AURICULAR CONFESSION DESTROYS ALL THE SACRED TIES OF MARRIAGE AND HUMAN
SOCIETY.
* * * * *
Would the banker allow his priest to open, when alone, the safe of his
bank, manipulate and examine his papers, and pry into the most secret
details of his banking business?
No! surely not.
How is it, then, that the same banker allows that priest to open the heart
of his wife, manipulate her soul, and pry into the sacred chambers of her
most intimate and secret thoughts?
Are not the heart, the soul, the purity, and the self-respect of his wife
as great and precious treasures as the safe of his bank? Are not the risks
and dangers of temptations, imprudences, indiscretions, much greater and
more irreparable in the second than in the first case?
Would the jeweller, or goldsmith, allow his priest to come when he pleases,
and handle the rich articles of his stores, ransack the desk where his
money is deposited, and play with it as he pleases?
No! surely not.
But are not the heart, the soul, and the purity of his dear wife and
daughter a thousandfold more valuable than his precious stones, or silver
and gold wares? Are not the dangers of temptation and indiscretions, on the
part of the priest, more formidable and irresistible in the second than in
the first of these cases?
Would the livery-man allow his priest to take his most valuable and
unmanageable horses as he wishes, and drive alone, without any other
consideration and security than the discretion of his pastor?
No! surely not.
That livery-man knows that he would soon be ruined if he should do so.
Whatever may be his confidence in the discretion, honesty, and prudence of
his priest, he will never push his confidence so far as to give him the
unreserved control of the noble and fiery animals which are the glory of
his stables and the support of his family.
How, then, can the same man trust the entire, absolute management of his
wife and dear daughters to the control of that one to whom he would not
entrust his horses?
Are not his wife and daughters as precious to him as those horses? Is there
not greater danger of indiscretions, mismanagement, irreparable and fatal
errors on the part of the priest, dealing alone with the wife and
daughters, than when driving the horses? No human act of folly, moral
depravity, and want of common sense, can equal the permission given by a
man to his wife to go and confess to the priest.
That day he abdicates the royal--I had almost said divine--dignity of
husband; for it is from God that he holds it: his crown is forever lost,
his sceptre broken!
What would you do to any one mean enough to peep or listen through the
key-hole of your door, in order to hear or see everything that was said or
done within? Would you show so little self-respect as to tolerate such
indiscretion? Would you not rather take a whip or a cane, and drive away
the villain? Would you not even expose your life to free yourself from
impudent curiosity?
But what is the confessional, if not the key-hole of your house and of your
very chamber, through which the priest can hear and see your most secret
words and actions, nay, more, know your most intimate thoughts and
aspirations?
Are you men to submit to such sly and insulting inquisition? Do you deserve
the name of men who consent to put up with such ignoble affront and
humiliation?
"The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the Head of the
Church." "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives
be to their own husbands, in everything" (Eph. v.) If these solemn words
are the true oracles of divine wisdom, is not the husband divinely
appointed the _only_ adviser, counsellor, help of his wife, just as Christ
is the _only_ adviser, counsellor, and help of His Church?
If the Apostle was not an impostor when he said that the wife is to her
husband what the body is to the head, and that the husband is to his wife
what the head is to the body--is not the husband appointed by God to be the
light, the guide of his wife? Is it not his duty, as well as his privilege
and glory, to console her in her afflictions, strengthen her in her hours
of weakness, keep her up when she is in danger of fainting, and encourage
her when she is on the rough and uphill ways of life?
If Christ has not come to deceive the world through His Apostle, must not
the wife go to her husband for advice? Ought she not to expect from him,
and him alone, after God, the light she wants and the consolation she is in
need of? Is it not to her husband, and to him alone, after God, she ought
to look in her days of trial for help? Is it not under his leadership alone
she must fight the battle of life and conquer? Are not this mutual and
daily sharing of the anxieties of life, this constant shouldering on the
battle-field, and this reciprocal and mutual protection and help renewed at
every hour of the day, which form, under the eyes and by the mercy of God,
the holiest and the purest charms of the married life? Is it not that
unreserved confidence in each other which binds together those golden links
of Christian love that make them happy in the very midst of the trials of
life? Is it not through this mutual confidence alone that they are _one_ as
God wants them to be _one_? Is it not in this unity of thoughts, fears and
hopes, joys and love, which come from God, that they can cheerfully cross
the thorny valley, and safely reach the Promised Land?
The Gospel says that the husband is to his wife what Christ is to His
Church! Is it not, then, a most sacrilegious iniquity for a wife to look to
another rather than to her own husband for such advice, wisdom, strength,
and life, as he is entitled, qualified, and ready to afford? As no other
has the right to her love, so no other man has any right to her absolute
confidence. As she becomes an adulteress the day that she gives her body to
another man, is she any the less an adulteress, the day that she gives her
confidence and trusts her soul to a stranger? The adultery of the heart and
soul is not less criminal than the adultery of the body; and every time the
wife goes to the feet of the priest to confess, does she not become guilty
of that iniquity?
In the Church of Rome, through the confessional, the priest is much more
the husband of the wife than the man to whom she was wedded at the foot of
the altar. The priest has the best part of the wife. He has the marrow,
when the husband has the bones. He has the juice of the orange, the husband
has the rind. He has the soul and the heart; the husband has the skeleton.
He has the honey; the husband has the wax cell. He has the succulent
oyster; the husband has the dry shell. As much as the soul is higher than
the body, so much are the power and privileges of the priest higher than
the power and privileges of the husband in the mind of the penitent wife.
As the husband is the lord of the body which he feeds, so the priest is the
lord of the soul, which he also feeds. The wife, then, has two lords and
masters, whom she must love, respect, and obey. Will she not give the best
part of her love, respect, and submission to the one who is as much above
the other as the heavens are above the earth? But as one cannot serve two
masters together, will not the master who prepares and fits her for an
eternal life of glory, certainly be the object of her constant, real, and
most ardent love, gratitude, and respect, when the worldly and sinful man
to whom she is married will have _only_ the appearance or the crumbs of
those sentiments? Will she not, naturally, instinctively serve, love,
respect, and obey, as lord and master, the godly man whose yoke is so
light, so holy, so divine, rather than the carnal man whose human
imperfections are to her a source of daily trial and suffering?
In the Church of Rome the thoughts and desires, the secret joys and fears
of the soul, the very life of the wife, are sealed things to the husband.
He has no right to look into the sanctuary of her heart; he has no remedy
to apply to the soul; he has no mission from God to advise her in the dark
hours of her anxieties; he has no balm to apply to the bleeding wounds, so
often received in the daily battles of life; he must remain a perfect
stranger in his own house.
The wife, expecting nothing from her husband, has no revelation to make to
him, no favour to ask, no debt of gratitude to pay. Nay, she shuts all the
avenues of her soul, all the doors and windows of her heart, against her
husband. The priest, and the priest alone, has a right to her entire
confidence; to him, and him alone, she will go and reveal all her secrets,
show all her wounds; to him, and him alone, she will turn her mind, her
heart and soul, in the hour of trouble and anxiety; from him, and him
alone, she will ask and expect the light and consolation she wants. Every
day, more and more, her husband will become as a stranger to her, if he
does not become a real nuisance, and an obstacle to her happiness and
peace.
Yes, through the confessional, an unfathomable abyss has been dug, by the
Church of Rome, between the heart of the wife and the heart of the husband!
Their bodies may be very near each other, but their souls, their real
affections and their confidence, are at greater distance than the north is
from the south pole of the earth. The confessor is the master, the ruler,
the king of the soul; the husband, as the grave-yard keeper, must be
satisfied with the carcase!
The husband has the permission to look on the outside of the palace; he is
allowed to rest his head on the cold marble, of the outdoor steps; but the
confessor triumphantly walks into the mysterious starry rooms, examines at
leisure their numberless and unspeakable wonders; and, alone, he is allowed
to rest his head on the soft pillows of the unbounded confidence, respect,
and love of the wife.
In the Church of Rome, if the husband asks a favour from his wife, nine
times in ten she will inquire from her father confessor whether or not she
can grant him his request, and the poor husband will have to wait patiently
for the permission of the master or the rebuke of the lord, according to
the answer of the oracle which had to be consulted! If he gets impatient
under the yoke, and murmurs, the wife will soon go to the feet of her
confessor; to tell him how she has the misfortune to be united to a most
unreasonable man, and how she has to suffer from him! She reveals to her
"dear father" how she is unhappy under such a yoke, and how her life would
be an unsupportable burden, had she not the privilege and happiness of
coming often to his feet, to lay down her sorrows, hear his sympathetic
words, and get his so affectionate and paternal advice! She tells him, with
tears of gratitude, that it is only when by his side, and at his feet, she
finds rest to her weary soul, balm to her bleeding heart, and peace to her
troubled conscience.
When she comes from the confessional, her ears are long filled as with a
heavenly music, the honeyed words of her confessor ring for many days in
her heart, she feels it lonesome to be separated from him, his image is
constantly before her mind, and the _souvenir_ of his amiabilities is one
of her most pleasant thoughts. There is nothing which she likes so much as
to speak of his good qualities, his patience, his piety, his charity, she
longs for the day when she will again go to confess, and pass a few hours
by the side of that angelic man, in opening to him all the secrets of her
heart, and in revealing all her _ennuis_. She tells him how she regrets
that she cannot come oftener to see him, and receive the benefit of his
charitable counsels; she does not even conceal from him how often, in her
dreams, she feels too happy to be with him! More and more, every day, the
gap between her and her husband widens; more and more, each day, she
regrets that she has not the happiness to be the wife of such a holy man as
her confessor! Oh! if it were possible...! But, then, she blushes or
smiles, and sings a song.
Then again, I ask it, Who is the true lord, ruler, and master in that
house? For whom does that heart beat and live?
Thus it is that that stupendous imposture, the dogma of auricular
confession, does completely destroy all the links, the joys, the
responsibilities, and divine privileges of the married life, and transforms
it into a life of perpetual, though disguised, adultery. It becomes utterly
impossible, in the church of Rome, that the husband should be _one_ with
his wife, and that the wife should be _one_ with her husband: a "monstrous
being" has been put between them both, called the confessor! Born in the
darkest ages of the world, that being has received from hell his mission to
destroy and contaminate the purest joys of the married life, to enslave the
wife, to outrage the husband, and to damn the world!
The more auricular confession is practised, the more the laws of public and
private morality are trampled under feet. The husband wants his wife to be
_his_--he does not, and could not, consent to share his authority over her
with anybody: he wants to be the _only_ man who will have her confidence
and her heart, as well as her respect and love. And so, the very moment
that he anticipates the dark shadow of the confessor coming between him and
the woman of his choice, he prefers silently to shrink from entering into
the sacred bond; the holy joys of home and family lose their divine
attractions; he prefers the cold life of an ignominious celibacy to the
humiliation and opprobrium of the questionable privileges of an uncertain
paternity.
France, Spain, and many other Roman Catholic countries, thus witness the
multitude of those bachelors increasing every year. The number of families
and births, in consequence, is fast decreasing in their midst; and, if God
does not perform a miracle to stop those nations on their downward course,
it is easy to calculate the day when they will owe their existence to the
tolerance and pity of the mighty Protestant nations by which they are
surrounded.
Why is it that the Irish Roman Catholic people are so irremediably degraded
and clothed in rags? Why is it that that people, whom God has endowed with
so many noble qualities, seem to be so deprived of intelligence and
self-respect that they glory in their own shame? Why is it that their land
has been for centuries the land of bloody riots and cowardly murders? The
principal cause is the enslaving of the Irish women, by means of the
confessional. Every one knows that the spiritual slavery and degradation of
the Irish woman has no bounds. After she has been enslaved and degraded,
she, in turn, has enslaved and degraded her husband and her sons. Ireland
will be an object of pity; she will be poor, miserable, riotous,
blood-thirsty, degraded, so long as she rejects Christ, to be ruled by the
father confessor planted in every parish by the Pope.
Who has not been amazed and saddened by the downfall of France? How is it
that her once so mighty armies have melted away, that her brave sons have
so easily been conquered and disarmed? How is it that France, fallen
powerless at the feet of her enemies, has frightened the world by the
spectacle of the incredible, bloody, and savage follies of the Commune? Do
not look for the causes of the downfall, humiliation, and untold miseries
of France anywhere else than in the confessional. For centuries has not
that great country obstinately rejected Christ? Has she not slaughtered or
sent into exile her noblest children, who wanted to follow the Gospel? Has
she not given her fair daughters into the hands of the confessors, who have
defiled and degraded them? How could women, in France, teach her husbands
and sons to love liberty, and die for it, when she was herself a miserable,
an abject slave? How could she form her husbands and sons to the manly
virtues of heroes, when her own mind was defiled and her heart corrupted?
The French woman had unconditionally surrendered the noble and fair citadel
of her heart, intelligence, and womanly self-respect, into the hands of her
confessor long before her sons surrendered their sword to the Germans at
Sedan and Paris. The first unconditional surrender had brought the second.
The complete moral destruction of woman by the confessor in France has been
a long work. It has required centuries to bow down, break, and enslave the
noble daughters of France. Yes; but those who know France know that that
destruction is now as complete as it is deplorable. The downfall of woman
in France, and her supreme degradation through the confessional, is now _un
fait accompli_, which nobody can deny; the highest intellects have seen and
confessed it. One of the most profound thinkers of that unfortunate
country, Michelet, has depicted that supreme and irretrievable degradation
in a most eloquent book, "The Priest, The Woman, The Family;" and not a
voice has been raised to deny or refute what he has said. Those who have
any knowledge of history and philosophy know very well that the moral
degradation of the woman is soon followed, everywhere, by the moral
degradation of the nation; and the moral degradation of the nation is very
soon followed by ruin and overthrow.
That French nation had been formed by God to be a race of giants. They were
chivalrous and brave; they had bright intelligences, stout hearts, strong
arms, and a mighty sword. But as the hardest granite rock yields and breaks
under the drop of water which incessantly falls upon it, so that great
nation had to break and to fall into pieces under, not the drop, but the
rivers of impure waters which for centuries have incessantly flowed in upon
it from the pestilential fountain of the confessional. "Righteousness
exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach, to any people." (Proverbs xiv.)
Why is it that Spain is so miserable, so weak, so poor, so foolishly and
cruelly tearing her own bosom, and reddening her fair valleys with the
blood of her own children? The principal, if not the only, cause of the
downfall of that great nation is the confessional. There, also, the
confessor has defiled, degraded, enslaved women, and women in turn have
defiled and degraded their husbands and sons. Women have sown broadcast
over their country the seeds of that slavery, of that want of Christian
honesty, justice, and self-respect with which they had themselves been
first imbued in the confessional.
But when you see, without a single exception, the nations whose women drink
the impure and poisonous waters which flow from the confessional sinking
down so rapidly, do you not wonder how fast the neighbouring nations, who
have destroyed those dens of impurity, prostitution, and abject slavery,
are rising up? What a marvellous contrast is before our eyes! On one side,
the nations who allow the woman to be degraded and enslaved at the feet of
the confessor--France, Spain, Romish Ireland, Mexico, &c., &c.--are, there,
fallen into the dust, bleeding, struggling, powerless, like the sparrow
whose entrails are devoured by the vulture. On the other side, see how the
nations whose women go to wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb are
soaring up, as on eagle wings, in the highest regions of progress, peace,
and liberty!
If legislators could once understand the respect and protection they owe to
woman, they would soon, by stringent laws, prohibit auricular confession as
contrary to good morals and the welfare of society; for, though the
advocates of auricular confession have succeeded to a certain extent in
blinding the public, and in concealing the abominations of the system under
a lying mantle of holiness and religion, it is nothing else than a school
of immorality.
I say more than that. After twenty-five years of hearing the confessions of
the common people and of the highest classes of society, of the laymen and
the priests, of the grand vicars and bishops and the nuns, I
conscientiously say before the world that the immorality of the
confessional is of a more dangerous and degrading nature than that which we
attribute to the social evil of our great cities. The injury caused to the
intelligence and to the soul in the confessional, as a general rule, is of
a more dangerous nature and more irremediable, because it is neither
suspected nor understood by its victims.
The unfortunate woman who lives an immoral life knows her profound misery;
she often blushes and weeps over her degradation; she hears from every side
voices which call her out of those ways of perdition. Almost at every hour
of day and night the cry of her conscience warns her against the desolation
and suffering of an eternity passed far away from the regions of holiness,
light, and life. All those things are often so many means of grace, in the
hands of our merciful God, to awaken the mind and to save the guilty soul.
But in the confessional the poison is administered under the name of a pure
and refreshing water; the deadly wound is inflicted by a sword so well
oiled that the blow is not felt; the vilest and most impure notions and
thoughts, in the form of questions and answers, are presented and accepted
as the bread of life! All the notions of modesty, purity, and womanly
self-respect and delicacy, are set aside and forgotten to propitiate the
god of Rome. In the confessional the woman is told, and she believes, that
there is no sin for her in hearing things which would make the vilest
blush--no sin to say things which would make the most desperate villain of
the streets of London to stagger--no sin to converse with her confessor on
matters so filthy that if attempted in civil life would for ever exclude
the perpetrator from the society of the virtuous.
Yes, the soul and the intelligence defiled and destroyed in the
confessional are often hopelessly defiled and destroyed. They are sinking
into a complete, an irretrievable perdition; for, not knowing the guilt,
they will not cry for mercy--not suspecting the fatal disease that is being
fostered, they will not call for the true Physician. It was evidently when
thinking of the unspeakable ruin of the souls of men through the wickedness
culminating in the "Pope's confessors," that the Son of God said:--"If the
blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." To every woman, with
very few exceptions, coming out from the feet of her confessor, the
children of light may say:--"I know thy works, that thou hast a name that
thou livest, but thou art dead!" (Revelations iii.)
Nobody has yet been, nor ever will be, able to answer the few following
lines, which I addressed some years ago to the Rev. Mr. Bruyère, Roman
Catholic Vicar-General of London, Canada:--
"With a blush on my face and regret in my heart, I confess, before God and
man, that I have been like you, and with you, through the confessional,
plunged twenty-five years in that bottomless sea of iniquity, in which the
blind priests of Rome have to swim day and night.
"I had to learn by heart, like you, the infamous questions which the Church
of Rome forces every priest to learn. I had to put those impure, immoral
questions to old and young females who were confessing their sins to me.
These questions--you know it--are of such a nature that no prostitute would
dare to put them to another. Those questions, and the answers they elicit,
are so debasing that no man in London--you know it--except a priest of
Rome, is sufficiently lost to every sense of shame as to put them to any
woman.
"Yes, I was bound, in conscience, as you are bound to-day, to put into the
ears, the mind, the imagination, the memory, the heart and soul of females,
questions of such a nature, the direct and immediate tendency of which--you
know it well--is to fill the minds and the hearts of both priests and
female penitents with thoughts, phantoms, and temptations of such a
degrading nature, that I do not know any words adequate to express them.
Pagan antiquity has never seen any institution so polluting as the
confessional. I know nothing more corrupting than the law which forces a
female to tell all her thoughts, desires, and most secret feelings and
actions to an unmarried priest. The confessional is a school of perdition.
You may deny that before the Protestants; but you cannot deny it before me.
My dear Mr. Bruyère, if you call me a degraded man because I have lived
twenty-five years in the atmosphere of the confessional, you are right. I
was a degraded man, just as yourself and all the priests are to-day, in
spite of your denegations. If you call me a degraded man, because my soul,
my mind and my heart were, as your own are to-day, plunged into the deep
waters of iniquity which flow from the confessional, I confess 'Guilty!' I
was degraded and polluted by the confessional just as you and all the
priests of Rome are.
"It has required the whole blood of the great Victim, who died on Calvary
for sinners, to purify me; and I pray that, through the same blood, you may
be purified also."
If the legislators knew the respect and protection they owe to women--I
repeat it--they would by the most stringent laws prohibit auricular
confession as a crime against society.
Not long ago, a printer in England was sent to jail and severely punished
for having published in English the questions put by the priests to the
women in the confessional; and the sentence was equitable, for all who will
read those questions will conclude that no girl or woman who brings her
mind into contact with the contents of that book can escape from moral
death. But what are the priests of Rome doing in the confessional? Do they
not pass the greatest part of their time in questioning females, old and
young, and hearing their answers, on those very matters? If it were a
crime, punishable by law, to present those questions in a book, is it not a
crime far more punishable by law to present those very things to married
and unmarried women through the auricular confession?
I ask it from every man of common sense, What is the difference between a
woman or a girl learning those things in a book, or learning them from the
lips of a man? Will not those impure, demoralizing suggestions sink more
deeply into their minds, and impress themselves more forcibly in their
memory, when told to them by a man of authority, speaking in the name of
Almighty God, than when read in a book which has no authority?
I say to the legislators of Europe and America: "Read for yourselves those
horrible, unmentionable things;" and remember that the Pope has 100,000
priests whose principal work is to put those very things into the
intelligence and memory of the women whom they entrap into their snares.
Let us suppose that each priest hears the confessions of only five female
penitents (though we know that the daily average is ten). It gives us the
awful number of 500,000 women whom the priests of Rome have the legal right
to pollute and destroy every day!
Legislators of the so-called Christian and civilized nations, I ask it
again from you, Where is your consistency, your justice, your love of
public morality, when you punish so severely the man who has printed the
questions put to the women in the confessional, while you honour and let
free, and often pay the men whose public and private life is spent in
spreading the very same moral poison in a much more efficacious, scandalous
and shameful way, under the sacrilegious mask of religion?
The confessional is in the hands of the devil what West Point is to the
United States, and Woolwich is to Great Britain, a training of the army to
fight and conquer the enemy. It is in the confessional that 500,000 women
every day, and 182,500,000 every year are trained by the Pope in the art of
fighting against God, by destroying themselves and the whole world, through
every imaginable kind of impurity and filthiness.
Once more, I request the legislators, the husbands, and the fathers in
Europe, as well as in America, to read in Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, in every
theological book of Rome, what their wives and their daughters have to
learn in the confessional.
In order to screen themselves, the priests of Rome have recourse to the
following miserable subterfuge:--"Is not the physician forced," they say,
"to perform certain delicate operations on women? Do you complain of this?
No; you let the physicians alone; you do not abuse them in their arduous
and conscientious duties. Why, then, do you insult the physician of the
soul, the confessor, in the accomplishment of his holy, though delicate,
duties?
I answer, first, The art and science of the physician are approved and
praised in many places of the Scriptures. But the art and science of the
confessor are nowhere to be found in the holy records. Auricular confession
is nothing else than a most stupendous imposture. The filthy and impure
questions of the confessor, with the polluting answers they elicit, were
put among the most diabolical and forbidden actions by God Himself the day
that the Spirit of Truth, Holiness, and Life wrote the imperishable
words,--"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth" (Eph. iv.
29).
Secondly, The physician is not bound by a solemn oath to remain ignorant of
the things which it will be his duty to examine and cure. But the priest of
Rome is bound, by the most ridiculous and impious oath of celibacy, to
remain ignorant of the very things which are the daily objects of his
inquiries, observations, and thoughts! The priest of Rome has sworn never
to taste of the fruits with which he feeds, his imagination, his memory,
his heart, and his soul day and night! The physician is honest in the
performance of his duties; but the priest of Rome becomes in fact a
perjured man every time he enters the confessional-box.
Thirdly, If a lady has a little sore on her small finger, and is obliged to
go to the physician, for a remedy, she has only to show her little finger,
allow the plaister or ointment to be applied, and all is finished. The
physician _never_--no, never--says to that lady, "It is my duty to suspect
that you have many other parts of your body which are sick; I am bound in
conscience, under pain of death, to examine you from head to foot, in order
to save your precious life from those _secret_ diseases, which may kill you
if they are not cured just now. Several of those diseases are of such a
nature that you never dared perhaps to examine them with the attention they
deserve, and you are hardly conscious of them. I know, madam, that this is
a very painful and delicate thing for both you and me, that I should be
forced to make that thorough examination of your person, but there is no
help; I am in duty bound to do it. But you have nothing to fear. I am a
holy man, who has made a vow of celibacy. We are alone; neither your
husband nor your father will ever know the secret infirmities I will find
in you; they will never even suspect the perfect investigation I will make,
and they will, for ever, be ignorant of the remedy I will apply."
Has any physician ever been authorized to speak or act in this way with any
of his female patients? No; never! never!
But this is just the way the spiritual physician, with whom the devil
enslaves and corrupts women, acts. When the fair, honest, and timid
spiritual patient has come to her confessor, to show him the little sore
she has on the small finger of her soul, the confessor _is bound_ in
conscience to suspect that she has other sores,--secret, shameful sores!
Yes, he is bound, nine times in ten; and he is _always allowed_ to suppose
that she does not dare to reveal them! Then he is advised by the Church to
induce her to let him search every corner of the heart, and of the soul,
and to inquire about every kind of contaminations, impurities, secret and
shameful unspeakable matters! The young priest is drilled in the diabolical
art of going into the most sacred recesses of the soul and the heart,
almost in spite of his penitents. I could bring hundreds of theologians as
witnesses to what I say.--But it is enough just now to cite three.
"Lest the Confessor should indolently hesitate in tracing out the
circumstances of any sin, let him have the following versicle of
circumstances in readiness:
"Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando. Who, which, where,
with whom, why, how, when." (Dens, vol. 6, p. 123. Liguori, vol. 2, p.
464.)
The celebrated book of the Priests, "The Mirror of the Clergy," page 357,
says:
"Oportet ut Confessor solet cognoscere quid quid debet judicare. Deligens
igitur inquisitor et subtilis investigator sapienter quasi astute
interrogat a peccatore quod ignorat, vel verecundia volit occultare."
"It is necessary that the Confessor should know everything on which he has
to exercise his judgment. Let him then, with wisdom and subtility,
interrogate the sinners on the sins which he may ignore, or conceal through
shame!"
The poor, unprotected girl is thus thrown into the power of the priest,
soul and body, to be examined on all the sins she may ignore, or which,
through shame, she may conceal! On what boundless sea of depravity the poor
fragile bark is launched by the priest! On what bottomless abysses of
impurities she will have to pass and travel, in company with the priest
alone, before he will have interrogated her on all the sins she may ignore,
and which she may have concealed through shame!! Who can tell the
sentiments of surprise and shame and distress, of a timid, honest young
girl, when, for the first time, she is initiated to infamies which are
ignored even in houses of prostitution!!!
But such is the practice, the sacred duty of the spiritual physician. "Let
him (the priest confessor) with wisdom and subtlety interrogate the sinner
on the sins he may ignore or conceal with shame."
And there are 100,000 men, not only allowed, but petted, and often paid by
the governments to do that, under the name of the God of the Gospel!
Fourthly, I answer to the sophism of the priest, When the physician has any
delicate and dangerous operation to perform on a female patient, he is
_never_ alone; the husband, or the father, the mother, the sister, or some
friends of the patient are there, whose scrutinizing eyes and attentive
ears make it _impossible_ for the physician to say or do any improper
thing.
But, when the poor deluded spiritual patient comes to be treated by her
so-called spiritual physician, and shows him her diseases, is she not
alone--shamefully alone--with him? Where are the protecting ears of the
husband, the father, the mother, the sisters, or the friends? Where is the
barrier interposed between this sinful, weak, tempted, and often depraved
man and his victim?
Would the priest so freely ask _this_ and _that_ from that married woman,
if he knew that the husband could hear him? No, surely not; for he is well
aware that the enraged husband would blow out the brains of the villain
who, under the sacrilegious pretext of purifying the soul of his wife, is
filling her honest heart with every kind of pollution and infamy.
Fifthly, When the physician performs a delicate operation on one of his
female patients, the operation is usually accompanied with pain, cries, and
often with bloodshed. The sympathetic and honest physician suffers almost
as much pain as his patient; those cries, acute pains, tortures, and
bleeding wounds make it morally impossible that the physician should be
tempted to any improper thing.
But the sight of the spiritual wounds of that fair penitent! Is the poor
depraved human heart really sorry to see and examine them? Oh, no! it is
just the contrary!
The dear Saviour weeps over those wounds; the angels are distressed at the
sight. Yes. But the deceitful and corrupt heart of man, is it not rather
apt to be pleased at the sight of wounds which are so much like the ones he
has himself, so often been pleased to receive from the hand of the enemy?
Was the heart of David pained and horror-struck at the sight of the fair
Bath-sheba, when imprudently and too freely exposed in her bath? Was not
that holy prophet smitten and brought down to the dust by that guilty look?
Was not the mighty giant, Samson, undone by the charms of Delilah? Was not
the wise Solomon ensnared and befooled in the midst of the women by whom he
was surrounded?
Who will believe that the bachelors of the Pope are made of stronger metal
than the Davids, the Samsons, and the Solomons? Where is the man who has so
completely lost his common sense as to believe that the priests of Rome are
stronger than Samson, holier than David, wiser than Solomon? Who will
believe that confessors will stand up on their feet amidst the storms which
prostrate in the dust those giants of the armies of the Lord? To suppose
that, in the generality of cases the confessor can resist the temptations
by which he is daily surrounded in the confessional, that he will
constantly refuse the golden opportunities which offer themselves to him,
to satisfy the almost irresistible propensities of his fallen human nature,
is neither wisdom nor charity; it is simply folly.
I do not say that all the confessors and their female penitents fall into
the same degree of abject degradation; thanks be to God, I have known
several who nobly fought their battles and conquered on that field of so
many shameful defeats. But these are the exceptions. It is just as when the
fire has ravaged one of our grand forests of America--how sad it is to see
the numberless noble trees fallen under the devouring element! But, here
and there the traveller is not a little amazed and pleased to find some
which have proudly stood the fiery trial without being consumed.
Has not the world at large been struck with terror when they heard of the
fire which a few years ago had reduced the great city of Chicago to ashes?
But those who have visited that doomed city, and seen the desolating ruins
of her 16,000 houses, had to stand in silent admiration before a few which,
in the very midst of an ocean of fire, had escaped untouched by the
destructive element.
It is so that, owing to a most marvellous protection of God, some
privileged souls do escape, here and there, the fatal destruction which
overtakes so many others in the confessional.
The confessional is just as the spider's web. How many too unsuspecting
flies find death when seeking rest on the beautiful framework of their
deceitful enemy! How few escape! and this only after a most desperate
struggle. See how the perfidious spider looks harmless in his retired, dark
corner; how motionless he is; how patiently he waits for his opportunity!
But look how quickly he surrounds his victim with his silky, delicate, and
imperceptible links! how mercilessly he sucks its blood and destroys its
life!
What does remain of the imprudent fly, after she has been entrapped into
the nets of her foe? Nothing but a skeleton. So it is with your fair wife,
your precious daughter; nine times in ten nothing but a moral skeleton
returns to you, after the Pope's black spider has been allowed to suck the
very blood of her heart and soul. Let those who would be tempted to think
that I do exaggerate read the following extracts from the memoirs of the
Venerable Scipio de Ricci, Roman Catholic Bishop of Pistoia and Prato, in
Italy. They were published by the Italian Government, to show to the world
that some measures ought to be taken by the civil and ecclesiastical
authorities to prevent the nation from being entirely swept away by the
deluge of corruption flowing from the confessional, even among the most
perfect of Rome's followers, the monks and the nuns. The priests have never
dared to deny a single iota of those terrible revelations. In page 115 we
read the following letter from Sister Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of St
Catherine, to Dr. Thomas Comparini, Rector of the Episcopal Seminary of
Pistoia:--
"_January 22, 1775._--In compliance with the request which you made me this
day, I hasten to say something, but I know not how.
"Of those who are gone out of the world I shall say nothing. Of those who
are still alive and have very little decency of conduct there are many,
among whom there is an ex-provincial named Father Dr. Ballendi, Calvi,
Zoratti, Bigliaci, Guidi, Miglieti, Verde, Bianchi, Ducci, Seraphini,
Bolla, Nera di Luca, Quaretti, &c. But wherefore any more? With the
exception of three or four, all those whom I have ever known, alive or
dead, are of the same character; they have all the same maxims and the same
conduct.
"They are on more intimate terms with the nuns than if they were married to
them! I repeat it, it would require a great deal of time to tell half of
what I know. It is the custom now, when they come to visit and hear the
confession of a sick sister, to sup with the nuns, sing, dance, play, and
sleep in the convent. It is a maxim of theirs that God has forbidden
hatred, but _not love_, and that man is made for woman and woman for man.
"I say that they can deceive the innocent and the most prudent and
circumspect, and that it would be a miracle to converse with them and not
fall!"
Page 117.--"The priests are the husbands of the nuns, and the lay brothers
of the lay sisters. In the chamber of one of the nuns I have mentioned, one
day, a man was found; he fled away, but, soon after, they gave him to us as
our confessor extraordinary.
"How many bishops are there in the Papal States, who have come to the
knowledge of those disorders, have held examinations and visitations, and
yet never could remedy; it, because the monks, our confessors, tell us that
those are excommunicated who reveal what passes in the Order!
"Poor creatures! they think they are leaving the world to escape dangers,
and they only meet with greater ones. Our fathers and mothers have given us
a good education, and here we have to unlearn and forget what they have
taught us."
Page 118.--"Do not suppose that this is the case in our convent alone. It
is just the same at St. Lucia, Prato, Pisa, Perugia, &c. I have known
things that would astonish you. Everywhere it is the same. Yes, everywhere
the same disorders, the same abuses prevail. I say, and I repeat it, let
the superiors suspect as they may, they do not know the smallest part of
the enormous wickedness that goes on between the monks and the nuns whom
they confess. Every monk who passed by on his way to the chapter entreated
a sick sister to confess to him, and...!"
Page 119.--"With respect to Father Buzachini I say that he acted just as
the others, sitting up late in the nunnery, diverting himself, and letting
the usual disorders go on. There were several nuns who had love affairs on
his account. His own principal mistress was Odaldi, of St. Lucia, who used
to send him continual treats. He was also in love with the daughter of our
factor, of whom they were very jealous here. He ruined also poor
Cancellieri, who was sextoness. The monks are all alike with their
penitents.
"Some years ago, the nuns of St. Vincent, in consequence of the
extraordinary passion they had for their father confessors Lupi and
Borghiani, were divided into two parties, one calling themselves Le Lupe,
the other Le Borghieni.
"He who made the greatest noise was Donati. I believe he is now at Rome.
Father Brandi, too, was also in great vogue. I think he is now prior of St.
Gemignani. At St. Vincent, which passes for a very holy retreat, they have
also their lovers...."
My pen refuses to reproduce several things which the nuns of Italy have
published against their father confessors. But this is enough to show to
the most incredulous that the confession is nothing else but a school of
perdition, even among those who make a profession to live in the highest
regions of Roman Catholic holiness--the monks and the nuns.
Now, from Italy let us go to America and see again the working of auricular
confession, not between the holy (?) nuns and monks of Rome, but among the
humblest classes of country women and priests. Great is the number of
parishes where women have been destroyed by their confessors, but I will
speak only of one.
When curate of Beauport, I was called by the Rev. Mr. Proulx, curate of St.
Antoine, to preach a retreat (a revival) with the Rev. Mr. Aubry, to his
parishioners, and eight or ten other priests were also invited to come and
help us to hear the confessions.
The very first day after preaching and passing five or six hours in the
confessional, the hospitable curate gave us a supper before going to bed.
But it was evident that a kind of uneasiness pervaded the whole company of
the father confessors. For my own part, I could hardly raise my eyes to
look at my neighbour, and when I wanted to speak a word it seemed that my
tongue was not free as usual; even my throat was as if it were choked; the
articulation of the sounds was imperfect. It was evidently the same with
the rest of the priests. Instead, then, of the noisy and cheerful
conversation of the other meals, there were only a few insignificant words
exchanged with a half-supressed tone.
The Rev. Mr. Proulx (the curate) at first looked as if he were partaking
also of that singular though general despondent feeling. During the first
part of the lunch he hardly said a word; but at last, raising his head and
turning his honest face towards us, in his usual gentlemanly and cheerful
manner, he said:--
"Dear friends, I see that you are all under the influence of the most
painful feelings. There is a burden on you that you can neither shake off
nor bear as you wish. I know the cause of your trouble, and I hope you will
not find fault with me if I help you to recover from that disagreeable
mental condition. You have heard in the confessional the history of many
great sins, but I know that this is not what troubles you. You are all old
enough in the confessional to know the miseries of poor human nature.
Without any more preliminaries I will come to the subject. It is no more a
secret in this place that one of the priests who has preceded me has been
very unfortunate, weak, and guilty with the greatest part of the married
women whom he has confessed. Not more than one in ten have escaped him. I
would not mention this fact had I got it only from the confessional, but I
know it well from other sources, and I can speak of it freely without
breaking the secret seal of the confessional. Now what troubles you is
that, probably, when a good number of those women have confessed to you
what they had done with their confessor, you have not asked them how long
it was since they had sinned with him, and in spite of yourselves you think
that I am the guilty man. This does, naturally, embarrass you when you are
in my presence and at my table. But please ask them, when they come again
to confess, how many months or years have passed away since their last love
affair with a confessor, and you will see that you may suppose that you are
in the house of an honest man. You may look me in the face and have no fear
to address me as if I were still worthy of your esteem; for, thanks be to
God, I am not the guilty priest who has ruined and destroyed so many souls
here."
The curate had hardly pronounced the last word when a general "We thank
you; for you have taken away a mountain from our shoulders," fell from
almost every lip. "It is a fact that, notwithstanding the good opinion we
had of you," said several, "we were in fear that you had missed the right
track, and fallen down with your fair penitents into the ditch."
I felt myself much relieved; for I was one of those who, in spite of
myself, had my secret fears about the honesty of our host. When, very early
the next morning, I had begun to hear the confessions, one of those
unfortunate victims of the confessor's depravity came to me, and in the
midst of many tears and sobs, she told me with great details what I repeat
here in a few lines:--
"I was only nine years old when my first confessor began to do very
criminal things with me when I was at his feet, confessing my sins. At
first I was ashamed and much disgusted; but soon after I became so depraved
that I was looking eagerly for every opportunity of meeting him either in
his own house, or in the church, in the vestry, and many times in his own
garden when it was dark at night. That priest did not remain very long; he
was removed, to my great regret, to another place, where he died. He was
succeeded by another one, who seemed at first to be a very holy man. I made
to him a general confession with, it seems to me, a sincere desire to give
up for ever that sinful life, but I fear that my confessions became a cause
of sin to that good priest; for not long after my confession was finished,
he declared to me in the confessional his love, with such passionate words
that he soon brought me down again into my former criminal habits with him.
This lasted six years, when my parents removed to this place. I was very
glad of it, for I hoped that, being far away from him, I should not be any
more a cause of sin to him, and that I might begin a better life. But the
fourth time that I went to confess to my new confessor, he invited me to go
to his room, where we did things so horrible together that I do not know
how to confess them. It was two days before my marriage, and the only child
I have had is the fruit of that sinful hour. After my marriage I continued
the same criminal life with my confessor. He was the friend of my husband;
we had many opportunities of meeting each other, not only when I was going
to confess, but when my husband was absent and my child was at school. It
was evident to me that several other women were as miserable and criminal
as I was myself. This sinful intercourse with my confessor went on till God
Almighty stopped it with a real thunderbolt. My dear only daughter had gone
to confess and receive the holy communion. As she had come back from church
much later than I expected, I inquired the reason which had kept her so
long. She then threw herself into my arms, and with convulsive cries said:
'Dear mother, do not ask me any more to go to confess.... Oh! if you could
know what my confessor has asked me when I was at his feet! and if you
could know what he has done with me, and he has forced me to do with him
when he had me alone in his parlour!'
"My poor child could not speak any longer, she fainted in my arms.
"But as soon as she recovered, without losing a minute, I dressed myself,
and, full of an inexpressible rage, I directed my steps towards the
parsonage. But before leaving my house, I had concealed under my shawl a
sharp butcher's knife to stab and kill the villain who had destroyed my
dearly beloved child. Fortunately for that priest, God changed my mind
before I entered his room--my words to him were few and sharp.
'You are a monster!' I said to him. 'Not satisfied to have destroyed me,
you want to destroy my own dear child, which is yours also! Shame upon you!
I had come with this knife to put an end to your infamies, but so short a
punishment would be too mild a one for such a monster. I want you to live,
that you may bear upon your head the curse of the too unsuspecting and
unguarded friends whom you have so cruelly deceived and betrayed; I want
you to live with the consciousness that you are known by me and many
others, as one of the most infamous monsters who have ever defiled this
world. But know that if you are not away from this place before the end of
this week, I will reveal everything to my husband, and you may be sure that
he will not let you live twenty-four hours longer, for he sincerely thinks
that your daughter is his, and he will be the avenger of her honour! I go
to denounce you this very day to the bishop, that he may take you away from
this parish, which you have so shamelessly polluted.'
"The priest threw himself at my feet, and, with tears, asked my pardon,
imploring me not to denounce him to the bishop, promising that he would
change his life and begin to live as a good priest. But I remained
inexorable. I went to the bishop, made my deposition, and warned his
lordship of the sad consequences which would follow, if he kept that curate
any longer in this place, as he seemed inclined to do. But before the eight
days had expired, he was put at the head of another parish, not very far
away from here."
The reader will, perhaps, like to know what has become of this priest.
He has remained at the head of that most beautiful parish of ----, as
curate, where I know it, he continued to destroy his penitents, till a few
years before he died, with the reputation of a good priest, an amiable man,
and a holy confessor!"
* * * * *
"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work:....
"And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with
the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His
coming:
"Even Him, 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.)
* * * * *