DOES AURICULAR CONFESSION BRING PEACE TO THE SOUL?
* * * * *
The connecting of Peace with Auricular Confession is surely the most cruel
sarcasm ever uttered in human language.
It would be less ridiculous and false to admire the calmness of the sea,
and the stillness of the atmosphere, when a furious storm raises the
foaming waves to the skies, than to speak of the Peace of the soul either
during or after the confession.
I know it; the confessors and their dupes chorus every tune by crying
"Peace, peace"! But the God of truth and holiness answers, "There is no
peace for the wicked!"
The fact is, that no human words can adequately express the anxieties of
the soul before confession, its unspeakable confusion in the act of
confessing, or its deadly terrors after confession.
Let those who have never drunk of the bitter waters which flow from the
confessional box, read the following plain and correct recital of my own
first experiences in auricular confession. They are nothing else than the
history of what nine tenths of the penitents[5] of Rome old and young are
subject to; and they will know what to think of that marvellous Peace about
which the Romanists, and their silly copyists, the Ritualists, have written
so many eloquent lies.
In the year 1819, my parents had sent me from Murray Bay (La Mal Baie)
where they lived, to an excellent school, at St. Thomas. I was then, about
ten years old. I boarded with an uncle, who, though a nominal Roman
Catholic, did not believe a word of what his priest preached. But my Aunt
had the reputation of being a very devoted woman. Our School-master, Mr.
John Jones, was a well educated Englishman: and a staunch PROTESTANT. This
last circumstance had excited the wrath of the Roman Catholic Priest
against the teacher and his numerous pupils to such an extent, that they
were often denounced from the pulpit with very hard words. But if he did
not like us, I must admit that we were paying him with his own coin.
But let us come to my first lesson in Auricular Confession, No! No words
can express to those who have never had any experience in the matter, the
consternation, anxiety and shame of a poor Romish child, when he hears his
priest saying from the pulpit, in a grave and solemn tone; "This week, you
will send your children to confession. Make them understand that this
action is one of the most important of their lives, that for every one of
them, it will decide their eternal happiness or ruin. Fathers, Mothers and
guardians of those children, if, through your fault or theirs, your
children are guilty of a false confession: if they do not confess every
thing to the priest who holds the place of God, Himself, this sin is often
irreparable: the Devil will take possession of their hearts: they will lie
to their father confessor, or rather to Jesus Christ, of whom he is the
representative: Their lives will be a series of sacrileges, their death and
eternity, those of reprobates. Teach them therefore to examine thoroughly
all their actions, words, thoughts and desires, in order to confess every
thing just as it occurred, without any disguise."
I was in the Church of St. Thomas, when these words fell upon me like a
thunderbolt. I had often heard my mother say, when at home and my aunt,
since I had come to St. Thomas, that upon the first confession depended my
eternal happiness or misery. That week was, therefore, to decide the vital
question of my eternity!
Pale and dismayed, I left the church after the service, and returned to the
house of my relations. I took my place at the table, but could not eat, so
much was I troubled. I went to my room for the purpose of commencing my
examination of conscience, and to try to recall every one of my sinful
actions, thoughts and words!
Although scarcely over ten years of age, this task was really overwhelming
to me. I knelt down to pray to the Virgin Mary for help, but I was so much
taken up with the fear of forgetting something or making a bad confession,
that I muttered my prayers without the least attention to what I said. It
became still worse, when I commenced counting my sins, my memory, though
very good, became confused: my head grew dizzy: my heart beat with a
rapidity which exhausted me, and my brow was covered with perspiration.
After a considerable length of time, spent in those painful efforts, I felt
bordering on despair from the fear that it was impossible for me to
remember exactly every thing, and to confess each sin as it occurred. The
night following was almost a sleepless one: and when sleep did come, it
could hardly be called sleep, but a suffocating delirium. In a frightful
dream, I felt as if I had been cast into hell, for not having confessed all
my sins to the priest. In the morning, I awoke fatigued, and prostrate by
the phantoms and emotions of that terrible night. In similar troubles of
mind were passed the three days which preceeded my first confession.
I had constantly before me the countenance of that stern priest who had
never smiled upon me. He was present to my thoughts during the days, and in
my dreams during the nights, as the minister of an angry God, justly
irritated against me, on account of my sins. Forgiveness had indeed been
promised to me, on condition of a good confession; but my place had also
been shown to me in hell, if my confession was not as near perfection as
possible.
Now, my troubled conscience told me that there were ninety chances against
one that my confession would be bad, either if by my own fault, I forget
some sins, or if I was without that contrition of which I had heard so
much, but the nature and effects of which were a perfect chaos in my mind.
At length came the day of confession, or rather of judgment and
condemnation. I presented myself to the priest, the Rev. Mr. Beaubien.
He had then, the defects of lisping and stammering which we, often turned
into ridicule. And as nature had unfortunately endowed me with admirable
powers as a mimic, the infirmities of this poor priest afforded only too
good an opportunity for the exercise of my talent. Not only was it one of
my favorite amusements to imitate him before the pupils amidst roars of
laughter but also, I preached portions of his sermons before his
parishioners of villages, with similar results. Indeed, many of them came
from considerable distances to enjoy the amusement of listening to me, and
they rewarded me, more than once, with cakes of maple sugar, for my
performances.
These acts of mimicry were, of course, among my sins; and it became
necessary for me to examine myself upon the number of times I had mocked
the priests. This circumstance was not calculated to make my confession
easier or more agreeable.
At last, the dread moment arrived, I knelt for the first time, at the side
of my confessor, my whole frame trembled: I repeated the prayer preparatory
to confession, scarcely knowing what I said, so much was I troubled by
fears.
By the instructions which had been given us before confession, we had been
made to believe that the priest was the true representative, yea, almost
the personification of Jesus Christ. The consequence was that I believed my
greatest sin was that of mocking the priest--and I, as I had been told that
it was proper first to confess the greatest sins, I commenced thus: "Father
I accuse myself of having mocked a priest!"
Hardly had I uttered these words, "mocked a priest", when this pretended
representative of the humble Jesus, turning towards me, and looking in my
face, in order to know me, better, asked abruptly; "what priest did you
mock, my boy?"
I would have rather chosen to cut my own tongue than to tell him to his
face who it was. I, therefore, kept silent for a while, but my silence made
him very nervous, and almost angry. With a haughty tone of voice, he said:
"what priest did you take the liberty of thus mocking, my boy?" I saw that
I had to answer. Happily his haughtiness had made me bolder and firmer; I
said: "sir, you are the priest whom I mocked!"
"But how many times did you take upon you to mock me, my boy?" asked he
angrily.
"I tried to find out the number of times, but I never could."
"You must tell me how many times, for to mock one's own priest is a great
sin."
"It is impossible for me to give you the number of times," I answered.
"Well, my child, I will help your memory by asking you questions. Tell me
the truth. Do you think you mocked me ten times?"
"A great many times more," I answered.
"Have you mocked me fifty times?"
"Oh! many more still!"
"A hundred times?"
"Say, five hundred, and perhaps more;" I answered.
"Well, my boy, do you spend all your time in mocking me?"
"Not all my time: but unfortunately, I have done it very often."
"Yes may you say: "unfortunately!" for to mock, your priest, who holds the
place of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a great sin and a great misfortune for
you. But tell me, my little boy, what reason have you for mocking me,
thus?"
In my examination of conscience, I had not forseen that I should be obliged
to give the reasons for mocking the priest, and I was thunderstruck by his
questions. I dared not answer, and I remained for a long time dumb, from
the shame that overpowered me. But, with a harassing perseverance, the
priest insisted upon my telling why I had mocked him: assuring me that I
would be damned if I did not speak the whole truth. So, I decided to speak,
and I said: "I mocked you for several things."
"What made you, first mock me?" asked the priest.
"I laughed at you, because you lisp: among the pupils of the school, and
other people, it often happens that we imitate your preaching to laugh at
you," I answered.
"For what other reasons did you laugh at me, my little boy!"
For a long time I was silent. Every time I opened my mouth to speak, my
courage failed me. But the priest continued to urge me, I said at last; "It
is rumoured in town, that you love girls: that you visit the Misses
R's----almost every night; and this, often made us laugh."
The poor priest was evidently overwhelmed by my answer, and ceased
questioning me on that subject. Changing the conversation, he said: "what
are your other sins?"
I began to confess them according to the order in which they came to my
memory. But the feeling of shame which overpowered me, in repeating all my
sins to that man, was a thousand times greater than that of having offended
God. In reality, this feeling of human shame, which absorbed my thoughts,
nay, my whole being, left no room for any religious feeling at all.
When I had confessed all the sins I could remember, the priest began to put
to me the strangest questions about matters on which my pen must be
silent.... I replied "Father, I do not understand what you ask me."
"I question you," he answered, "on the the sins of the sixth commandment of
God, (the seventh in the Bible) Do confess all, my little boy, for you will
go to hell if, through your fault you omit any thing."
And thereupon he dragged my thoughts into regions of iniquity which, thanks
be to God, had been hitherto quite unknown to me.
I answered him again, "I do not understand you," or "I have never done
those wicked things."
Then, skillfully shifting to some secondary matters, he would soon slyly
and cunningly come back to his favorite subject, namely, sins of
licentiousness.
His questions were so unclean that I blushed and felt nauseated with
disgust and shame. More than once, I had been to my great regret, in the
company of bad boys, but not one of them had offended my moral nature so
much as this priest had done. Not one of them had ever approached the
shadow of the things from which that man tore the veil, and which he placed
before the eyes of my soul. In vain I told him that I was not guilty of
those things; that I did not even understand what he asked me; but he would
not let me off.
Like a vulture bent upon tearing the poor defenceless bird that falls into
its claws, that cruel priest seemed determined to defile and ruin my heart.
At last, he asked me a question in a form of expression so bad that I was
really pained and put beside myself. I felt as if I had received the shock
from an electric battery: a feeling of horror made me shudder. I was filled
with such indignation that speaking loud enough to be heard by many, I told
him: "Sir, I am very wicked, but I was never guilty of what you mention to
me: please don't ask me any more of those questions which will teach me
more wickedness than I ever knew."
The remainder of my confession was short. The stern rebuke I had given him
had evidently made that priest blush, if it had not frightened him. He
stopped short, and gave me some very good advice which might have done me
good, if the deep wounds which his questions had inflicted upon my soul,
had not so absorbed my thoughts, as to prevent me from giving attention to
what he said. He gave me a short penance and dismissed me.
I left the confessional irritated and confused. From the shame of what I
had just heard, I dared not raise my eyes from the ground. I went into a
corner of the church to do my penance, that is to recite the prayers which
he had indicated to me. I remained for a long time in the church. I had
need of a calm, after the terrible trial through which I had just passed.
But vainly sought I for rest. The shameful questions which had just been
asked from me, the new world of iniquity into which I been introduced, the
impure phantoms by which my childish head had been defiled, confused and
troubled my mind so strongly, that I began to weep bitterly.
I left the church only when forced to do so by the shades of night, and
came back to my uncle's house, with a feeling of shame and uneasiness, as
if I had done a bad action and feared lest I should be detected. My trouble
was much increased when my uncle, jestingly, said: "now that you have been
to confess, you will be a good boy. But if you are not a better boy, you
will be a more learned one, if your confessor has taught you what mine did
when I confessed for the first time."
I blushed and remained silent. My aunt said: "you must feel happy, now that
you have made your confession: do you not?"
I gave an evasive answer, but could not entirely conceal the confusion
which overwhelmed me. I went to bed early; but I could hardly sleep.
I thought that I was the only boy whom the priest had asked these polluting
questions: but great was my confusion, the next day when on going to
school, I learned that my companions had not been happier than I had been.
The only difference was that, instead of being grieved as I was, they
laughed at it.
"Did the priest ask you this and that," they would demand laughing
boisterously; I refused to reply, and said: "are you not ashamed to speak
of these things."
"Ah! Ah! how scrupulous you are:" continued they, "if it is not a sin for
the priest to speak to us on these matters, how can it be a sin for us to
laugh at it." I felt confounded, not knowing what to answer. But my
confusion increased not a little, when soon after, I perceived that the
young girls of the school had not been less polluted, or scandalized than
the boys. Although keeping at a sufficient distance from us to prevent us
from understanding every thing they had to say on their confessional
experience, those girls were sufficiently near to let us hear many things
which it would have been better for us not to know. Some of them seemed
thoughtful, sad and shameful: but several laughed heartily at what they had
learned in the confessional box.
I was very indignant against the priest; and thought in myself, that he was
a very wicked man, for having put to us such repelling questions. But I was
wrong. That priest was honest; he was only doing his duty, as I have known
since, when studying the theologians of Rome. The Rev. Mr. Beaubien was a
real gentleman, and if he had been free to follow the dictates of his
honest conscience it is my strong conviction he would never have sullied
our young hearts with such impure ideas. But what has the honest conscience
of a priest to do in the confessional, except to be silent and dumb? The
priest of Rome is an automaton, tied to the feet of the Pope by an iron
chain. He can move, go right or left, up or down; he can think and act, but
only at the bidding of the infallible god of Rome. The priest knows the
will of his modern divinity only through his approved emissaries,
embassadors and theologians. With shame on my brow, and bitter tears of
regret flowing just now, on my cheeks, I confess that I have had myself to
learn by heart those damning questions, and put them to the young and the
old; who like me, were fed with the diabolical doctrines of the church of
Rome, in reference to auricular confession.
Some time after, some people waylaid and whipped that very same priest,
when during a very dark night he was coming back from visiting his fair
young penitents the Misses Rs.... And the next day, the conspirators having
met at the house of Dr. Stephen Taché, to give a report of what they had
done to the half _secret_ society to which they belonged, I was invited by
my young friend Louis Casault[6] to conceal myself with him, in an
adjoining room, where we could hear every thing without being seen. I find
in the old manuscripts of "my young year's recollections" the following
address of Mr. Dubord.
Mr. President--"I was not among those who gave to the priest the expression
of the public feelings with the eloquent voice of the whip: but I wish I
had been, I would heartily have co-operated to give that so well deserved
lesson to the father confessors of Canada, and let me give you my reasons
for that.
"My child who is hardly twelve years old, went to confess, as did the other
girls of the village, some time ago. It was against my will. I know, by my
own experience, that of all actions, confession is the most degrading of a
person's life. I can imagine nothing so well calculated to destroy forever
one's self-respect, as the modern invention of the confessional. Now, what
is a person without self-respect? Especially a woman? Is not all forever
lost without this?
"In the confessional every thing is corruption of the lowest grade. There,
the girl's thoughts, lips, hearts and souls are forever polluted. Do I need
to prove you this? No! for though you have given up, long since auricular
confession, as below the dignity of man, you have not forgotten the lessons
of corruption which you have received from it. Those lessons have remained
on your souls as the scars left by the red hot iron upon the brow of the
slave to be a perpetual witness of his shame and servitude.
"The confessional box is the place where our wives and daughters learn
things which would make the most degraded woman of our cities blush!
"Why are all Roman Catholic nations inferior to nations belonging to
Protestanism? only in the confessional can the solution of that problem be
found. And why are Roman Catholic nations degraded in proportion to their
submission to their priests? It is because the more often the individuals
composing those nations go to confess, the more rapidly they sink in the
sphere of intelligence and morality. A terrible example of the auricular
confession depravity has just occurred in my own family.
"As I have said a moment ago, I was against my own daughter going to
confession, but her poor mother, who is under the control of the priest,
earnestly wanted her to go. Not to have a disagreeable scene in my house, I
had to yield to the tears of my wife.
"On the following day of the confession, they believed I was absent, but I
was in my office, with the door sufficiently opened to hear every thing
which could be said by my wife and the child. And the following
conversation took place:
"What makes you so thoughtful and sad my dear Lucy, since you went to
confess? It seems to me you should feel happier since you had the privilege
of confessing your sins."
My child answered not a word, she remained absolutely silent.
After two or three minutes of silence, I heard the mother saying: "Why do
you weep, my dear Lucy? are you sick?"
But no answer yet from the child!
"You may well suppose that I was all attention, I had my secret suspicions
about the dreadful mystery which had taken place. My heart throbbed with
uneasiness and anger.
"After a short silence, my wife spoke again to her child, but with
sufficient firmness to decide her to answer at last. In a trembling voice,
she said:
"Oh I dear Mamma, if you knew what the priest has asked me and what he said
to me when I confessed, you would perhaps be sad as I am."
"But what can he have said to you? He is a holy man, you must have
misunderstood him, if you think that he has said anything wrong."
"My child threw herself in her mother's arms, and answered with a voice
half suffocated with her sobs: "Do not ask me to tell you what the priest
has said--it is so shameful that I can not repeat it--His words have stuck
to my heart as the leech put upon the arm of my little friend, the other
day."
"What does that priest think of me, for having put to me such questions?"
My wife answered: "I will go to the priest and will teach him a lesson. I
have noticed myself that he goes too far when questioning old people, but I
had the hope he was more prudent with children. I ask of you, however,
never to speak of this to anybody, especially; let not your poor father
know anything about it; for he has little enough of religion already, and
this would leave him without any at all."
"I could not refrain myself any longer: I abruptly entered the parlor. My
daughter threw herself into my arms: my wife screamed with terror, and
almost fell into a swoon. I said to my child: If you love me, put your hand
on my heart, and promise never to go again to confess. Fear God, my child,
love Him and walk in his presence. For his eyes see you everywhere.
Remember that He is always ready to forgive and bless you every time you
turn your heart to him. Never place yourself again at the feet of a priest
to be defiled and degraded."
"This my daughter promised to me.
"When my wife had recovered from her surprise, I told her.
"Madame, it is long since the priest is everything, and your husband
nothing to you! There is a hidden and terrible power which governs you, it
is the power of the priest: this you have often denied, but it can not be
denied any longer, the Providence of God has decided, to day, that this
power should forever be destroyed in my house, I want to be the only ruler
of my family: from this moment the power of the priest over you is forever
abolished. Whenever you go and take your heart and your secrets to the feet
of the priest, be so kind as not to come back any more into my house as my
wife."
This is one of the thousand and thousand specimens of the peace of
conscience brought to the soul through auricular confession. I could give
many similar instances, if it were my intention to publish a treatise on
this subject, but as I only desire to write a short chapter, I will adduce
but one other fact to show the awful deception practised by the Church of
Rome when she invites persons to come to confession under the pretext that
_peace_ to the soul will be the reward of their obedience. Let us hear the
testimony of another living and unimpeachable witness about this peace of
the soul, before, during, and after auricular confession. In her remarkable
book "Personal experience of Roman Catholicism" Miss Eliza Richardson,
writes, (Page 34 and 35.)
"Thus I silenced my foolish quibbling, and went on to the test of a
convert's fervour and sincerity in confession. And here was assuredly a
fresh source of pain and disquiet, and one not so easily vanquished. "The
theory had appeared, as a whole, fair and rational, but the reality, in
some of its details, _was terrible_!"
"Divested, for the public gaze, of its darkest ingredients, and dressed up,
in their theological works, in false and meretricious pretentions to truth
and purity, it exhibited a dogma only calculated to exert a beneficial
influence on mankind, and to prove a source of morality and usefulness.
_But oh, as with all ideals, how unlike was the actual!_"
"Here, however, I may remark, in passing, the effect produced upon my mind
by the first sight of the _older_ editions of "the Garden of the Soul". I
remember the stumbling-block it was to me, my sense of womanly delicacy was
shocked. It was a dark page in my experience, when first I knelt at the
feet of a mortal man to confess what should have been poured into the ear
of God alone. I cannot dwell upon this...."
"Though I believe my Confessor was, on the whole, as guarded as his manners
were kind; at some things I was strangely startled, utterly confounded."
"The purity of mind and delicacy in which I had been nurtured, had not
prepared me for such an ordeal; and my own sincerity, and dread of
committing a sacrilege, tended to augment the painfulness of the occasion.
One circumstance especially I will recall, which my fettered conscience
persuaded me I was obliged to name. My distress and terror, doubtless, made
me less explicit than I otherwise might have been. The questioning,
however, it elicited, and the ideas supplied by it, outraged my feelings to
such an extent, that, forgetting all respect for my Confessor, and
careless, even, at the moment, whether I received absolution or not, I
hastily exclaimed, "I cannot say a word more," while the thought rushed
into my mind, "all is true that their enemies say of them." Here, however
prudence dictated to my questioner to put the matter no further; and the
kind and almost respectful tone he _immediately_ assumed, went far towards
effacing an impression so injurious. On rising from my knees, when I should
have gladly fled to any distance rather than have encountered his gaze, he
addressed me in the most familiar manner on different subjects, and
detained me some time in talking. What share I took in the conversation, I
never knew and all that I remember, was my burning cheek, and inability to
raise my eyes from the ground.
"Here I would not be supposed to be intentionally casting a stigma upon an
individual. Nor am I throwing unqualified blame upon the priesthood. _It is
the system which is at fault_, a system which teaches that things, even at
the _remembrance_ of which degraded humanity must blush in the presence of
heaven and its angels, should be laid open, _dwelt upon, and exposed in
detail_, to the sullied ears of a corrupt and fallen fellow-mortal who of
like passions with the penitent at his feet, is thereby exposed to
temptations the most dark and dangerous. But what shall we say of woman?
Draw a veil! Oh purity, modesty! and every womanly feeling! a veil as
oblivion, over the fearfully, dangerous experience thou art called to pass
through! (page 37, and 38.")
"Ah! there are things that cannot be recorded! facts too startling, and at
the same time, too delicately intricate, to admit a public portrayal, or
meet the public gaze; But the cheek can blush in secret at the true images
which memory evokes, and the oppressed mind shrinks back, in horror, from
the dark shadows which have saddened and overwhelmed it. I appeal to
converts, to converts of the gentler sex, and ask them, fearlessly ask
them, what was the first impression made on your minds and feelings by the
confessional? I do not ask how subsequent familiarization has weakened the
effects: but when acquaintance was first made with it, how were you
affected by it? I ask not the impure, the already defiled, for to such, it
is sadly susceptible of being made a darker source of guilt and shame;--but
I appeal to the pure minded and delicate, the pure in heart and sentiment.
Was not your _first_ impression one of inexpressible dread and
bewilderment, followed by a sense of humiliation and degradation, not
easily to be defined or supported? (page 39.) "The memory of that time
(first auricular confession) will ever be painful and abhorent to me;
though subsequent experience has thrown, even that, far into the back
ground. It was my initiatory lesson upon subjects which ought never to
enter the imagination of girlhood: my introduction into a region which
should never be approached by the guileless and the pure." (page 61) One or
two individuals (Roman Catholic) soon formed a close intimacy with me, and
discoursed with a freedom and plainness I had never, before encountered. My
acquaintances, however, had been brought up in convents, or familiar with
them for years, and I could not gainsay their statement.
"I was reluctant to believe more than I had experienced the proof, however,
was destined to come in no dubious shape at a no distant day.... A dark and
sullied page of experience was fast opening upon me; but so unaccustomed
was the eye which scanned it, that I could not at all, at once, believe in
its truth! And it was of hypocrisy so hateful, of sacrilege so terrible,
and abuse so gross of all things pure and holy, and in the person of one
bound by his vows, his position, and every law of his church, as well as of
God, to set a high example, that, for a time, all confidence in the very
existence of sincerity and goodness was in danger of being shaken,
sacraments, deemed the most sacred, were profaned; vows disregarded,
vaunted secrecy of the confessional covertly infringed, and its sanctity
abused to an unhallowed purpose; while even private visitation was
converted into a channel for temptation, and made the occasion of unholy
freedom of words and manner. So ran the account of evil and a dire account
it was. By it, all serious thoughts of religion were well nigh
extinguished. The influence was fearful and polluting, the whirl of
excitement inexpressible: I cannot enter into minute particulars here,
every sense of feminine delicacy and womanly feeling shrink from such a
task. This much, however, I can say that I, in conjunction with two other
young friends, took a journey to a confessor, an inmate of a religious
house, who lived at some distance, to lay the affair before him; thinking
that he would take some remedial measures adequate to the urgency of the
case. He heard our united statements, expressed great indignation, and, at
once, commended us each to write and detail the circumstances of the case
to the Bishop of the district. This we did; but of course, never heard the
result. The reminiscences of these dreary and wretched months seem now like
some hideous and guilty dream. It was actual familiarization with unholiest
things! (page 63.)
"The romish religion teaches that if you omit to name anything in
confession, however repugnant or revolting to purity, which you even doubt
having committed, your subsequent confessions are thus rendered null and
sacrilegious; while it also inculcates that sins of thought should be
confessed in order that the confessor may judge of their mortal or venial
character. What sort of a chain this links around the strictly
conscientious I would attempt to portray, if I could. But it must have been
worn to understand its torturing character! Suffice it to say that, for
months past, according to this standard, I had not made a good confession
at all! And now, filled with remorse for my past sacrilegious sinfulness, I
resolved on making a new general confession to the _religieux_ alluded to.
But this confessor's scrupulosity exceeded everything I had, hitherto,
encountered. He told me some things were mortal sins, which I had never
before imagined could be such: and thus threw so many fetters around my
conscience, that a host of anxieties for my first general confession was
awakened within me. I had no resource then, but to re-make that, and thus I
afresh entered on the bitter path I had deemed I should never have occasion
again to tread. But if my first confession had lacerated my feelings, what
was it to this one? Words have no power, language has no expression to
characterise the emotion that marked it!
"The difficulty I felt in making a full and explicit avowal all that
distressed me, furnished my confessor with a plea for his assistance in the
questioning department, and fain would I conceal much of what passed then,
as a foul blot on my memory. I soon found that he made mortal sins of what
my first confessor had professed to treat but lightly, and he did not
scruple to say that I had never yet made a good confession at all. My ideas
therefore became more complicated and confused as I proceeded, until, at
length, I began to feel doubtful of ever accomplishing my task in any
degree satisfactorily: and my mind and memory were positively racked to
recall every iota of every kind, real or imaginary, that might, if omitted,
hereafter be occasion of uneasiness. Things heretofore held comparatively
trifling were recounted, and pronounced damnable sins: and as, day after
day, I knelt at the feet of that man, answering questions and listening to
admonitions calculated to bow my very soul to the dust, I felt as though I
should hardly be able to raise my head again!" (page 63.)
This is the peace which flows from auricular confession. I solemnly declare
that except in a few cases, in which the confidence of the penitents is
bordering on idiocy, or in which they have been transformed into immoral
brutes, nine-tenths of the multitudes who go to confess, are obliged to
recount some such desolate narrative as that of Miss Richardson, when they
are sufficiently honest to say the truth.
The most fanatical apostles of auricular confession cannot deny that the
examination of conscience, which must precede confession, is a most
difficult task; a task which, instead of filling the mind with peace, fills
it with anxiety and serious fears. Is it then only after confession that
they promise such peace? But they know very well that this promise is also
a cruel deception ... for to make a good confession, the penitent has to
relate not only all his bad actions, but all his bad thoughts and desires,
their number, and various aggravating circumstances. But have they found a
single one of their penitents who was certain to have remembered all the
thoughts, the desires, all the criminal aspirations of the poor sinful
heart? They are well aware that to count the thoughts of the mind for days
and weeks gone by, and to narrate those thoughts accurately at a subsequent
period, are just as easy as to weigh and count the clouds which have passed
over the sun, in a three days storm, a month after that storm is over. It
is simply impossible, absurd! This has never been, this will never be done.
But there is no possible peace so long as the penitent _is not sure_ that
he has remembered, counted and confessed every past sinful thought, word
and deed. It is then impossible, yes! it is morally and physically
_impossible_ for a soul to find peace through auricular confession. If the
law which says to every sinner: "You are bound, under pain of eternal
damnation, to remember all your bad thoughts and confess them to the best
of your memory", were not so evidently a satanic invention, it ought to be
put among the most infamous ideas which have ever come out from the brain
of fallen man. For, who can remember and count the thoughts of a week, of a
day, nay, of an hour of his sinful life?
Where is the traveller who has crossed the swampy forests of America, in
the three months of a warm summer, who could tell the number of musquitoes
which have bitten him and drawn the blood from the veins?
What should that traveller think of the man who, seriously, would tell him:
"You must prepare yourself to die, if you do not tell me, to the best of
your memory, how many times you have been bitten by the musquitoes, the
last three summer months, when you crossed the swampy lands along the
shores of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers?
Would he not suspect that his merciless inquirer had just escaped from a
lunatic asylum?
But it would be much more easy for that traveller to say how many times he
has suffered from the bitings of the musquitoes, than for the poor sinner
to count the bad thoughts which have passed through his sinful heart,
through any period of his life.
Though the penitent is told that he must confess his thoughts only
according to his _best_ recollection,--he will _never, never_ know if he
has done his _best_ efforts to remember everything: he will constantly fear
lest he has not done his _best_ to count and confess them correctly.
Every honest priest will at once admit that his most intelligent and pious
penitents, particularly among women, are constantly tortured by the fear of
having omitted to disclose some sinful deeds or thoughts. Many of them,
after having already made several general confessions, are constantly urged
by the pricking of their conscience, to begin afresh, in the fear that
their first confessions had some serious defects. Those past confessions,
instead of being a source of spiritual joy and peace, are, on the contrary,
like, so many Damocles' swords, day and night suspended over their heads,
filling their souls with the terrors of an eternal death! Sometimes the
terror-stricken consciences of those honest and pious women tell them that
they were not sufficiently contrite; at another time, they reproach them
for not having spoken sufficiently plain on some things fitter to make them
blush.
On many occasions, too, it has happened that sins which one confessor had
declared to as venial, and which had long ceased to be confessed, another
more scrupulous than the first would declare to be damnable. Every
confessor thus knows perfectly well that he proffers what is flagrantly
false every time he dismisses his penitents, after confession, with the
salutation:--"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee."
But it is a mistake to say that the soul does not find peace in auricular
confession: in many cases, peace is found. And if the reader desires to
learn something of that peace, let him go to the grave-yard, open the
tombs, and peep into the sepulchres. What awful silence! What profound
quiet! What terrible and frightful peace! You hear not even the motion of
the worms that creep in, and the worms that creep out, as they feast upon
the dead carcase! Such is the peace of the confessional! The soul, the
intelligence, the honor, the self-respect, the conscience, are there
sacrificed. There they must die! Yes, the confessional is a veritable tomb
of human conscience, a sepulchre of human honesty, dignity and liberty; the
grave-yard of human soul! By its means, man, whom God hath made in his own
image, is converted into the likeness of the beast that perishes; woman,
created by God to be the glory and help-mate of man, is transformed into
the vile and trembling slave of the priest. In the confessional, man and
woman attain to the highest degree of popish perfection: they become as dry
sticks, as dead branches, as silent corpses, in the hands of their
confessors. Their spirits are destroyed, their consciences are stiff, their
souls are ruined.
This is the supreme and perfect result achieved, in its highest victories,
by the Church of Rome.
There is, verily, peace to be found in auricular confession--yes, but it is
the peace of the grave!
* * * * *