Nature has organized man for the conjugal union. She has endowed him
with powers adapted to its requirements; with passions that aspire after
its pleasures and benefits, and with sensibilities that can be gratified
only by the performance of its obligations. By the reciprocal relations,
and the amiable intercourse which it establishes between the sexes,
it furnishes an attractive means of mutual improvement, refining the
grossness of the sensual propensities, and developing the noblest graces
of the human character. By blending masculine boldness with feminine
delicacy, it takes rudeness from the one, and imparts energy to the
other; and thus contributes, in an eminent degree, to the formation of
that equanimity of character which is the happy medium between extremes,
and of that agreeable association of strength and urbanity which is best
fitted to cope with the difficulties incident to life.
By an alliance of mutual affection and interests for life, it secures
their highest development, and the most complete and undisturbed
enjoyment of their benefits. It identifies the honor and interests of
parents and children, securing affectionate protectors for helpless
infancy, faithful guardians for inexperienced youth, and interested
tutors for fitting the rising generation for the useful and noble
stations of society; and while it thus provides for children, it rewards
the solicitude of parents with a shelter in adversity, a support in
declining age, and a name in posterity.
But while such are the inducements of marriage, yet a regard to personal
interest and happiness might deter a considerate person from assuming
its obligations, when either a suitable companion has not been found, or
pecuniary resources are insufficient to meet the domestic demands in a
satisfactory manner. Pecuniary competency and similarity of taste and
disposition are requisites indispensable to connubial felicity. Without
them marriage would be a source of privation, difficulty and alienation;
and family a painful encumbrance. When, therefore, fortune has withheld
these essentials of conjugal happiness, celibacy, in either sex, is more
honorable than matrimony.
But to stifle the instincts that prompt to this union, and ungraciously
to spurn the incalculable benefits it proffers, unrestrained by any
prudential consideration, is to violate, without motive, the laws of
human happiness, and neglect the fulfilment of the most important
design of the organism of man. An act so unnatural is, perhaps, seldom
contemplated, except under extreme mental depression, or under the
singular delusions of which religious fanaticism is so prolific.
Disappointed love, reverses of fortune, or the hope of becoming
insensible to the wants of humanity by acquiring supernatural
perfection, has sometimes induced the weak and superstitious to assume
the monastic vow of perpetual celibacy. The motive of such conduct has
always originated in emotion; and though emotion is always sincere, it
is always fluctuating. A cloud that obscures the sun and casts a
gloom over earth, soon passes away, leaving the former in its natural
brightness, and the latter in its usual attractiveness. Not less
ephemeral is the mental gloom which adversity or superstition may throw
over the human mind. When the energies of acquisitiveness have been
prostrated by repeated pecuniary misfortunes; when the warmth of
ambition has been chilled by the wounds of reputation; when the currents
of love have been frozen by the cold breath of disappointment; the
desolated heart may feel that its struggle for subsistence is vain, that
its hopes of distinction have perished, and that its ties of love are
broken forever. But these despondent sensations are ephemeral; they are
the results of a temporary repose of passions which are rooted in the
constitution of our nature, and which can be destroyed only with our
being. Though despair may for a time throw a wintry gloom over the mind,
yet hope will again bud and bloom, avarice will again sigh for wealth,
ambition will again thirst for distinction, love will again yearn for
companionship, and every passion resuming its natural energy will again
create the emotions for which it was organized, and compel us to seek
its appropriate gratification in the social, conjugal, or political
relations which subsist in society.
This revulsion is inevitable. It is as certain as the subsidence of a
tempestuous torrent after having exhausted its energy, into its ordinary
peaceful roll. As all emotions are ephemeral, so must be all the vows
and resolutions which they generate. Each day brings with it new and
unexpected events, which abrogate or modify the emotions and resolves
which the circumstances of the preceding day had suggested; nay, more,
the antithetical emotions thus created are always proportionally strong
to those which they supplant. Hence vows assumed by any person under
extraordinary mental excitement, will be repudiated when he is under
extraordinary mental depression; and obligations assumed under either of
these conditions of mind, will be found inconsistent with the ordinary
obligations of life, when that usual current of thought and emotion
shall set in, which always flows in harmony with human reason,
philosophy and happiness, and the regular course of things. If when this
condition shall supervene; if when hope shall succeed to despair,
and reason and reflection to impulse and fanaticism, and when all
the passions and powers of our nature shall resume their natural
operation--if then, we shall have placed ourselves by any mistake,
however innocently committed, in a situation where we cannot respond to
the demands of our nature, we will find that we have doomed ourselves to
perpetual misery.
Nor will any degree of purity or sanctity of motive arrest the evils of
mistaken conduct. Nature is inexorable; she inflicts punishment on the
violators of her laws without regard to the motives by which they have
been actuated. She admits no apology; she knows no forgiveness. Neither
tears nor penitence can mitigate her vengeance; neither pleas of
conscientious motives, nor of ignorance of her ordinations, can soften
the rigor of her justice. Although the desire of perfection is a natural
and noble one, yet she has established laws by which alone it is to
be obtained, and punishes the aggressors of them with deformity and
imbecility. These laws are intelligible, Human perfection clearly
comprehends the perfect development of all the physical, mental and
moral powers of man. Exercise is the only means by which these faculties
can be developed. The system of exercise adapted to the attainment of
this end must embrace a judicious employment of every acuity belonging
to the human organism; allowing none to depreciate by indolence; none to
become enervated by incessant or overstrained exertion; but to maintain
all in that natural and reasonable condition in which, while they are
alternately relieved they are mutually strengthened. By the discipline
of such a system of exercise knowledge will gradually become the
foundation of reason, judgment the guide of fancy, conscience the
controller of the passions, the vital or gains the recuperator of the
physical and mental faculties; a healthy reciprocity and modifying
action will be maintained between all the powers, and that equilibrium
engendered which is peace; that condensation which is energy; and that
perfection which is essential to genius.
The monastic vow of perpetual celibacy is clearly unfavorable to this
general exercise of the powers of human nature. It permits the exercise
of only a limited number of these powers, and thereby obtrudes an
insuperable obstacle to the full development of the human character. It
stimulates those which it cultivates to incessant activity, and thereby
distorts and deforms their organisms by an abnormal development. It
fetters in inactivity the bulk of the human faculties, and thereby
lessens the number and variety of the natural sources of the pleasures
of life. It reduces activity in the vital system, and thereby saps
the fundamental strength of the whole organization, engendering those
physical and moral diseases, which render life joyless, and death often
the only remedy. It prohibits the exercise of those faculties by which
alone the design of the human organism can be accomplished, and permits
but a few of them to be exercised in order to attain the highest degree
of perfection. It would dry up the springs of a river, in order to
increase the volume of its current; it would weaken the foundation of an
edifice, in order to protect it against the shocks of earthquakes. But
whether these ecclesiastical absurdities are more insane than idiotical,
we respectfully submit to the acumen of the Ecumenical Council,
whenever it shall resume its session at Home.
The monastic vow of celibacy, is as weak in its fundamental principles,
as it is absurd in its discipline. It is founded on the ascetic
delusion, that the sensual passions are evils; and that human perfection
and happiness consist in the attainment of a passive state of mind,
untroubled by desire, thought or action. But this is a Brahminical
absurdity, rusted to its core by the abrasion of ages. Even if the
propensities were evils, yet wisdom would teach us that as they are a
result of our organism, they should be regulated; especially if by a
judicious regulation, they can be made to administer to the pleasures
of existence. But they are not evils; on the contrary, they are
unmeasurable benefits. If they are ever tormentors, it is when prudence
has not regulated their gratification, or when abuse has made their
cravings unnatural. If they are ever sources of disease, it is when they
are exercised in violation of the laws of human nature. If they
ever become impotent in the production of pleasure, it is when their
possessors have become gluttons, sots, debauchees, misers, or some
similar compound of human depravity. But when the animal passions are
refined by knowledge, chastened by virtue, directed by reason, governed
by conscience, and exercised with a considerate regard to the integrity
of the other powers, they become sources of pleasure and vigor,
incentives to industry and enterprise, and eminently contribute towards
the advancement of the perfection and happiness of our being.
Another fundamental error of the vow of celibacy, is the delusion
that man may by means of solitude and resolution arrest the natural
promptings of the propensities. The propensities are constituted by
nature essential portions of our being; and accordingly we must carry
them with us into whatever solitude we may retire; and as their emotions
are naturally irrepressible, their powers must be felt under whatever
obligation we may assume. Vows, resolutions and solitude are as
incapable of arresting the progress of the passions, as they are of
stopping the pulsations of the heart. Amid the deepest silence and
solitude they will still yearn for expression, and yearn the more the
deeper is the stillness. Amid the bustle and tumult of the world they
are excited by innumerable different objects; their attention is
divided among a variety of attractions; and each finds its appropriate
gratification constantly offered to its taste. But in solitude there
is every thing to concentrate, and nothing to divide their power;
every thing to inflame, and nothing to appease their appetites; and
consequently, under such circumstances, their powers must be the most
ungovernable, and the torments of their craving the most unsupportable.
The foregoing observations were made on the presumption, that the vow
of perpetual chastity was assumed by the Catholic orders with sincere
intentions of conforming to its requirements; but this was not always
the case. Whatever sincerity or sanctity may have mingled, in some
cases, with the motives that prompted its assumption, neither monks nor
nuns, nor priests, nor bishops, nor popes, have in general furnished a
reasonable amount of evidence in favor of their chastity.
The natural and efficient regulator of the animal passions is marriage.
The conjugal union, judiciously formed, is invaluable to man, but almost
indispensable to woman. Her organization preeminently qualifies her for
its conditions and relations. The sensitiveness peculiar to her nervous
system, obliges her to shrink from the rude battle of public life; her
weakness instructs her in the importance of placing herself under
the guardianship of the more muscular power of man, which is noblest
employed when it best protects the weak; and her characteristic
instincts and capacities lead her to seek her chief employment and
happiness in the modest retirement of domestic life, where she finds
the temple of which she alone is priestess; the idols which excite her
purest devotion; the altars on which she lavishes her choicest gifts;
and where, in administering her sacred profession, in dispensing
instruction to her children, care to her household, and consolation to
the sick and dying, her true dignity and beauty acquires the deepest
enchantment. Whatever the mental and personal charms of a female may be,
the true excellence of her character can never be seen or appreciated,
except in the practice of the amiable virtues which constitute the wife
and the mother. This, woman knows; this she feels; and to obtain this
end the rights of her nature, and the interests of society, concur in
authorizing her to adopt every available means. Yet, notwithstanding
these plain facts, the Catholic Church has the unpardonable presumption
to pronounce a curse on her, if she should prefer a union so essential
to her happiness and usefulness to a state of perpetual virginity. Every
time her common sense teaches her to say that marriage is preferable to
virginity, this religious monster, in the name of the Holy Trinity and
all the saints and angels, answers "Let her be accursed." Every time
her nature prompts her to say, that, to be joined in marriage is more
blessed than to remain in a state of virginity, this monster in horror
at the profane and unorthodox expressions, responds, "Let her be
accursed." Hear it from the lips of the holy mother herself:
"Whosoever shall say, that the church could not institute impediments
annulling marriage, or that in instituting them she has erred, let him
be accursed."
"Whosoever shall say, that the marriage state is preferable to a state
of virginity, or celibacy, or that it is not more blessed to remain in a
state of virginity or celibacy, than to be joined in matrimony, let him
be accursed."
"Whosoever shall affirm, that matrimonial causes do not belong to the
ecclesiastical judges, let him be accursed." ( Canon of the Council of
Trent).
Atrocious as is this decree, it expresses not the full measure of
Catholic arrogance. For while with palpable inconsistency, the church
solemnizes among Catholics the rites which she anathematizes them for
prefer-ing, she declares that all those whose marriage ceremonies have
not been celebrated according to her fantastic requirements, are living
in a state of "shameful concubinage." It would seem that by consummating
the union which she holds men and women accursed for desiring, she
incurs on her own soul the curse she pronounces on others. She requires
no _fee_ for her matrimonial services, but accepts _marriage presents_,
which may perhaps have softened her malignity to this product of
civilization with regard to Catholics; but non-Catholics who do not
conciliate her holy aversion to it by such presents, she pronounces them
profligates, their wives prostitutes, and their children bastards. Hear
this from the lips of Pope Pius IX.
"Marriage cannot be given, unless there be, one and at the same time
a sacrament, consequently that _any other union_ between man and woman
among Christians, made in virtue of what civil law soever, is nothing
else than _a shameful and miserable concubinage_, so often condemned by
the church." (Allocution on the State of Affairs in New Grenada ).
So in the judgment of the present Pope, the non-Catholics in the United
States consist of strumpets and bastards. According to the principles
of the Catholic Church, thus officially enunciated, every person, the
marriage rites of whose parents have not been performed by a Catholic
priest, is an illegitimate offspring divested of all legal right to
inherit property of his parents. If the church shall ever gain in
America the numerical strength for which she is striving, what will be
the consequence to non-Catholics? Will she declare them legitimate, or
respect their property titles? Have not her priests made this land ring
with the assertion, that Infidels and Protestants have no right where
Catholicism is triumphant.
But who is she that has the audacity to proclaim such principles? A
church, which has been dripping with the blood of innocence for ages,
yet is thirsting for more. Who are they that prate about chastity? A
body of the most corrupt, unprincipled, and licentious priests that ever
disgraced the name of religion. The cold dissoluteness of the Catholic
orders is not only undeniable, but it is even frightful. Had history
been silent, and the real conduct of Catholic priests, and the interior
of Catholic nunneries remained a profound secret, yet, an ordinary
knowledge of human nature would have warranted the suspicion that
the priests were not models of chastity, nor the nunneries asylums of
innocence. But history has not been silent; she has spoken distinctly,
and spoken often. A nun escaped from her prison-house, or a priest not
yet steeled by hypocrisy to all the pleadings of virtue, or who was
disgusted beyond endurance at the corruption that festers in the heart
of the Catholic Church, has furnished history with startling records,
and raised the sacred veil, that the superstitious might behold the
horrible compound of duplicity, lust, and murder which secretly pollutes
the interior of the institutions which they reverence. But these fitful
revelations, although appealing to the noblest sympathies of mankind,
have seldom produced an effect equal to the exigency. Like bursts of
unexpected thunder, they have startled for a moment, but soon rumbled
into silence and forgetfulness.
Such is the general infatuation, that people seldom question that around
which the sanctions of religion are thrown, and when they do the doubt
is soon obliterated. They will reverently bow to a priest without
thinking it is possible that under the guise of his chaste and holy
profession, avarice, lust and murder may reign supreme. They will
heedlessly pass a nunnery without thinking how many broken hearts may
there be hopelessly imprisoned; how many gifted and accomplished females
may there be pining in anguish and despair, who, while they sought an
abode of unsullied chastity, found themselves entrapped in a den of
infamy, to be profaned by holy confessors! But reluctantly as charity
would believe these statements, they are substantiated beyond the
possibility of doubt or denial, by the records of Catholic authority of
the highest order.
An insight into the mysteries of Catholicism, and the mode by which
priests conceal from publicity their acts of seduction and adultery,
may be learned from the following extract from Hogan's "Auricular
Confession." "The secular orders," says he? "are composed chiefly
of parish priests and their curates, whose duty it is to hear their
parishioners. The orders of regulars are composed of friars, who are
subdivided into several minor orders, and who have no particular duties
to discharge, unless especially deputed to do so by the bishop, or the
deputy of the diocese into which they may be divided. It is so managed
by the secular priests, that whenever they fail in seducing their
penitents, and are detected by them that one of those friars shall
immediately be at hand to hear the confessions of all such females, and
forgive their sins, on condition that they shall never reveal to moral
being the thoughtless peccadillos of their parish priest, who for the
moment forgot himself, and whose tears of penitence now moisten the
ground on which he walks." (Auric. Confess, vol. ii. p. 168).
The adaptation of the confessional to prepare the way for seduction and
adultery may be comprehended by the following extract from the "Synopsis
of Popery" by the same author. "Do any of these families," asks he,
"know the questions which a priest puts to their families at the
confessional? Do husbands know the questions which priests put to their
wives at the confession?.... Fathers, mothers, guardians and husbands
fancy to yourself the most indelicate, immodest, libidinous questions
which the most immoral and profligate mind can conceive,--fancy those
ideas put into plain language, and that by way of questions and answers,
and you will then have a faint conception of the conversation which
takes place between a priest and your hitheto pure daughter. If after
two or three examinations, in that sacred tribunal, they still continue
virtuous, they are rare examples." (Synopsis, p. 170, 171).
While the Catholic Church imposes on the priests and monks the vow of
celibacy, it accords them the privilege of acting licentiously with
impunity. In the life of Bishop Scipio de Ricci, written by an eminent
Catholic, the practice of the church in allowing bishops and priests
to keep concubines, while it forbids them to marry under pain of
excommunication, is asserted and defended. The Council of Toledo passed
a canon forbidding priests to keep more than one concubine in public.
William Hogan asserts that every priest keeps a concubine, and every
teacher in a school attached to a Catholic nunnery, has been seduced by
her teacher. Chamancis says: "The adultery, obscenity and impiety of the
priests are beyond description." St. Chrysostom thinks the number of them
that will be saved, bears a very small proportion to those who will be
damned. Cardinal Conpaggio asserts that "the priest who marries
commits a more grievous sin than if he kept many concubines." Pope Paul
protected houses of ill-fame, and acquired great riches by selling them
licenses. The Council of Augsburg ordered that all suspected females
should be driven by whips from the dwellings of the clergy, and have
their hair cut off. A monk relates that he once made a contract with the
Devil that if he would cease to fill his mind with lascivious ideas, he
would omit some prayers to the saints whose pictures decorated the walls
of his cloister, but upon communicating the substance of the agreement
to the bishop, he was informed by him, that "rather than abstain from
adoring Christ and mother in their holy images it would be better to
enter every brothel and visit every prostitute in the city." Richard
of England replied to Fulk Nuelly, the legate of Pope Innocent III.,
commissioned to blow the trumpet of another crusade: "You advise me to
dismiss my three daughters, Pride, Avarice and Incontinence. I bequeath
them to the most deserving: my pride to the Knights Templars; my avarice
to the monks of Ciste; and, my incontinence to the prelates." Pope John
XXIII, was deposed by the Council of Constance for having committed
seventy different sorts of crimes, among the number of which was illicit
commerce with three hundred nuns. The Trappists, a monkish order
of highway robbers, were constantly employed in abducting females,
confining them in their monastery, and perpetrating the most atrocious
rapes. At the Council of Canterbury King Edgar declared that the houses
of the clergy were nothing but brothels, Petrarch laments over the fact
that the clergy at the papal court were shamefully licentious. Cardinals
lived openly with their concubines; and it became a question of
etiquette whether a bishop's concubine should not, at the court of His
Holiness, precede other ladies. Llorente, chief secretary of the
Spanish Inquisition in 1789, relates that the inquisitors having granted
permission to the females of a certain locality to denounce their guilty
confessors, the number of priests denounced was so great that thirty
secretaries were employed for sixty days in taking down depositions, and
that the profligacy of the clergy so far exceeded all calculation that
it was concluded to suspend investigation, and to destroy the records of
the proceedings. The extent and depth of clerical depravity can never be
divulged by those who know it, for St. Bernard asserts that "Bishops and
priests commit acts in private which it would be scandalous to express."
From nunneries governed and visited by priests of such a character,
what is the logical inference? Chamancis, an unimpeachable Catholic
authority, answers this question when he says: "To veil a woman in these
convents is synonymous to prostituting her." The seventh General Council
of Nice prohibited the erection of double convents for the accommodation
of both sexes; but the prohibition was not regarded. In Europe every
nunnery has attached to it a foundling asylum; in the United States, a
grave-yard. Llorente relates a curious account of Aquida, an abbess of a
Carmelite nunnery at Liemo. It appears that this female had, on several
occasions, professed to have become pregnant with stones, and to have
retired for the purpose of giving them birth. She had often exhibited
her miraculous progeny to the credulous, and pretended to be enabled, by
their divine nature, to cure diseases with them. Her success in working
miracles by them procured for her the reputation of a saint. But
unfortunate for her eventual canonization, a rumor became current
that instead of having given birth to stones, she had given birth to
children, and strangled them; and that she had obliged the holy nuns
under her supervision to practise the same iniquity. The informant, an
inmate of the nunnery, pointed out the place where the murdered babes
were buried; and subsequent excavation revealed the horrible fact, that
half the tale of blood had not been told.
The following additional facts, related by William Hogan, as having
transpired under his personal cognizance, afford further confirmative
proof of the general character of priests and nuns, and that it
remains as it has always been, in all countries, and at all periods of
civilization:
"The Roman Catholics of Albany," says he, "had, about three years
previous to my coming among them, three Irish priests among them,
occasionally preaching, but always hearing confessions.... As soon as
I got settled in Albany I had, of course, to attend to the duty of
_auricular confession_, and in less than two months found that the
priests, during the time they were there, were the fathers of between
sixty and one hundred children, besides having debauched many who had
left the place previous to their confinement." (Auricular Confession, p.
46).
"A short time previous to my coming to this country, and soon after my
being installed as confessor in the Romish Church, I became intimately
acquainted with a family of great respectability. This family consisted
of a widowed father and two daughters, and never in my life have I met
with more interesting young ladies than the daughters were.... In less
than two months after my first visit to this family, at their peaceful
and respectable breakfast table, I observed the chair which had been
usually occupied by the elder of the two ladies occupied by the younger,
and that of the latter to be vacant. I inquired the cause, and was
informed by the father that he had just accompanied her to the coach,
which had left that morning for Dublin, and that she went on a visit to
the Rev. B. K. It seems that both of the daughters of whom I have spoken
went to the school attached to the nunnery of the city of ------.
The confessor whose duty it was to hear the duty of the pupils of the
institute, was one Rev. B. K., a friar of the Franciscan order, who, as
soon as his plans were properly laid, and circumstances rendered them
ripe for execution, seduced the elder lady; and finding the fact could
no longer be concealed, arranged matters with a Dublin friend.... She
was confined at the house of his friend, and her illicit offspring given
to the managers of the foundling hospital in Dublin.... No sooner
was this elder lady provided for, than this incarnate demon, B. K.,
commenced the seduction of the younger lady. He succeeded, and ruined
her too. But there was no difficulty in providing for them. They both
became nuns..... I saw them in the convent at Mount Benedict. They were
great favorites of Bishop Fenton. They were spoken of by some of
the females of Boston as models of piety." (Auricular Confession, p.
100-106).
"Soon after my arrival in Philadelphia,... a Roman Catholic priest by
the name of O. S. called on me, and showed me letters of recommendation
which he had from Bishop T., of Ireland, and countersigned by the Roman
Catholic bishop of New York, to Bishop England, of South Carolina....
He arrived at Charleston, and was well received by Bishop England. There
lived in the parish to which this reverend confessor was appointed, a
gentleman of respectability and wealth. Bishop England supplied this
new missionary with letters of strong recommendation to this gentleman,
advising him to place his children under his charge, assuring him they
would be brought up in the fear of God and love of religion.... The Rev.
Popish wretch seduced the eldest daughter of his benefactor, and the
father becoming aware of the fact, armed himself with a case of pistols,
and determined to shoot the seducer. But there was in the house a
good Catholic servant [a spy] who advised the seducer to fly. He soon
arrived in Charleston; the right reverend bishop understood his case,
advised him to go to confession, and absolved him from his sins;... sent
him on his way to New York.... His victim after a little time, having
given birth to a fine boy, goes to confession herself, and sends the
child of sin to the Sisters of Charity residing in ------, to be taken
care of as a _nullius filius_. As soon as the child was able to walk a
Roman Catholic lady adopted it as her own. The real mother of the child
soon removed to the city of ------, told the whole transaction to the
Roman Catholic bishop of ------, who knowing that she had a handsome
property, introduced her to a highly respectable Protestant gentleman,
who soon married her. He (the bishop ) soon after introduced the
gentleman to the Sisters of Charity who had provided for the illicit
offspring of the priest, concealing its parentage, and representing it
as having no father living. The gentleman was pleased with the boy, and
the holy Bishop finally prevailed on him and his wife to adopt it as his
own." (Auric. Confess, p. 111-115).
When quite young and just emerging from childhood, I became acquainted
with a Protestant family, residing in the neighborhood of my birthplace.
It consisted of a mother (a widow), and three interesting children, two
sons and one daughter.... In the course of time the sons grew up, and
their guardian in compliance with their wishes, and to gratify their
ambition, procured them commissions in the army.... As soon as the
sons left to join their respective regiments, which were then on the
Continent, the mother and daughter were much alone.... There was then
in the neighborhood only twenty miles from this family, a nunnery of the
order of Jesuits. To this nunnery was attached a school superintended
by the nuns of that order.... The mother yielded, in this case, to the
malign influence of fashion;... sent her beautiful daughter, her earthly
treasure, to the school of these nuns.... Soon after the daughter
was sent to school, I entered the college of Manooth as a theological
student, and in due time was ordained a Catholic priest.
An interval of some years passed.... There was a large party given, at
which among others I happened to be present; and there meeting with my
friends and interchanging the usual courtesies on such occasions, she
sportingly, as I then imagined, asked me whether I would preach her
reception sermon, as she intended becoming a nun and taking the veil....
I heard no more of the affair until about two months, when I received
a note from her designating the chapel in which she expected my
services.... On the reception of my friend's note a cold chill crept
over me, I anticipated and trembled, and felt there must be foul
play....
Having no connection with the convent in which she was immured, I did
not see her for three months following. At the expiration of that time
one of the lay sisters delivered me a note.... I found my young friend
wished to see me on something important I of course lost no time in
calling on her, and being a priest, I was immediately admitted; but
never have I forgotten, never can I forget, the melancholy picture of
lost beauty and fallen humanity which met my astonished gaze in the
person of my once beautiful and virtuous friend.... 'I sent for you, my
friend, to see you once before my death..... I am in the family-way and
must die.'
He then proceeds to relate, that in the course of a conversation
which ensued he learned from the nun that she had been seduced by her
confessor, (which fact precluded any appeal or redress), and that the
lady abbess had proposed to procure an abortion, but that an inmate had
informed her that the medicine which the lady abbess would give would
contain poison. He promised to renew his visit within a few days; he did
so, but the foul deed was done.
Fiends! Monsters! Does not the blood curdle in every vein at such
recitals? Does not man and woman blush at their dishonored nature?
Is there a God that can allow the use of his name to sanction such
execrable depravity; that can look with indifference on women avowing
chastity in his name in order to allure the purest of their sex to
destruction; or that can be insensible to the imprecations of injured
innocence, profaned in holy houses? Is God a fiction, or divine
retribution a dream? No! While a thunderbolt leaves a monastery or a
nunnery in existence, lightning has no avenging power! While either of
them exists man may well doubt the existence of retributive justice in
human affairs.
But it may be said, that God has delegated to society the power to
punish offences committed against its moral interests, and therefore
does not himself interfere in the matter. But does society exercise its
authority in the matter any more visibly than deity? Society enacts
laws and prescribes penalties respecting murder, rape, brothels, false
imprisonment, and irregular interments. She also investigates all
alleged infractions of these laws, except when they involve the honor of
monastic institutions. But why are these dens exempted from the common
law of the land? Why are they allowed to bar their doors against
the authority which all others must respect? Why are they allowed to
organize within a government an independent government, nullifying
its jurisdiction over them? Why are not the interior of monastic
institutions constantly and thoroughly inspected, and the authority of
the common law maintained over them? Is it because they are too pious to
violate the law of the land? If this were so, it would do them no
harm, but much good, to have the fact week after week attested by an
investigating committee composed of their opponents. But is not the
contrary the fact? Do they not deprive their inmates of personal
liberty? Do they not imprison them in dungeons? Do they not punish
them? Do they not inflict on them barbarous chastisements? Are they not
sacerdotal brothels? Has not every age and country given its testimony
to show that kidnapped men and women have been imprisoned for life in
their cells; that there nuns have been poisoned, abortions procured,
babes murdered, women outraged by priests, and every law, human or
divine violated with impunity?
Are these sensational declamations? Would for the credit of human nature
they were. No! They are the true records of monastic history, alleged by
kings and statesmen, proved before councils, and acknowledged by monks,
nuns, priests, bishops, and popes. With such an array of evidence before
society, why does it allow institutions among it where every crime _may_
be committed secretly, and with impunity? Why do not grand juries, who
visit other jails, penitentiaries, and asylums, inspect also the more
secret and suspicious nunneries?
We have now described the nature and consequences of the monastic vow
of celibacy. This obligation is opposed to the nature, and defeats the
object of the human organism. It extinguishes conjugal, filial, and
parental affection. It severs the ties that bind the interests of
society together. It injures both the present and the future, by
abrogating their mutual connection. It strikes at the root of national
greatness, by arresting the tide of population. It degrades the dignity
of the community, by increasing the number of illegitimate children. It
wars against marriage, the noblest incentive to social refinement and
civilization; the basis of woman's hope and happiness; the impulse and
gratification of her pride of family, love of parental control,
and desire to live in posterity. It anathematizes woman's purest
aspirations, and man's holiest ties. It converts the ardor of chastity
into snares for its seduction. It sanctifies prostitution and adultery.
It violates the law of the land. It erects in the most magnificent parts
of a city its spacious brothels, with massive walls, secret doors,
false floors, guarded windows, grated cloisters, inaccessible to the
inspection of law, but accessible at all hours of night or day by
priests. Within these walls it allures beauty, virtue, and talent, and
while pretending to fit them for the society of infinite purity, betrays
them into the power of unprincipled priests, and imprisons them in
eternal seclusion, where no groan can meet the public ear, where they
can never tell the story of their wrong, nor appeal to a heart for
sympathy, nor to a law for redress.