THE ABOMINATIONS OF AURICULAR CONFESSION.
There are two women who ought to be 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 secret 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
forever sealed their lips, had almost killed them! Not hundreds, but
thousands of times, I have heard from the lips of dying girls, as well
as married women, the awful words: “I am forever lost! All my past
confessions and communions have been so 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 who had been 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 had believed,
that she should 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 modest 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 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 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 must that be 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 forever 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 under 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 forever damned if they do not degrade themselves
forever 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 favor, 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 poured 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 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 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 the heart against his unchaste
questions, even when speaking in the name of God—those laws of
self-respect are so clearly written on 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 forever 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 greater part of their lives, and many
of them 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 surely have 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, Debreyene, Bailly, etc.,—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 a crowd of testimonials that their grand imposture would
forever be unmasked.
I intend, at 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
unanswerable evidence of the fact that, instinctively, without
consulting each other, and 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 shipwrecks 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 thought, is not less shameful and criminal than to do them. She
hears the voice of God whispering into her ears,“ Perhaps the world has
never seen a more terrible, desperate, solemn struggle than the one
which is going on in the soul of a 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 honor and self-respect, tell her
never to reveal to any man!
The history of that secret, fierce, desperate 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 and their womanly dignity to speak with me on
matters on which a decent woman should never say a word with a man. They
have told me of their invincible repugnance, their horror of such
questions and answers, and they have asked me to have pity on them. Yes!
I have often wept bitterly on my degradation, when a priest of Rome. I
have realized all the strength, the grandeur and the holiness of their
motives for being silent on these defiling matters, and 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 honor ought
never to converse with a woman whom he respects.
But alas! I had soon to reproach myself, and regret those 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 these
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 on these matters?”
How many times my God has spoken to me as He speaks to all the priests
of Rome, and said with a thundering voice: “What would that young man
do, could he hear the questions you put to his wife? Would he not blow
out your brains? And that father, would he not pass his dagger through
your breast if he could know what you ask from his poor trembling
daughter? Would not the brother of that young girl put an end to your
miserable life if he could hear the unmentionable subjects on which you
speak with her in the confessional?”
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, desolate girls and
women to swim with me and all their priests in those waters of Sodom and
Gomorrah, 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.
With what supreme distress, disgust and surprise we see, to-day, a great
part of the noble Episcopal Church of England struck by a plague which
seems incurable, under the name of Puseyism, or Ritualism, bringing
again—more or less openly—in many places the diabolical and filthy
auricular confession among the Protestants of England, Australia and
America The Episcopal church is doomed to perish in that dark and
stinking pool of popery—auricular confession—if she does not find a
prompt remedy to stop the plague brought by the disguised Jesuits, who
are at work everywhere to poison and enslave her too unsuspecting
daughters and sons.
In the beginning of my priesthood, when I was in Quebec 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 at her
father’s house, entering the box of my confessional. She had been used
to confess to another young priest of my acquaintance, and she was
always looked upon as one of the most pious girls of the city. Though
she had disguised herself as much as possible, in order that I might not
know her, I felt sure that I was not mistaken—she was the amiable Mary *
*
Not being absolutely certain 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 a 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 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 judgment 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 of my memory. Those questions
have achieved my ruin; they have stuck to my mind like two deadly
arrows; they are day and night before my imagination; they fill my
arteries and veins with 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 if 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 and
confess; but by 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, be 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
_tete-a-tete_ with my old confessor (for it was nothing else but a
criminal _tete-a-tete_), I perceived that he was as depraved as I was
myself. With some half-covered words, he made a criminal proposition,
which I accepted with covered words also; and during more than a year,
we have lived together on 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 directions
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 interrogation. 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 my 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 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 marvellous 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 the Saviour with tears, are so
great that my voice is as choked. “ I was then 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 frank declaration of the most
humiliating actions, had made such a profound impression upon me 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. Philomene, who
was, then, _Sainte a 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 favor; 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 old and young priests
had already come to confess to me; and that, with the exception of two,
they had 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 should answer. He
asked me to come the next day, that he might review some 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 cannot be helped; for such
questions are absolutely necessary in the greater 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 these 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 irresistible, 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 honor and
privilege; but we cannot conceal from ourselves that it puts on our
shoulders a burden which many cannot carry forever. 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 then hardly twenty-six
years old, full of youth and life. It seemed to me that the stings of a
thousand wasps to my ears could 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 women, Mary Magdalene, and all the
sinners 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 often listened, with breathless attention, to her
melodious voice, when she was giving us, accompanied by her piano, some
of our beautiful church hymns. Who could then see and hear 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 the 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 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, if not always, in spite of himself, is
to scandalize and damn their 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! I come to wash my soul in Thy blood; wilt Thou
rebuke me?”
During several minutes she raised her hands and 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 communication with her merciful
Savior.
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 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 in 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
that 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 anyone, except to Christ,
because He is my God, and that he already knows them all. Let me weep
and cry at His feet: can you not 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 only too happy to grant your request; but I am here
only as the minister of our holy church, and bound to obey the laws.
Through her most holy Popes and theologians she tells me that I cannot
forgive 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
sorry to tell you that our most holy theologians make it a duty of our
confessor to question the penitent on the sins which he has good reason
to suspect have been voluntarily omitted.”
With a piercing cry she exclaimed, “Then, O my God, I am lost—forever
lost!”
This cry fell upon me like a thunderbolt; but I was still more
terror-stricken when, looking through the aperture, I saw she was
fainting; 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 forever!”
We took her home 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 every day, “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, when alone, with tears I requested her to finish her
confession; but, with a firmness which, then, seemed to be 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 penance,
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 forever? 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 only know they
have destroyed his poor child.”
I could not answer except by weeping.
We remained silent for a long time; then she said, “It is true that I
was not prepared for the rebuke you have given me, the other day, in the
confessional; 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,“ 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 with me. He requested us not to speak at
all: “For,” said he, “the least emotion might 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, and 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 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
continually 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 anything 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 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 Savior would take me to Him, but He wants me, dear father, to give
you a little more trouble; however, be patient, it cannot be long before
the solemn hour of the appeal will ring. Will you please read me the
history of the suffering and death of the beloved Savior, 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 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 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 bedside, 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,“ “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 ever 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 forever 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 regenerated daughter of Christ, who, it was evident, was soon to
fly away from us, I felt a supreme disgust for myself, my
theologians,—shall I say it? yes, I felt in that solemn hour a supreme
disgust for my church, which was cruelly defiling me, and all her
priests, in the confessional-box. I felt, in that hour, a supreme horror
for that auricular confession, which is so often a pit of perdition and
supreme misery for the confessor and penitent. I went out and walked two
hours on the Plains of Abraham, to breathe the pure and refreshing air
of the mountains. There, alone, I sat on a stone, on the very spot where
Wolf and Montcalm fought and died; and I wept to my heart’s content, on
my irreparable degradation, and the degradation of so many 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 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 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 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 so many sins which you will never declare 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 spent 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 we have passed together in looking to
the wounds of our beloved, dying Savior; I bless you for having forgiven
me your death! for I know it, and I confess it 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
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 Savior; there I have found a peace
and a joy surpassing anything that 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; 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,“and she had made such a
cry of joy when she had to 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 instant the mother rushed into the room, crying, “My God!
my God! what does that cry ‘_lost_’ mean?”—For her last words, “not to
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. The redeemed soul
had gone, on the golden wings of love, to join the multitude of those
who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, to sing the
eternal Alleluia.
The revelation of the unmentionable corruptions directly and unavoidably
engendered by auricular confession, had come to me from the lips of that
young lady, as the first rays of the sun which were to hurl back the
dark clouds of night by which Rome had wrapped my intelligence on that
subject.
So miserable by her fall and her sins, but so admirable by her
conversion, that young lady was standing before me, for the rest of my
priestly life, as the bright beacon raised on the solitary rocks stands
before the sailor whose ship is drifting through the shoals, in a dark
and stormy night.
She was brought there, by the merciful hand of God, to right my course.
Lost and degraded by auricular confession, only after having given it
up, that precious soul was to find peace and life, when washed in the
blood of the Lamb, as the only hope and refuge of sinners.
Her words, filled with a superhuman wisdom, and her burning tears, came
to me, by the marvelous Providence of God, as the first beams of the Sun
of Righteousness, to teach me that auricular confession was a Satanic
invention.
Had this young person been the only one to tell me that, I might still
have held some doubt about the diabolical origin of that institution.
But thousands and thousands, before and after her, have been sent by my
merciful God to tell me the same tale, till after twenty-five years of
experience it became a certitude to me that that modern invention of
Rome must, sooner or later, with very few exceptions, drag both the
confessor and his female penitents into a common and irreparable
ruin.[D]
-----
Footnote D:
Those who would like to know all about the abominations of auricular
confession should have my volume “The Priest, The Woman and The
Confessional.” It is probably the only book ever written on that
subject which completely unveils the mask of Rome, by telling the
whole truth.
-----