"The dissoluteness of Abbots, and the other monks, and the friars, not
only with whores, but married women, and their unnatural lusts and other
brutal practices, _these are not fit to be spoken of_, much less
enlarged on, in a work of this nature." ...
_The full report was destroyed_ by the fanatical papist Bishop Bonner,
at the beginning of the reign of Bloody Mary. (See "English
Reformation.") But Bishop Burnett saw extracts from it "concerning 144
Houses, that contains abominations in it, equal to any that were in
Sodom!"
Put this original evidence side by side with the confession already
quoted: put with it the testimony gathered by Duke Leopold of Tuscany:
add what Blanco White and Erasmus say; add what S. J. Mahoney and Manuel
Ferrando say: buttress this mass of evidence with what the Fathers of
the Church said, what all the escaped nuns and priests have alleged, and
compare this mountain of proof with what you _know_ about human
nature--and how can you harbor a doubt that nunneries and monasteries
are today what they always have been? They are houses of hidden
iniquity, and nameless crimes--_AND YOU KNOW IT_!
That marvellous man of letters, Erasmus, who _wrote_ for the
Reformation, but who left Luther and others to _fight for it_, says this
in his "Colloquies."--
"I hold up to censure those who entice lads and girls into monasteries
against their parents' wills, abusing their simplicity or superstition,
and persuading them that there is no chance of salvation but in the
cloister. If the world were not full of such anglers; if countless minds
had not been most miserably _buried alive_ in such places, then I have
been wrong in my conclusions. But if ever I am forced to _speak out_
what I feel upon this subject, I will paint the portrait of _these
kidnappers_, and so represent _the magnitude of the evil_, that every
one shall confess I have not been wrong."
(Quoted in Day's "Monastic Institutions," p. 239.)
The infamous Liguori--a Roman Catholic "Saint"--calmly assumes that many
inmates of the convents are captives, just as Erasmus had said they
were, and he lays down the law to these helpless, kidnapped captives
with all the malevolence of a grinning devil.
"Now that you are professed in a convent, and that _it is impossible for
you to leave it_," &c. (Monastic Institutions, p. 294.)
Liguori threatens the captive, telling the poor creature that if she
abandons herself to sadness and regret, _she will be made to suffer a
hell here_, and another hereafter.
In other words, _Smile, prisoner, smile! or we will make the convent a
hell to you_!
So says Saint Liguori, whose instructions to the priests, telling them
what filthy questions they must ask the Catholic women, are so "obscene"
that I was prosecuted by the Catholic Knights of Columbus for having
quoted some of them. If I had quoted all that Liguori wrote in coaching
the priests, _and teaching them virtually how to disrobe women of their
modesty as a prelude to their ruin_, I suppose the Government would have
ordered out the troops and had me shot.
Several times, Erasmus has been mentioned as one of the most terrific
accusers of the papal system, its frauds, impostures, greed, ferocity,
its fake miracles, its pagan adoration of images and relics, and its
rotten immorality. Perhaps it is due to the reader that I cite him to
"The Life and Letters of Erasmus," by the historian James A. Froude,
published in this country by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in 1895.
From this comparatively recent work, the student can most readily obtain
a general idea of Popery, as described by one who was a devout Catholic,
but not a blind, servile papist. Erasmus was practically an orphan boy,
of somewhat uncertain parentage, whose life mystery and romance inspired
Charles Read to write the greatest of all novels, "The Cloister and the
Hearth."
Mr. Froude tells the painful story of the forcing of Erasmus into
monastic vows; and then follows him as he develops into the most learned
and brilliant scholar of Europe.
Never a robust man, always more or less an invalid, Erasmus remained
inside the Roman pale, but abhorred the inherent vices of _the system_,
denounced those vices with a pen of fire, endured the terrors and
agonies of persecution within his church, was bitterly abused by the
vile priesthood whose putrid lives he uncovered, was menaced by the
dread Inquisition, and really suffered more keenly the penalties than
Luther did, _for telling the truth on popery_.
Luther, a bull-necked, fearless _Man_, broke out, and fought popery from
the outside. Erasmus, like many of his predecessors, tried to reform it
_from within_, and he discovered at last that he might as well have been
trying to reform hell.
The enraged monks and monkesses did not murder Erasmus, as they had
murdered Savonarola, Huss, Jerome, &c.; but it was because the Pope had
his hands full of other matters, and the time was not favorable for
burning the most illustrious scholar of Christendom.
What did Erasmus say and write and publish against the vast parasitical
growth of paganism, fraud and imposture that had overgrown Christianity
under the pope?
Read his "Praise of Folly," which has been translated into English and
can be had through any book-dealer.
When you read it, remember that Erasmus was never answered, save by
_abuse and threats_.
In his letters to the Prothonotary of the Pope, letters written for the
Pope to read, and which the Pope did read, Erasmus arraigns the
unmarried clergy of Rome, her monks and her nuns, her monasteries and
her convents, in the same terms that are used by the Preamble to the Act
of the British Parliament which stated that reasons for the dissolution
of these Romish hell-holes.
The accusations fathered by Erasmus and laid before the Pope, agree in
every essential particular with the revelations of Blanco White, of S.
J. Mahoney, William Hogan, Joseph McCabe, Bishop Manuel Ferrando,
Margaret Shepherd, Maria Monk, and every other witness who has had the
courage to uncover these papal dens of infamy, torture, vice and crime.
I have not the space to quote at any length from the Letters of Erasmus:
get the book and read it for yourself.