CHAPTER
VI.
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 jeweler or goldsmith allow his priest to come, when he
pleases, and handle the rich articles of his stores, ransack the
desk where the 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, when he wishes, and drive alone, without
any other consideration and security than the discretion of his
priest?
No! surely not.
That livery man knows that he would soon be ruined if he were to
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 his wife and daughters, than
when driving 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 loyalI had almost said divinedignity
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 anything
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 his 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 worthy of the Name of men when you submit yourselves 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 bodyis 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 to in her days of trial for
help? Is it not under his leadership alone she must fight the battle
of life and conquer? Is 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 man 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 and the heart, 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, in her mind, is as much
above the other as the heavens are above the earth? But as she
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 and 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 favor 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 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 graveyard-keeper, must be satisfied with the
carcass!
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 ask a favor 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
insupportable 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 honored 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
benefits 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, 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 practiced, the more the laws of
public and private morality are trampled under foot. The husband
wants his wife to be hishe 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 to shrink from entering into the sacred bond; the
holy joys of home and family lose their divine attraction; he
prefers the cold life of an ignominious celibacy to the humiliation
and opprobium 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 these
nations in 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 which surround them.
Why is it that the Irish Roman Catholic people are so irreparably
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, in turn, has enslaved and degraded her husband
and her sons. Ireland will be an object of pity; she will be poor,
miserable, riotous, bloodthirsty, 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 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 bands of the confessors, who
have defiled and degraded them? How could woman, in France, teach
her husband and sons to love liberty, and die for it, when she was
herself a miserable, an abject slave? How could she form her husband
and sons to the manly virtues of heroes, when her own mind was
defiled and her heart corrupted by the Priest?
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 swords 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.
The 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.)
In the sudden changes and revolutions of these latter days,
France is also sharing; and the Church of Rome has received a blow
there, which, though perhaps only temporary in its character, will
help to awaken the people to the corruption and fraud of the
priesthood.
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 neighboring 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 women to be degraded and enslaved at the feet
of her confessorFrance, 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 women, 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 impurity.
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 blow is
inflicted by a sword so well oiled that the wound 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 blushno sin to say things which would make the most
desperate villain on the streets of London to staggerno sin to
converse with her confessor on matters so filthy that, if attempted
in civil life, would forever 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 mercynot 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.
Bruyere, 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 for 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 questionsyou know itare 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 Londonyou know itexcept 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 whichyou know it wellis 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 more polluting than the confessional. I know
nothing more corrupting than the law which forces a female to tell
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. Bruyere, 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
womenI 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
priest 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
%7 cR %7 e punishable by law to present those very things to
married a d %7rrR %7 rough the auricular confession!
I ask it from every man o %7moR %7 t is the difference
between a woman or a girl learning those h %7inR %7`1
learning them from the lips of a man? Will not those impure,
demoralizing sugge t %7siR %7d5 ly into their minds, and
impress themselves more forcibly in h %7emR %75 ld to them
by a man of authority speaking in the name of Almi h %7d,R %75 when read in a book which has no authority?
I s y %7heR %7*8 of Europe and America, "Read for
yourselves those horrible, n %7onR %7, " and remember that
the Pope has more than 100,000 priests wh s %7ncR %79 , to
put those very things into the intelligence and memory o %7omR %7]3 whom they entrap into their snares. Let us suppose that each priest
%7 R %7d3 confessions of only five female penitents every day
(though e %7 tR %73 y average is ten): it gives the awful
%7 R %77 0,000 women whom the priests of Rome have the legal
right to o %7 aR %7
2 ach day of the year!
Legislators of the so-called Chris i %7d R %7f4 tions! I
ask it again from you, Where is your consistency, yo r %7icR %77 love of public morality, when you punish so severely the man who a %7 R %77 nted the questions put to the woman in the confessional, while
%7onR %7.5 ree, and often pay the men whose public and %7 R %77 e life is spent in spreading the very same moral poison in a
u %7reR %7H0 , scandalous, and shameful way, under the mask
of religion !< P %7 R %74 he confessional is in the hands of the devil, what West Point is
%7thR %76 tes, and Woolwich is to great Britain, a training
of the army t %7htR %72 the enemy. It is in the
confessional that 500,000 women ever %7anR %742 0 every
year, are trained by the Pope in the art of fighting g %7 GR %7z: destroying themselves and the whole world, through every imaginabl %7 R %72 of impurity and filthiness.
Once more, I request the le i %7rsR %74 ds, and the
fathers in Europe, as well as in America and Aust a %7toR %77 Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, in every theological book of Rome, what %7 R %7 wives and their daughters have to learn in the
confessional.< P %7 R %75 n order to screen themselves, the priests of Rome have recourse
%7heR %73 iserable subterfuge:"Is not the physician
forced," they say, " %7rfR %73 delicate operations on women?
Do you complain of this? No! yo %7heR %7|4 lone; you do not
abuse them in their arduous and conscientiou %7s.R %75
should you insult the physician of the soul, the confessor, i %7
R %76 ccomplishment of his holy, though delicate duties?"
I a s %7fiR %72 and science of the physician are
%7prR %7H= ised in many parts of the Scriptures. But the art
and science o %7 cR %7_6 nowhere to be found in the holy
records. Auricular confessio %7thR %73 n 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, observation, 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 be 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 plaster or ointment to be applied, and
all is finished. The physician neverno neversays 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; however, there is no help; I am in duty
bound to do it. But you have nothing to fear. I am a holy man, who
have made a vow of celibacy. We are alone; neither your husband nor
your father will ever know the secret infirmities I may find in you:
they will never even suspect the perfect investigation I will make,
and they will, forever, 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, by 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
soressecret, shameful sores! Yes, he is bound, nine times out of
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 all kinds of contaminations, impurities, secret,
shameful, and 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 the truth of what I here
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 subtillis 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 they 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 a
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, or
which she may have concealed through shame!! Who can tell the
sentiments of surprise, shame, and distress, of a timid, honest,
young girl, when, for the first time, she is initiated, through
those questions, 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 sinners on the sins they may ignore
or conceal through shame."
And there are more than 100,000 men, not only allowed, but
petted, and often paid by so-called Protestant, Christian, and
civilised 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 scrutinising 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 disease, is
she not aloneshamefully alonewith 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 a
married woman, if he knew that her husband could hear him? No,
surely not! for he is well aware that the enraged husband would blow
out the brains of the villian who, under the sacrilegious pretext of
purifying the soul of his wife, is filling her breast 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 Americahow sad it is to see the numberless noble trees
fallen under the devouring element! But, here and there, the
traveler is not a little amazed and pleased, to find some which have
proudly stood the fiery trial, without being consumed.
Was not the world at large struck with terror, when they heard of
the fire which, a few years ago, 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 a fact, that owing to a most marvellous protection of God,
some privileged souls, here and there, do escape the fatal
destruction which overtakes so many others in the confessional.
The confessional is like 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 remains 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 out of 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 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 Roman Catholic Italian Government, to show to
the world that some measures had 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 these terrible revelations. On page 115 we read the
following letter from sister Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of St.
Catharine, to Dr. Thomas Camparina, Rector of the Episcopal Seminary
of Pistoia:
"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, a man was one day 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 188."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 Borghiani.
"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
holinessthe 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 neighbor; 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 conversations of
the other meals, there were only a few insignificant words exchanged
with a half-suppressed 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 has
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 great
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 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, every time 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 forever, 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 for it, for I hoped that, being 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
disgusting 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 received
the holy communion. As she came 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 to go to confess any moreOh! if you could
know what my confessor 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 parlor!'
"My poor child could not speak any longer; she fainted in my
arms.
"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 has 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 your daughter is his; he will be the avenger of her
honor! 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, and
promising that he would change his life and begin to live as a good
priest. But I remained inexorable. I went to the bishop, and warned
his lordship of the sad consequences which woul %7w,R %7
that curate any longer in thi %7, R %7 inclined to do.
But before t e %7t R %7F ired, 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 remained at the head of that most beautiful parish of
Beaumont, as curate, where, I know it for a fact, 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.)