THE HIGHLY EDUCATED AND REFINED WOMAN IN THE CONFESSIONAL.--WHAT BECOMES OF
HER AFTER HER UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.--HER IRREPARABLE RUIN.
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The most skilful warrior has never had to display so much skill and so many
_ruses de guerre_; he has never had to use more tremendous efforts to
reduce and storm an impregnable citadel, as the confessor who wants to
reduce and storm the citadel of self-respect and honesty which God Himself
has built around the soul and the heart of every daughter of Eve.
But, as it is through woman that the Pope wants to conquer the world, it is
supremely important that he should enslave and degrade her by keeping her
at his feet as his footstool, that she may become a passive instrument in
the accomplishment of his vast and profound scheme.
In order perfectly to master women in the higher circles of society, every
confessor is ordered by the Pope to learn the most complicated and perfect
strategy. He has to study a great number of treatises on the art of
persuading the fair sex to confess to him plainly, clearly, and in detail,
every thought, every secret desire, word, and deed, just as they occurred.
And that art is considered so important and so difficult that all the
theologians of Rome call it "the art of arts."
Dens, St. Liguori, Chevassu, the author of the "Mirror of the Clergy,"
Debreyne, and a multitude of authors too numerous to mention, have given
the curious and scientific rules of that secret art.
They all agree in declaring that it is a most difficult and dangerous art;
they all confess that the least error of judgment, the least imprudence or
temerity, when storming the impregnable citadel, is sure death (spiritual,
of course) to the confessor and the penitent.
The confessor is taught to make the first steps towards the citadel with
the utmost caution, in order that his female penitent may not suspect at
first what he wants her to reveal; for this would generally induce her to
shut for ever the door of the fortress against him. After the first steps
of advance, he is advised to make several steps back, and to put himself in
a kind of spiritual ambuscade, to see the effect of his first advance. If
there is any prospect of success, then the word "March on!" is given, and a
more advanced post of the citadel must be tried and stormed if possible. In
that way, little by little, the whole place is so well surrounded, so well
crippled, denuded, and dismantled, that any more resistance seems
impossible on the part of the rebellious soul.
Then the last charge is ordered, the final assault is given; and if God
does not perform a real miracle to save that soul, the last walls crumble,
the doors are beaten down! Then the confessor makes a triumphant entry into
the place; the very heart, soul, conscience, and intelligence, are
conquered.
When once master of the place, the priest visits all its most secret
recesses and corners; he pries into its most sacred chambers. The conquered
place is entirely, absolutely in his hands; he does what he pleases within
its precincts; he is the supreme master, for the surrender has been
unconditional. The confessor has become the _only_ infallible ruler in the
conquered place--nay, he has become its only God--for it is in the name of
God that he has besieged, stormed, and conquered it, it is in the name of
God that, hereafter, he will speak and be obeyed.
No human words can adequately give an idea of the irreparable ruin which
follows the successful storming and unconditional surrender of the once so
noble fortress. The longer the resistance has been, the more terrible and
complete is the destruction of its beauty and strength; the nobler the
struggle has been the more irretrievable are the ruin and loss. Just as the
higher and stronger the dam is built to stem the current of the rapid and
deep waters of the river, the more awful the disasters which follow its
destruction, so it is with that noble soul. A mighty dam has been built by
the very hand of God, called self-respect and womanly modesty, to guard her
against the pollutions of this sinful world; but the day that the priest of
Rome succeeds, after long efforts, in destroying it, the soul is carried by
an irresistible power into unfathomable abysses of iniquity. Then it is
that the once most respectable lady will consent to hear, without a blush,
things against which the most degraded woman would indignantly shut her
ears. Then it is that she freely speaks on matters for repeating which a
printer in England has lately been sent to jail.
At first, in spite of herself, but soon with a real sensual pleasure, that
fallen angel will think, when alone, on what she has heard and what she has
said in the confessional-box. In spite of herself, the vilest thoughts will
at first irresistibly fill her mind; and soon the thoughts will engender
temptations and sins. But those vile temptations and sins, which would have
filled her with horror and regret before her entire surrender into the
hands of the foe, beget very different sentiments now that she is no more
her own self-possessor and guide, under the eyes of God. The conviction of
her sins is no more connected with the thought of a God, infinitely holy
and just, whom she must serve and fear. The conviction of her sins is now
immediately connected with the thought of the man with whom she will have
to speak, and who will easily make everything right and pure in her soul by
his absolution.
When the day of going to confess comes, instead of being sad and uneasy and
bashful, as she used to be formerly, she feels pleased and delighted to
have a new opportunity of conversing on those matters, without impropriety
and sin to herself; for she is now fully persuaded that there is no
impropriety, no shame, no sin, nay, she believes, or tries to believe, that
it is a good, honest, Christian, and godly thing to converse with her
priest on those matters.
Her most happy hours are when she is at the feet of that spiritual
physician showing him all the newly made wounds of her soul; explaining all
her constant temptations, her bad thoughts, her most intimate secret
desires and sins.
Then it is that the most sacred mysteries of the married life are revealed;
then it is that the mysterious and precious pearls which God has given as a
crown of mercy to those whom He has made one body, one heart, one soul, by
the blessed ties of a christian union, are lavishly thrown before swine.
Whole hours are thus passed by the fair penitent in speaking to her Father
Confessor with the utmost freedom on matters which would rank her among the
most profligate and lost women, if it were only suspected by her friends
and relatives. A single word of those intimate conversations would be
followed by an act of divorce on the part of the husband, if it were known
by him.
But the betrayed husband knows nothing of the dark mysteries of auricular
confession; the duped father suspects nothing; a cloud from hell has
obscured the intelligence of both, and made them blind. It is just the
contrary: husbands and fathers, friends and relations, feel edified and
pleased with the touching spectacle of the piety of Madam and Miss ----. In
the village, as well as in the city, every one has a word to speak in their
praise. Mrs. ---- is so often seen humbly prostrated at the feet, or by the
side, of her confessor! Miss ---- remains so long in the confessional-box!
they receive the holy communion so frequently; they both speak so
eloquently and so often of the admirable piety, modesty, holiness,
patience, charity, of their incomparable spiritual Father!
Every one congratulates them on their new and exemplary life; and they
accept the compliment with the utmost humility, attributing their rapid
progress in Christian virtues to the holiness of their confessor. He is
such a spiritual man! who could not make rapid strides under such a holy
guide?
The more constant the temptations are, the more the secret sins overwhelm
the soul, and the more airs of peace and holiness are put on. The more foul
the secret emanations of the heart, the more the fair and refined penitent
surrounds herself by an atmosphere of the sweetest perfumes of a sham
piety. The more polluted the inside of the sepulchre is, the more shining
and white the outside will be kept.
Then it is that, unless God performs a miracle to prevent it, the ruin of
that soul is sealed. She has drunk in the poisonous cup filled by "the
mother of harlots," and she has found the wine of her prostitution sweet.
She will henceforth delight in her spiritual and secret orgies.
Her holy (?) confessor has told her that there is no impropriety, no shame,
no sin, in that cup. The Pope has sacrilegiously written the word "Life" on
that cup of "Death." She has believed the Pope: the terrible mystery of
iniquity is accomplished!
"The mystery of iniquity doth already work ... whose coming is after the
working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they
received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this
cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure
in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. ii. 7-12).
Yes: the day that the rich, well-educated lady gives up her self-respect,
and unconditionally surrenders the citadel of womanly modesty into the
hands of a man, whatever be his name or titles, that he may freely put to
her questions of the vilest character which she must answer, she is lost
and degraded, just as if she were the humblest and poorest servant-girl.
I purposely say "the rich and well-educated woman," for I know that there
is a prevalent opinion that the social position of her class places her
above the corrupting influences of the confessional, as if she were out of
reach of the common miseries of our poor fallen and sinful nature.
So long as the well-educated lady makes use of her accomplishments to
defend the citadel of her womanly self-respect against the foe--so long as
she sternly keeps the door of her heart shut against her deadly enemy--she
is safe. But let no one forget this: she is safe only so long as she does
_not_ surrender. When the enemy is once master of the place, I emphatically
repeat, the ruinous consequences are as great, if not greater, and more
irreparable than in the lowest classes of society. Throw a piece of
precious gold into the mud, and tell me if it will not plunge deeper than
the piece of rotten wood.
What woman could be nobler, purer, and stronger than Eve when she came from
the hands of her Divine Creator? But how quickly she fell when she gave ear
to the seducing voice of the tempter! How irreparable was her ruin when she
complacently looked on the forbidden fruit, and believed the lying voice
which told her there was "_no sin_" in eating of it!
I solemnly, in the presence of the great God who ere long will judge me,
give my testimony on this grave subject. After 25 years' experience in the
confessional, I declare that the confessor himself encounters more terrible
dangers when hearing the confessions of refined and highly-educated ladies,
than when listening to those of the humbler classes of his female
penitents.
I solemnly testify that the well-educated lady, when she has once
surrendered herself to the power of her confessor, becomes, as a general
rule, at least as vulnerable to the arrows of the enemy as the poorer and
less educated. Nay, I must say that, once on the down-hill road of
perdition, the high-bred lady runs headlong into the pit with a more
deplorable rapidity than her humbler sister.
All Canada is witness that a few years ago it was among the highest ranks
of society that the Grand Vicar Superior of one of the richest and most
influential colleges of Canada, was choosing his victims, when the public
cry of indignation and shame forced the Bishop to send him back to Europe,
where he soon after died. Was it not also among the higher classes of
society that a Superior of the Seminary of Quebec was destroying souls,
when he was detected, and forced, during a dark night, to fly and conceal
himself behind the walls of the Trappist Monastery of Iowa?
Many would be the folio volumes which I should have to write, were I to
publish all that my twenty-five years' experience in the confessional has
taught me of the unspeakable secret corruption of the _greatest_ part of
the so-called respectable ladies who have unconditionally surrendered
themselves into the hands of their holy (?) confessors. But the following
fact will suffice for those who have eyes to see, ears to hear, and an
intelligence to understand.
In one of the most beautiful and thriving towns along the St. Lawrence
River lived a rich merchant. He was young, and his marriage with a most
lovely, rich, and accomplished young lady had made him one of the happiest
men in the land.
A few years after his marriage, the Bishop appointed to that town a young
priest, really remarkable for his eloquence, zeal, and amiable qualities,
and the merchant and the priest soon became connected by links of the most
sincere friendship.
The young, accomplished wife of the merchant soon became the model woman of
the place, under the direction of her new confessor.
Many and long were the hours she used to pass by the side of her spiritual
Father, to be purified and enlightened by his godly advices. She soon was
seen at the head of the few who had the privilege of receiving the holy
communion once a week. The husband, who was a good Roman Catholic himself,
blessed God and the Virgin Mary that he had the privilege of living with
such an angel of piety.
Nobody had the least suspicion of what was going on under that holy and
white mantle of the most exalted piety. Nobody, except God and His angels,
could hear the questions put by the priest to his fair pentitent, and the
answers made during the long hours of their _tête-à-tête_, in the
confessional-box. Nobody but God could see the hellish fires which were
devouring the hearts of the confessor and his victim! For nearly one year,
both the young priest and his spiritual patient enjoyed, in those intimate
and private secret conversations, all the pleasures which lovers feel, when
they can speak freely to each other of their secret thoughts and love.
But this was not enough for them. They both wanted something more real,
though the difficulties were great and seemed even insurmountable. The
priest had his mother and sister with him, whose eyes were too sharp to
allow him to invite the lady to his own house for any criminal object, and
the young husband had no business at a distance which could keep him long
enough out of his happy home to allow the Pope's confessor to accomplish
his diabolical designs.
But when a poor fallen daughter of Eve has a mind to do a thing, she very
soon finds the means, particularly if high education has added to her
natural shrewdness.
And in this case, as in many others of a similar nature which have been
revealed to me, she soon found how to attain her object without
compromising herself or her holy (?) confessor. A plan was soon found, and
cordially agreed to, and both patiently awaited their opportunity.
"Why have you not gone to mass to-day and received the holy communion, my
dear?" said the husband: "I had ordered the servant-man to put the horse in
the buggy for you as usual."
"I am not very well, my beloved; I have passed a sleepless night from
head-ache."
"I will send for the physician," replied the husband.
"Yes, my dear; do send for the physician--perhaps he will do me good."
One hour after, the physician called. He found his fair patient a little
feverish, pronounced that there was nothing serious, and that she would
soon be well. He gave her a little powder, to be taken three times a day,
and left; but at nine p.m., she complained of a great pain in the chest,
and soon fainted and fell on the floor.
The doctor was again immediately sent for, but he was from home: it took
nearly half an hour before he could come. When he arrived the alarming
crisis was over--she was sitting in an arm-chair, with some neighbouring
women, who were applying cold water and vinegar to her forehead.
The physician was really at a loss what to say of the cause of such a
sudden illness. At last he said that it might be an attack of the "ver
solitaire" (tape-worm). He declared that it was not dangerous; that he knew
how to cure her. He ordered some new powder to be taken, and left, after
having promised to return the next day. Half an hour after she began to
complain of a most terrible pain in her chest, and fainted again; but
before doing so she said to her husband,--
"My dear, you see that the physician understands absolutely nothing of the
nature of my disease. I have not the least confidence in him, for I feel
that his powders make me worse. I do not want to see him any more. I suffer
more than you suspect, my beloved; and if there is not soon a change I may
be dead tomorrow. The only physician I want is our holy confessor; please
make haste to go and get him. I want to make a general confession, and to
receive the holy viaticum (communion) and extreme unction before I grow
worse."
Beside himself with anxiety, the distracted husband ordered the horse to be
put in the buggy, and made his servant accompany him on horseback, to ring
the bell, while his pastor carried "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) to his
dear sick wife.
He found the priest piously reading his _breviarium_ (his book of daily
prayers); and admired the charity and promptitude with which his good
pastor, in that dark and chilly night, was ready to leave his warm and
comfortable parsonage at the first appeal of the sick. In less than an hour
the husband had taken the priest with "the good god" from the church to the
bedroom of his wife.
All along the way the servant-man had rung a big hand-bell to awaken the
sleeping farmers, who, at the noise, had to jump, half naked out of their
beds and worship, on their knees, with their faces prostrate in the dust,
"the good god" which was being carried to the sick.
On his arrival, the confessor, with every appearance of sincere piety,
deposited "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) on a table, richly prepared for
such a solemn occasion, and, approaching the bed, leaned his head towards
his penitent, and inquired how she felt.
She answered him, "I am very sick, and want to make a general confession
before I die."
Speaking to her husband, she said with a fainting voice, "Please, my dear,
tell my friends to withdraw from the room, that I may not be distracted
when making what may be my last confession."
The husband respectfully requested the friends to leave the room with him,
and shut the door, that the holy confessor might be _alone_ with his
penitent during her general confession.
One of the most diabolical schemes under the cover of auricular confession
had perfectly succeeded. The mother of harlots, that great enchantress of
souls, whose seat is on the city of the "seven hills," had, there, her
priest to bring shame, disgrace, and damnation, under the mask of
Christianity.
The destroyer of souls, whose masterpiece is auricular confession, had
there, for the millionth time, a fresh opportunity of insulting the God of
purity, through one of the most criminal actions which the dark shades of
night can conceal.
But let us draw the veil over the abominations of that hour of iniquity,
and let us leave to hell its dark secrets.
After he had accomplished the ruin of his victim, and most cruelly and
sacrilegiously abused the confidence of his friend, the young priest opened
the door of the room and said, with a sanctimonious air, "You may enter to
pray with me, while I give the last sacrament to our dear sick sister."
They came in; "the good god" (_Le Bon Dieu_) was given to the woman; and
the husband, full of gratitude for the considerate attention of his priest,
took him back to his parsonage, and thanked him most sincerely for having
so kindly come to visit his wife in so chilly a night.
Ten years later, I was called to preach a retreat (a kind of revival) in
that same parish. That lady, then an absolute stranger to me, came to my
confessional-box and confessed to me those details as I now give them. She
seemed to be really penitent, and I gave her absolution and the entire
pardon of her sins, as my Church told me to do. On the last day of the
revival, the merchant invited me to a grand dinner. Then it was that I came
to know who my penitent had been. I must not forget to mention that she had
confessed to me that, of her four children, the last three belonged to her
confessor! He had lost his mother, and, his sister having married, his
parsonage had become more accessible to his fair penitents, many of whom
had availed themselves of that opportunity to practise the lessons they had
learned in the confessional. The priest had been removed to a higher
position, where he, more than ever, enjoyed the confidence of his
superiors, the respect of the people, and the love of his female penitents.
I never felt so embarrassed in my life as when at the table of that
cruelly-victimised man. We had hardly begun to take our dinner when he
asked me if I had known their late pastor, the amiable Rev. Mr. ----
I answered, "Yes, sir, I know him."
"Is he not a most accomplished priest?"
"Yes, sir, he is a most accomplished man," I answered.
"Why is it," rejoined the good merchant, "that the Bishop has taken him
away from us? He was doing so well here! He had so deservedly earned the
confidence of all by his piety and gentlemanly manners that we made every
effort to keep him with us. I drew up a petition myself, which all the
people signed, to induce the Bishop to let him remain in our midst; but in
vain. His lordship answered us that he wanted him for a more important
place on account of his rare ability, and we had to submit. His zeal and
devotedness knew no bounds. In the darkest and most stormy nights he was
always ready to come to the first call of the sick. I shall never forget
how quickly and cheerfully he responded to my appeal when, a few years ago,
I went, in the midst of one of our most chilly nights, to request him to
visit my wife, who was very sick."
At this stage of the conversation, I must confess that I nearly laughed
outright. The gratitude of that poor dupe of the confessional to the priest
who had come to bring shame and destruction to his house, and the idea of
that very man going himself to convey to his home the corrupter of his own
wife, seemed to me so ludicrous that, for a moment, I had to make a
superhuman effort to control myself.
But I was soon brought to my better senses by the shame which I felt at the
idea of the unspeakable degradation and secret infamy of the clergy of
which I was a member. At that instant hundreds of cases of similar, if not
greater, depravity, which had been revealed to me through the confessional,
came to my mind and distressed and disgusted me so much that my tongue was
almost paralyzed.
After dinner the merchant asked his lady to call the children, that I might
see them, and I could not but admire their beauty; but I do not need to say
that the pleasure of seeing those dear and lovely little ones was much
marred by the secret though sure knowledge I had that the three youngest
were the fruits of the unspeakable depravity of auricular confession in the
higher ranks of society.
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