THE ECCLESIASTICAL RETREAT—CONDUCT OF THE PRIESTS—THE BISHOP FORBIDS ME
TO DISTRIBUTE THE BIBLE.
On the first of Aug., 1855, I received the following letter:
THE COLLEGE—_Chicago July 24th, 1855_.
REV. MR. CHINIQUY.
You will have the goodness to attend a spiritual retreat to be given
next month at the college, in Chicago, for the clergy of the diocese of
Chicago and Quincy.
The spiritual exercises, which will be conducted by the Rt. Rev. the
Bishop of Louisville, are to commence on Tuesday, the 28th of Aug., and
will terminate on the following Sunday. This arrangement will
necessitate your absence from your church on Sunday, the 14th, after
Pentecost, which you will make known to your congregation. No clergyman
is allowed to be absent from this retreat without the previous written
consent of the bishop of the diocese, which consent will not be given
except in cases which he will judge to be of urgent necessity.
By order of Rt. Rev. Bishop,
MATTHEW DILLON,
_Pro Secretary_.
Wishing to study the _personnel_ of that Irish clergy of which Bishop
Vandeveld had told such frightful things, I went to St. Mary’s
University, two hours ahead of time.
Never did I see such a band of jolly fellows. Their dissipation and
laughter, their exchange of witty, and too often, unbecoming
expressions, the tremendous noise they made in addressing each other, at
a distance: Their “Hallo, Patrick!” “hallo, Murphy!”“The answers: “Yes!
yes! She will never leave me;” or “no! no! the crazy girl is gone,” were
invariably followed by outbursts of laughter.
Though nine-tenths of them were evidently under the influence of
intoxicating drinks, not one could be said to be drunk. But the strong
odor of alcohol, mixed with the smoke of cigars, soon poisoned the air
and made it suffocating.
I had withdrawn in a corner, alone, in order to observe everything.
What stranger, in entering that large hall, would have suspected that
those men were about to begin one of the most solemn and sacred actions
of a priest of Jesus Christ! With the exception of five or six, they
looked more like a band of carousing raftsmen, than priests.
About an hour before the opening of the exercises, I saw one of the
priests with hat in hand accompanied by two of the fattest and most
florid of the band, going to every one, collecting money and with the
most hilarity and pleasure, each one threw his bank bills into the hat.
I supposed that this collection was intended to pay for our board,
during the retreat, and I prepared the $15 I wanted to give. When they
came near me—the big hat was literally filled with five and ten dollar
bills. Before handing my money to them, I asked: “What is the object of
that collection?”
“Ah! ah!” they answered with a hearty laugh,“and the collectors laughed
outright.
I answered politely, but seriously: “Gentlemen, I came here to meditate
and pray; and when I am thirsty, the fresh and pure water of Lake
Michigan will quench my thirst. I have given up, long ago, the use of
intoxicating drinks. Please excuse me, I am a teetotaler.”
“So we are!” they answered with a laugh; “We have all taken the pledge
from Father Mathew; but this does not prevent us from taking a little
drop to quench our thirst and keep up our health. Father Mathew is not
so merciless as you are.”
“I know Father Mathew well;” I answered, “I have written to him and seen
him many times. Allow me to tell you that we are of the same mind about
the use of intoxicating drink.”
“Is it possible! you know Father Mathew! and you are exchanging letters
with him! What a holy man he is, and what good he has done in Ireland,
and everywhere!” they answered.
“But the good he has done will not last long,” I said, “if all his
disciples keep their pledges as you do.”
As we were talking, a good number of priests came around to hear what
was said; for it was evident to all, that the bark of their collectors,
not only had come to shallow waters, but had struck on a rock.
One of the priests said: “I thought we were to be preached by Bishop
Spaulding; I had no idea that it was Father Chiniquy who had that
charge.”
“Gentlemen,” I answered, “I have as much right to preach to you in favor
of temperance as you have to preach to me in favor of intemperance. You
may do as you please about the use of strong drink, during the retreat;
but I hope I also may have the right to think and do as I please, in
that matter.”
“Of course,” they all answered, “But you are the only one who will not
give us a cent to get a little drop.”
“So much the worse for you all, gentlemen, if I am the only one. But
please excuse me, I cannot give you a cent for that object.”
They then left me, saying something which I could not understand, but
they were evidently disgusted, with what they considered my stubbornness
and want of good manners.
I must, however, say here, that two of them, Mr. Dunn, pastor of one of
the best congregations in Chicago, and the other unknown to me, came to
congratulate me on the stern rebuke I had given the collectors.
“I regret,” said Mr Dunn, “the five dollars I have thrown into that hat.
If I had spoken to you before, and had known that you would be brave
enough to rebuke them, I would have stood by you, and kept my money for
better use. It is really a shame that we should be preparing ourselves
for a retreat by wasting $500 for such a shameful object. They have just
told me that they have raised that sum for the champagne, brandy, whisky
and beer they will drink, this week. Ah! what disgrace! What a cry of
indignation would be raised against us, if such a shameful thing should
be known! I am sorry about the unkind words those priests have spoken to
you; but you must excuse them, they are already full of bad whisky.
“Do not think, however, that you are friendless, here, in our midst. You
have more friends than you think among the Irish priests; and I am one
of them, though you do not know me. Bishop Vandeveld has often spoken to
me of your grand colonization work, among the French.”
Mr. Dunn, then, pressed my hand in his, and taking me a short distance
from the others, said:
“Consider me, hereafter, as your friend: you have won my confidence by
the fearless way in which you have just spoken, and the common sense of
your arguments.
“You have lost a true friend in Bishop Vandevelde. I fear that our
present bishop will not do you justice. Lebel and Carthyvel have
prejudiced him against you. But I will stand by you, if you are ever
unjustly dealt with, as I fear you will, by the present administration
of the diocese. I fear we are on the eve of great evils. The scandalous
suit which Bishop O’Regan has brought upon his predecessor is a
disgrace. If he has gained $50,000 by it, he has forever lost the
respect and confidence of all his priests and diocesans.
“After the mild and paternal ruling of Bishop Vandevelde, neither the
priests, nor the people of Illinois will long bear the iron chains which
the present bishop has in store for us all.”
I thanked Mr. Dunn for his kind words, and told him that I had already
tasted the paternal love of my bishop by being twice dragged by Spink
before the criminal court for having refused to live on good terms with
the two most demoralized priests I have ever known.
He, then, speaking with a more subdued voice, said:
“I must tell you, confidentially, that one of those priests, Lebel, will
be turned out ignominiously from the diocese, during the retreat. Last
week, a new fact, which surpasses all his other abominations, has been
revealed and proved to the bishop, for which he will be interdicted.”
At that moment, the bell called us to the chapel to hear the regulations
of the bishop in reference to the retreat, after which we sang the
matins.
At 8 P. M., we had our first sermon by Bishop Spaulding, from Kentucky.
He was a fine-looking man, a giant in stature, and a good speaker. But
the way in which he treated his subject, though very clever, left, in my
mind, the impression that he did not believe a word of what he said. At
certain times, there was much fire in his elocution, but it was a fire
of straw. He delivered two sermons, each day; and the Rev. Mr.
Vanhulest, a Jesuit, gave us two meditations, each of them lasting from
forty to fifty minutes. The rest of the time was spent in reading aloud
the life of a saint, reciting the breviarum, examination of conscience
and going to confession.
We had half an hour for meals, followed by one hour of recreation. Thus
were the days spent. But the nights! the nights! what shall I say of
them! What pen can describe the orgies I witnessed during those dark
nights! and who can believe what I shall have to say about them! though
I will not and cannot say the half of what I have seen and heard!
I got from the Rev. Mr. Dunn, then one of the bishop’s counselors, and
soon after, Vicar General, the statement that the sum of $500 was
expended in intoxicating drinks during the six days of the retreat. I
ought to say during the five nights. My pen refuses to write what my
eyes saw and my ears heard during the long hours of those nights, which
I cannot forget though I should live a thousand years.
The drinking used to begin about 9 o’clock, as soon as the lights were
put out. Some were handing the bottles from bed to bed, while others
were carrying them to those at a distance, at first, with the least
noise possible; but half an hour had not elapsed before the alcohol was
beginning to unloose the tongues, and upset the brain. Then the _bons
mots_, the witty stories, at first, were soon followed by the most
indecent and shameful recitals. Then the songs, followed by the barking
of dogs, the croaking of frogs, the howling of wolves. In a word, the
cries of all kinds of beasts, often mixed with the most lascivious
songs, the most infamous anecdotes flying from bed to bed, from room to
room, till one or two o’clock in the morning.
One night three priests were taken with delirium tremens, almost at the
same time. One cried out that he had a dozen rattle-snakes at his shirt;
the second was fighting against thousands of bats which were trying to
tear his eyes from their sockets: and the third, with a stick, was
repulsing millions of spiders which, he said, were as big as wild
turkeys, all at work to devour him. The cries and lamentations of those
three priests were really pitiful! To those cries, add the lamentations
of some dozen of them whose overloaded stomachs were ejecting in the
beds and all around, the enormous quantity of drink they had swallowed!
The third day, I was so disgusted and indignant, that I determined to
leave, without noise, under the pretext that I was sick. It was not a
false pretext; for I was really sick. There was no possibility of
sleeping before two or three o’clock. Besides, the stench in the
dormitories was horrible.
There was, however, another thing which was still more overwhelming me.
It was the terrible moral struggle in my soul from morning till night,
and from night till morning, when the voice of conscience, which I had
to take for the voice of Satan, was crying in my ears:“ Oh! what an
awful thing it is to resist the voice of God! To take him for the evil
one, when, by his warnings, he seeks to save your soul! Although the
horrible scandal I had seen distressed me more than human words can
tell, those mental conflicts were still more distressing. Fearing lest I
should entirely lose my faith in my religion, and become an absolute
infidel, by remaining any longer in the midst of such profligacy, I
determined to leave; but before doing so, I wanted to consult the new
friend whom the Providence of God had given me in Mr. Dunn. It seemed
the unbearable burden which was on my shoulders would become lighter, by
sharing it with such a sympathetic brother priest.
I went to him, after dinner, and taking him apart, I told him all about
the orgies of last night, and asked his advice on my determination not
to continue that retreat, which was evidently nothing else than a blind,
and a sacrilegious comedy, to deceive the world.
He answered: “You teach me nothing, for I spent last night in the same
dormitory where you were. One of the priests told me all about those
orgies, yesterday; I could hardly believe what he said, and I determined
to see and hear for myself what was going on. You do not exaggerate, you
do not even mention half of the horrors of last night. It baffles any
description. It is simply incredible for any one who has not himself
witnessed them. However, I do not advise you to leave. It would forever
ruin you in the mind of the bishop, who is not already too well disposed
in your favor. The best thing you can do is to go and tell everything to
Bishop Spaulding. I have done it this morning; but I felt that he did
not believe the half of what I told him. When the same testimony comes
from you, then he will believe it, and will probably take some measures,
with our own bishop, to put an end to those horrors. I have something to
tell you, confidentially, which surpasses, in a measure, anything you
know of the abominations of these last three nights. “ “With these fine
words ringing in my ears,” said good Mr. Dunn, “I had to leave his room
at the double quick. It is of no use for us to speak to Bishop O’Regan,
on that matter. It will do no good. He wants to get a large subscription
from those priests, at the end of the retreat, and he is rather inclined
to pet than punish them, till he obtains the $100,000 he wants to build
his white marble palace on the lake shore.”
I replied: “Though you add to my desolation, instead of diminishing it,
by what you say of the strange principles of our bishop, I will speak to
my lord Spaulding as you advise me.”
Without a moment’s delay, I went to his room. He received me very
kindly, and did not at all seem surprised at what I said. It was as if
he had been accustomed to see the same, or still worse abominations.
However, when I told him the enormous quantity of liquor drank, and that
retreat would be only a ridiculous comedy, if no attempt at reform was
tried, he agreed with me; “but it would be advisable to try it,” he
said.“ Although the Bishop of Chicago seemed puzzled at seeing me
entering the room with my lord Spaulding, he was as polite as possible.
He listened with more attention than I expected to the narrative I gave
of what is going on among the priests. After telling him my sad story,
Bishop Spaulding said: “My lord of Chicago: These facts are very grave,
and there cannot be any doubt about the truth of what we have just
heard. Two other gentlemen gave me the same testimony this morning.”
“Yes!” said Bishop O’Regan, “it is very sad to see that our priests have
so little self-respect, even during such solemn days as those of a
public retreat. The Rev. Mr. Dunn has just told me the same sad story as
Father Chiniquy. But what remedy can we find for such a state of things?
Perhaps it might do well to give them a good sermon on temperance. Mr.
Chiniquy, I am told that you are called ‘the temperance apostle of
Canada.’ and that you are a powerful speaker on that subject; would you
not like to give them one or two addresses on the injury they are doing
to themselves and to our holy church, by their drunkenness?”
“If those priests could understand me in French,” I replied, “I would
accept the honor you offer me, with pleasure; but to be understood by
them, I would have to speak in English; and I am not sufficiently free
in that language to attempt it. My broken English would only bring
ridicule upon the holy cause of temperance.
“But my lord Spaulding has already preached on that subject in Kentucky,
and an address from his lordship would be listened to with more
attention and benefit from him than from me.”
It was, then, agreed that he should change his programme, and give two
addresses on temperance, which he did. But though these addresses were
really eloquent, they were pearls thrown before swine.
The drunken priests slept as usual; and even snored, almost through the
whole length of the delivery. It is true that we could notice a little
improvement and less noise the following nights; the change, however,
was very little.
The fourth day of the retreat, the Rev. Mr. Lebel came to me with his
bag in his hand. He looked furious. He said:
“Now, you must be satisfied, I am interdicted and turned out
ignominiously from this diocese. It is your work! But mind what I tell
you; you will, also, soon, be turned out from your colony by the mitred
tyrant who has just struck me down. He told me, several times, that he
would, at any cost, break your plans of French colonization, by sending
you to the south-west of Illinois, along the Mississippi, to an old
French settlement, opposite St. Louis.
“He is enraged against you for your refusing to give him your fine
property at St. Anne.”
I answered him: “You are mistaken when you think that I am the author of
your misfortunes. You have disgraced yourself, by your own acts. God has
given you talents and qualities, which, if cultivated, would have
exalted you in the church, but you have preferred to destroy those great
gifts, in order to follow the evil inclinations of your poor degraded
human nature; you reap to-day what you have sown. Nobody is more sorry
than I am, for your misfortune, and my most sincere wish is that the
past may be a lesson to guide your steps in the future. The desire of my
bishop to turn me out of my colony does not trouble me. If it is the
will of God to keep me at the head of that great work, the Bishop of
Chicago will go down from his episcopal throne before I go down the
beautiful hill of St. Anne. Adieu!”
He soon disappeared. But how the fall of this priest, whom I had so
sincerely loved, saddened me!
The next Sabbath was the last day of the retreat. All the priests went
in procession to the cathedral, to receive the holy communion, and every
one of them ate, what we had to believe the true body, soul and divinity
of Jesus Christ. This, however, did not prevent thirteen of them from
spending the greater part of the next night in the calaboose, to which
they had been taken by the police, from houses of ill-fame, where they
were rioting and fighting. The next morning, they were discharged from
the hands of the police by paying pretty round sums of money for the
trouble of the night!
The next day, I went to Mr. Dunn’s parsonage to ask him if he could give
me any explanation of the rumor which was afloat, and to which Mr. Lebel
had made allusion, that it was the intention of the bishop to remove me
from my colony to some distant part of his diocese.
“It is unfortunately too true,” said he. “Bishop O’Regan thinks that he
has a mission from heaven to undo all his predecessor has done, and as
one of the best and grandest schemes of Bishop Vandevelde was to secure
the possession of this magnificent State of Illinois to our church, by
inducing all the Roman Catholic emigrants from France, Belgium and
Canada, to settle here, our present bishop does not conceal that he will
oppose that plan by removing you to such a distance, that your
colonization plans will be at an end. He says that the French are, as a
general thing, rebels and disobedient to their bishops. He prefers
seeing the Irish coming, on account of their proverbial docility to
their ecclesiastical superiors.
“I have, in vain, tried to change his mind. I told you, before, that he
often asks my opinion on what I think the best thing to be done for the
good of the diocese. But I do not think that he intends to follow my
advice! it is just the contrary. My impression now is, that he wants to
know our views, only for the pleasure of acting diametrically in
opposition to what we advise.”
I must not omit to say, that we had been requested to spend the forenoon
of Monday, in the University, for an important affair which the Bishop
had to propose to his clergy. We were all there, in the great hall, at
the appointed hour. Even the thirteen priests who had spent the best
part of the night at the police station, heard the voice of their
bishop, and they were there, as docile lambs.
We knew beforehand, the proposition which was to be put before us. It
was to build a palace for our bishop, worthy of the great Illinois
State, the cost of which would be about $100,000.
Though every one of us felt that this was most extravagant in such a
young and poor diocese, nobody dared to raise his voice against that act
of pride and supreme folly. Every one promised to do all in his power to
raise that sum, and to show our good will, we raised among ourselves, at
once, $7,000, which we gave in cash or in promissory notes.
After this act of liberality, we were blessed and dismissed by our
bishop.
I was but a few steps from the University, when an Irish priest, unknown
to me, ran after me to say: “My lord O’Regan wants to see you
immediately.” And, five minutes later, I was alone with my bishop, who,
without any preface, told me:
“Mr. Chiniquy, I hear very strange and damaging things about you, from
every quarter. But the worst of all is, that you are a secret Protestant
emissary; that, instead of preaching the true doctrines of our holy
church, about the immaculate conception, purgatory, the respect and
obedience due to their superiors by the people, auricular confession,
etc., etc., you spend a part of your time in distributing Bibles and New
Testaments among your emigrants; I want to know from your own lips, if
this be true or not.”
I answered: “A part of what the people told you about the matter is not
true; the other is true. It is not true that I neglect the preaching of
the doctrines of our holy church, about purgatory, immaculate conception
of Mary, auricular confession, or the respect due to our superiors. But
it is true that I do distribute the Holy Bible and the Gospel of Christ,
among my people.”
“And instead of blushing at such unpriestly conduct, you seem to be
proud of it,” angrily replied the bishop.
“I do not understand, my lord, why a priest of Christ could blush for
distributing the Word of God among his people; as I am bound to preach
that Holy Word, it is not only my right, but my duty to give it to them.
I am fully persuaded that there is no preaching so efficacious and
powerful as the preaching of God Himself, when speaking to us in His
Holy Book.”
“This is sheer Protestantism, Mr. Chiniquy, this is sheer
Protestantism,” he answered me, angrily.
“My dear bishop,” I answered calmly, “if to give the Bible to the people
and invite them to read and meditate on it, is Protestantism, our holy
Pope Pius VI. was a good Protestant, for in his letter to Martini, which
is probably in the first pages of the beautiful Bible I see on your
lordship’s table, he not only blesses him for having translated that
Holy book into Italian, but invites the people to read it.”
The bishop, assuming an air of supreme contempt, replied:
“Your answer shows your complete ignorance on the subject on which you
speak so boldly. If you were a little better informed on that grave
subject, you would know that the translation by Martini, which the Pope
advised the Italian people to read, formed a work of twenty-three big
volumes in folio, which, of course, nobody except very rich and idle
people could read. Not one in ten thousand Italians have the means of
purchasing such a voluminous work; and not one in fifty thousand have
the time or the will to peruse such a mass of endless commentaries. The
Pope would never have given such an advice to read a Bible, as the one
you distribute so imprudently.”
“Then, my lord, do you positively tell me that the Pope gave permission
to read Martini’s translation because he knew that the people could
never get it on account of its enormous size and price, and do you
assure me that he would never have given such an advice had the same
people been able to purchase and read that holy work?”
“Yes, sir! It is what I mean,” answered the bishop, with an air of
triumph, “for I know, positively, that this is the fact.”
I replied, calmly: “I hope your lordship is unwillingly mistaken; for if
you were correct, the stern and unflinching principles of logic would
force me to think and say that that Pope, and all his followers were
deceivers, and that encyclical, a public fraud in his own hands; for we,
Catholic priests, make use of it, all over the world, and reprint it at
the head of our own Bibles, to make the people, both Protestants and
Catholics, believe that we approve of their reading our own versions of
that Holy Book.”
Had I thrown a spark of fire in a keg of powder, the explosion would not
have been more prompt and terrible than the rage of that prelate.
Pointing his finger to my face, he said:
“Now, I see the truth of what I have been told, that you are a disguised
Protestant, since the very day you were ordained a priest.
“The Bible! the Bible! is your motto! For you, the Bible is everything,
and the holy church, with her Popes and bishops, nothing! what an
insolent, I dare say, what a blasphemous word I have just heard from
you! You dare call an encyclical letter of one of our most holy Popes, a
_fraud_!”
In vain, I tried to explain; he would not listen, and he silenced me by
saying:
“If our holy church has, in an unfortunate day, appointed you one of her
priests in my diocese, it was to preach her doctrines, and not to
distribute the Bible! If you forget that, I will make you remember it!”
And with that threat on my head, as a Damocles’ sword, I had to take to
the door, which he had opened, without any _au revoir_. Thanks be to
God, this first persecution and these outrages I received for my dear
Bible’s sake, did not diminish my respect for God’s Holy Word nor my
confidence in it. On the contrary, on reaching home, I took it, fell on
my knees, and pressing it to my heart, I asked my Heavenly Father to
grant me the favor to love it more sincerely, and follow its divine
teachings with more fidelity, till the end of my life.