AURICULAR CONFESSION A DEEP PIT OF PERDITION FOR THE PRIEST
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It was some time after our Mary had been buried. The terrible and
mysterious cause of her death was known only to God and to me. Though her
loving mother was still weeping over her grave, she had soon been
forgotten, as usual, by the greatest part of those who had known her: but
she was constantly present to my mind. I never entered the confessional-box
without hearing her solemn, though so mild, voice telling me, "There must
be somewhere something wrong in the auricular confession. Twice I have been
destroyed by my confessors; and I have known several others who have been
destroyed in the same way."
More than once, when her voice was ringing in my ears from her tomb, I had
shed bitter tears on the profound and unfathomable degradation into which
I, with the other priests, had to fell in the confessional-box. For many,
many times, stories as deplorable as that of this unfortunate girl were
confessed to me by city as well as country females.
One night I was awakened by the rumbling noise of thunder, when I heard
some one knocking at the door. I hastened out of bed to ask who was there.
The answer was that the Rev. Mr. ---- was dying, and that he wanted to see
me before his death. I dressed myself, and was soon on the highway. The
darkness was fearful; and often, had it not been for the lightning which
was almost constantly tearing the clouds, we should not have known where we
were. After a long and hard journey through the darkness and the storm, we
arrived at the house of the dying priest. I went directly to his room, and
really found him very low; he could hardly speak. With a sign of his hand
he bade his servant-girl and a young man who were there go out, and leave
him alone with me.
Then, with a low voice, he said, "Is it you who prepared poor Mary to die?"
"Yes, sir," I answered.
"Please tell me the truth. Is it the fact that she died the death of a
reprobate, and that her last words were, 'Oh, my God! I am lost'?"
I answered: "As I was the confessor of that girl, and we were talking
together on matters which pertained to her confession, in the very moment
that she was unexpectedly summoned to appear before God, I cannot answer
your question in any way; please, then, excuse me if I cannot say any more
on that subject: but tell me who can have assured you that she died the
death of a reprobate."
"It was her own mother," answered the dying man. "She came, last week, to
visit me, and when she was alone with me, with many tears and cries, she
said how her poor child had refused to receive the last sacraments, and how
her last cry was, 'I am lost!'" She added that that cry, 'Lost!' was
pronounced with such a frightful power that it was heard through all the
house."
"If her mother has told you that," I replied, "you may believe what you
please about the way that poor child died. I cannot say a word--you know
it--about that matter."
"But if she is lost," rejoined the old, dying priest, "I am the miserable
one who has destroyed her. She was an angel of purity when she came to the
convent. Oh! dear Mary, if you are lost, I am a thousandfold more lost! Oh,
my God, my God! what will become of me? I am dying; and I am lost!"
It was indeed an awful thing to see that old sinner tearing his own hands,
rolling on his bed as if he had been on burning coals, with all the marks
of the most frightful despair on his face, crying, "I am lost! Oh, my God,
I am lost!"
I was glad that the claps of thunder, which were shaking the house and
roaring without ceasing, prevented the people outside the room from hearing
those cries of desolation from that priest, whom every one considered a
great saint.
When it seemed to me that his terror had somewhat subsided, and that his
mind was calmed a little, I said to him, "My dear friend, you must not give
yourself up to such despair. Our merciful God has promised to forgive the
repenting sinner who comes to Him, even at the last hour of the day.
Address yourself to the Virgin Mary, she will ask and obtain your pardon."
"Do you not think that it is too late to ask pardon? The doctor has
honestly warned me that death is very near, and I feel I am just now dying!
Is it not too late to ask and obtain pardon?" asked the dying priest.
"No, my dear sir, it is not too late, if you sincerely regret your sins.
Throw yourself into the arms of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph; make your
confession without any more delay, and you will be saved."
"But I have never made a good confession. Will you help me to make a
general one?"
It was my duty to grant him his request, and the rest of the night was
spent by me in hearing the confession of his whole life.
I do not want to give many particulars of the life of that priest. I will
only mention two things. First: It was then that I understood why poor
young Mary was absolutely unwilling to mention the iniquities which she had
done with him. They were simply surpassingly horrible--unmentionable. No
human tongue can express them--few human ears would consent to hear them.
The second thing that I am bound in conscience to reveal is almost
incredible, but it is nevertheless true. The number of married and
unmarried females he had heard in the confessional was about 1500, of which
he said he had destroyed or scandalized at least 1000 by his questioning
them on most depraving things, for the simple pleasure of gratifying his
own corrupted heart, without letting them know anything of his sinful
thoughts and criminal desires towards them. But he confessed that he had
destroyed the purity of ninety-five of those penitents, who had consented
to sin with him.
And would to God that this priest had been the only one whom I have known
to be lost through the auricular confession! But, alas! how few are those
who have escaped the snares of the tempter compared with those who have
perished! I have heard the confessions of more than 200 priests, and, to
say the truth, as God knows it, I must declare that only twenty-one had not
to weep over the secret or public sins committed through the irresistibly
corrupting influences of auricular confession!
I am sixty six years old; in a short time I shall be in my grave. I shall
have to give an account of what I say to-day. Well, it is in the presence
of my great Judge, with my tomb before my eyes, that I declare to the world
that very few--yes, very few--priests escape from falling into the pit of
the most horrible moral depravity the world has ever known, through the
confession of females.
I do not say this because I have any bad feelings against those priests:
God knows that I have none. The only feelings I have are of supreme
compassion and pity. I do not reveal these awful things to make the world
believe that the priests of Rome are a worse set of men than the rest of
the innumerable fallen children of Adam. No, I do not entertain any such
views; for, everything considered and weighed in the balance of religion,
charity, and common sense--I think that the priests of Rome are far from
being worse than any other set of men who would be thrown into the same
temptations, dangers and unavoidable occasions of sin.
For instance, let us take lawyers, merchants, or farmers, and, preventing
them from living with their lawful wives, let us surround each of them from
morning to night by ten, twenty, and sometimes more, beautiful women and
tempting girls, who would speak to them of things which can pulverize a
rock of Scotch granite, and you will see how many of those lawyers,
merchants or farmers will go out of that terrible moral battle-field
without being mortally wounded.
The cause of the supreme--I dare say incredible, though
unsuspected--immorality of the priests of Rome is a very evident and
logical one. By the diabolical power of the Pope, the priest is put out of
the ways which God has offered to the generality of men to be honest,
upright, and holy[1]. And after the Pope has deprived them of the grand,
holy, I say Divine (in this sense that it comes directly from God) remedy
which God has given to man against his own concupiscence--holy marriage,
they are placed unprotected, unguarded in the most perilous, difficult,
irresistible moral dangers which human ingenuity or depravity can conceive.
Those unmarried men are forced to be, from morning to night, in the midst
of beautiful girls, and tempting, charming women, who have to tell them
things which would melt the hardest steel. How can you expect that they
will cease to be men, and become stronger than angels?
Not only are the priests of Rome deprived by the devil of the _only_ remedy
which God has given to help them to stand up, but they have, in the
confessional, the greatest facility which can possibly be imagined for
satisfying all the bad propensities of fallen human nature. In the
confessional _they know_ those who are strong, and they know those who are
weak among the females by whom they are surrounded; they know who would
resist any attempt from the enemy; and they know who are ready--nay, who
are longing after the deceitful charms of sin. If they still retain the
fallen nature of man, what a terrible hour for them! what frightful battles
inside the poor heart! What superhuman efforts and strength would be
required to come out a conqueror from that battle field, where a David, a
Samson, have fallen, mortally wounded!
It is simply an act of supreme stupidity on the part of the Protestant, as
well as Catholic public, to suppose, or suspect, or hope, that the
generality of the priests can stand that trial. The pages of the history of
Rome herself are filled with the unanswerable proofs that the great
_generality_ of the confessors fall. If it were not so, the miracle of
Joshua, stopping the march of the sun and the moon, would be a childish
play compared with the miracle which would stop and reverse all the laws of
our common fallen nature in the hearts of the 100,000 Roman Catholic
confessors of the Church of Rome. Were I attempting to prove by public
facts what I know of the horrible depravity caused by the confessional-box
among the priests of France, Canada, Spain, Italy, England, I should have
to write many big volumes in folio. For brevity's sake, I will speak only
of Italy. I take that country because, being under the very eyes of their
infallible and most holy (?) Pontiff, being in the land of daily miracles,
of painted Madonnas, who weep and turn their eyes left and right, up and
down, in a most marvellous way, being in the land of miraculous medals and
heavenly spiritual favors, constantly flowing from the chair of St. Peter,
the confessors in Italy are in the best possible circumstances to be
strong, faithful, and holy. Well, let us hear an eye-witness, a
contemporary, an unimpeachable witness about the way the confessors deal
with their penitent females, in the only holy, apostolical, infallible (?)
Church of Rome.
The witness we will hear is of the purest blood of the princes of Italy.
Her name is Henrietta Carracciolo, daughter of the Marshal Carracciolo,
Governor of the Province of Bari, in Italy. Let us hear what she says of
the Father Confessors, after twenty years of personal experience in
different nunneries of Italy, in her remarkable book, "Mysteries of the
Neapolitan Convents," pp. 150, 151, 152: "My confessor came the following
day, and I disclosed to him the nature of the troubles which beset me.
Later in the day, seeing that I had gone down to the place where we used to
receive the holy communion, called Communichino, the conversa of my aunt
rang the bell for the priest to come with the pyx.[2] He was a man of about
fifty years of age, very corpulent, with a rubicund face, and a type of
physiognomy as vulgar as it was repulsive.
"I approached the little window to receive the sacred wafer on my tongue,
with my eyes closed, as it is customary. I placed it upon my tongue; and,
as I drew back, I felt my cheeks caressed. I opened my eyes, but the priest
had withdrawn his hand, and, thinking I had been deceived, I gave it no
more attention.
"On the next occasion, forgetful of what had occurred before, I received
the sacrament with closed eyes again, according to precept. This time I
distinctly felt my chin caressed again; and on opening my eyes suddenly, I
found the priest gazing rudely upon me, with a sensual smile on his face.
"There could be no longer any doubt: these overtures were not the result of
accident.
"The daughter of Eve is endowed with a greater degree of curiosity than
man. It occured to me to place myself in a contiguous apartment, where I
could observe if this libertine priest was accustomed to take similar
liberties with the nuns. I did so, and was fully convinced that only the
old left him without being caressed!
"All the others allowed him to do with them as he pleased; and even, in
taking leave of him, did so with the utmost reverence.
"'Is this the respect,' said I to myself, 'that the priests and the spouses
of Christ have for the sacrament of the Eucharist? Shall the poor novice be
enticed to leave the world in order to learn, in this school, such lessons
of self-respect and chastity?'"
Page 163, we read, "The fanatical passion of the nuns for their confessors,
priests, and monks, exceeds belief. That which especially renders their
incarceration endurable is the illimitable opportunity they enjoy of seeing
and corresponding with those persons with whom they are in love. This
freedom localizes and identifies them with the convent so closely that they
are unhappy when, on account of any serious sickness, or while preparing to
take the veil, they are obliged to pass some months in the bosom of their
own families, in company with their fathers, mothers, brothers, and
sisters. It is not to be presumed that these relatives would permit a young
girl to pass many hours each day in a mysterious colloquy with a priest, or
a monk, and maintain with him this continual correspondence. This is a
liberty which they can enjoy in the convent only.
"Many are the hours which the Heloïse spends in the confessional, in
agreeable pastime with her Abelard in cassock.
"Others, whose confessors happen to be old, have in addition a spiritual
director, with whom they amuse themselves a long time every day,
_tête-à-tête_, in the parlatorio. When this is not enough, they simulate an
illness, in order to have him alone in their own rooms."
Page 166, we read:--"Another nun, being somewhat infirm, her priest
confessed her in her own room. After a time, the invalid penitent found
herself in what is called an interesting situation, on which account, the
physician declaring that her complaint was dropsy, she was sent away from
the convent."
Page 167:--"A young educanda was in the habit of going down every night to
the convent burial-place, where, by a corridor which communicated with the
vestry, she entered into a colloquy with a young priest attached to the
church. Consumed by an amorous impatience, she was not deterred from these
excursions either by bad weather or the fear of being discovered.
"She heard a great noise one night near her. In the thick darkness which
surrounded her, she imagined that she saw a viper winding itself around her
feet. She was so much overcome by fright that she died from the effects of
it a few months later."
Page 168:--"One of the confessors had a young penitent in the convent.
Every time he was called to visit a dying sister, and on that account
passed the night in the convent, this nun would climb over the partition
which separated her room from his, and betake herself to the master and
director of souls.
"Another, during the delirium of a typhoid fever, from which she was
suffering, was constantly imitating the action of sending kisses to her
confessor, who stood by the side of her bed. He, covered with blushes on
account of the presence of strangers, held a crucifix before the eyes of
the penitent, and in a commiserating tone exclaimed,--
"'Poor thing! kiss thy own spouse!'"
Page 168:--"Under the bonds of secrecy, an educanda, of fine form and
pleasing manners, and of a noble family, confided to me the fact of her
having received, from the hands of her confessor, a very interesting book
(as she described it), which related to the monastic life. I expressed the
wish to know the title, and she, before showing it to me, took the
precaution to lock the door.
"It proved to be the Monaca, by Dalembert, a book, as all know, filled with
the most disgusting obscenity."
Page 169:--"I received once from a monk, a letter in which he signified to
me that he had hardly seen me, when 'he conceived the sweet hope of
becoming my confessor.' An exquisite of the first water, a fop of scents
and euphuism, could not have employed phrases more melodramic, to demand
whether he might hope or despair."
Page 169:--"A priest who enjoyed the reputation of being an incorruptible
sacerdote, when he saw me pass through the parlatorio, used to address me
as follows:--
"'Ps, dear, come here! Ps, Ps, come here!'
"These words, addressed to me by a priest, were nauseous in the extreme.
"Finally, another priest, the most annoying of all for his obstinate
assiduity, sought to secure my affections at all cost. There was not an
image profane poetry could afford him, nor a sophism he could borrow from
rhetoric, nor wily interpretation he could give to the Word of God, which
he did not employ to convert me to his wishes. Here is an example of his
logic:--
"'Fair daughter,' said he to me one day, 'knowest thou who God truly is?'
"'He is the Creator of the Universe,' I answered drily.
"'No,--no,--no,--no! that is not enough,' he replied, laughing at my
ignorance. 'God is love, but love in the abstract, which receives its
incarnation in the mutual affection of two hearts which idolize each other.
You, then, must not only love God in His abstract existance, but must also
love Him in His incarnation, that is, in the exclusive love of a man who
adores you. _Quod Deus est amor, nec colitur, nisi amando._'
"'Then,' I replied, 'a woman who adores her own lover would adore Divinity
itself?'
"'Assuredly,' reiterated the priest over and over again, taking courage
from my remark, and chuckling at what seemed to him to be the effect of his
catechism.
"'In that case,' said I hastily, 'I should select for my lover rather a man
of the world than a priest.'
"'God preserve you, my daughter! God preserve you from that sin!' added my
interlocutor, apparently frightened. 'To love a man of the world, a sinner,
a wretch, an unbeliever, an infidel! Why, you would go immediately to hell.
The love of a priest is a sacred love, while that of a profane man is
infamy; the faith of a priest emanates from that granted to the holy
Church, while that of the profane is false,--false as the vanity of the
world. The priest purifies his affections daily in communion with the Holy
Spirit: the man of the world (if he ever knows love at all) sweeps the
muddy crossings of the street with it day and night.
"'But it is the heart, as well as the conscience, which prompts me to fly
from the priests,' I replied.
"'Well, if you cannot love me because I am your confessor, I will find
means to assist you to get rid of your scruples. We will place the name of
Jesus Christ before all our affectionate demonstration, and thus our love
will be a grateful offering to the Lord, and will ascend fragrant with
perfume to Heaven, like the smoke of the incense of the sanctuary. Say to
me, for example, "I love you in Jesus Christ; last night I dreamed of you
in Jesus Christ;" and you will have a tranquil conscience, because in doing
this you will sanctify every transport of your love.'
"Several circumstances not indicated here, by the way, compelled me to come
in frequent contact with this priest afterwards, and I do not therefore
give his name.
"Of a very respectable monk, respectable alike for his age and his moral
character, I inquired what signified the prefixing the name of Jesus Christ
to amorous apostrophes.
"'It is,' he said, 'an expression used by a horrible sect, and one
unfortunately only too numerous, which, thus abusing the name of our Lord,
permits to its members the most unbridled licentiousness.'"
And it is my sad duty to say, before the whole world, that I know that by
far the greater part of the confessors in America, Spain, France and
England, reason and act just like that licentious Italian priest.
Christian nations! if you could know what will become of the virtue of your
fair daughters if you allow secret or public slaves of Rome to restore the
auricular confession, with what a storm of holy indignation you would
defeat their plans!
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