, and thereby incur your
temporal and eternal perdition?
4. "_Nonne extra tribunal, vel in ipso confessionis actu, aliquia dixi aut
egi cum intentione diabolicâ has personas seducendi?_ (Idem, idem.)
Have I not, either during or after confession, done or said anything with a
diabolical intention of seducing my female penitents?
"What arch-enemy of our holy religion is so bold and impious as to put to
our saintly priests such an impudent and insulting question?" may ask some
of our Roman Catholic readers. It is easy to answer. This great enemy of
your religion is no less than a justly offended God, admonishing and
reproving your priests for exposing both you and themselves to dangerous
allurements and seductions. It is his voice speaking to their consciences,
and warning them of the danger and corruption of auricular confession. It
says to them: Beware! for ye might be tempted, as surely you will, to do or
say something against honor and purity. Husbands and fathers, who rightly
value the honor of your wives and daughters more than all treasures, who
consider it too precious a boon to be exposed to the dangers of pollution,
and who would prefer to lose your life a thousand times than to see those
you love most on earth fall in the snares of the seducer, read once more
and ponder what your church asks the priest after he has heard your wife or
daughter in confession: "Have you not, either during or after confession,
done or said anything with a diabolical intention of seducing your female
penitents?"
If your priest remains deaf to these words addressed to his conscience, you
cannot help giving heed to them and understanding their full significance.
You can not be easy and fear nothing from that priest in those close
interviews with your wives and daughters, when his superiors and your own
Church tremble for him, and question his purity and honesty. They see a
great danger for both the confessor and his penitent; for they know that
confession has many a time been the pretence or the cause of the most
shameful seductions.
If there was no real danger for the chastity of women, in confessing to a
man their most secret sins, do you believe that your popes and theologians
would be so stupid as to acknowledge it and put to confessors questions
that would be most insulting and out of place, should there be no occasion
for them?
Is it not presumption and folly on your part to think that there is no
danger, when the Church of Rome tells you positively that there is danger,
and uses the strongest terms in expressing her uneasiness and apprehension?
Why, your church sees the most pressing reasons to fear for the honor of
your wives and daughters, as well as for the chastity of her priest: and
still you remain unconcerned, indifferent to the fearful peril to which
they are exposed! Are you like the Jewish people of old, to whom it was
said; "Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive
not?" (Isa. vi, 9).
But if you see or suspect the danger you are warned of; if the eye of your
intelligence can fathom the dreadful abyss where the dearest objects of
your heart are in danger of falling, then it behoves you to keep them from
the paths that lead to the fearful chasm. Do not wait till it is too late,
when they are too near the precipice to be rescued. You may think the
danger to be far off, while it is near at hand. Profit by the sad
experience of so many victims of confession who have been irretrievably
lost, irrecoverably ruined for time and eternity. The voice of your
conscience, of honor, of God himself, tells you that it may become too late
to save them from destruction, through your neglect and procrastination.
While thanking God for having preserved them from temptations that have
proved fatal to so many married or unmarried women, do not lose a single
moment in taken the necessary means to keep them from temptation and falls.
Instead of allowing them to go and kneel at the feet of a man to obtain the
remission of their sins, lead them to the cross, the only place where they
can secure pardon and peace everlasting. And why, after so many unfruitful
attempts, should they try any longer to wash themselves in a puddle, when
the pure waters of eternal life are offered them so freely, through Christ
Jesus, their only Saviour and Mediator?
Instead of seeking their pardon from a poor and miserable sinner, weak and
tempted as they are, let them go to Christ, the only strong and perfect
man, the only hope and salvation of the world.
O poor deluded Catholic woman! listen no longer to the deceiving words of
the Church of Rome, who has no pardon, no peace for you, but only snares;
who offers you thraldom and shame in return for the confession of your
sins! But listen rather to the invitations of your Saviour, who has died on
the cross that you might be saved, and who alone can give rest to your
weary souls.
Harken to His words when he says to you: "Come to me, O ye heavily laden,
crushed, as it were, under the burden of your sins, and I shall give you
rest.... I am the physician of your souls.... Those who are well have no
need of a physician, but those who are sick.... Come then to me and ye
shall be healed.... I have sent back nor lost none who have come to me....
Invoke my name.... believe in me.... repent.... love God and your neighbor
as yourself, and you shall be saved.... For all who believe in me and call
upon my name, shall be saved.... When I am raised up between heaven and
earth, I shall draw every one to me"....
O, mothers and daughters, instead of going to the priest for pardon and
salvation, go to Jesus, who is so pressingly inviting you, and the more so
as you have more need of divine help and grace. Even if you are as great a
sinner as Mary Magdalene you can, like her, wash the feet of the Saviour
with the flowing tears of your repentance and your love, and like her,
receive the pardon of your sins.
To Jesus then, and to him alone for the confession and pardon of your sins:
for there only you can find peace, light, and life!
* * * * *
CHAPTER XI.
SOME OF THE MATTERS ON WHICH THE PRIEST OF ROME MUST QUESTION HIS
PENITENTS.
A CHAPTER FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF LEGISLATORS, HUSBANDS, AND FATHERS.
* * * * *
Dens wants the confessors to interrogate on the following matters:--
1. "Peccant uxores, quæ susceptum viri semen ejiciunt, vel ejicere
conantur." (Dens, tom. vii. p. 147).
2. "Peccant conjuges mortaliter, si copulâ inceptâ, cohibeant
seminationem."
3. "Si vir jam seminaverit, dubium fit an femina lethaliter peccat, si se
retrahat a seminando; aut peccat lethaliter vir non expectando seminationem
uxoris." (p. 153).
4. "Peccant conjuges inter se circa actum conjugalem. Debet servari modus,
sive situs; imo ut non servetur debitum vas, sed copula habeatur in vase
præpostero, alioquoque non naturali. Si fiat accedendo a postero, a latere,
stando, sedendo, vel si vir sit succumbus." (p. 166).
5. "Impotentia. Est incapacitas perficiendi copulam carnalem perfectam cum
seminatione viri in vase se debito, seu, de se, aptam generationi. Vel, ut
si mulier sit nimis arcta respectu unius viri, non respectu alterius".
(vol. vii. p. 273).
6. "Notatur quod pollutio, in mulieribus possit perfici, ita ut semen earum
non effluat extra membrum genitale.
Indicium istius allegat Billuart, si scilicet mulier sensiat seminis
resolutionem cum magno voluptatis sensu, quâ completâ, passio satiatur"
(vol. iv. p. 168).
7. "Uxor se accusans, in confessione, quod negaverit debitum, interrogetur
an ex pleno rigore juris sui id petiverit" (vol. vii. p. 168).
8. "Confessarius poenitentem, qui confitetur se peccasse cum sacerdote, vel
sollicitatam ab eo ad turpia, potest interrogare utrum ille sacerdos sit
ejus confessarius, an in confessione sollitaverit" (vol. vi. p. 294).
There are a great many other unmentionable things on which Dens, in his
fourth, fifth, and seventh volumes, requires the confessor to ask from his
penitent, which I omit.
Now let us come to Liguori. That so-called Saint, Liguori is not less
diabolically impure than Dens, in his questions to the women. But I will
cite only two of the things on which the spiritual physician of the Pope
must not fail to examine his spiritual patient:--
1. "Quærat an sit semper mortale, si vir immitat pudenda in os uxoris?...
Verius affirmo quia, in hoc actu, ob calorem oris, adest proximum periculum
pollutionis, et videtur nova species luxuriæ contra naturam, dicta,
irruminatio."
2. "Eodem modo, Sanchez damnat virum de mortali, qui, in actu copulæ,
immiteret digitum in vas præposterum uxoris; quia, ut ait, in hoc actu
adest affectus ad Sodomiam" (Liguori, tom. vi. p. 935).
The celebrated Burchard, Bishop of Worms, has made a book of the questions
which had to be put by the confessors to their penitents of both sexes.
During several centuries it was the standard book of the priests of Rome.
Though that work to-day is out of print, Dens, Liguori, Debreysne, &c.,
&c., have ransacked its polluting pages, and given them to study to the
modern confessors, in order to question their penitents. I will select only
a few questions of the Roman Catholic bishop to the young men:--
1. "Fecisti solus tecum fornicationem ut quidam facere solent; ita dico ut
ipse tuum membrum virile in manum tuam acciperes, et sic duceres præputium
tuum, et manu propriâ commoveres, ut, sic, per illam delectationem semen
projiceres?"
2. "Fornicationem fecisti cum masculo intra coxas; ita dico ut tuum virile
membrum intra coxas alterius mitteres, et sic agitando semen funderes?"
3. "Fecisti fornicationem, ut quidem facere solent, ut tuum virile membrum
in lignum perforâtum, aut in aliquod hujus modi mitteres, et, sic, per
illam commotionem et delectationem semen projiceres?"
4. "Fecisti fornicationem contra naturam, id est, cum masculis vel
animalibus coire, id est cum equo, cum vaccâ, vel asinâ, vel aliquo
animali?" (vol. i. p. 136.)
Among the questions we find in the Compendium of the Right Rev. Burchard,
Bishop of Worms, which must be put to women, are the following (p. 115):--
1. "Fecisti quod quædam mulieres solent, quoddam molimen, aut machinamentum
in modum virilis membri ad mensuram tuæ voluptatis, et illud loco
verendorum tuorum aut alterius cum aliquibus ligaturis, ut fornicationem
faceres cum aliis mulieribus, vel alia eodem instrumento, sive alio tecum?"
2. "Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent, ut jam supra dicto
molimine, vel alio aliquo machinamento, tu ipsa in te solam faceres
fornicationem?"
3. "Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent, quando libidinem se
vexantem extinguere volunt, quæ se conjungunt quasi coire debeant et
possint, et conjungunt invicem puerperia sua, et sic, fricando pruritum
illarum extinguere desiderant?"
4. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut cum filio suo parvulo
fornicationem faceres, ita dico ut filium tuum supra turpidinem tuam
poneres ut sic imitaberis fornicationem?"
5. "Fecisti quod quædam mulieres facere solent, ut succumberes aliquo
jumento et illud jumentum ad coitum qualicumque posses ingenio, ut sic
coiret tecum?"
The celebrated Debreyne has written a whole book, composed of the most
incredible details of impurities, to instruct the young confessors in the
art of questioning their penitents. The name of the book is "Moechiology,"
or "treaty on all the sins against the six (seven) and the nine
commandments, as well as on all the questions of the married life which
refer to them."
That work is much approved and studied in the Church of Rome. I do not know
that the world has ever seen anything comparable to the filthy and infamous
details of that book. I will cite only two of the questions which Debreyne
wants the confessor to put to his penitent.
To the young men (page 95) the confessor will ask:--
"Ad cognoscendum an usque ad pollutionem se tetigerint, quando tempore et
quo fine se tetigerint; an tunc quosdam motus in corpore experti fuerint,
et per quantum temporis spatium; an cessantibus tactibus nihil insolitum et
turpe acciderit; an non longe majorem in corpore voluptatem perceperint in
fine tactuum quam in eorum principio; an tum in fine quando magnam
delectationem carnalem senserunt, omnes motus corporis cessaverint; an non
madefacti fuerint?" &c., &.
To the girl the confessor will ask:--
"Quæ sese tetigisse fatentur, an non aliquem pruritum extinguere
tentaverit, et utrum pruritus ille cessaverit cum magnam senserint
voluptatem; an tunc, ipsimet tactus cessaverint?" &c., &c.
The Right Rev. Kenrick, late Bishop of Boston, United States, in his book
for the teaching of confessors on what matters they must question their
penitents, has the following, which I select among thousands as impure and
damnable to the soul and body:--
"Uxor quæ, in usu matrimonii, se vertit, ut non recipiat semen, vel statim
post illud acceptum surgit, ut expellatur, lethaliter peccat; sed opus non
est ut diu resupina jaceat, quum matrix, brevi, semen attrahat, et mox,
arctissime claudatur" (vol. iii. p. 317).
"Puellæ patienti licet se vertere, et conari ut non recipiat semen, quod
injuria ei immittitur; sed, exceptum, non licet expellere, quia jam
possessionem pacificam habet, et haud absque injuriâ naturæ ejiceretur"
(tom. iii. p. 317).
"Conjuges senes plerumque coeunt absque culpâ, licet contingat semen extra
vas effundi; id enim per accidens fit ex infirmitate naturæ. Quod si vires
adeo sint fractæ ut nulla sit seminandi intra vas spes, jam nequeunt jure
conjugii uti" (tom. iii. p. 317).
* * * * *
Notes
[1] "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every
woman have her own husband." (1 Cor. vii. 2.)
[2] A silver box containing consecrated bread, which is believed to be the
real body, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ.
[3] And remark that all their religious authors who have written on that
subject hold the same language. They all speak of those continual degrading
temptations; they all lament the damning sins which follow those
temptations; they all entreat the priests to fight those temptations and
repent of those sins.
[4] He is dead long ago.
[5] By the word _penitents_, Rome means not those who _repent_, but those
who _confess_ to the priest.
[6] He died many years after when at the head of the Laval University.
* * * * *
Corrections made to printed original.
Chapter I. Para. 9. "I do here publicly challenge the whole Roman Catholic
priesthood" - 'hear' in original.
ibid. Para 13. "everywhere they struggle nerve themselves with a superhuman
courage" - 'stuggle' in original.
Chapter II. Para. 1. "The terrible and mysterious cause of her death was
known" - 'known' in original.
Chapter III. Para 9. "he suspects that nobody but his co-sinner brethren" -
'brethern' in original.
Chapter V. Para 12. "a good, honest, Christian, and godly thing" -
'Christain' in original.
ibid. Para 36. "particularly if high education has added to her natural
shrewdness." - 'particulary' in original.
Chapter VI. Para 30. "humiliation and opprobrium of the questionable
privileges of an uncertain paternity." - 'questioable' in original
ibid. Para 39. "it is nothing else than a school of immorality." - 'im-' at
end of one line is not completed in original, this completion seems best to
fit the sense of the next paragraph.
CHAPTER VII. Heading - 'CHAPTER VIII.' in original.
ibid. Para 12. "the obligation and power which every one of His disciples
had of forgiving" - 'desciples' in original.
Chapter IX. Para 80. "secreto et absque arbitrio" - 'and' for 'et' in
original. "aliquid loquendum habet" - 'loquem dum' in original
ibid. Para 89. "Curiosum genus ad cognoscendam vitam alienam;" -
'cognescendam' in original
ibid. Para 121. "ex hisque perpetuâ infamiâ denigrari!" - 'hisgue' in
original
Chapter XI. Para 20. "which must be put to women" - 'womem' in original.
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