CHAPTER
XI.
Auricular Confession in Australia, America, and
France
WE hope this chapter will be read with interest and benefit
everywhere; it will be particularly interesting to the people of
Australia, America, and France. Let every one consider with
attention its solemn teachings; they will see how auricular
confession is spreading, broadcast, the seeds of an unspeakable
corruption an every side, all over the world. Let every one see how
the enemy is successfully at work, to destroy every vestige of
honesty and purity in the hearts and the minds of the fair daughters
of their countries.
Though I have been in Australia only a few months, I have a
collection of authentic and undeniable facts about the destruction
of female virtue, through the confessional, which would fill several
large volumes, and would strike the country with horror, were it
possible to publish them all. But to keep myself within the limits
of a short chapter, I will give only a few of the most public
ones.
Not long ago, a young Irish lady, belonging to one of the most
respectable families of Ireland, went to confess to a priest of
Parramatta. But the questions put to her in the confessional, were
of such a bestial character; the efforts made by this priest to
persuade his God-fearing and honest young penitent, to consent to
satisfy the infamous desires of his corrupted heart, caused the
young lady to give up, immediately, the Church of Rome, and break
the fetters, by which she had been too long bound to the feet of her
would-be seducers. Let the reader peruse her letter, which I have
copied from the Sydney (Australia) Gazette, of
the 28th July, 1839, and they will see how bravely, and over her own
signature, she not only accuses her confessors of having most
infamously scandalized her by their questions, and tried to destroy
in her the last vestige of female modesty, but she declares that
many of her female friends had acknowledged in her presence, that
they had been dealt with in the very same way, by their father
confessors.
As that young lady was the niece of a well-known Roman Catholic
Bishop, and the near relation of two priests, her public declaration
made a profound sensation in the public mind, and the Roman Catholic
hierarchy keenly felt the blow. The facts were too plainly and
bravely given by that unimpeachable witness to be denied. The only
thing to which those haughty and implacable enemies of all that is
true, holy and pure, in the world, had recourse to, to defend
their tottering power, and keep their mask of honesty, what they
have done in all ages—"murder the honest young girl they had not
been able to silence." A few days after, she was found bathed in
her blood, and cruelly bruised, at a short distance from Parramatta;
but by the good providence of God, the would-be murderers, sent by
these priests, had failed to kill their victim. She recovered from
her wounds, and lived many years more to proclaim before the public,
how the priests of Australia, as well as the priests of the rest of
the world, make use of auricular confession to pollute the hearts,
and damn the souls of their penitents.
Here is the letter of that young, honest, and brave lady:
THE CONFESSIONAL.
(To the Editors of the Sydney Gazette.)
While reading over, the other day, in the Sydney Gazette,
an account of the trial, which took place at the Supreme Court,
Tuesday, the 9th instant, I was struck with inexpressible amazement
at the evidence of Dr. Polding, Roman Catholic Bishop in this
colony, and beg to enquire, through the medium of your paper,
whether any difference exists between the English and the Irish
Roman Catholic priests? If there does not, and if what Dr. Polding
says is really the case, I must have been very unfairly dealt with
indeed, by most of the priests, to whom I have confessed.
I know very well a Roman Catholic priest will never say—"Pay me
so much, and I will give you absolution," because that would be
exposing the craft; but practice speaks louder than precept, and I
can say for myself (and I know hundred of others, who could say the
same, if they dared), that I have, times without number, paid the
priest, before I rose from my knees at confession, under the
pretence, as I will show, of getting masses and prayers said for the
release of the souls of my deceased relatives from purgatory.
I was taught to believe that masses were not valid, unless I was
from under a state of sin, or in other words, in a state of grace.
Consequently I must be absolved, to make the masses
effectual, and all Roman Catholics know full well, that all masses
must be paid for, before they will be said. I have been told
by a priest, a man of good education, that the more I gave, the
better for my own soul, and the souls of friends detained in
purgatory. I was taught to believe that the Church of Rome being
infallible, and incapable of erring, its doctrine and practices were
the same throughout the world; of course I was the more staggered on
reading Dr. Polding's evidence. I think that he must be laboring
under a great mistake, when he says, that it is strictly forbidden
for a priest to receive money in any way, or even if anything should
be given for charitable purposes, it is usual to give it at another
time, "but not customary," or else the priests in Ireland are
outrageously simonical. Perhaps Dr. Polding will inform me, why I
should, for so many years, and not only I, but very many members of
my poor deluded family, pay the priest for relies—such as "the word
of the cross," "holy bones," "holy wax," "holy fire," "pieces of
saints' garments," from Rome and other places: "holy clay," from the
saints' tombs; "the Agnus Dei," "gospels," "scapularies," "blessed
candle," "blessed salt," "St. Francis' lard, &c.
But the time would fail me to repeat the abominable delusions
I've paid for, and none of them could, in any way, be reckoned among
the priests' traveling expenses, as the priests were resident in the
place; but, perhaps, these are not some of the acts which would
bring a priest into degradation with his own community, as Dr.
Polding acknowledges; "there are certain acts to which, inherently
and incessantly, there are degradations and detestation attached,"
but I humbly and heartily thank God I have not, like Dr. Polding, to
wait until I have "been a Protestant," to know how such acts must
affect all who come within reach of their contagion, as I do most
solemnly protest, before God and man, against refuges of lies and
idolatrous worship of the Popish Church, out of which it is my
earnest and constant prayer, that not only my own relations, but all
within her pale, may, through the riches of God's grace, "come out
from her and be separate," as I have, so that after the way which
they call heresy—"that they may yet be brought to worship the God of
their fathers."
But there is one thing asserted by Dr. Polding, in his evidence,
that needs particular explanations, as it either casts a most
blasphemous reflection on the Holy Scriptures, or Dr. Polding must,
if he directs the attention of Protestants, for the rule of
confession, in the Roman Catholic Church, to the Holy Scriptures, be
totally ignorant of that, which the everyday student in Maynooth
College is master of; and were it not that I esteem the glory of God
far beyond my own personal feelings of female delicacy, I would
shrink from acknowledging that which I do now publicly, and
with shame, that I have carefully perused the translations of the
extracts from "Dens' Theology," where alone the true practice of the
Roman Catholic confessional is to be found, and publicly authorized
by Dr. Murray, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, and in the
presence of my Maker, I solemnly declare, that horrible and
unspeakably vile as that book is, I have had a hundred times more
disgusting questions put to me in the confessional, which I was
obliged to answer, having been told by my confessor, "that being
ashamed of answering him, I was in a state of mortal sin." I have
been often obliged to perform severe penance, for repeating to my
companions, a portion of these horrible things, out of confession,
and comparing the questions put to them (as far as decency would
allow) with those put to myself. What then will the Protestant
public think, when I again declare, and in the same solemn manner,
that their experience, and especially the experience of one of them,
was worse than mine, acts following questions, which I
readily believe, from the specimens offered to myself, one day, in
the confessional.
If then, Dr. Polding will only prove to me, from simply the Holy
Scriptures," any authority for what I have stated, on the part of
Roman Catholic Confession, and which may be read by any one who
please, in Dens' Theology,—I promise to return to the bosom of the
Roman Catholic Church. But I must leave this subject for the
present, on which I could relate what would fill a moderate sized
volume, and just speak a few words about the sale of indulgences, of
which Dr. Polding has only read "in Protestant books." This also
astonished me, that a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, should
know nothing of these things, and I to have purchased one, which I
did during the cholera of 1832. At that time I heard the priest of
the parish publish from the altar, that the Pope had granted an
indulgence; and, as the cholera was raging in Dublin, every one was
in dread of its spreading over the whole country, and every Roman
Catholic that could crawl to the chapel, in the parish where I
lived, lost no time in coming. Amongst them I well remember the
priest showing me an old woman, who, he said, had not been to
confession for fifty years, and who was in the act of laying her
money on the tray, when he pointed her out. Indulgence was to be
had, as the priest had published, and I saw the old woman put her
money on the tray, where I put mine—she got her seal of
indulgence, and I got mine. Will Dr. Polding have the kindness to
tell me what the money was for? In complying with the indulgence, it
was necessary also, to say so many prayers, such as the "Jesus
Psalter," &c., but those who could not were to bring their beads
to their priests, who selected a proper number of prayers to be said
on them. Persons were to give at their own option, what money they
pleased, but nothing less than silver was taken. I have seen
trays on the vestry-room table of the chapel, at that time, full of
silver, bank-notes and gold, and I have also seen trays for
the same purpose, in Marlborough Street Chapel, Dublin, upon the
holy-water trough.
How many poor creatures have I known, who were little short of
starving, beg or borrow a six-pence, to be at the chapel at that
time; but it would be impossible almost for me, unless I was as
insensible as the images I was taught to worship, especially my own
guardian angel, St. Agnes, to whom, with the Virgin Mary, I was
taught to pay more adoration than to God Himself, were I to have
remained unacquainted with the depth of these, and many more wicked
and abominable devices, under the garb of the most self-denying
religion, having such a number of priests related to me, a bishop
for my uncle, and brought up amongst priests, friars, and nuns of
almost every order, from my birth, besides being a most zealous
devoted Roman Catholic myself, during my ignorance of "the truth, as
it is in Jesus." But I am content to leave all temporal good as I
have already done, in leaving wealthy relations and former friends,
only desiring from my heart, that, as I have suffered the loss of
all things, I may "be more enabled to count them but dung, that I
may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness
(which I was taught to value in the Roman Catholic Church, and which
is of the law), but that which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness, which is of God, by faith." I know, sir, I have taken
up too much of your paper, but, should it please God, that the
truths, the solemn truths, which I have stated, be so blessed as to
rouse even one of my Roman Catholic fellow-sinners to
reflect, and break through that slavish bondage, in which I know too
well, they are kept, and begin to think for him or herself, I am
sure you will feel doubly recompensed for the space you have given
this letter.
I am, sir, &c., &c.,
AGNES CATHERINE BYRNE.
25th July, 1839.
As some people, from a mistaken sense of charity, may be tempted
to believe that the priests of Rome, in Australia, have reformed,
and are not so corrupted to-day as they were in 1839, let them read
the following document, which I take from the Sydney Evening
News, 19th November, 1878
"One of the largest assemblages that were ever seen inside the
Protestant Hall in Castlereagh-street, attended last night in
response to an advertisement announcing that a lady would deliver a
lecture on the subject—'Mrs. Constable wrong, and the ex-priest
Chiniquy right, relative to auricular confession; proved by the
lady's personal experience in Sydney.' The building was densely
packed in every part, and there was no standing room. On the
platform, around it, and in the galleries were large numbers of
ladies. Pastor Allen then opened the proceedings by giving out the
hymn 'Rock of ages cleft for me.' Mr. W. Neill (the banker) was
voted to the chair. The lady lecturer, Mrs. Margaret Ann Dillon, a
middle-aged lady, neatly dressed, was then introduced to the
audience. At first she appeared somewhat tremulous and confused,
which she explained was mainly owing to the cruel and heartless
letter she had, that night, received, announcing the death of her
husband. She stated that she had not been brought up in the Roman
Catholic faith, but after much consideration she had joined that
Church, because she had been led to believe it was the only true
Church. She had, for years after joining the Church, faithfully
attended to its duties, even to auricular confession. It was not her
intention to insult the Roman Catholics that she had thus publicly
come forward, but to refute the allegations of Mrs. Constable, and
show that the ex-priest Chiniquy's statements were true. Nothing but
her duty to God would have caused her to come before them in this
public manner. It was her first appearance in public; therefore,
they must allow for her shortcomings; but she would speak truthfully
and fearlessly. Her address would have reference entirely to her own
personal experience of auricular confession. After some further
remarks, Mr. Neill was requested to read the following letter, sent
by the lady lecturer to Archbishop Vaughan: 'No. 259 Kent Street,
Sydney. 12th of April, 1878. To his Grace Archbishop Vaughan. May it
please your Grace:—I have for a considerable time past been very
desirous of bringing a most painful subject under your notice, and
which has caused me considerable pain. Various reasons have
prevented my doing so until now, and it is only when I perceive the
object of my complaint apparently unpunished for his conduct, which
I heard has been the case, I determined upon appealing to you,
feeling sure of obtaining redress. About the year 1876, I resided in
Clarence street, in this city, and while suffering from severe
illness was visited by Father Sheridan, of St. Mary's, as also by
Father Maher. From the former I received the last rites of the
Church, as I was supposed to be on my dying-bed. Half an hour after
Father Sheridan had left me, Father Maher called upon me, and
insisted upon performing the service upon me, which I declined.
There was a bottle containing brandy on the table, and by its side a
tumbler containing a small quantity of castor oil for my use. Father
Maher wished for some of the spirits, and my husband, who was in the
room, requested him to help himself. He did so, using the tumbler
that contained the medicine, and finding the mistake, he had emptied
some more of the spirits into a clean tumbler, and drank it. He then
desired my husband to leave the room. He then came to my bedside
professedly to administer the rites of the Church to me, and I
remonstrated with him, when he laid violent hands upon me, and made
most improper overtures to me. In my struggles to resist, my night
dress was much torn. He assured me that no harm would be done to me
if I did comply with his terrible device (Cries of Oh! Oh!) saying
what he did was under the holy orders, and would not be held as a
sin by the Church, or words to that effect. (Sensation.) I, at
length, found strength to call my husband; and, on his appearing,
Father Maher was forced to leave the room. I was fearful in telling
my husband all that happened, as I felt sure he would use violence
to Father Maher. Since the occurrence, I was apprised that he had
been suspended for some other cause, and that it was useless my
taking steps in the matter. But as, within the present month, I have
seen him passing my door dressed in a priest's usual garb, and it
being evident to me that he is still under some control, I have
determined upon making the complaint he so richly deserves. I write
to add that when my husband drove him off the premises, he (Father
Maher) had become quite intoxicated with the spirits he had taken.—I
am, with much respect, your Grace's humble servant, MARGARET ANN
DILLON.' Mrs. Dillon then proceeded, at great length, to relate
minutely the facts of the affair stated in the letter, and how the
Vicar-General (Dean Sheridan) came to her place to hush up the
matter. In a long dialogue with the reverend Dean, she asserted that
he maintained that Archbishop Vaughan had shed tears over her
letter, and that he (the Dean) had always known her to be a good
woman. In reply to a question, the Dean told her that 'once a priest
always a priest;' but she rejoined, 'once in infamy, always in
infamy.' Subsequently, a priest called on her, and asked her why she
did not go to church. She explained that, having three children to
take care of, she could not go. Once, a priest saw the Protestant
Bible with some other books on her table, and he said to her, 'I see
you have got some heretical books here; you must take them and burn
them.' She said she would not do so; and he said, 'If you do not
give me those books, I will not give you absolution.' She said she
did not care, and he left the place. The lady then read from Dens'
Theology, Vol. VI., page 305, as to the doctrines of the
confessional. She maintained that the priest likened themselves to
God in the confessional-box, but outside of it they were only men.
She would not give utterance to the filthy language that she had
been subject to hear and reply to by the priest in the
confessional-box. Not only herself, but her daughter could bear
witness to the abominations of the confessional. She had been
married twice, and shortly after her first husband's death she sent
her daughter to confession. The priest told her daughter that her
dead father, who had been a Protestant, was a heretic, and was in
hell. She urged that Catholic women ought not to send their children
to be insulted and degraded by the confessional. She hoped they
would keep their children away from it, for the priests put
questions to them suggesting wickedness of the grossest description,
and filling their minds with carnal thoughts for the first time in
their lives. (Cheers.) She would strongly advise all Roman Catholic
men not to allow priests to remain alone with their wives. Napoleon
adopted a scheme by which he would himself frame the questions to be
put to his son in the confessional. If Napoleon was so careful of
his son, how much more so must those be in a humbler sphere of life.
Mrs. Dillon, then, read extracts from Dens' Theology and other
text-books, which she claimed to be the standard works of the Roman
Catholic Church, to refute Mrs. Constable's allegations. Her
experience, as well as that of many others, clearly proved that the
cause of the majority of the large numbers of girls on the streets
arose from the abominable questions they have to reply to in the
confessional-box. (Cheers.) Not only were the majority of these
girls Catholics, but our hospitals and charitable institutions are
filled with those whose early life had been degraded in the
confessional. (Hear, hear.) In conclusion, Mrs. Dillon touched on
the sacrament question, asserting that the priests take good care to
drink the wine—the blood of Christ,—and the people had the
lozenge,—the body of Christ. (Laughter.) Mrs. Dillon resumed her
seat amid tumultuous cheering. Frequently her remarks created great
sensation and rounds of applause. The Rev. Pastor Allen read a
letter sent that night to the lady lecturer, containing an extract
from the S. M. Herald, published four years ago, about the
punishment of an Abbe for unpriestly conduct to four young ladies in
the confessional. A hearty vote of thanks was passed to the lady
lecturer, and a similar honor was accorded to Mr. Neill, for
presiding. The benediction and the singing of the National Anthem
closed the proceedings about half-past nine o'clock.
Has the world ever seen any act more disgustingly corrupt than
that priest's? Who will not be struck with horror at the sight of
that confessor, who struggles with his dying penitent, and tears her
night-dress, when she is on her sick bed, to satisfy his vile
propensities?
What an awful spectacle is here presented, by the hands of
Providence, before the eyes of a Christian people! A dying woman
obliged to fight and struggle against her confessor, to keep her
purity and honor intact! Her night-robes torn by the beastly priest
of Rome!
Let the Americans who like to know more precisely what is going
on between the father confessors and their female penitents in the
United States, go to the beautiful town of Malone, in the State of
New York. There, they will see, by the public records of the court,
how Father McNully seduced his fair penitent, Miss McFarlane, who
was boarding with him, and of whom he was the teacher. They will see
that the enraged parents of the young lady prosecuted him and got a
verdict of $2,129 for damage, which he refused to pay. He was
incarcerated—broke his gaol, went to Canada, where he was welcomed
by the bishops and employed among the confessors of the Irish girls
of the Dominion!
Do not the echoes of the whole world still repeat the horrors of
the Cracow Nunnery in Austria? In spite of the superhuman efforts of
the Roman Catholic press to suppress or deny the truth, has it not
been proved by the evidence that the unfortunate Nun Barbary Ubryk
was found absolutely naked in a most horrible, dark, damp, and
filthy dungeon, where she had been kept by the nuns because she had
refused to live their life of infamy with their Father Confessor
Pankiewiez. And has not that miserable priest corroborated all that
was brought to his charge, by putting an end himself, like Judas, to
his own infamous life?
I have met, in Montreal, a nephew of the Nun Barbara Ubryk, who
was in Cracow when his aunt was found in her horrible danger. He not
only corroborated all what the press had said about the tortures of
his near relation and their cause, but he publicly gave up the
Church of Rome, whose confessional he knew personally, are schools
of perdition.
I visited Chicago for the first time in 1851, at the pressing
request of Bishop Vandevelde. It was to cover Illinois, as much as
we could, with Roman Catholics from Canada, France, and Belgium,
that we might put that splendid State, which was then a kind of
wilderness, under the control of the Church of Rome. I then inquired
from a priest about the particulars of the death of the late Bishop.
That priest had no reasons whatever to deceive me and concede the
truth, and it was with an evidently distressed mind that he gave the
following details, which he assured me, were the exact, though very
sad, truth:
"The Grand Vicar, M. . ., had fallen in love with his beautiful
penitent, the accomplished Nun,. . . ., Superioress of the Convent
of Lorette. The consequence was that to conceal her fall, she went,
under the pretext of recruiting her health, to a western city, where
she soon died when giving birth to a dead-born child."
Though these mysteries of iniquity had been, as much as possible,
kept secret, enough of them had come to the ears of the Bishop to
induce him to tell the confessor that he was obliged to make inquiry
about his conduct, and that, if found guilty, he would be
interdicted. That priest boldly and indignantly denied his guilt;
and said that be was glad of that inquiry. For he boasted that he
was sure to prove his innocence. But after more mature deliberation,
he changed his mind. In order to save his bishop the troubles of
that inquiry, he administered to him a dose of poison which relieved
him from the miseries of life, after five or six days of suffering,
which the doctors took for a common disease!!!
Auricular confession! These are some of thy mysteries!
The people of Detroit, Michigan, have not yet forgotten that
amiable priest who was the confessor, "a la mode," of the young and
old Roman Catholic ladies. They all remember still, the dark night
during which he left for Belgium, with one of his most beautiful
penitents, and $4,000 which he had taken from the purse of his
Bishop Lefebvre, to pay his traveling expenses. And, who, in that
same city of Detroit does not still sympathize with that young
doctor whose beautiful wife eloped with her father confessor, in
order, we must charitably suppose, to be more benefited when in the
constant company of her spiritual and holy (?) physician.
Let my readers come with me to Bourbonnais Grove, and there,
every one will show them the son whom the Priest Courjeault had from
one of his fair penitents.
Week-kneed Protestants! who are constantly speaking of peace,
peace, with Rome, and who keep yourselves humbly prostrated at
their feet, in order to sell them your wares, or get their
suffrages, do you not understand your supreme degradation?
Do not answer to us that these are exceptional cases, for I am
ready to prove that this unspeakable degradation and immorality are
the normal state of the greater part of the priests of Rome. Father
Hyacinthe has publicly declared, that ninety-nine out of one hundred
of them, live in sin with the females they have destroyed. And not
only the common priests are, for the greater part, sunk in that
bottomless pit of secret or public infamy, but the bishops and
popes, with the cardinals, are no better.
Who does not know the history of that interesting young girl of
Armidale, Australia, who, lately, confessed to her distracted
parents, that her seducer had been no less than a bishop! And when
the enraged father prosecuted the bishop for damages, is it not a
public fact that he got £350 from the Pope's bishop, with the
condition that he would emigrate with his family, to San Francisco,
where this great iniquity might be concealed! But, unfortunately for
the criminal confessor, the girl gave birth to a little bishop,
before she left, and I can give the name of the priest who baptized
the child of his own holy (?) and venerable (?) bishop.
Will the people of Australia ever forget the history of Father
Nihills, who was condemned to three years in the penitentiary, for
an unmentionable crime with one of his penitents?
This brings to my mind the deplorable end of Father Cahill, who
cut his own throat not long ago, in New England, to escape the
prosecution of the beautiful girl whom he had seduced. Who has not
heard of that grand Vicar of Boston, who, about three ago, poisoned
himself to escape the sentence which was to be hurled against him
the very next day, by the Supreme Court, for having seduced one of
his fair penitents?
Has not all France been struck with horror and confusion at the
declarations made by the noble Catherine Cadiere and her numerous
young female friends, against their father confessor, the Jesuit,
John B. Girard? The details of the villainies practiced by that holy
(?) father confessor and his coadjutors, with their fair penitents,
are such, that no Christian pen can retrace them, and no Christian
reader would consent to have them put before his eyes.
If this chapter was not already long enough, I would say how
Father Achazius, superior of a nunnery in Duren, France, used to
sanctify the young and old ladies who confessed to him. The number
of his victims was so great, and their ranks in society so exalted,
that Napoleon thought it was his duty to take that scandalous affair
before him.
The way this holy (?) father confessor used to lead the noble
girls, married women, and nuns, of the territory of Aix-la-Chapelle,
was revealed by a young nun who had escaped from the snares of the
priest, and married a superior officer in the army of the Emperor of
France. Her husband thought it his duty to direct the attention of
Napoleon to the performances of that priest, through the
confessional. But the investigations which were directed by the
State Counsellor, Le Clerq, and the Professor Gall, were
compromising so many other priests, and so many ladies in the
highest ranks of society, that the Emperor was absolutely
disheartened, and feared that their exposure before the whole of
France, would cause the people to renew the awful slaughters of 1792
and 1793, when thirty thousand priests, monks and nuns, had been
mercilessly hung, or shot dead, as the most implacable enemies of
public morality and liberty. In those days, that ambitious man was
in need of the priests to forge the fetters by which the people of
France would be securely tied to the wheels of his chariot.
He abruptly ordered the court of investigation to stop the
inquiry, under the pretext of saving the honor of so many families,
whose single and married females had been seduced by their
confessors. He thought that prudence and shame were urging him not
to lift up more of the dark and thick veil, behind which the
confessors conceal their hellish practices with their fair
penitents. He found it was enough to confine Father Achazius and his
co-priests in a dungeon for their lives.
But if we turn our eyes from the humble confessor priests to the
monsters whom the Church of Rome adores as the vicars of Jesus
Christ—the supreme Pontiffs—the Popes, do we not find horrors and
abominations, scandals and infamies, which surpass everything which
is done by the common priests behind the impure curtains of the
confessional-box?
Does not Cardinal Baronius himself, tell us that the world has
never seen anything comparable to the impurities and unmentionable
vices of a great number of popes?
Do not the annals of the Church of Rome give us the history of
that celebrated prostitute of Rome, Marozia, who lived in public
concubinage with the Pope Sergius III., whom she raised to the
so-called chair of St. Peter? Had she not also, by that Pope a son,
of whom. she also made a pope after the death of his holy (?)
father, Pope Sergius?
Did not the same Marozia and her sister, Theodora, put on the
pontifical throne another one of their lovers, under the name of
Anastasius III., who was soon followed by John X.? And is it not a
public fact, that that pope having lost the confidence of his
concubine Marozia, was strangled by her order? Is it not also a fact
of public notoriety, that his follower, Leo VI., was assassinated by
her, for having given his heart to another woman, still more
degraded?
The son whom Marozia had by Pope Sergius, was elected pope, by
the influence of his mother, under the name of John XI., when not
sixteen years old! But having quarrelled with some of the enemies of
his mother, he was beaten and sent to gaol, where he was poisoned
and died.
In the year 936, the grandson of the prostitute Marozia, after
several bloody encounters with his opponents, succeeded in taking
possession of the pontifical throne under the name of John XII. But
his vices and scandals became so intolerable, that the learned and
celebrated Roman Catholic Bishop of Cremorne, Luitprand, says of
him:—"No honest lady dared to show herself in public, for the Pope
John had no respect either for single girls, married women, or
widows—they were sure to be defiled by him, even on the tombs of the
holy apostles, Peter and Paul.
That same John XII. was instantly killed by a gentleman, who
found him committing the act of adultery with his wife.
It is a well-known fact that Pope Boniface VII. had caused John
XIV. to be imprisoned and poisoned, and when he soon after died, the
people of Rome dragged his naked body through the streets, and left
it, when horribly mutilated, to be eaten by dogs, if a few priests
had not secretly buried him.
Let the readers study the history of the celebrated Council of
Constance, called to put an end to the great schism, during which
three popes, and sometimes four, were every morning cursing each
other and calling their opponents Antichrists, demons, adulterers,
sodomists, murderers, enemies of God and man.
As every one of them was an infallible pope, according to the
last Council of the Vatican, we are bound to believe that they were
correct in the compliments they paid to each other.
One of these holy (?) popes, John XXIII., having appeared before
the Council to give an account of his conduct, he was proved by
thirty-seven witnesses, the greater part of whom were bishops and
priests, of having been guilty of fornication, adultery, incest,
sodomy, simony, theft, and murder. It was proved also by a legion of
witnesses, that he had seduced and violated 300 nuns. His own
secretary, Niem, said that he had at Boulogne, kept a harem, where
not less than 200 girls had been the victims of his lubricity.
And what could we not say of Alexander VI.? That monster who
lived in public incest with his two sisters and his own daughter
Lucretia, from whom he got a child.
But I stop—I blush to be forced to repeat such things. I would
never have mentioned them were it not necessary not only to put an
end to the insolence and the pretensions of the priests of Rome, but
also to make the Protestants remember why their heroic fathers have
made such great sacrifices and fought so many battles, shed their
purest blood and even died, in order to break the fetters by which
they were bound to the feet of the priests and the popes of
Rome.
Let not my readers be deceived by the idea that the popes of Rome
in our days, are much better than those of the ninth, tenth,
eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are absolutely the same—the
only difference is that, to-day, they take a little more care to
conceal their secret orgies. For they know well, that the modern
nations, enlightened as they are, by the light of the Bible, would
not tolerate the infamies of their predecessors; they would hurl
them very soon into the Tiber, if they dared to repeat in the open
day, the scenes of which the Alexanders, Stephens, Johns, &c.
&c., were the heroes.
Go to Italy, and there the Roman Catholics themselves will show
you the two beautiful daughters whom the last pope, Pius IX., had
from two of his mistresses. They will tell you, too, the names of
five other mistresses—three of them nuns—he had when a priest and a
bishop; some of them are still living.
Inquire from those who have personally known Pope Gregory XVI.,
the predecessor of Pius IX., and after they will have given you the
history of his mistresses, one of whom was the wife of his barber,
they will tell you that he was one of the greatest drunkards in
Italy!
Who has not heard of the bastard, whom Cardinal Antonelli had
from Countess Lambertini? Has not the suit of that illegitimate
child of the great cardinal secretary filled Italy and the whole
world with shame and disgust?
However, nobody can be surprised that the priests, the bishops,
and the popes of Rome are sunk into such a bottomless abyss of
infamy, when we remember that they are nothing else than the
successors of the priests of Bacchus and Jupiter. For not only have
they inherited their powers, but they have even kept their very
robes and mantles on their shoulders, and their caps on their heads.
Like the priests of Bacchus, the priests of the Pope are bound never
to marry, by the impious and godless laws of celibacy. For every one
knows that the priests of Bacchus were, as the priests of Rome,
celibates. But, like the priests of the Pope, the priests of
Bacchus, to console themselves for the restraints of celibacy, had
invented auricular confession. Through the secret confidences of the
confessional, the priests of the old idols, as well as those of the
newly-invented wafer gods, knew who were strong and weak among their
fair penitents, and under the veil "of the sacred mysteries," during
the night celebration of their diabolical mysteries, they knew to
whom they should address themselves, and make their vows of celibacy
an easy yoke.
Let those who want more information on that subject read the
poems of Juvenal, Propertius, and Tibellus. Let them peruse all the
historians of old Rome, and they will see the perfect resemblance
which exists between the priests of the Pope and those of Bacchus,
in reference to the vows of celibacy, the secrets of auricular
confession, celebration of the so-called "sacred mysteries," and the
unmentionable moral corruption of the two systems of religion. In
fact, when one reads the poems of Juvenal, he thinks he has before
him the books of Dens, Liguori, Lebreyne, Kenrick.
Let us hope and pray that the day may soon come when God will
look in His mercy upon this perishing world; and then, the priests
of the wafer-gods, with their mock celibacy, their soul-destroying,
auricular confession and their idols will be swept away.
In that day Babylon—the great Babylon will fall, and heaven and
earth shall rejoice.
For the nations will no more go and quench their thirst at the
impure cisterns dug for them by the man of sin. But they will go and
wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb; and the Lamb will make
them pure by His blood, and free by His word. Amen.