THE IMPURITIES OF THE THEOLOGY OF ROME
“The mother of harlots and abominations.”—REV. xvii. 5.
Constrained by the voice of my conscience to reveal the impurities of
the theology of the Church of Rome, I feel, in doing so, a sentiment of
inexpressible shame. They are of such a loathsome nature, that often
they cannot be expressed in any living language.
However great may have been the corruptions in the theologies and
priests of paganism, there is nothing in their records which can be
compared with the depravity of those of the Church of Rome. Before the
day on which the theology of Rome was inspired by Satan, the world had
certainly witnessed many dark deeds; but vice had never been clothed
with the mantle of theology:—the most shameful forms of iniquity had
never been publicly taught in the schools of the old pagan priest, under
the pretext of saving the world. No! neither had the priests or the
idols been forced to attend meetings where the most degrading forms of
iniquity were objects of the most minute study, and that under the
pretext of glorifying God.
Let those who understand Latin read the pages which I give at the end of
my book, “The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional,” and then decide
as to whether or not the sentiments therein contained are not enough to
shock the feelings of the most depraved. And let it be remembered that
all those abominations have to be studied, learned by heart and
thoroughly understood by men who have to make a vow never to marry! For
it is not till after his vow of celibacy that the student in theology is
_initiated_ into those mysteries of iniquity.
Has the world ever witnessed such a sacrilegious comedy? A young man
about twenty years of age has been enticed to make a vow of perpetual
celibacy, and the very next day the Church of Rome puts under the eye of
his soul the most infamous spectacle? She fills his memory with the most
disgusting images! She tickles all his senses and pollutes his ears not
by imaginary representations, but by realities which would shock the
most abandoned in vice!
For, let it be well understood, that it is absolutely impossible for one
to study those questions of Roman Theology, and fathom those forms of
iniquity without having his body as well as his mind plunged into a
state the most degrading. Moreover, Rome does not even try to conceal
the overwhelming power of this kind of teaching; she does not even
attempt to make it a secret from the victims of her incomparable
depravity, but BRAVELY TELLS them that the study of those questions will
act with an irresistible power upon those organs, and without a blush
says “that pollution must follow!!!”
But in order that the Church of Rome may more certainly destroy her
victims, and that they may not escape from the abyss which she has dug
under their feet, she tells them “There is no sin for you in those
pollutions!” (Dens, vol. i., p. 315.)
But Rome must bewitch, so as the better to secure their destruction. She
puts to their lips the cup of her enchantments, the more certainly to
kill their souls, dethrone God from their consciences, and abrogate his
eternal laws of holiness. What answer does Rome give those who reproach
her with the awful impurity of her theology. “My theological works,” she
answers, “are all written in Latin; the people cannot read them. No
evil, no scandal, therefore, can come from them!” But this answer is a
miserable subterfuge. Is this not the public acknowledgment that her
theology would be exceedingly injurious to the people if it were read
and understood by them?
By saying, “My theological works are written in Latin, therefore the
people cannot be defiled, as they do not understand them,” Rome does
acknowledge that these works would only act as a pestilence among the
people were they read and understood by them. But are not the one
hundred thousand priests of Rome bound to explain in every known tongue,
and present to the mind of every nation, the theology contained in those
books? Are they not bound to make every polluting sentence in them flow
into the ears, imagination, hearts and minds of all the married and
unmarried women whom Rome holds in her grasp?
I exaggerate nothing when I say that not fewer than half a million women
every day are compelled to hear in their own language, almost every
polluting sentence and impure notion of the diabolical science.
And here I challenge, most fearlessly, the Church of Rome to deny what I
say, when I state that the daily average of women who go to confession
to each priest, is ten. But let us reduce the number to five. Then the
two hundred thousand priests who are scattered over the whole world,
hear the confessions of one million women every day. Well, now, out of
one hundred women who confess, there are at least ninety-nine whom the
priest is bound in conscience to pollute, by questioning them on the
matters mentioned in “The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional.” How
can one be surprised at the rapid downfall of the nations who are under
the yoke of the Pope?
The public statistics of the European, as well as of American nations,
show that there is among Roman Catholics nearly double the amount of
prostitution, bastardy, theft, perjury and murder, than is found among
Protestant nations. Where must we, then, look for the cause of those
stupendous facts, if not in the corrupt teachings of the theology of
Rome. How can the Roman Catholic nations hope to raise themselves in the
scale of Christian dignity and morality as long as there remain two
hundred thousand priests in their midst, bound in conscience every day
to pollute the minds, and the hearts of their mothers, their wives and
their daughters.
And here let me say, once for all, that I am not induced to speak as I
do from any motive of contempt or unchristian feeling against the
theological professors who have initiated me into those mysteries of
iniquity. The Rev. Messrs. Raimbault and Leprohon were, and in my mind
they still are, as venerable as men can be in the Church of Rome. As I
have been myself, and as all the priests of Rome are, they were plunged
into the abyss without understanding it, into the abyss of the most
stolid ignorance. They were crushed, as I was myself, under a yoke which
bound their understanding to the dust and polluted their hearts without
measure. We were embarked together on a ship, the first appearance of
which was really magnificent, but the bottom of which was irremediably
rotten. Without the true Pilot on board we were left to perish on
unknown shoals. Out of this sinking ship the hand of God alone, in his
merciful providence, rescued me. I pity those friends of my youth, but
despise them? hate them? No! Never! Never!
Every time our theological teachers gave us our lessons, it was evident
that they blushed in the inmost part of their souls. Their consciences
as honest men were evidently forbidding them, on the one hand, to open
their mouths on such matters, while, on the other hand, as slaves and
priests of the Pope, they were compelled to speak without reserve.
After our lessons in theology, we students used to be filled with such a
sentiment of shame that sometimes we hardly dared to look at each other;
and, when alone in our rooms, those horrible pictures were affecting our
hearts, in spite of ourselves, as the rust affects and corrodes the
hardest and purest steel. More than one of my fellow-students told me,
with tears of shame and rage, that they regretted to have bound
themselves by perpetual oaths to minister at the altars of the Church.
One day one of the students, called Desaulnier, who was sick in the same
room with me, asked me: “Chiniquy, what do you think of the matters
which are the objects of our present theological studies? Is it not a
burning shame that we must allow our minds to be so polluted?”
“I cannot sufficiently tell you my feelings of disgust,” I answered.
“Had I known sooner that we were to be dragged over such a ground, I
certainly never would have nailed my future to the banners under which
we are irrevocably bound to live.”
“Do you know,” said Desaulnier, “that I am determined never to consent
to be ordained a priest; for when I think of the fact that the priest is
bound to confer with women on all these polluting matters, I feel an
insurmountable disgust and shame.”
“I am not less troubled,” I replied. “My head aches and my heart sinks
within me, when I hear our theologians telling us that we will be in
conscience bound to speak to females on these impure subjects. But
sometimes this looks to me as if it were a bad dream, the impure
phantoms of which will disappear at the first awakening. Our Church,
which is so pure and holy, that she can only be served by the spotless
virgins, surely cannot compel us to pollute our lips, thoughts, souls,
and even our bodies, by speaking to strange women on matters so
defiling!”
“But we are near the hour at which the good Mr. Leprohon is in the habit
of visiting us. Will you,” said I, “promise to stand by me on what I
shall ask him on this subject? I hope to get from him a pledge that we
will not be compelled to be polluted in the confessional by the women
who will confess to us. The purity and holiness of our superior is of
such a high character, that I am sure he has never said a word to
females on those degrading matters. In spite of all the theologians, Mr.
Leprohon will allow us to keep our tongues and our hearts, as well as
our bodies, pure in the confessional.”
“I have had the desire to speak to him on this subject for some time,”
rejoined Desaulnier, “but my courage failed me every time I attempted to
do so. I am glad, therefore, that you are to break the ice, and I will
certainly support you, as I have a longing desire to know something more
in regard to the mysteries of the confessional. If we be at liberty
never to speak to women on those horrors, I will consent to serve the
Church as a priest; but if not, I WILL NEVER BE A PRIEST.”
A few minutes after this our superior entered, to kindly inquire how we
had rested the night before. Having thanked him for his kindness, I
opened the volumes of Dens and Liguori, which were on our table, and,
with a blush, putting my fingers on one of the infamous chapters
referred to, I said to him:
“After God, you have the first place in my heart since my mother’s
death, and you know it. I take you, not only as my benefactor, but also,
as it were, as my father and mother. You will therefore tell me all I
want to know in these my hours of anxiety, through which God is pleased
to make me pass. To follow your advice, not to say your commands, I have
lately consented to receive the order of sub-deacon, and I have in
consequence taken the vow of perpetual celibacy. But I will not conceal
the fact from you that I had not a clear understanding of what I was
then doing; and Desaulnier has just stated to me, that until recently he
had no more idea of the nature of that promise, nor of the difficulties
which we now see ahead of us in our priestly life, than I had.
“But Dens, Liguori and St. Thomas have given us notions quite new in
regard to many things. They have directed our minds to the knowledge of
the laws which are in us, as well as in every other child of Adam. They
have, in a word, directed our minds into regions which were quite new
and unexplored by us; and I dare say that every one of those whom we
have known, whether in this house or elsewhere, who have made the same
vow, could tell the same tale.
“However, I do not speak for them; I speak only for myself and
Desaulnier. For God’s sake, please tell us if we will be bound in
conscience to speak in the confessional, to the married and unmarried
females, on such impure and defiling questions as are contained in the
theologians before us?”
“Most undoubtedly,” replied Rev. Mr. Leprohon; “because the learned and
holy theologians whose writings are in your hands are positive on that
question. It is absolutely necessary that you should question your
female penitents on such matters; for, as a general thing, girls and
married women are too timid to confess those sins, of which they are
even more frequently guilty than men, therefore they must be helped by
questioning them.”
“But have you not,” I rejoined, “induced us to make an oath that we
should always remain pure and undefiled? How is it, then, that to-day
you put us in such a position that it is almost an impossibility for us
to be true to our sacred promise? For the theologians are unanimous that
those questions put by us to our female penitents, together with the
recital of their secret sins, will act with such an irresistible power
upon us that we will be polluted.
“Would it not be better for us to feel those things in the holy bonds of
marriage, with our wives, and according to the laws of God, than in
company and conversation with strange women? Because, if we are to
believe the theologians which are in our hands, no priest—not even you,
my dear Mr. Leprohon, can hear the confessions of women without being
defiled.”
Here Desaulnier interrupted me, and said: “My dear Mr. Leprohon, I
concur in everything Chiniquy has just been telling you. Would we not be
more chaste and pure by living with our lawful wives, than by daily
exposing ourselves in the confessional in company of women whose
presence will irresistibly drag us into the most shameful pit of
impurity? I ask you, my dear sir, what will become of my vow of perfect
and perpetual chastity, when the seducing presence of my neighbor’s
wife, or the enchanting words of his daughter, will have defiled me
through the confessional. After all, I may be looked upon by the people
as a chaste man; but what will I be in the eyes of God? The people may
entertain the thought that I am a strong and honest man; but will I not
be a broken reed? Will God not be the witness that the irresistible
temptations which will have assailed me when hearing the secret sins of
some sweet and tempting women, will have deprived me of that glorious
crown of chastity for which I have so dearly paid? Men will think that I
am an angel of purity; but my own conscience will tell me that I am
nothing but a skillful hypocrite. For according to all the theologians,
the confessional is the tomb of the chastity of priests!! If I hear the
confession of women, I will be like all other priests, in a tomb, well
painted and gilded on the outside, but within full of corruption.”
Francis Desaulnier, just as he had foretold me, refused to be a priest.
He remained all his life in the orders of the sub-deaconate, in the
College of Nicolet, as a Professor of Philosophy. He was a man who
seldom spoke in conversation, but thought very much. It seems to me that
I still see him there, under that tall centenary tree, alone, during the
long hours of intermission, and many long days during our holidays,
while the rest of the students passed hither and thither, singing and
playing, on the enchanting banks of the river of Nicolet.
He was a good logician and a profound mathematician; and although
affable to everyone, he was not communicative. I was probably the only
one to whom he opened his mind concerning the great questions of
Christianity—faith, history, the Church and her discipline. He
repeatedly said to me: “I wish I had never opened a book of theology.
Our theologians are without heart, soul or logic. Many of them approve
of theft, lies and perjury; others drag us, without a blush, into the
most filthy pits of iniquity. Every one of them would like to make an
assassin of every Catholic. According to their doctrine, Christ is
nothing but a Corsican brigand, whose bloody disciples are bound to
destroy all the heretics by fire and sword. Were we acting according to
the principles of those theologians, we would slaughter all Protestants
with the same coolness of blood as we would shoot down the wolf which
crosses our path. With their hand still reddened with the blood of St.
Bartholomew they speak to us of charity, religion and God, as if there
were neither of them in the world.”
Desaulnier was looked upon as “_un homme singulier_” at Nicolet. He was
really an exception to all the men in the seminary. For example: Though
it was the usage and the law that ecclesiastics should receive the
communion every month, and upon every great feast day of the Church, yet
he would scarcely take the communion once a year. But let me return to
the interview with our superior.
Desaulnier’s fearless and energetic words had evidently made a very
painful impression upon our superior. It was not a usual thing for his
disciples in theology thus to take upon themselves to speak with such
freedom as we both did on this occasion. He did not conceal his pain at
what he called our unbecoming and unchristian attack upon some of the
most holy ordinances of the Church; and after he had refuted Desaulnier
in the best way he could, he turned to me and said: “My dear Chiniquy, I
have repeatedly warned you against the habit you have of listening to
your own frail reasoning, when you should only obey as a dutiful child.
Were we to believe you we would immediately set ourselves to work to
reform the Church and abolish the confession of women to priests; we
would throw all our theological books into the fire and have new ones
written, better adapted to your fancy. What does all this prove? Only
one thing, and that is, that the devil of pride is tempting you as he
has tempted all the so-called Reformers, and destroyed them as he would
you. If you do not take care, you will become another Luther!
“The theological books of St. Thomas, Liguori and Dens have been
approved by the Church. How, therefore, do you not see the ridicule and
danger of your position. On one side, then, I see all our holy popes,
the two thousand Catholic bishops, all our learned theologians and
priests, backed up by our two hundred millions of Roman Catholics drawn
up as an innumerable army to fight the battles of the Lord; and on the
other side, what do I see? Nothing but my small, though very dear
Chiniquy!
“How, then, is it that you do not fear, when with your weak reasoning
you oppose the mighty reasoning and light of so many holy popes,
venerable bishops and learned theologians? Is it not just as absurd for
you to try to reform the Church by your small reasons, as it is for the
grain of sand which is found at the foot of the great mountain to try to
turn that mighty mountain out of its place? or for the small drop of
water to attempt to throw the boundless ocean out of its bed, or try to
oppose the running tides of the Polar seas?
“Believe me, and take my friendly advice,” continued our superior,
“before it is too late. Let the small grain of sand remain still at the
foot of the majestic mountain! and let the humble drop of water consent
to follow the irresistible currents of the boundless seas, and
everything will be in order.
“All the good priests who have heard the confessions of women before us
have been sanctified and have had their souls saved, even when their
bodies were polluted; for those carnal pollutions are nothing but human
miseries, which cannot defile a soul which desires to remain united to
God. Are the rays of the sun defiled by coming down into the mud? No!
The rays remain pure, and return spotless to the shining orb whence they
came. So the heart of a good priest—as I hope my dear Chiniquy will
be—will remain pure and holy in spite of the accidental and unavoidable
defilement of the flesh.
“Apart from those things, in your ordination you will receive a special
grace which will change you into another man; and the Virgin Mary, to
whom you will constantly address yourself will obtain for you a perfect
purity from her Son.
“The defilement of the flesh spoken of by the theologians, and which, I
confess, is unavoidable when hearing the confessions of women, must not
trouble you; for they are not sinful, as Dens and Liguori assure us.
(Dens, vol. i., pages 299, 309.)
“But enough on that subject. I forbid you to speak to me any more on
those idle questions, and, as much as my authority is anything to you
both, I forbid you to say a word more to each other on that matter!”
It was my fond hope that my dear and so much venerated Mr. Leprohon
would answer me with some good and reasonable arguments; but he, to my
surprise, silenced the voice of our conscience by “_un coup d’etat_.”
Nevertheless, the idea of that miserable grain of sand which so
ridiculously attempted to remove the stately mountain, and also of that
all but perceptible drop of water which attempted to oppose itself to
the onward motion of the vast ocean, singularly struck and humbled me. I
remained silent and confused, though not convinced.
This was not all. Those rays of the sun, which could not be defiled,
even when going down into the mud, after bewildering one by their
glittering appearance, left my soul more in the dark than ever. I could
not resist a presentiment that I was in the presence of an imposition,
and of a glittering sophism. But I had neither sufficient learning,
moral courage, nor grace from God clearly to see through that misty
cloud, and to expel it from my mind.
Almost every month of the ten years which I had passed in the seminary
of Nicolet, priests of the district of Three Rivers and elsewhere were
sent by the bishops to spend two or three weeks in doing penances for
having bastards by their nieces, their housekeepers and their fair
penitents. Even not long before this conversation with our director, the
curate of St. Francois, the Rev. Mr. Amiot, had in the very same week
two children by two of his fair penitents, both of whom were sisters.
One of those girls gave birth to her child at the parsonage the very
night on which the bishop was on his episcopal visit to that parish.
These public and undeniable facts were not much in harmony with those
beautiful theories of our venerable director concerning the rays of the
sun, which “remained pure and undefiled, even when warming and vivifying
the mud of our planet.” The facts had frequently occurred to my mind
while Mr. Leprohon was speaking, and I was tempted more than once to ask
him respectfully if he really thought these “shining rays,” the priests,
had thus come into the mire, and would then return, like the rays of the
sun, without taking back with them something of the mire in which they
had been so strangely wallowing. But my respect for Mr. Leprohon sealed
my lips.
When I returned to my room, I fell on my knees to ask God to pardon me
for having, for a moment, thought otherwise than the popes and
theologians of Rome. I again felt angry with myself for having dared,
for a single moment, to have arrayed my poor little and imperceptible
grain of sand—drop of water—and personal and contemptible understanding
against that sublime mountain of strength, that vast ocean of learning,
and that immensely divine wisdom of the popes!
But, alas! I was not yet aware that when Jesus in His mercy sends into a
perishing soul a single ray of His grace, that there is more light and
wisdom in that soul than in all the popes and their theologians!
I was then taught what the real foundation of the Church of Rome is, and
sincerely believed that to think for myself was a damnable impiety—that
to look and see with my own eyes, and understand with my own mind, was
an unpardonable sin. To be saved I had to believe, not what I considered
to be the truth, but what the popes told me to be the truth. I had to
look and see every object of faith, just as every true Roman Catholic of
to-day has to look and see the same, through the Pope’s eyes or those of
his theologians.
However absurd and impious this belief may be, yet it was mine, and it
is also the belief of every true member of the Church of Rome to-day.
The glorious light and grace of God could not possibly flow directly
from Him to me; they had to pass through the Pope and his Church, which
were my only mountain of strength and only ocean of light. It was, then,
my firm belief that there was an impassable abyss between myself and
God, and that the Pope and his Church were the only bridge by which I
could have communication with Him. That stupendously high and most
sublime mountain, the Pope, was between myself and God; and all that was
allowed my poor soul was to raise itself and travel with great
difficulty till it attained the foot of that holy mountain, the Pope,
and, prostrating itself there in the dust, ask him to let me know what
my yet distant God would have me do. The promises of mercy, truth, light
and life were all vested in this great mountain, the Pope, from whom
alone they could descend upon my poor lost soul!
Darkness, ignorance, uncertainty and eternal loss were my lot the very
moment I ceased worshipping at the feet of the Pope! The God of Heaven
was not _my_ God; He was only the God of the Pope. The Saviour of the
world was not my Saviour; he was only the Pope’s. Therefore it was
through the Pope only that I could receive Christ as my Saviour, and to
the Pope alone had I to go, to know the way, the truth and the life of
my soul!
God alone knows what a dark and terrible night I passed after this
meeting! I had again to smother my conscience, dismantle my reason, and
bring them all under the turpitudes of the theologies of Rome, which are
so well calculated to keep the world fettered in ignorance,
superstition, and death.
But God saw the tears with which I bedewed my pillow that night. He
heard the cry of my agonizing soul, and in His infinite love and mercy
determined to come to my rescue, and save me. If He saw fit to leave me
many years more in the slavery of Egypt, it was that I might better know
the plagues of that land of darkness, and the iron chains which are
there prepared for poor lost souls.
When the hour of my deliverance came, the Lord took me by the hand and
helped me to cross the Red Sea. He brought me to the Land of Promise—a
land of peace, life and joy which passeth all understanding.