Constrained by the voice of my conscience
to reveal the impurities of the theology of the Church of Rome, I feel, in doing
so, a sentiment of inexpressible shame. They are of such a loathsome nature,
that often they cannot be expressed in any living language.
However great may have been the corruptions in the theologies and priests of
paganism, there is nothing in their records which can be compared with the depravity
of those of the Church of Rome. Before the day on which the theology of Rome
was inspired by Satan, the world had certainly witnessed many dark deeds; but
vice had never been clothed with the mantle of theology: the most shameful forms
of iniquity had never been publicly taught in the schools of the old pagan priest,
under the pretext of saving the world. No! neither had the priests nor the idols
been forced to attend meetings where the most degrading forms of iniquity were
objects of the most minute study, and that under the pretext of glorifying God.
Let those who understand Latin read "The Priest, the Women, and the Confessional,"
and decide as to whether or not the sentiments therein contained are not enough
to shock the feelings of the most depraved. And let it be remembered that all
those abominations have to be studied, learned by heart and thoroughly understood
by men who have to make a vow never to marry! For it is not till after his vow
of celibacy that the student in theology is initiated into those mysteries of
iniquity.
Has the world ever witnessed such a sacrilegious comedy? A young man about twenty
years of age has been enticed to make a vow of perpetual celibacy, and the very
next day the Church of Rome put under the eye of his soul the most infamous
spectacle! She fills his memory with the most disgusting images! She tickles
all his senses and pollutes his ears, not by imaginary representations, but
by realities which would shock the most abandoned in vice!
For, let it be well understood, that it is absolutely impossible for one to
study those questions of Roman Theology, and fathom those forms of iniquity
without having his body as well as his mind plunged into a state the most degrading.
Moreover, Rome does not even try to conceal the overwhelming power of this kind
of teaching; she does not even attempt to make it a secret from the victims
of her incomparable depravity, but bravely tells them that the study of those
questions will act with an irresistible power upon their organs, and without
a blush says, "that pollution must follow!!!"
But in order that the Church of Rome may more certainly destroy her victims,
and that they may not escape from the abyss which she has dug under their feet,
she tells them, "There is no sin for you in those pollutions!" (Dens,
vol. i. p. 315.)
But Rome must bewitch so as the better to secure their destruction. She puts
to their lips the cup of her enchantments, the more certainly to kill their
souls, dethrones God from their consciences, and abrogates His eternal laws
of holiness. What answer does Rome give to those who reproach her with the awful
impurity of theology. "My theological works," she answers, "are
all written in Latin; the people cannot read them. No evil, no scandal, therefore,
can come from them!" But this answer is a miserable subterfuge. Is this
not the public acknowledgment that her theology would be exceedingly injurious
to the people if it were read and understood by them?
By saying, "My theological works are written in Latin, therefore the people
cannot be defiled, as they do not understand them," Rome does acknowledge
that these works would only act as a pestilence among the people, were they
read and understood by them. But are not the one hundred thousand priests of
Rome bound to explain in every known tongue, and present to the mind of every
nation, the theology contained in those books? Are they not bound to make every
polluting sentence in them flow into the ears, imaginations, hearts and minds
of all the married and unmarried women whom Rome holds in her grasp?
I exaggerate nothing when I say that not fewer than half a million women every
day are compelled to hear in their own language, almost every polluting sentence
and impure notion of the diabolical sciences.
And here I challenge, most fearlessly, the Church of Rome to deny what I say,
when I state that the daily average of women who go to confession to each priest,
is ten. But let us reduce the number to five. Then the one hundred thousand
priest who are scattered over the whole world, hear the confession of five hundred
thousand women every day! Well, now, out of one hundred women who confess, there
are at least ninety-nine whom the priest is bound in conscience to pollute,
by questioning them on the matters mentioned in the Latin pages at the end of
this chapter. How can one be surprised at the rapid downfall of the nations
who are under the yoke of the Pope.
The public statistics of the European, as well of American nations, show that
there is among Roman Catholics nearly double the amount of prostitution, bastardy,
theft, perjury, and murder than is found among Protestant nations. Where must
we, then, look for the cause of those stupendous facts, if not in the corrupt
teachings of the theology of Rome. How can the Roman Catholic nations hope to
raise themselves in the scale of Christian dignity and morality as long as there
remain one hundred thousand priests in their midst, bound in conscience every
day to pollute the minds and the hearts of their mothers, their wives and their
daughters!
And here let me say, once for all, that I am not induced to speak as I do from
any motive of contempt or unchristian feeling against the theological professors
who have initiated me into those mysteries of iniquity. The Rev. Messrs. Raimbault
and Leprohon were, and in my mind they still are, as respectable as men can
be in the Church of Rome. As I have been myself, and as all the priests of Rome
are, they were plunged without understanding it, into the abyss of the most
stolid ignorance. They were crushed, as I was myself, under a yoke which bound
their understanding to the dust, and polluted their hearts without measure.
We were embarked together on a ship, the first appearance of which was really
magnificent, but the bottom of which was irremediably rotten. Without the true
Pilot on board we were left to perish on unknown shoals. Out of this sinking
ship the hand of God alone, in His providence rescued me. I pity those friends
of my youth, but despise them? hate them? No! Never! Never!
Every time out theological teachers gave us our lessons, it was evident that
they blushed in the inmost part of their souls. Their consciences as honest
men were evidently forbidding them, on the one hand, to open their mouths on
such matters, while, on the other hand, as slaves and priests of the Pope, they
were compelled to speak without reserve.
After our lessons in theology, we students used to be filled with such a sentiment
of shame that sometimes we hardly dared to look at each other: and, when alone
in our rooms, those horrible pictures were affecting our hearts, in spite of
ourselves, as the rust affects and corrodes the hardest and purest steel. More
than one of my fellow-students told me, with tears of shame and rage, that they
regretted to have bound themselves by perpetual oaths to minister at the altars
of the Church.
One day one of the students, called Desaulnier, who was sick in the same room
with me, asked me: "Chiniquy, what do you think of the matters which are
the objects of our present theological studies? Is it not a burning shame that
we must allow our minds to be so polluted?"
"I cannot sufficiently tell you my feelings of disgust," I answered.
"Had I known sooner that we were to be dragged over such a ground, I certainly
never would have nailed my future to the banners under which we are irrevocably
bound to live." "Do you know," said Desaulnier, "that I
am determined never to consent to be ordained a priest; for when I think of
the fact that the priest is bound to confer with women on all of these polluting
matters, I feel an insurmountable disgust and shame."
"I am not less troubled," I replied. "My head aches and my heart
sinks within me when I hear our theologians telling us that we will be in conscience
bound to speak to females on these impure subjects. But sometimes this looks
to me as if it were a bad dream, the impure phantoms of which will disappear
at the first awakening. Our Church, which is so pure and holy that she can only
be served by the spotless virgins, surely cannot compel us to pollute our lips,
thoughts, souls, and even our bodies, by speaking to strange women on matters
so defiling!"
"But we are near the hour at which the good Mr. Leprohon is in the habit
of visiting us. Will you," I said, "promise to stand by me in what
I will ask him on this subject? I hope to get from him a pledge that we will
not be compelled to be polluted in the confessional by the women who will confess
to us. The purity and holiness of our superior is of such a high character,
that I am sure he has never said a word to females on those degrading matters.
In spite of all the theologians, Mr. Leprohon will allow us to keep our tongues
and our hearts, as well as our bodies, pure in the confessional."
"I have had the desire to speak to him upon this subject for some time,"
rejoined Desaulnier, "but my courage failed me every time I attempted to
do so. I am glad, therefore, that you are to break the ice, and I will certainly
support you, as I have a longing desire to know something more in regard to
the mysteries of the confessional. If we are at liberty never to speak to women
on these horrors, I will consent to serve the Church as a priest; but if not,
I will never be a priest."
A few minutes after this our superior entered to kindly enquire how we had rested
the night before. Having thanked him for his kindness, I opened the volumes
of Dens and Liguori which were on our table, and, with a blush, putting my fingers
on one of the infamous chapters referred to, I said to him:
"After God, you have the first place in my heart since my mother's death,
and you know it. I take you, not only as my benefactor, but also, as it were,
as my father and mother. You will therefore tell me all I want to know in these
my hours of anxiety, through which God is pleased to make me pass. To follow
your advice, not to say your commands, I have lately consented to receive the
order of sub-deacon, and I have in consequence taken the vow of perpetual celibacy.
But I will not conceal the fact from you, I had not a clear understanding of
what I was doing; and Desaulnier has just stated to me, that until recently
he had no more idea of the nature of that promise, nor of the difficulties which
we now see ahead of us in our priestly life than I had.
"But Dens, Liguori and St. Thomas have given us notions quite new in regard
to many things. They have directed our minds to the knowledge of the laws which
are in us, as well as in every other child of Adam. They have, in a word, directed
our minds into regions which were quite new and unexplored by us; and I dare
say that every one of those whom we have known, whether in this house or elsewhere,
who have made the same vow, could tell you the same tale.
"However, I do not speak for them; I speak only for myself and Desaulnier.
For God's sake, please tell us if we will be bound in conscience to speak in
the confessional, to the married and unmarried females, on such impure and defiling
questions as are contained in the theologians before us?"
"Most undoubtedly," replied Rev. Mr. Leprohon; "because the learned
and holy theologians whose writings are in your hands are positive on that question.
It is absolutely necessary that you should question your female penitents on
such matters; for, as a general thing, girls and married women are too timid
to confess those sins, of which they are even more frequently guilty than men,
therefore they must be helped by questioning them."
"But have you not," I rejoined, "induced us to make an oath that
we should always remain pure and undefiled? How is it then, that today you put
us in such a position that it is almost impossibility for us to be true to our
sacred promise? For the theologians are unanimous that those questions put by
us to our female penitents, together with the recital of their secret sins,
will act with such an irresistible power upon us that we will be polluted.
"Would it not be better for us to experience those things in the holy bonds
of marriage, with our wives, and according to the laws of God, than in company
and conversation with strange women? Because, if we are to believe the theologians
which are in our hands, no priest not even you, my dear Mr. Leprohon can hear
the confessions of women without being defiled."
Here Desaulnier interrupted me, and said: "My dear Mr. Leprohon, I concur
in everything Chiniquy has just been telling you. Would we not be more chaste
and pure by living with our lawful wives, than by daily exposing ourselves in
the confessional in company of women whose presence will irresistibly drag us
into the most shameful pit of impurity? I ask you, my dear sir, what will become
of my vow of perfect and perpetual chastity, when the seducing presence of my
neighbour's wife, or the enchanting words of his daughter, will have defiled
me through the confessional. After all, I may be looked upon by the people as
a chaste man; but what will I be in the eyes of God? The people may entertain
the thought that I am a strong and honest man; but will I not be a broken reed?
Will God not be the witness that the irresistible temptations which will have
assailed me when hearing the secret sins of some sweet and tempting woman, will
have deprived me of that glorious crown of chastity for which I have so dearly
paid? Men will think that I am an angel of purity; but my own conscience will
tell me that I am nothing but a skillful hypocrite. For according to all the
theologians, the confessional is the tomb of the chastity of priests!! If I
hear the confession of women, I will be like all other priests, in a tomb, well
painted and gilded on the outside, but within full or corruption."
Francis Desaulnier, just as he had foretold me, refused to be a priest. He remained
all his life in the orders of sub-deaconate, in the College of Nicolet, as a
Professor of Philosophy. He was a man who seldom spoke in conversation, but
thought very much. It seems to me that I still see him there, under that tall
centenary tree, alone, during the long hours of intermission, and many long
days during our holidays, while the rest of the students passed hither and thither,
singing and playing, on the enchanting banks of the river of Nicolet.
He was a good logician and a profound mathematician; and although affable to
everyone, he was not communicative. I was probably the only one to whom he opened
his mind concerning the great questions of Christianity faith, history, the
Church and her discipline. He repeatedly said to me: "I wish I had never
opened a book of theology. Our theologians are without heart, soul or logic.
Many of them approve of theft, lies and perjury; others drag us without a blush,
into the most filthy pits of iniquity. Every one of them would like to make
an assassin of every Catholic. According to their doctrine, Christ is nothing
but a Corsican brigand, whose blood-thirsty disciples are bound to destroy all
the heretics with fire and sword. Were we acting according to the principles
of those theologians, we would slaughter all Protestants with the same coolness
of blood as we would shoot down the wolf which crosses our path. With their
hand still reddened with the blood of St. Bartholomew, they speak to us of charity,
religion and God, as if there were neither of them in the world."
Desaulnier was looked upon as "un homme singulier" at Nicolet. He
was really an exception to all the men in the seminary. For example: Though
it was the usage and the law that ecclesiastics should receive the communion
every month, and upon every great feast day of the Church, yet he would scarcely
take the communion once a year. But let me return to the interview with our
superior.
Desaulnier's fearless and energetic words had evidently made a very painful
impression upon our superior. It was not a usual thing for His disciples in
theology thus to take upon themselves to speak with such freedom as we both
did on this occasion. He did not conceal his pain at what he called our unbecoming
and unchristian attack upon some of the most holy ordinances of the Church;
and after he had refuted Desaulnier in the best way he could, he turned to me
and said: "My dear Chiniquy, I have repeatedly warned you against the habit
you have of listening to your own frail reasoning, when you should only obey
as a dutiful child. Were we to believe you, we would immediately set ourselves
to work to reform the Church and abolish the confession of women to priests;
we would throw all our theological books into the fire and have new one written,
better adapted to your fancy. What does all this prove? Only one thing, and
that is, that the devil of pride is tempting you as he has tempted all the so-called
Reformers, and destroyed them as he would you. If you do not take care, you
will become another Luther!
"The Theological books of St. Thomas, Liguori and Dens have been approved
by the Church. How, therefore, do you not see the ridicule and danger of your
position. On one side, then, I see all our holy popes, the two thousand Catholic
bishops, all our learned theologians and priests, backed up by over two hundred
millions of Roman Catholics drawn up as an innumerable army to fight the battles
of the Lord; and on the other side what do I see? Nothing by my small, though
very dear Chiniquy!
"How, then, is it that you do not fear, when with your weak reasoning you
oppose the mighty reasoning and light of so many holy popes, and venerable bishops
and learned theologians? Is it not just as absurd for you to try to reform the
Church by your small reason, as it is for the grain of sand which is found at
the foot of the great mountain to try to turn that mighty mountain out of its
place? or for the small drop of water to attempt to throw the boundless ocean
out of its bed, or try to oppose the running tides of the Polar seas?
"Believe me, and take my friendly advice," continued our superior,
"before it is too late. Let the small grain of sand remain still at the
foot of the majestic mountain; and let the humble drop of water consent to follow
the irresistible currents of the boundless seas, and everything will be in order.
"All the good priests who have heard the confessions of women before us
have been satisfied and have had their souls saved, even when their bodies were
polluted; for those carnal pollutions are nothing but human miseries, which
cannot defile a soul which desires to remain united to God. Are the rays of
the sun defiled by coming down into the mud? No! The rays remain pure, and return
spotless to the shining orb whence they came. So the heart of a good priest
as I hope my dear Chiniquy will be will remain pure and holy in spite of the
accidental and unavoidable defilement of the flesh.
"Apart from these things, in your ordination you will receive a special
grace which will change you into another man; and the Virgin Mary, to whom you
will constantly address yourself, will obtain for you a perfect purity from
her Son.
"The defilement of the flesh spoken of by the theologians, and which, I
confess, is unavoidable when hearing the confessions of women, must not trouble
you; for they are not sinful, as Dens and Liguori assure us. (Dens. vol. i.,
pages 299, 300.)
"But enough on that subject. I forbid you to speak to me any more on those
idle questions, and, as much as my authority is anything to you both, I forbid
you to say a word more to each other on that matter!!"
It was my fond hope that my dear and so much venerated Mr. Leprohon would answer
me with some good and reasonable arguments; but he, to my surprise, silenced
the voice of our conscience by un coup d'etat.
Nevertheless, the idea of that miserable grain of sand which so ridiculously
attempted to remove the stately mountain, and also of that all but imperceptible
drop of water which attempted to oppose itself to the onward motion of the vast
ocean, singularly struck and humbled me. I remained silent and confused, though
not convinced.
This was not all. Those rays of the sun, which could not be defiled even when
going down into the mud, after bewildering one by their glittering appearance,
left my soul more in the dark than ever. I could not resist the presentiment
that I was in the presence of an imposition, and of a glittering sophism. But
I had neither sufficient learning, moral courage, nor grace from God clearly
to see through that misty cloud and to expel it from my mind.
Almost every month of the ten years which I had passed in the seminary of Nicolet,
priests of the district of Three Rivers and elsewhere were sent by the bishops
to spend two or three weeks in doing penances for having bastards by their nieces,
their housekeepers, or their fair penitents. Even not long before this conversation
with our director, the curate of St. Francois, the Rev. Mr. Amiot, had in the
very same week two children by two of his fair penitents, both of whom were
sisters. One of those girls gave birth to her child at the parsonage the very
night on which the bishop was on his episcopal visit to that parish. These public
and undeniable facts were not much in harmony with those beautiful theories
of our venerable director concerning the rays of the sun, which "remained
pure and undefiled even when warming and vivifying the mud of our planet."
The facts had frequently occurred to my mind while Mr. Leprohon was speaking,
and I was tempted more than once to ask him respectfully if he really thought
these "shining rays," the priests, had thus come into the mire, and
would then return, like the rays of the sun, without taking back with them something
of the mire in which they had been so strangely wallowing. But my respect for
Mr. Leprohon sealed my lips.
When I returned to my room I fell on my knees to ask God to pardon me for having,
for the moment, thought otherwise than the popes and theologians of Rome. I
again felt angry with myself for having dared, for a single moment, to have
arrayed my poor little and imperceptible grain of sand drop of water and personal
and contemptible understanding against that sublime mountain of strength, that
vast ocean of learning, and that immensely divine wisdom of the popes!
But, alas! I was not yet aware that when Jesus in His mercy sends into a perishing
soul a single ray of His grace, that there is more light and wisdom in that
soul than in all the popes and their theologians!
I was then taught what the real foundation of the Church of Rome is, and sincerely
believed that to think for myself was a damnable impiety that to look and see
with my own eyes, and understand with my own mind, was an unpardonable sin.
To be saved I had to believe, not what I considered to be the truth, but what
the popes told me to be the truth. I had to look and see every object of faith,
just as every true Roman Catholic of today has to look and see the same, through
the Pope's eyes or those of his theologians.
However absurd and impious this belief may be, yet it was mine, and it is also
the belief of every true member of the Church of Rome today. The glorious light
and grace of God could not possibly flow directly from Him to me; they had to
pass through the Pope and his Church, which were my only mountain of strength
and only ocean of light. It was, then, my firm belief that there was an impassable
abyss between myself and God, and that the Pope and his Church were the only
bridge by which I could have communication with Him. That stupendously high
and most sublime mountain, the Pope, was between myself and God: and all that
was allowed my poor soul was to raise itself and travel with great difficulty
till it attained the foot of that holy mountain, the Pope, and, prostrating
itself there in the dust, ask him to let me know what my yet distant God would
have me to do. The promises of mercy, truth, light, and life were all vested
in this great mountain, the Pope, from whom alone they could descend upon my
poor soul!
Darkness, ignorance, uncertainty, and eternal loss were my lot, the very moment
I ceased worshiping at the feet of the Pope! The God of Heaven was not my God;
He was only the God of the Pope! The Saviour of the world was not my Saviour;
He was only the Pope's. Therefore it was through the Pope only that I could
receive Christ as my Saviour, and to the Pope alone had I to go to know the
way, the truth, and the life of my soul!
God alone knows what a dark and terrible night I passed after this meeting!
I had again to smother my conscience, dismantle my reason, and bring them all
under the turpitudes of the theologies of Rome, which are so well calculated
to keep the world fettered in ignorance and superstition.
But God saw the tears with which I bedewed my pillow that night. He heard the
cry of my agonizing soul, and in His infinite love and mercy determined to come
to my rescue, and save me. If He saw fit to leave me many years more in the
slavery of Egypt, it was that I might better know the plagues of that land of
darkness, and the iron chains which are there prepared for poor lost souls.
When the hour of my deliverance came, the Lord took me by the hand and helped
me to cross the Red Sea. He brought me to the Land of Promise a land of peace,
life, and joy which passeth all understanding.