CONTINUATION OF THE TRADE IN MASSES.
The hour of my absence had been one of anxiety for the curate and the
vicars. But my prompt return filled them with joy.
“What news!” they all exclaimed.
“Good news,” I answered; “the battle has been fierce but short. We have
gained the day; and if we are only true to ourselves, another great
victory is in store for us. The bishop is so sure that we are the only
ones who think of that reform, that he will not move a finger to prevent
the other priests from following us. This security will make our success
infallible. But we must not lose a moment. Let us address our circular
to every priest in Canada.”
One hour later there were more than twenty writers at work, and before
twenty-four hours, more than three hundred letters were carried to all
the priests, giving them the reasons why we should try, by all fair
means, to put an end to the shameful simoniacal trade in masses which
was going on between Canada and France.
The week was scarcely ended, when letters came from nearly all the
curates and vicars to the bishop, respectfully requesting him to
withdraw his name from “The Society of the Three Masses.” Only fifty
refused to comply with our request.
Our victory was more complete than we had expected. But the bishop of
Quebec, hoping to regain his lost ground, immediately wrote to the
bishop of Montreal, my Lord Telemesse, to come to his help and show us
the enormity of the crime we had committed, in rebelling against the
will of our ecclesiastical superiors.
A few days later, to my great dismay, I received a short and very cold
note from the bishop’s secretary, telling me that their lordships, the
bishops of Montreal and Quebec, wanted to see me at the palace, without
delay. I had never seen the bishop of Montreal, and my surprise and
disappointment were great in finding myself in the presence of a man, my
idea of whom was of gigantic proportions, when in reality he was very
small. But I felt exceedingly well pleased by the admirable mixture of
firmness, intelligence and honesty of his whole demeanor. His eyes were
piercing as the eagle’s; but when fixed on me, I saw in them the marks
of a noble and honest heart.
The motions of his head were rapid, his sentences short, and he seemed
to know only one line—the straight one—when approaching a subject or
dealing with a man. He had the merited reputation of being one of the
most learned and eloquent men of Canada. The bishop of Quebec had
remained on his sofa and left the bishop of Montreal to receive me. I
fell at his feet and asked his blessing, which he gave me in the most
cordial way. Then, putting his hand upon my shoulder, he said in a
Quaker style: “Is it possible that _thou_ art Chiniquy—that young priest
who makes so much noise? How can such a small man make so much noise?”
There being a smile on his countenance as he uttered these words, I saw
at once that there was no anger or bad feeling in his heart. I replied:
“My lord, do you not know that the most precious pearls and perfumes are
put up in the smallest vases?”
The bishop saw that this was a compliment to his address; he smilingly
replied: “Well, well, if thou art a noisy priest, thou art not a fool.
But tell me, why dost thou want to destroy our ‘Three Mass Society’ and
establish that new one on its ruins, in spite of thy superiors?”
“My lord, my answer will be as respectful, short and plain as possible.
I have left the ‘Three Mass Society’ because it was my right to do it,
without anybody’s permission. I hope our venerable Canadian bishops do
not wish to be served by slaves!”
“I do not say,” replied the bishop, “that thou wert bound in conscience
to remain in the ‘Three Mass Society;’ but, can I know why thou hast
left such a respectable association, at the head of which thou seest thy
bishops and the most venerable priests in Canada?”
“I will again be plain in my answer, my lord. If your lordship wants to
go to hell with your venerable priests by spiriting away twenty cents
from every one of our honest and pious penitents for masses which you
get said for five, by bad priests in Paris, I will not follow you.
Moreover, if your lordship wants to be thrown into the river by the
furious people, when they know how long and how cunningly we have
cheated them with our simoniacal trade in masses, I do not want to
follow you into the cold stream.”
“Well, well!” answered the bishop, “let us drop that matter forever.”
He uttered this short sentence with such an evidence of sincerity and
honesty, that I saw he really meant it. He had, at a glance, seen that
his ground was untenable, in the presence of priests who knew their
rights and had a mind to stand by them.
My joy was great indeed at such a prompt and complete victory. I again
fell at the bishop’s feet and asked his benediction before taking leave
of him. I then left to go and tell the curates and vicars the happy
issue of my interview with the bishop of Montreal.
From that time till now, at the death of every priest, the Clerical
Press never failed mentioning whether the deceased priest belonged to
the “Three” or “One Mass Society.”
We had, to some extent, diminished the simoniacal and infamous trade in
masses, but unfortunately we had not destroyed it; and I know that
to-day it has revived. Since I left the Church of Rome, the bishops of
Quebec have raised the “Three Mass Society” from its grave.
It is a public fact, that no priest dare deny, that the trade in masses
is still conducted on a large scale with France. There are in Paris and
other large cities in that country public agencies to carry on that
shameful traffic. It is, generally, in the hands of booksellers or
merchants of church ornaments. Every year their houses send a large
number of prospectuses through France and Belgium and other Catholic
countries, in which they say that, in order to help the priests, who
having received money for their masses, don’t know where to have them
said, they offer a premium of twenty-five or thirty per cent. to those
who will send them the surplus of the money they have in hand, to offer
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
The priests who have such surplus, tempted by that premium, which is
usually paid with a watch or chain, or a chalice, disgorge a part or the
whole of the large sums they possess into the hands of the pious
merchants, who take this money and use it as they please.
But they never pay the masses in money, they give only merchandise. For
instance, that priest will receive a watch if he promises to celebrate
one or two hundred masses, or a chalice to celebrate three or four
hundred masses. I have, here in hand, several of the contracts or
promissory notes sent by those merchants of masses to the priests. The
public will, no doubt, read the following documents with interest. They
were handed me by a priest lately converted from the Church of Rome:
RUE DE REIMES—PARIS.
Ant. Levesques, editor of the works of Mr. Dufriche—Desgenettes. Cure of
Notre Dame des Victoires.
Delivered to the Rev. Mr. Camerle, curate of Ansibeau (Basses Alpes).
PARIS, October 12, 1874.
F.
10 metres of Satin cloth, at 22 francs 220.
8 ” of merino, all wool 123.
Month of May 2.
History of Mary Christina 1.40
Life of St. Stanislas Koska 2.
Meditations of the Soul 4.
Jesus Christ, the light of the world 2.
Packing and freight 9.30
———
Total 363.70
MR. CURATE: We have the honor of informing you that the packages
containing the articles you have ordered on the 4th of October, were
shipped on the 12th of October, to Digne, where we respectfully request
you to go and ask for them. For the payment of these articles, we
request you to say the following masses:
58 ad intentionem of the giver, for the discharge of Rev. Mr. Montet.
58 ad intentionem of the givers, for the discharge of Rev. Mr. Hœg.
100-188 for the dead, for the discharge of Rev. Mr. Wod.
MR. CURATE: Will you be kind enough to say or have said all those masses
in the shortest time possible, and answer these Rev’d gentlemen, if they
make any inquiries about the acquittal of those masses.
Respectfully yours,
(Signed) ANT. LEVESQUES.
PARIS, Nov. 11, 1874.
REV. MR. CAMERLE: We have the honor of addressing you the invoice of
what we forwarded to you on the 12th of October. On account we have put
to your credit 188 masses. We respectfully request you get said to the
following intentions:
73 for the dead, to the acquittal of Rev. Mr. }
Watters,
70 pro defucto, } For the discharge
20 ad intentionem donatis, } of Rev. Mr. C——
13 ad intentionem donatis, }
——
176
MR. CURATE: Be kind enough to say these masses or have them said as soon
as possible, and answer the reverend gentlemen who may inquire from you
about their acquittal. The 188 masses mentioned in our letter of the 3rd
inst., added to the 176 here mentioned, make 364 francs, the value of
the goods sent you. We thought you would like to have the pamphlets of
propaganda we address you.
Respectfully yours,
Signed: ANT. LEVESQUES.
Hence it is that priests, in France and elsewhere, have gold watches,
rich house furniture, and interesting books, purchased with the money
paid by our poor deluded Canadian Catholics to their priests for masses
which are turned into mercantile commodities in other places. It would
be difficult to say who makes the best bargain between those merchants
of masses, the priests to whom they are sold, or those from whom they
are bought at a discount of twenty-five to thirty per cent.
The only evident thing is the cruel deception practiced on the credulity
and ignorance of the Roman Catholics by their priests and bishops.
To-day, the houses of Dr. Anthony Levesques in Paris are the most
accredited in France. In 1874, the house of Mesme was doing an immense
business with its stock of masses, but in an evil day, the Government
suspected that the number of masses paid into their hands, exceeded the
number of those celebrated through their hired priests. The suspicion
soon turned into certainty when the books were examined. It was then
found that an incredible number of masses, which were to empty the large
room of purgatory, never reached their destination, but only filled the
purse of the Parisian mass merchant; and so the unlucky Mesme was
unceremoniously sent to the penitentiary to meditate on the infinite
merits of the holy sacrifice of the mass, which had been engulfed in his
treasures.
But these facts are not known by the poor Roman Catholics of Canada, who
are fleeced more and more by their priests, under the pretext of saving
souls from purgatory.
A new element of success in the large swindling operations of the
Canadian priests has lately been discovered. It is well known that in
the greater part of the United States, the poor deluded Irish pay one
dollar to their priest, instead of a shilling, for a low mass. Those
priests whose conscience are sufficiently elastic (as is often the
case), keep the money without ever thinking of having the masses said,
and soon get rich. But there are some whose natural honesty shrinks from
the idea of stealing; but unable to celebrate all the masses paid for
and requested at their hands, they send the dollars to some of their
clerical friends in Canada, who, of course, prefer these one dollar
masses to the twenty-five cent ones paid by the French Canadians.
However, they keep that secret and continue to fill their treasury.
There are, however, many priests in Canada who think it less evil to
keep those large sums of money in their own hands, than to give them to
the bishops to traffic with the merchants of Paris. At the end of one of
the ecclesiastical retreats in the seminary of St. Sulpice in 1850,
Bishop Bourget told us that one of the priests who had lately died, had
requested him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to ask every priest to take
a share in the $4,000 which he had received for masses he had never
said. We refused to grant him that favor, and those $4,000 received by
that priest, like the millions put into the hands of other priests and
the bishops, turned to be nothing less than an infamous swindling
operation under the mask of religion.
To understand what the priests of Rome are, let the readers note what is
said in the Roman Catholic Bible, of the priest of Babylon:
“And King Astyges was gathered to his fathers, and Cyrus, of Persia,
received his kingdom, and Daniel conversed with the king, and was
honored above all his friends. Now the Babylonians had an idol, called
Bel, and there were spent upon him, every day, twelve measures of fine
flour, and forty sheep and six vessels of wine. And the king worshipped
it and went daily to adore: but Daniel worshipped his own God, and the
king said unto him: ‘Why dost thou not worship Bel?’ who answered and
said: ‘because I may not worship idols made with hands, but the living
God, who hath created the heavens and the earth, and hath sovereignty
over all flesh.’ Then the king said: ‘Thinkest thou not that Bel is a
living God! Seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day?’
“Then Daniel smiled and said: ‘Oh, king! be not deceived; for this is
but clay within and brass without, and did never eat or drink anything.’
“So the king was wroth, and called for his priests and said: ‘If ye tell
me not who this is that devoureth these expenses, ye shall die; but if
ye can certify me that Bel devoureth them, then Daniel shall die, for he
has spoken blasphemy against Bel.’ And Daniel said unto the king: ‘Let
it be according to thy word.’
“Now the priests of Bel were three score and ten, besides their wives
and children.
“And the king went with Daniel to the temple of Bel—so Bel’s priests
said: ‘Lo! we got out, but thou, O king, set on the meat, and make ready
the wine, and shut the door fast, and seal it with thine own signet; and
to-morrow when thou comest in, if thou findest not that Bel hath eaten
up all, we will suffer death; or else, Daniel, that speaketh falsely
against Bel shall die—and they little regarded it, for under the table
they had made a privy entrance, whereby they entered continually and
consumed those things.’
“So when they were gone forth, the king set meats before Bel.
“Now Daniel had commanded his servants to bring ashes, and those they
strewed throughout all the temple, in the presence of the king alone:
then they went out, and shut the door, and sealed it with the king’s
signet, and so departed.
“Now in the night came the priests, with their wives and children, as
they were wont to do, and did eat and drink up all.
“In the morning betimes the king arose, and Daniel with him.
“And the king said, ‘Daniel, are the seals whole?’ And he said, ‘Yea, O
king, they be whole.’ And as soon as they had opened the door, the king
looked upon the table, and cried with a loud voice: ‘Great art thou, O
Bel! and with thee there is no deceit at all.’ Then laughed Daniel, and
held the king that he should not go in, and said: ‘Behold now the
pavement, and mark well whose footsteps are these.’ And the king said:
‘I see the footsteps of men, women and children.’ And then the king was
angry, and took the priests, with their wives and children, who showed
him the privy doors, where they came in and consumed such things as were
on the tables.
“Therefore the king slew them, and delivered Bel into Daniel’s power,
who destroyed him and his temple.”
Who does not pity the king of Babylon, who, when looking at his clay and
brass god, exclaimed: “Great art thou, O Bel, and with thee there is no
deceit!”
But, is the deception practiced by the priests of the Pope on their
poor, deluded dupes, less cruel and infamous? Where is the difference
between that Babylonian god, made with brass and baked clay, and the god
of the Roman Catholics, made with a handful of wheat and flour, baked
between two hot polished irons?
How skilful were the priests in keeping the secret of what became of the
rich daily offerings brought to the hungry god! Who could suspect that
there was a secret trap through which they came with their wives and
children to eat the rich offerings?
So, to-day, among the simple and blind Roman Catholics, who could
suppose that the immense sums of money given every day to the priests to
glorify God, purify the souls of men, and bring all kinds of blessings
upon the donors, were, on the contrary, turned into the most ignominious
and swindling operation the world has ever seen?
Though the brass god of Babylon was a contemptible idol, is not the
wafer god of Rome still more so? Though the priests of Bel were skilful
deceivers, are they not surpassed in the art of deception by the priests
of Rome! Do not these carry on their operations on a much larger scale
than the former?
But, as there is always a day of retribution for the great iniquities of
this world, when all things will be revealed; and just as the cunning of
the priests of Babylon could not save them, when God sent his prophet to
take away the mask, behind which they deceived their people, so let the
priests of Rome know that God will, sooner or later, send his prophet,
who will tear off the mask, behind which they deceive the world. Their
big, awkward and flat feet will be seen and exposed, and the very people
whom they keep prostrated before their idols, crying: “O God! with thee
there is no deceit at all!” will become the instruments of the justice
of God in the great day of retribution.