Chapter XII
ROME AND EDUCATION—WHY DOES THE CHURCH OF ROME HATE THE COMMON SCHOOLS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND WANTS TO DESTROY THEM? WHY DOES SHE OBJECT TO THE READING OF THE BIBLE IN THE SCHOOL?
The word EDUCATION is a beautiful word. It comes from the Latin educare, which means to raise up, to take from the lowest degrees to the highest spheres of knowledge. The object of education is, then, to feed, expand, raise, enlighten and strengthen the intelligence.
We hear the Roman Catholic priests making use of that beautiful word education as often, if not oftener, than the Protestant. But that word “education” has a very different meaning among the followers of the pope than among the disciples of the Gospel. And that difference, which the Protestants ignore, is the cause of the strange blunders they make every time they try to legislate on that question, here, as well as in England or in Canada.
The meaning of the word education among Protestants is as far from the meaning of that same word among Roman Catholics as the southern pole is from the northern pole. When a Protestant speaks of education, that word is used and understood in its true sense. When he sends his little boy to a Protestant school, he honestly desires that he should be reared up in the spheres of knowledge as much as his intelligence will allow. When that little boy is going to school, he soon feels that he has been raised up to some extent, and he experiences a sincere joy, a noble pride, for this new, though at first very modest raising; but he naturally understands that this new and modest upheaval is only a stone to step on and raise himself to a higher degree of knowledge, and he quickly makes that second step with an unspeakable pleasure. When the son of a Protestant has acquired a little knowledge, he wants to acquire more. When he has learned what this means, he wants to know what that means also. Like the young eagle, he trims his wings for a higher flight, and turns his head upward to go farther up in the atmosphere of knowledge. A noble and mysterious ambition has suddenly seized his young soul. Then he begins to feel something of that unquenchable thirst for knowledge which God Himself has put in the breast of every child of Adam; a thirst of knowledge, however, which will never be perfectly realized except in heaven.
When God created man in His own image, He endowed him with an intelligence and moral faculties worthy of the high, I was going to say the divine, dignity of His own beloved children. He Himself put in us aspirations and instincts by which we were to be constantly longing after the oceans of light, truth and knowledge, whose waves wash His eternal throne. It is that thirst after more knowledge, that constant longing after more light, which constitutes the difference between man and brute. Man has received from God an intelligence which, though clouded now by sin, is to him what the helm is to the noble ship which crosses the boundless ocean; he has a conscience, an immortal soul which binds him to God, and he feels it. His destinies are glorious, they are incommensurable, they are infinite, and he knows it. Though a dethroned king, he feels that he is still a king. The six thousand years which have passed over him since his fall have not yet effaced the kingly title which God Himself wrote on his forehead when He told him, “Multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it” (Gen. i: 28). With that glorious, that divine mission of subduing the air and the light, the wind and the waves, the seas and the earth, the roaring thunder and the flashing lightning constantly before his eyes, man marches to the conquest of the world with the calm certitude of his power and the glorious aspirations of his royal dignity.
The object of education, then, is to enable man to fulfill that kingly mission of ruling, subduing the world, under the eyes of his Creator. Let us remember that it is not from himself, nor from any angel, but it is from God himself that man has received that sublime mission. Yes, it is God himself who has implanted in the bosom of humanity the knowledge and aspirations of those splendid destinies which can be attained only by “Education.”
What a glorious impulse is this that seizes hold of the newly awakened mind, and leads the young intelligence to rise higher and pierce the clouds that hide from his gaze the splendors of knowledge that lie concealed beyond the gloom of this nether sphere! That impulse is a noble ambition; it is that part of humanity that assimilates itself to the likeness of the great Creator; that impulse which education has for its mission to direct in its onward and upward march, is one of the most precious gifts of God to man. Once more, the glorious mission of education is to foster these thirstings after knowledge and lead man to accomplish his high destiny.
It ought to be a duty with both Roman Catholics and Protestants to assist the pupil in his flight toward the regions of science and learning. But is it so? No. When you Protestants send your children to school, you put no fetters to their intelligence; they rise with fluttering wings day after day. Though their flight at first is slow and timid, how happy they feel at every new aspect of their intellectual horizon! How their hearts beat with an unspeakable joy when they begin to hear voices of applause and encouragement from every side saying to them, “Higher, higher, higher!” When they shake their young wings to take a still higher flight, who can express their joy when they distinctly hear again the voices of a beloved mother, of a dear father, of a venerable pastor, cheering them and saying, “Well done! Higher yet, my child, higher!”
Raising themselves with more confidence on their wings, they then soar still higher, in the midst of the unanimous concert of the voices of their whole country encouraging them to the highest flight. It is then that the young man feel his intellectual strength tenfold multiplied. He lifts himself on his eagle wings, with a renewed confidence and power, and soars up still higher, with his heart beating with a noble and holy joy. For from the south and north, from the east and the west, the echoes bring to his ears the voices of the admiring multitudes—“Rise higher, higher yet!”
He has now reached what he thought, at first, to be the highest regions of thought and knowledge; but he hears again the same stimulating cries from below, encouraging him to a still higher flight toward the loftiest dominion of knowledge and philosophy, till he enters the regions where lies the source of all truth, and light and life. For he has also heard the voice of his God, speaking through His Son Jesus Christ, crying, “Come unto me! Fear not! Come unto me! I am the light, the way! Come to this higher region where the Father, with the Son and the Spirit, reign in endless light!”
Thus does the Protestant scholar making use of his intelligence as the eagle of his wing, go on from weakness unto strength, from the timid flutter to the bold, confident flight, from one degree to another still higher, from one region of knowledge to another still higher, till he loses himself in that ocean of light and truth and life which is God.
In the Protestant schools no fetters are put on the young eagle’s wings; there is nothing to stop him in his progress, or paralyze his movements and upward flights. It is the contrary: he receives every kind of encouragement in his flight.
Thus it is that the only truly great nations in the world are Protestants! Thus it is the truly powerful nations in the world are Protestants! Thus it is that the only free nations in the world are Protestants! The Protestant nations are the only ones that acquit themselves like men in the arena of this world; Protestant nations only march as giants at the head of the civilized world. Everywhere they are the advance guard in the ranks of progress, science and liberty, leaving far behind the unfortunate nations whose hands are tied by the ignominious iron chains of Popery.
After we have seen the Protestant scholar raising himself, on his eagle wings, to the highest spheres of intelligence, happiness and light, and marching unimpaired toward his splendid destinies, let us turn our eyes toward the Roman Catholic student, and let us consider and pity him in the supreme degradation to which he is subjected.
That young Roman Catholic scholar is born with the same bright intelligence as the Protestant one; he is endowed by his Creator with the same powers of mind as his Protestant neighbor; he has the same impulses, the same noble aspirations implanted by the hand of God in his breast. He is sent to school apparently, like the Protestant boy, to receive what is called “Education.” He at first understands that word in its true sense; he goes to school in the hope of being raised, elevated as high as his intelligence and his personal efforts will allow. His heart beats with joy, when at once the first rays of light and knowledge come to him; he feels a holy, a noble pride at every new step he makes in his upward progress; he longs to learn more, he wants to rise higher; he also takes up his wings, like the young eagle, and soars up higher.
But here begin the disappointments and tribulations of the Roman Catholic student; for he is allowed to raise himself—yes, but when he has raised himself high enough to be on a level with the big toes of the Pope, he hears piercing, angry, threatening angry cries coming from every side—“Stop! stop! Do not raise yourself higher than the toes of the Holy Pope!... Kiss those holy toes, ... and stop your upward flight! Remember that the Pope is the only source of science, knowledge and truth!... The knowledge of the Pope is the ultimate limit of learning and light to which humanity can attain.... You are not allowed to know and believe what his Holiness does not know and believe. Stop! stop! Do not go an inch higher than the intellectual horizon the Supreme Pontiff of Rome, in whom only is the plenitude of the true science which will save the world.”
Some will perhaps answer me here: “Has not Rome produced great men in every department of science?” I answer, Yes; as I have once done before. Rome can show us a long list of names which shine among the brightest lights of the firmament of science and philosophy. She can show us her Copernices, her Galileos, her Pascals, her Bossuets, her Lamenais, etc., etc. But it is at their risk and peril that those giants of intelligence have raised themselves into the highest regions of philosophy and science. It is in spite of Rome that those eagles have soared up above the damp and obscure horizon where the Pope offers his big toes to be kissed and worshipped as the ne plus ultra of human intelligence; and they have invariably been punished for their boldness.
On the 22nd of June, 1663, Galileo was obliged to fall on his knees in order to escape the cruel death to which he was to be condemned by the order of the Pope; and he signed with his own hand the following retractation: “I abjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the motion of the earth,” etc., etc.
That learned man had to degrade himself by swearing a most egregious lie, namely, that the earth does not move around the sun. Thus it is that the wings of that giant eagle of Rome were clipped by the scissors of the Pope. That mighty intelligence was bruised, fettered, and, as much as it was possible to the Church of Rome, degraded, silenced and killed. But God would not allow that such a giant intellect should be entirely strangled by the bloody hands of that implacable enemy of light and truth—the Pope. Sufficient strength and life had remained in Galileo to enable him to say, when rising up, “This will not prevent the earth from moving!”
The infallible decree of the infallible Pope, Urban VIII., against the motion of the earth, is signed by the Cardinals Felia, Guido, Desiderio, Antonio, Bellingero, and Fabricicio. It says, “In the name and by the authority of Jesus Christ, the plenitude of which resides in His vicar, the Pope, that the proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, and that it moves with a diurnal motion is absurd, philosophically false, and erroneous in faith.”
What a glorious thing for the Pope of Rome to be infallible! He infallibly knows that the earth does not move around the sun! And what a blessed thing for the Roman Catholics to be governed and taught by such an infallible being. In consequence of that infallible decree, you will admire the following act of humble submission of two celebrated Jesuit astronomers, Lesueur and Jacquier: “Newton assumes in his third book the hypothesis of the earth moving around the sun. The proposition of that author could not be explained, except through the same hypothesis: we have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our entire submission to the decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs of Rome against the motion of the earth.” (Newton’s “Principia,” vol. iii., p. 450.)
Now, please tell me if the world has ever witnessed any degradation like that of Roman Catholics? I do not speak of the ignorant and unlearned, but I speak of the learned—the intelligent ones. There you see Galileo condemned to gaol because he had proved that the earth moved around the sun, and to avoid the cruel death on the rack of the holy Inquisition if he does not retract, he falls on his knees and swears that he will never believe it—in the very moment that he believes it! He promises, under a solemn oath, that he will never say it any more, when he is determined to proclaim it again the very first opportunity! And here you see two other learned Jesuits, who have written a very able work to prove that the earth moves around the sun; but, trembling at the thunders of the Vatican, which are roaring on their heads and threaten to kill them, they submit to the decrees of the Popes of Rome against the motion of the earth. These two learned Jesuits tell a most contemptible and ridiculous lie to save themselves from the implacable wrath of that great light-extinguisher whose throne is in the city of the seven hills.
Lamenais, a Roman Catholic priest, who lived in this very century, was one of the most profound philosophers and eloquent writers which France has ever had. But Lamenais was publicly excommunicated for having raised himself high enough in the regions of Gospel light to see that “liberty of conscience” was one of the great privileges which Christ has brought from heaven for all the nations, and which He has sealed with His blood! No man has ever raised himself higher in the regions of thought and philosophy than Pascal; but the wings of that giant eagle were clipped by the Pope. Pascal was an outcast in the Church of Rome. He lived and died an excommunicated man! Bossuet is one of the most eloquent orators which Rome has given to the world. But Veuillot, the editor of the Univers (the official journal of the Roman Catholic clergy of France) assures us that Bossuet was a disguised Protestant.
If, at any step made by the Protestant through the regions of science and learning, he asks God or man to tell him how he can proceed any further without any fear of falling into some unknown and unsuspected abyss, both God and man tell him what Christ said to His apostles—that he has eyes to see, ears to hear, and an intelligence to understand; he is reminded that it is with his own eyes, and not with another’s eyes, he must look; that it is with his own ears, and not with another’s ears, he must hear; and that it is with his own intelligence, and not another’s intelligence, he must understand. And when the Protestant has made use of his own eyes to see, and his own ears to hear, and his own intelligence to understand, he nevertheless feels again his feet uncertain on the trembling waves of the mysterious and unexplored regions of science and learning which spread before him as a boundless ocean, all the echoes of heaven and earth bring to his ears the simple but sublime words of the Son of God: “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he, for a fish, give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
Emboldened with this infallible promise of the Saviour, which has ennobled and almost divinized him, the Protestant student ceases to tremble and fear, a new strength has been given to his feet, a new power to his mind. For he has gone to his Father for more light and strength. Nay, he has boldly asked not only the assistance and the help of the Spirit of God, but the very presence of His Spirit in his soul to guide and strengthen him. The assurance that the great God who has created heaven and earth is his Father, his loving Father, has absolutely raised him above himself; it has given a new, I dare say a divine impulse, to all his aspirations for truth and knowledge. It has put into his breast the assurance that, sustained by the love, and the light, and the help of that great infinite, eternal God, he feels himself as a giant able to cope with any obstacle. He does not any more walk, on his way to eternity, as a worm of the dust; a voice from heaven has told him that he was the child of God! Eternity, and not time, then becomes the limits of his existence; he is no more satisfied with touching with his hands and studying with his eyes the few objects which are within the limited horizon of the eyelid-vision. He stretches his giant hands to the boundless limits of the infinite, he boldly raises his feet and eyes from the dust of this earth, to launch himself into the boundless oceans of the unknown worlds. He feels as if there was almost nothing beyond the reach of his intelligence, nothing to resist the power of his arms, nothing to stop his onward progress toward the infinite so long as the infallible words of Christ shall be his compass, his light, and his strength. He will then touch the mountains, and they will melt and bow down before him to let his iron and fiery chariot pass over the Rocky Mountains, 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. He will boldly ascend to the regions where the lightning and the storms reign, and there he will place his daring hands into the roaring clouds, and wrench the sparkle of lightning which will carry his message from one end of the world to the other. He will force the oceans to tremble and submit, as humble slaves, before those marvelous steam-engines which, like giants, carry “floating cities” over all the seas in spite of the winds and the waves.
Had the Newtons, the Franklins, the Fultons, the Morses been Romanists, their names would have been lost in the obscurity which is the natural heritage of the abject slaves of the Popes. Being told from their infancy that no one had any right to make use of his “private judgment,” intelligence and conscience in the research of truth, they would have remained mute and motionless at the feet of the modern and terrible god of Rome, the Pope. But they were Protestants! In that great and glorious word “Protestant,” is the secret of the marvelous discoveries with which they have changed the face of the world. They were Protestants! Yes, they had passed their young years in Protestant schools, where they had read a book which told them that they were created in the image of God, and that that great God had sent His eternal Son, Jesus, to make them free from the bondage of man. They had read in that Protestant book (for the Bible is the most Protestant book in the world) that man had not only a conscience, but an intelligence to guide him; they had learned that that intelligence and conscience had no other master but God, no other guide but God, no other light but God. On the walls of their Protestant schools the Son of God had written the marvelous words: “Come unto me; I am the Light, the Way, the Life.”
But when the Protestant nations are marching with such giant strides to the conquest of the world, why is it that the Roman Catholic nations not only remain stationary, but give evidence of a decadence which is, day after day, more and more appalling and remediless? Go to their schools and give a moment of attention to the principles which are sown in the young intelligences of their unfortunate slaves, and you will have the key to that sad mystery.
What is not only the first, but the daily school lesson taught to the Roman Catholic? Is it not that one of the greatest crimes which a man can commit is to follow his “private judgment?” which means that he has eyes, but cannot see; ears, but he cannot hear; and intelligence, but he cannot make use of it in the research of truth and light and knowledge, without danger of being eternally damned. His superiors—which mean the priest and the Pope—must see for him, hear for him, and think for him. Yes, the Roman Catholic is constantly told in his school that the most unpardonable and damnable crime is to make use of his own intelligence and follow his own private judgment in the research of truth. He is constantly reminded that man’s own private judgment is his greatest enemy. Hence all his intellectual and conscientious efforts must be brought to fight down, silence, kill his “private judgment.” It is by the judgment of his superiors—the priest, the bishop and the pope—that he must be guided in everything.
Now, what is a man who cannot make use of his “private personal judgment?” Is he not a slave, an idiot, an ass? And what is a nation composed of men who do not make use of their private personal judgment in the research of truth and happiness, if not a nation of brutes, slaves and contemptible idiots?
But as this will look like an exaggeration on my part, allow me to force the Church of Rome to come here and speak for herself. Please pay attention to what she has to say about the intellectual faculties of men. Here are the very words of the so-called Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Society:
“As for holy obedience, this virtue must be perfect in every point—in execution, in will, in intellect, doing which is enjoined with all celerity, spiritual joy and perseverance; persuading ourselves that everything is just, suppressing every repugnant thought and judgment of one’s own in a certain obedience; and let every one persuade himself, that he who lives under obedience should be moved and directed, under Divine Providence, by his superior, JUST AS IF HE WERE A CORPSE (perinde acsi cadaver esset) which allows itself to be moved and led in every direction.”
Yes! Protestants, when you send your child to school, it is that he may more and more understand the dignity of man. Your object is to enlighten, expand and raise his intelligence. You want to give more light, more strength, more food, more life to that intelligence. But know it well, not from my pen, but from the solemn declaration of Rome. The young Roman Catholic goes to school, not only that his intelligence may be fettered, clouded and paralyzed, but that it may be killed. (You have read it.) It is only when he will be like a corpse before his superior that the young Roman Catholic will have attained to the highest degree of perfect manhood! Is not such a doctrine absolutely anti-Christian and anti-social. Is it not diabolical? Would not mankind become a flock of brute beasts if the Church of Rome could succeed in persuading her hundred of millions of slaves to consider themselves as cadavers—corpses in the presence of their superiors.
Some one will, perhaps, ask me what can be the object of the popes and the priests of Rome in degrading the Roman Catholics in such a strange way that they turn them into moral corpses? What can be the use of those hundred of millions of corpses? Why not let them live? The answer is a very easy one. The great, and the only object of the thoughts and workings of the Pope and the priests is to raise themselves above the rest of the world. They want to be high! high! high! above the head not only of the common people, but of the kings and emperors of the world. They want to be not only as high, but higher than God. It is when speaking of the Pope that the Holy Ghost says: “He opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (2 Thess. ii. 4). To attain their object, the priests have persuaded their millions and millions of slaves that they were mere corpses; that they must have no will, no conscience, no intelligence of their own, just “as corpses, which allow themselves to be moved and led in any way, without any resistance.” When this has been once gained, they have made a pyramid of all those motionless, inert corpses, which is so high, that though its feet are on the earth, its top goes to the skies, in the very abode of the old divinities of the Pagan world, and putting themselves and their popes at the top of that marvelous pyramid, the priests say to the rest of the world: “Who among you are as high as we are? Who has ever been raised by God as a priest and a pope? Where are the kings and the emperors whose thrones are as elevated as ours? Are we not at the very top of humanity?” Yes! yes! I answer to the priests of Rome, you are high, very high indeed! No throne on earth has ever been so sublime, so exalted as yours. Since the days of the tower of Babel, the world has not seen such a high fabric. Your throne is higher than anything we know. But it is a throne of corpses!!!
And if you want to know what other use is made of those millions and millions of corpses, I will tell it to you. There is no manure so rich as dead carcasses. Those millions of corpses serve to manure the gardens of the priests, the bishops and the popes, and make their cabbages grow. And what fine cabbages grow in the Pope’s garden!
Is it not a lucky thing for the world in general, and for the Roman Catholics in particular, that though they are taught to become like corpses, to have no will, no understanding, no judgment of their own in the presence of their superiors, there are many who can never attain to that perfection of intellectual degradation and death! Yes, in spite of the efforts, in spite of the teachings of their Church, a few Roman Catholics retain some life, some will, some intelligence, some judgment of their own which prevents them from becoming complete brutes. Many now and then refuse to descend to the damp, dark and putrid abode of the corpses. They want to breathe the fresh and pure air of liberty which God has given to man. They raise their humiliated forehead from the ignominious tomb which their church has dug for them, and they give some signs of life. But at every such signs of life given by an individual or by a people in the Church of Rome, be sure that you will see the flashing light and hear the roaring thunder of the Vatican directed against the rebel who dares to refuse to become a corpse before his superiors. It is for having shown such signs of life and independence of mind that Galileo was sent to gaol and threatened to be cruelly tortured on the racks of the Inquisition in Italy, three hundred years ago. It is for having shown those symptoms of life that not long ago the honest Kenna, one of the most respected Roman Catholics of the day, was excommunicated the day before his death, and had to be buried as a dog in his own field, for having refused to take away his children from an excellent grammar school to obey the priest. It is for having dared to think for himself that a few days before his death the amiable and learned Montalembert was considered as an outcast by the Pope, who refused him the honor of public prayers in Rome after his death.
But that you may better understand the degrading tendencies of the principles which are as the fundamental stone of the moral and intellectual education of Rome, let me put before your eyes another extract of the Jesuit teachings, which I take again from the “Spiritual Exercises,” as laid down by their founder, Ignatius Loyola: “That we may in all things attain the truth, that we may not err in anything, we ought ever to hold as a fixed principle that what I see white I believe to be black, if the superior authorities of the Church define it to be so.”
You all know that it is the avowed desire of Rome to have public education in the hands of the Jesuits. She says everywhere that they are the best, the model teachers. Why so? Because they more boldly and more successfully than any other of her teachers aim at the destruction of the intelligence and conscience of their pupils. Rome proclaims everywhere that the Jesuits are the most devoted, the most reliable of her teachers; and she is right, for when a man has been trained a sufficient time by them, he most perfectly becomes a moral corpse. His superiors can do what they please with him. When he knows that a thing is white as snow, he is ready to swear that it is black as ink, if his superior tells him so. But some may be tempted to think that these degrading principles are exclusively taught by the Jesuits; that they are not the teachings of the Church, and that I do an injustice to the Roman Catholics when I give, as a general iniquity, what is the guilt of the Jesuits only. Listen to the words of that infallible Pope Gregory XVI., in his celebrated Encyclical of the 15th of August, 1832. “If the holy Church so requires, let us sacrifice our own opinions, our knowledge, our intelligence, the splendid dreams of our imagination, and the most sublime attainments of the human understanding.”
It is when considering those anti-social principles of Rome that our learned and profound thinker, Gladstone, wrote, not long ago: “No more cunning plot was ever devised against the freedom, the happiness and the virtues of mankind than Romanism.” (“Letter to Earl Aberdeen.”) Now, Protestants, do you begin to see the difference of the object of education between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic school? Do you begin to understand that there is as great a distance between the word “Education” among you, and the meaning of the same word in the Church of Rome, than between the southern and the northern poles! By education you mean to raise man to the highest sphere of manhood. Rome means to lower him below the most stupid brutes. By education you mean to teach man that he is a free agent; that liberty, within the limits of the laws of God and of his country, is a gift secured to every one; you want to impress man with the noble thought that it is better to die a free man than to live a slave. Rome wants to teach that there is only one man who is free, the Pope, and that all the rest are born to be his abject slaves in thought, will and action.
Now, that you may still more understand to what a bottomless abyss of human degradation and moral depravity these anti-Christian and anti-social principles of Rome lead her poor blind slaves, read what Liguori says in his book, “The Nun Sanctified”: “The principal and most efficacious means of practicing obedience due to superiors, and of rendering it meritorious before God, is to consider that in obeying them we obey God himself, and that by despising their commands, we despise the authority of our Divine Master. When, thus, a religious receives a precept from her prelate, superior or confessor, she should immediately execute it, not only to please them but principally to please God, whose will is made known to her by their command. In obeying their command, in obeying their directions, she is more certainly obeying the will of God than if an angel came down from heaven to manifest his will to her. Bear this always in your mind, that the obedience which you practice to your superior is paid to God. If, then, you receive a command from one who holds the place of God, you should observe it with the same diligence as if it came from God himself. Blessed Egidus used to say that it is more meritorious to obey man for the love of God than God himself. It may be added that there is more certainty of doing the will of God by obedience to your superior than by obedience to Jesus Christ, should He appear in person and give His commands. St. Philip de Neri used to say that religious shall be most certain of not having to render an account of the actions performed through obedience; for these the superiors only who commanded them shall be held accountable.” The Lord said once to St. Catherine of Sienne, “Religious will not be obliged to render an account to me of what they do through obedience; for that I will demand an account from the superior. This doctrine is conformable to Sacred Scripture: Behold, says the Lord, as clay is in the potter’s hands, so are you in my hand, O Israel! (Jeremiah xviii: 6.) A religious man must be in the hands of the superiors to be molded as they will. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What art thou making? The potter ought to answer, ‘Be silent; it is not your business to inquire what I do, but to obey and to receive whatever form I please to give you.’”
I ask of you, American Protestants, what would become of your fair country if you were blind enough to allow the Church of Rome to teach the children of the United States? What kind of men and women can come out of such schools? What future of shame, degradation and slavery you prepare for your country if Rome does succeed in forcing you to support such schools. What kind of women would come out from the schools of nuns, who would teach them that the highest pitch of perfection in a woman is when she obeys her superior, the priest, in everything he commands her! that your daughter will never be called to give an account to God for the actions she will have done to please and obey her superior, the priest, the bishop or the Pope? That the affairs of her conscience will be arranged between God and that superior, and that she will never be asked why she had done this or that, when it will be to gratify the pleasures of the superior and obey his command that she has done it. Again, what kind of men and citizens will come out from the schools of those Jesuits who believe and teach that a man has attained the perfection of manhood only when he is a perfectly spiritual corpse before his superior; when he obeys the priest with the perfection of a cadaver, that has neither life nor will in itself.
But some will be tempted to think that this perfect blind obedience to the priest, which is the corner-stone of the Roman Catholic education, is required only in spiritual matters. Yes; but you must not forget that in the Church of Rome every action of the public or private life belongs to the spiritual sphere, which the superior only must rule. For instance, a Roman Catholic has not the right to select the teacher of his boy, nor the school where he will send him; he must consult his priest, and if he dares to act in a different way from what his priest has told him in the selection of that teacher or that school, he is excommunicated and damned, as Mr. Kenna has been lately. If he votes according to his own private judgment for Mr. Jones, instead of Mr. Thompson, the selected member of the bishop and the priest, he is damned and considered as a rebel against his holy Church, out of which there is no salvation.
The Church of Rome’s only object in giving what she calls education is to teach her slaves that they must obey their superiors in everything, as God himself. All the rest of her teaching is only a mask to conceal her plans. History is never taught in her schools; what she calls history is a most shameful string of falsehoods. Of course she does not dare to say a word of truth about her past struggles against the great principles of light and liberty, when she covered the whole of Europe with tears, blood and ruins. Writing, reading, arithmetic, geography and grammar are taught to a certain degree in her schools, but all these teachings are nothing else but covered roads through which the priest wants to reach the citadel of the heart and intelligence of his poor victim, and take an absolute possession of them. Those things are taught every day only to have a daily opportunity to persuade the pupil that he must never make any use of his private judgment in anything, and that he must submit his intelligence, his conscience, his will to the intelligence, conscience and will of his superior, if he wants to save himself from the eternal fire of hell. He is constantly told, what I have been told a thousand times myself, when studying in the college of Nicolet, that those who obey their superiors in everything will not be called to give an account of their actions to their Supreme Judge, even if those actions were bad in themselves; for, as Liguori told you a moment ago, “Whosoever obeys his superior for the love of God, obeys God himself, and that there are more merits to obey one’s own superior than God himself.”
The Church of Rome shows her great wisdom in enforcing that dogma of the entire and blind subjection of the will and intelligence of the inferior to the superior. For the very moment that a Roman Catholic thinks that it is his right and sacred duty to follow the dictates of his own conscience and intelligence, he is lost to the church of Rome. It is only when a man has entirely silenced and absolutely killed his intelligence, it is only when he has become a perfect moral corpse, that he can believe that his priest, even his drunken priest, has the power to change a wafer, or any other piece of bread, into the great God, for whom and by whom everything has been created. It is only when the intelligence of man has become a dead carcass that he can believe that a miserable sinner has the supreme power to force the Son of God to come, in His divine and human person, into his vest or pant’s pockets to follow him everywhere he wants to go, even to the bar of the low tavern, that He may become his companion of debauch and drunkenness. Do you see, now, why the Church of Rome cannot let her poor young slaves go to your schools? In your schools, the first thing you inculcate to the pupil is that his intelligence is the great gift of God, by which man is distinguished from the brute; that he must enlighten, form, feed, cultivate his intelligence, which is to him what the helm is to the ship, Christ, with His holy Word, being the pilot. You see, now why the Church of Rome abhors your schools. It is because you want to make men, and she wants to make brutes. You want to raise men to the highest sphere to which his intelligence can allow him to reach; she wants to keep him in the dust, at the feet of the priests; you want to form free citizens, she wants to form abject and obedient slaves of the priests; you teach man to keep his sacred promises and stand by his oath, she teaches him that the Pope has the right to dissolve the most sacred promises and to annul all his oaths, even to the oath of allegiance to his country. You tell your pupils that so long as they will keep themselves within the limits of the laws of their country they are responsible only to God for their consciences. They tell their pupils that it is not to God, but to the priest that he must go to give an account of his conscience. You teach your pupils that the laws of God only bind the conscience of man; they tell him that it is the laws of the Church, which means the ipse dixit of the Pope, which binds their consciences. You teach the student that every man has the right to change his religion according to his conscience; she positively says that no man has the right to change his religion according to his conscience. It is evident that the Church of Rome would be dead to-morrow, if, to-day, she would allow her children to attend schools where they would learn to follow the dictates of their conscience and listen to the voice of their intelligence. But she is too shrewd to avow before the world the real reasons why she wants, at any cost, to prevent her children from attending your schools. And it is here she shows her profound and diabolical cunning. Though she is the most deadly enemy of liberty of conscience, though she has, time after time, anathemized liberty of conscience as one of Satan’s schemes, she suddenly steps on, as the great friend and apostle of liberty of conscience, and under that new mask she approaches your legislators with great airs of dignity, and says, “We are happy to live in a country where liberty of conscience is secured to every citizen. It is in its sacred name that we respectfully approach your honorable legislature to ask: First, to be exempted from sending our children to the Government schools. Second, to have the money we want from the public treasury in order to support our own schools. For two reasons: First, you read the Bible in your schools, and it is against our conscience to let our children read the Bible. Second, you have some prayers at the beginning and some religious hymns sung at the end of the hours of school, and it is against our conscience to allow the children of the Church of Rome to join you in those prayers and hymns.” The legislators, who, for the greater part are too honorable men to suspect the fraud, are won by the air of candor and honesty of the Roman Catholic petitioners. Considering the great benefit which will come to the country if all the children are taught in the same school, they are soon ready to make any sacrifice in order to have the Roman Catholic and the Protestant children under the same roof, to receive the same light and the same moral food and same instruction. As true patriots, the legislators understand that if they wish their beloved country to be strong and happy, the first thing they must do is to make the young generation one in mind, in heart. If the Protestant and Roman Catholic children are taught in the same school, they will know each other and love each other when young, and those sacred ties of friendship which will bind them in the spring of life, will be strengthened when their reason will be matured and enlightened by a good education under the same respected and worthy teachers. As Christian men, the legislators would perhaps like to keep the Bible, and have short prayers in the schools; but as patriots, they feel that those things, though good and sacred, are an insurmountable barrier to the Roman Catholic. The delicate conscience of the bishops and priests cannot allow such things in the school attended by their lambs! Through respect for the sacred rights of the Roman Catholic conscience, the legislators in many places throw the Bible overboard, and they say to God: “Please get out from our schools, and do excuse us if we order our teachers to ignore your existence!” They say to Jesus Christ: “We have not forgotten your sublime and touching words, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ No doubt you would like to press our dear little ones on your loving heart and bless them for a moment in the schools; but we cannot allow them to go so near you in the school, we cannot even allow them to speak to you a single word there. Please be not offended if we turn you out from those very schools where you were so welcome formerly. We are forced to that sad extremity through the respect we owe to the tender consciences of our fellow-citizens of the Church of Rome. You know that they cannot allow their children to speak to you together with ours.” But when those awful, not to say sacrilegious, sacrifices have been made by the Protestant legislators to appease the implacable god of Rome—when, through respect for the scruples of the bishops and priests of Rome, the great God of Heaven, with His Son, Jesus Christ, have been unceremoniously turned out from the schools—when the Word of God has been prohibited, and the Bible is thrown overboard, is the Moloch god appeased? Will the Roman Catholic bishops and priests tell their children that they may unite with yours to go and receive education from the same teacher? No! But assuming, then, a sublime air of indignation, they turn against you as mad dogs; they call your schools godless schools! good only to form thieves, infidels and atheists!
Do you see now that all those dignified scruples of conscience about reading the Bible, praying with you, etc., were only a mask to deceive you, and make you fall into a snare? Do you not perceive now that they did not care a straw for the Bible and the prayers in the schools? but they wanted your legislators to compromise themselves before the Christian world, lose their moral strength in the eyes of a great part of the nation, divide your ranks, your means, your strength, and beat you on that great question of education. They will take such airs of martyrs when you will try to force their children to your schools that many honest and unsuspecting Protestants will be completely deceived by them. At first, they could not, they said, trust the children to your hands, because you read the Word of God; you prayed and blessed God in the school. But now that the Bible and God are turned out from the schools, they baptize them by the most ignominious names which can be given—they call them “godless schools!” Have you ever seen a more profoundly ignominious and sacrilegious trick? Will not your legislators open their eyes to that strange act of deception, of which they are the victims? Will they not come out quickly from the traps laid before them by the bishops and the priests of Rome? Yes! let us hope that your patriots and Christian legislators will soon understand that they owe a reparation to God and to their country; with unanimous voice they will ask pardon from God for having expelled him from the very place where He has most right to reign supremely—the school.
For what is a school without God in its midst to sit as a father, and to form the young hearts and evoke the young intellect? What is a boy, what is a girl, what is a woman or a man without God? what is a family, what is a people without God? It is a monstrosity, it is a body without life, it is a world without light, it is a cistern without water. Let us hope that, before long, your patriotic and Christian legislators will remember that the Bible is the foundation of the greatness of Protestant nations. It is to the Bible the United States, as well as Great Britain, owe their liberty, power, prestige and strength. It is the Bible that has ennobled the hearts of your heroes, improved the minds of your poets and orators, and strengthened the arms of your warriors. Yes! it is because your soldiers have brought with them everywhere, the Bible, pressed on their hearts, that they have conquered the enemies of liberty. So long as the United States will be true to the Bible, their glorious banners will fly respected and feared all over the seas, and over all the continents of the world. Let the disciples of the Gospel, the children of God, and the redeemed of Christ all over the fair and noble country you inhabit, hasten to request their legislators to invite the Saviour of the world to come back and bless their dear children in the school. For it is not only in your homes and in your churches that Jesus tells you “Suffer little children to come unto me.” It is particularly in the school. Oh! give two or three minutes to those dear little ones, that they may press themselves on His bosom, bless him for having saved them on the cross, and proclaim his mercies by singing one of those hymns which they like so much. By this noble act of national reparation you will take away from the hands of the priests the only weapon with which they can hurt you; you will destroy the only argument they use with a true force against your schools when they call them godless schools. Do not fear any more the priests and the prelates of Rome. Do not yield any more and give up your privilege to please them and reconcile them to your schools. You will never be able to reconcile them to your schools; for there is light in your schools, and they want the darkness. There is freedom and liberty in your schools; they want slavery! There is life in your schools, and it is only on dead corpses that their church can have a chance to live a few years more. You see, by a sad experience, that their scruples of conscience against the Bible and the prayer of the school are mere hypocrisy just thrown into the eyes of the public. Do not say with some honest but deluded Protestants: Is it not enough that that child should learn his religion at home? No, it is not enough; for it is in our nature that we want two witnesses to believe a thing. What comes to our mind only through one witness remains uncertain; but let two good witnesses confirm a fact, and then we accept it. Your child wants two witnesses to believe the necessity of the sacredness of religion. His Christian home is surely a good witness to your child, but it is not enough; what he has heard from you must be confirmed by his school teacher. Without this second witness, nine times out of ten your children will be skeptics and infidels. Besides that, the very idea of God brings with it the obligation to bless, love and adore Him everywhere. The moment you take your child to a place where not only he cannot love, bless and adore God, but where the adoration and the praise of God are forbidden, you entirely destroy the idea of God from the mind and from the heart of your child. You make him believe that what you have told him, when at home, of God is only a fable to amuse and deceive him.
Do you see that noble ship in the midst of that splendid harbor, how she is tossed by the foaming waves, how she is beaten by the furious winds? What does prevent that ship from flying before the storm and running ashore, a miserable wreck? What does prevent her from being dashed on that rock? The anchor! Yes, the anchor is her safety. But let a single link of the chain that binds the ship to her anchor break, will she not soon be dashed on the rock and broken to pieces, and sink to the bottom of the sea? It is so with your child! So long as his intelligence and his heart are united to God by the anchor of faith, he will nobly stand against the furious waves, he will nobly fight his battles; but let the school teacher be silent about God, and here is a broken link, and the child will be a wreck. Do not fear the priest, but fear God! Do not try any more to please the priests, but do all in your power to please your great and merciful God, not only in your homes, but also in your schools, and those schools will become more than ever a focus of light, an inexhaustible source of intellectual and moral strength—more than ever your children will learn in the school to be your honor and your glory and your joy. They will learn that they are not ignoble worms of the dust, whose existence will end in the tomb, but that they are immortal as God, whose beloved children they are. They will learn how to serve their God and love their country. Be not ashamed, but be proud to send your children to schools where they will learn how to be good Christians and good citizens. When you will have finished your pilgrimage they will be your worthy successors, and the God whom they will have learned to fear, serve and love in the school will help them to make your country great, happy and free.
Chapter XIII
THEOLOGY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME: ITS ANTI-SOCIAL AND ANTI-CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.
Talleyrand, one of the most celebrated Roman Catholic bishops of France, once said, “Language is the art of concealing one’s thoughts.” Never was there a truer expression, if it had reference to the awful deceptions practiced by the Church of Rome under the pompous name of “Theological studies.”
Theology is the study of the knowledge of the laws of God. Nothing, then, is more noble than the study of theology. How solemn were my thoughts and elevated my aspirations when, in 1829, under the guidance of the Rev. Messrs. Raimbault and Leprohon, I commenced my theological course of study at Nicolet, which I was to end in 1833!
I supposed that my books of theology were to bring me nearer to my God by the more perfect knowledge I would acquire, in their study, of His holy will and His sacred laws. My hope was that they would be to my heart what the burning coal, brought by the angel of the Lord, was to the lips of the prophet of old.
The principal theologians which we had in our hands were “Les Conferences d’Anger,” Bailly, Dens, St. Thomas, but above all Liguori, who has since been canonized. Never did I open one without offering up a fervent prayer to God and to the Virgin Mary for the light and grace of which I would be in need for myself and for the people whose pastor I was to become.
But how shall I relate my surprise when I discovered, that in order to accept the principles of the theologians which my Church gave me for guides, I had to put away all principles of truth, of justice, of honor and holiness! What long and painful efforts it cost me to extinguish, one by one, the lights of truth and of reason kindled by the hand of my merciful God in my intelligence. For to study theology in the Church of Rome signifies to learn to speak falsely, to deceive, to commit robbery, to perjure one’s self! It means how to commit sins without shame, it means to plunge the soul into every kind of iniquity and turpitude without remorse!
I know that Roman Catholics will bravely and squarely deny what I now say. I am aware also that a great many Protestants, too easily deceived by the fine whitewashing of the exterior walls of Rome, will refuse to believe me. Nevertheless they may rest assured it is true, and my proof will be irrefutable. The truth may be denied by many, but my witnesses cannot be contradicted by any one. My witnesses are even infallible. They are none other than the Roman Catholic theologians themselves, approved by infallible Popes! These very men who corrupted my heart, perverted my intelligence and poisoned my soul, as they have done with each and every priest of their Church, will be my witnesses, my only witnesses. I will just now forcibly bring them before the world to testify against themselves!
Liguori, in his treatise on oaths, Question 4, asks if it is allowable to use ambiguity, or equivocal words, to deceive the judge when under oath, and at No. 151 he answers: “It is certain, and the opinion of all theologians, that for good reasons one may be permitted to use equivocations and to maintain them by oath; and by ‘good reasons’ we mean all that can do any good to the body or the soul.”
Here is the Latin text:
“Certum est, et commune apud omnes quod, ex justa causa, licitum sit uti aequivocatione, et cum juvamento affirmare: Et justa causa esse potest quicunque fines honestus ad servanda bona spiritui vel corporali utilia” (Sal: Nos. 109 and vol. sauch).
“A culprit, or a witness, questioned by a judge, but in an illegal manner, may swear that he knows nothing of the crime about which he is questioned, though he knows it well, mentally meaning that he knows nothing in such a manner as to answer.”
When the crime is very secret and unknown to all, Liguori says the culprit or the witness must deny it under oath. Here are his own words:
“Idem si testis ex alio capite, non teneatur deponere: Nempe si ipsi conotet crimen caruisse culpa, vel si sciat crimen, sed sub secreto, cum nulla proccesserit infamia.”
“He may swear that he knows nothing, when he knows that the person who committed the crime committed it without malice (as affir. Salm. to c. 2, No. 259, and Elb. No. 145); or again, if he knows the crime, but secretly, and that there has been no scandal” (as we are assured by Card. No. 51.)
“When a crime is well concealed, the witness, and even the criminal, may and even must swear that the crime has not been committed!
“The guilty party may yet do likewise, when a half proof cannot be brought against him.”
Here is the Latin text:
“Reus vel testis non tenetur judicio, respondere si crimen fuerit omnis occultum tunc enim potest imo teneteur testis dicere reum non commisse. Et idem potest reus, si non adsit semiplena probatio” (Salm. D. 2, No. 146 Bus.).
Liguori asks himself (Quest. 2): If an accused, legally interrogated by a judge, may deny his crime under oath, when the confession of the crime might cause his condemnation, and be disadvantageous to him? and he answers:
“It is altogether probable that when the accused fears a sentence of death, or of being sent to prison, or exiled, he may deny his crime under oath, understanding that he has not committed this crime in such a manner as to be obliged to confess it.” Here is the Latin text:
“Quæritur 2. Au reus legitime interrogatus possit negare cimen, etiam cum juramento, si grave damnum, ex confessione ipsi immineat satis probabiliter, (Lugo de Justitia, D. 40, N. 15; Tamb. lib. 3, etc.); et aliis pluribus dicunt posse reum si sibi immineat poena mortis, carceris, rut exilii, negare crimen, etiam juramento, saltem sine peccato gravi, sub intelligendo; se non commississe quotenus teneatur illud fateri mado sit spes vitandi pœnam.”
“He who has sworn to keep a secret is not obliged to keep his oath, if any consequential injury to him or to others is thereby caused.”
“If any one has sworn before a judge to keep the truth, he is not obliged to say secret things.” (Less, Bonar, Trall, etc.)
Liguori asks whether a woman, accused of the crime of adultery, which she has really committed, may deny it under oath? He answers: “Yes; provided that she has been to confess, and received the absolution; for then,” he says, “the sin has been pardoned, and has really ceased to exist.”
“Quaritur 2. An adultera negare adulterium viro suo? Resp. Si adulterium confessa sit: Potest respondere, ‘Innocens sum ab hoc crimine’ quia per confessionem est jam oblatum.” (Card, Disc. 19, N. 54.)
Liguori maintains that one may commit a minor crime in order to avoid a greater crime. He says: “It is right to advise any one to commit a robbery or a fornication in order to avoid a murder.”
“Hinc, docet, Sanchez, No. 19 caj. sot., parato aliquem occidere licet posse suaderi ut ab eo furetur, vel ut fornicatur” (page 419).
Question 3, Liguori: “May a servant open the door for a prostitute?” Croix denies it, but Ligouri affirms it.
“Utrum famulo ostium meretrici operere? Negat Croix. At commune affirmant Theologi.”
Question 4, Liguori: “Quaeretur an liceat famulo deferre scalam vel subjicere humeros domino ascendenti ad fornicandum et similia. Buss, etc., affirmant, quorum sententia probabilior videtur.”
“May a servant bring a ladder and help his master to go up and commit adultery? Buss and others think that he may do it, and I am of the same opinion.” (Liguori, Q. 2.)
“A servant has the right to rob his master, a child his father, and a poor man the rich!”
The Salmantes says that a servant may, according to his own judgment, pay himself with his own hands more than was agreed upon as a salary for his own work, if he finds that he deserves a larger salary; “and,” says Liguori, “this doctrine appears just to me.”
Salm., D. 4, proe. N. 137, dicunt famulum etiam ex proprio judicio sibi compensare suam operam, si ipse certe judicet se majus stipendium mereri. Quod sane videtur mihi probabile.
A poor man, who has concealed the goods and effects of which he is in need, may swear that he has nothing.
“Indigens, bonis absconditis ad sustentationem, protest judici aespondere se nihil habere.” (Salm., N. 140.)
In like manner an heir who, without taking an inventory, conceals his goods, when it is not the goods mortgaged for the debt, may swear that he has concealed nothing, understanding the goods with which he was to pay. (Salm. 140.)
“There are many opinions about the amount which may be stolen to constitute a mortal sin. Navar has said, too scrupulously, that to steal a half piece of gold is a mortal sin; while others, too lax, hold that to steal less than ten pieces of gold cannot be a serious sin. But Tol, Mech, Less, etc., have more wisely ruled that to steal two pieces of gold constitutes a mortal sin.”
Dubium 2, Liguori: “Variae ea de re sunt sententiæ. Nav. nimis scrupulose statuit medium regulum: alii nemis laxe 10 aureos. Moderatius, Tol., Med. Less., etc., etc., duos regales, etsi minus sufficiat, si notabiliter noceat.”
“Is it a crime to steal a small piece of a relic? There is no doubt its being a sin in the district of Rome, since Clement VII. and Paul V. have excommunicated those who committed such thefts. But this theft is not a serious thing when committed outside of the district of Rome, unless it be a very rare and precious relic, as the wood of the Holy Cross or some of the hair of the Virgin Mary!”
Dubium 3, Liguori: “If any one steals small sums at different times, either from the same or from different persons, not having the intention of stealing large sums, nor of causing a great damage, his sin is not mortal; particularly if the thief is poor, and if he has the intention to give back what he has stolen.”
Latin text: “Si quis et occasione furatur sive uni, sive pluribus, non intendens notabile aliquid acquirere nec proximo graviter nocere, neque ea simul sumpta unum mortale constituunt, si vel restituere non possit vel animum habeat restituendi.”
Question 11, N. 536: “If several persons steal from the same master, in small quantities, each in such a manner as not to commit a mortal sin, though each one knows that all these little thefts together cause a considerable damage to their master, yet no one of them commits a mortal sin, even when they steal at the same time.”
Latin text: “Si plures modica furentur, nemo peccat graviter, et si mutuo sciant graviter damnum domino fieri. Et hoc, etiamsi singuli eodem tempore furentur.” (Liguori, 536.)
Liguori, speaking of children who steal from their parents, says: “Salas, cited by Croix, maintains that a son does not commit a mortal sin when he steals only twenty or thirty pieces of gold from a father who has an income of 150 pieces of gold; and Lugo approves of that doctrine. Less and other theologians say that it is not a mortal sin for a child to steal two or three pieces of gold from a rich father; Bannez maintains that to commit a mortal sin a child must steal not less than fifty pieces of gold from a rich father; but Lacroix rejects that doctrine, except the father is a prince.”
The theologians of Rome assure us that we may, and even that we must, conceal and disguise our faith.
“Though lying is forbidden, we may be allowed to conceal the truth, or to disguise it under ambiguous or equivocal words or signs, for a just cause, and when there is no necessity to confess the truth. If by that means one can rid himself of dangerous pursuits, he is permitted to use it; for in general it is not true to say that, when interrogated by public authority about his faith, he is obliged to reveal it. When you are not questioned as to your faith, you are not only allowed to conceal it, but it is often more to the glory of God and the interest of your neighbor. If, for example, you are among a heretical people, you can do more good by concealing your faith; or if, by declaring it, you are to cause great trouble or death. It is temerity to expose one’s life.” (Liguori, L. 2.)
The Pope has the right to release from all oaths.
“As for an oath made for a good and legitimate object, it seems that there should be no power capable of annulling it. However, when it is for the good of the public, a matter which comes under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, who has the supreme power over the Church, the Pope has full power to release from that oath.” (St. Thomas, Quest. 89, art. 9, vol. iv.)
The Roman Catholics have not only the right, but it is their duty to kill heretics.
“Excommunicatus privatur omni alia civili communicatione fidelium, ita ut ipsi non possit cum aliis, et si non sit toleratus, etiam aliis cum ipso non possit communicare; idque in casibus hoc versu comprehensis. Os, orare, cammunio, mensa negatur.”
Translated: “Any man excommunicated is deprived of all civil communication with the faithful, in such a way that if he is not tolerated they can have no communication with him, as it is in the following verse: ‘It is forbidden to kiss him, pray with him, salute him, to eat or to do any business with him.’” (St. Liguori, vol. ix., page 62.)
“Quanquam heretici tolerandi non sunt ipso illorum demerito, usque tamen ad secundam correptionem expectandi sunt, ut ad sanam redeant ecclesiæ fidem; qui vero post secundam correptionem in suo errore obstinati permanent, non modo excommunicationis sententia sed, etiam sæcularibus principibus exterminandi tradendi sunt.”
Translated: “Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them till, by a second admonition they may be brought back to the faith of the Church. But those who, after a second admonition, remain obstinate in their errors, must not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the secular powers to be exterminated.”
“Quanquam heretici revertentes, semper recipiendi sint ad pœnitentiam quoties cumque relapsi fuerint; non tamen semper sunt recipiendi et restituendi ad bonorum hujus vitæ participationem ... recipiumtur ad pœnitentiam ... non tamen ut liberentur a sententia mortis.”
Translated: “Though the heretics who repent must always be accepted to penance, as often as they have fallen, they must not in consequence of that always be permitted to enjoy the benefits of this life. When they fall again they are admitted to repent. But the sentence of death must not be removed.” (St. Thomas, vol. iv., page 91.)
“Quum quis per sententiam denuntiatur propter apostasiam excommunicatus, ipso facto, ejus subditi a domino et juramento fidelitatis ejus liberati sunt.”
“When a man is excommunicated for his apostasy, it follows from that very fact that all those who are his subjects are released from the oath of allegiance by which they were bound to obey him.” (St. Thomas, vol iv., page 91.)
Every heretic and Protestant is condemned to death, and every oath of allegiance to a government which is Protestant or heretic is abrogated by the Council of Lateran, held in A. D. 1215. Here is the solemn decree and sentence of death, which has never been repealed, and which is still in force:
“We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that exalts itself against the holy orthodox and Catholic faith, condemning all heretics, by whatever name they may be known; for though their faces differ, they are tied together by their tails. Such as are condemned are to be delivered over to the existing secular powers, to receive due punishment. If laymen, their goods must be confiscated. If priests, they shall be first degraded from their respective orders, and their property applied to the use of the church in which they have officiated. Secular powers of all ranks and degrees are to be warned, induced, and, if necessary, compelled by ecclesiastical censure, to swear that they will exert themselves to the utmost in the defence of the faith, and extirpate all heretics denounced by the Church who shall be found in their territories. And whenever any person shall assume government, whether it be spiritual or temporal, he shall be bound to abide by this decree.
“If any temporal lord, after being admonished and required by the Church, shall neglect to clear his territory of heretical depravity, the metropolitan and bishops of the province shall unite in excommunicating him. Should he remain contumacious for a whole year, the fact shall be signified to the Supreme Pontiff, who will declare his vassals released from their allegiance from that time, and will bestow the territory on Catholics, to be occupied by them, on the condition of exterminating the heretics, and preserving the said territory in the faith.
“Catholics who shall assume the cross for the extermination of heretics shall enjoy the same indulgences and be protected by the same privileges as are granted to those who go to the help of the Holy Land. We decree, further, that all who may have dealings with heretics, and especially such as receive, defend, or encourage them, shall be excommunicated. He shall not be eligible to any public office. He shall not be admitted as a witness. He shall neither have the power to bequeath his property by will, nor to succeed to any inheritance. He shall not bring any action against any person, but any one can bring an action against him. Should he be a judge, his decision shall have no force, nor shall any cause be brought before him. Should he be an advocate, he shall not be allowed to plead. Should he be a lawyer, no instruments made by him shall be held valid, but shall be condemned with their author.”
But why let my memory and my thoughts linger any longer in these frightful paths, where murderers, liars, perjurers and thieves are assured by the theologians of the Church of Rome that they can lie, steal, murder and perjure themselves as much as they like, without offending God, provided they commit those crimes according to certain rules approved by the Pope for the good of the Church!
I should have to write several large volumes were I to quote all the Roman Catholic doctors and theologians who approve of lying, of perjury, of adultery, theft and murder, for the greatest glory of God and the good of the Roman Church! But I have quoted enough for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
With such principles, is it a wonder that all the Roman Catholic nations, without a single exception, have declined so rapidly?
The great Legislator of the World, the only Saviour of nations, has said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” A nation can be great and strong only according to the truths which form the basis of her faith and life. “Truth” is the only bread which God gives to the nations that they may prosper and live. Deceitfulness, duplicity, perjury, adultery, theft, murder, are the deadly poisons which kill the nations.
Then, the more the priests of Rome, with their theology, are venerated and believed by a people, the sooner that people will decay and fall. “The more priests the more crimes,” has said a profound thinker; for then the more hands will be at work to pull down the only sure foundations of society.
How can any man be sure of the honesty of his wife as long as a hundred thousand priests tell her that she may commit any sin with her neighbor, in order to prevent him from doing something worse? or when she is assured, that, though guilty of adultery, she can swear she is pure as an angel?
What will it avail to teach the best principles of honor, decency and holiness to a young girl, when she is bound to go many times a year to a bachelor priest, who is bound in conscience to give her the most infamous lessons of depravity, under the pretext of helping her to confess all her sins?
How will the rights of justice be secured, and how can the judges and the juries protect the innocent and punish the guilty, so long as the witnesses are told by two hundred thousand priests that they can conceal the truth, give equivocal answers, and even perjure themselves under a thousand pretexts?
What Government, either monarchical or republican, can be sure of a lease of existence? how can they make their people walk with a firm step in the ways of light, progress and liberty, as long as there is a dark power over them which has the right, at every hour of the day or night, to break and dissolve all the most sacred oaths of allegiance?
Armed with his theology, the priest of Rome has become the most dangerous and determined enemy of truth, justice and liberty. He is the most formidable obstacle to every good Government, as he is, without being aware of it, the greatest enemy of God and man.
XIV. THE VOW OF CELIBACY
Were I to write all the ingenious tricks, pious lies, shameful stories called miracles, and sacrilegious perversions of the Word of God made use of by superiors of seminaries and nunneries to entice their poor victims into the trap of perpetual celibacy, I should have to write ten large volumes, instead of a short chapter.
Sometimes the trials and obligations of married life are so exaggerated that they may frighten the strongest heart. At other times the joys, peace and privileges of celibacy are depicted with such brilliant colors that they fill the coldest mind with enthusiasm.
The Pope takes his victim to the top of a high mountain, and there shows him all the honors, praise, wealth, peace and joys of this world, united to the most glorious throne of heaven, and then tells him: “I will give you all those things if you fall at my feet, promise me an absolute submission, and swear never to marry in order to serve me better.”
Who can refuse such glorious things? But before entirely shutting their eyes, so that they may not see the bottomless abyss into which they are to fall, the unfortunate victims sometimes have forebodings and presentiments of the terrible miseries which are in store for them. The voice of their conscience, intelligence and common sense has not always been so fully silenced as the superior desired.
At the very time when the tempter is whispering his lying promises into their ears, their Heavenly Father is speaking to them of the ceaseless trials, the shameful falls, the tedious days, the dreary nights, and the cruel and insufferable burdens which are concealed behind the walls where the sweet yoke of the Good Master is exchanged for the burdens of heartless men and women.
As formerly, the human victims crowned with flowers, when dragged to the foot of the altar of their false gods, often cried out with alarm, and struggled to escape from the bloody knife of the heathen priest, so at the approach of the fatal hour at which the impious vow is to be made, the young victims often feel their hearts fainting and filled with terror. With pale cheeks, trembling lips and cold-dropping sweat they ask their superiors, “Is it possible that our merciful God requires of us such a sacrifice?”
Oh! how the merciless priest of Rome then becomes eloquent in depicting celibacy as the only way to heaven, or in showing the eternal fires of hell ready to receive cowards and traitors, who, after having put their hand to the plough of celibacy, look back! He speaks of the disappointment and sadness of so many dear friends, who expected better things of them. He points out to them their own shame when they will again be in a world which will have nothing for them but sneers for their want of perseverance and courage. He overwhelms them with a thousand pious lies about the miracles wrought by Christ in favor of his virgins and priests. He bewitches them by numerous texts of Scripture, which he brings as evident proof of the will of God in favor of their taking the vows of celibacy, though they have not the slightest reference to such vows.
The text of which the strangest abuses are made by the superiors to persuade the young people of both sexes to bind themselves to those shameful vows is Matt. xix., 12, 13: “For there are eunuchs which were born from their mother’s womb; and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men; and there are eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”
Upon one occasion our superior made a very pressing appeal to our religious feelings from this text, to induce us to make the vow of celibacy and become priests. But the address, though delivered with a great deal of zeal, seemed to us deficient in logic.
The next day was a day of rest (conge). The students in theology who were preparing themselves for the priesthood, with me, talked seriously of the singular arguments of the last address. It seemed to them that the conclusions could not in any way be drawn from the selected text, and therefore determined to respectfully present their objections and their views, which were also mine, to the superior; and I was chosen to speak for them all.
At the next conference, after respectfully asking and obtaining permission to express our objections with our own frank and plain sentiments, I spoke about as follows:
“Dear and venerable sir: You told us that the following words of Christ, ‘There be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake,’—show us evidently that we must make the vow of celibacy and make ourselves eunuchs if we want to become priests. Allow us to tell you respectfully, that it seems to us that the mind of our Saviour was very different from yours when he pronounced these words. In our humble opinion, the only object of the Son of God was to warn His disciples against one of the most damnable errors which were to endanger the very existence of nations. He was foretelling that there would be men so wicked and blind as to preach that the best way for men to go to heaven would be to make eunuchs of themselves. Allow us to draw your attention to the fact that in that speech Jesus Christ neither approves nor disapproves of the idea of gaining a throne in heaven by becoming eunuchs. He leaves us to our common sense and to some clearer parts of Scripture to see whether or not He approves of those who would make eunuchs of themselves to gain a crown in heaven. Must we not interpret this text as we interpret what Jesus said to His apostles, ‘The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God’s service’ (John xvi., 1, 2).
“Allow us to put these two texts face to face:
“‘There are eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.’ (Matt. xix., 12, 13).
“‘The time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God’s service.’ (John xvi. 1, 2).
“Because our Saviour has said that there would be men who would think that they would please God (and of course gain a place in heaven) by killing His disciples, are we, therefore, allowed to conclude that it would be our duty to kill those who believe and follow Christ? Surely not.
“Well, it seems to us that we are not to believe that the best way to go to heaven is to make ourselves eunuchs, because our Saviour had said that some men had got that criminal and foolish notion into their mind!
“Christian nations have always looked with horror upon those who voluntarily became eunuchs. Common sense, as well as the Word of God, condemns those who thus destroy in their own bodies that which God in his wisdom gave them for the wisest and holiest purposes. Would it not, therefore, be a crime which every civilized and Christian nation would punish, to preach publicly and with success to the people that one of the surest ways for a man to go to heaven would be to make himself an eunuch? How can we believe that our Saviour could ever sanction such a practice?
“Moreover, if being eunuchs would make the way to heaven surer and more easy, would not God be unjust for depriving us of the great privilege of being born eunuchs, and thus being made ripe fruits for heaven?
“It seems to us that that text does not in any way require us to believe that an eunuch is nearer the kingdom of God than he who lives just according to the laws which God gave to man in the earthly paradise. If it was not good for man to be without his wife when he was so holy and strong as he was in the Garden of Eden, how can it be good now that he is so weak and sinful?
“Our Saviour clearly shows that he finds no sanctifying power in the state of an eunuch, in his answer to the young man who asked him, ‘Good master, what must I do that I may have eternal life?’ (Matt. xix., 16.) Did the good Master answer him in the language we heard from you two days ago, namely, that the best way to have eternal life is to make yourself an eunuch—make a solemn vow never to marry? No; but he said, ‘Keep the commandments!’
“Were the blessed Saviour to-day in your place, and I should ask him, ‘What must I do to be saved, and to show the way of God to my brethren?’ would he not say to me, ‘Keep the commandments!’ But where is the commandment of God in the Old or New Testament, to induce us to make such a vow as that of celibacy? The promise of a place in heaven is not attached in any way to the vow of celibacy. Christ has not a word about that doctrine.
“Allow us to respectfully ask, if the views concerning the vows of celibacy entertained by Christ had been like yours, is it possible that He would have forgotten to mention them when He answered the solemn question of that young man? Is it possible that He would not have said a single word about a thing which you have represented to us as being of such vital importance to those who sincerely desire to know what to do to be saved? Is it not strange that the Church should attach such an importance to that vow of celibacy, when we look in vain for such an ordinance in both the Old and New Testaments? How can we understand the reasons or the importance of such a strict, and we dare say, unnatural obligation in our day, when we know very well that the holy apostles themselves were living with their wives, and that the Saviour had not a word of rebuke for them on that account?”
This free expression of our common views on the vows of celibacy evidently took our superior by surprise. He answered me, with an accent of indignation which he could not suppress. “Is that all you have to say?”
“It is not quite all we have to say,” I answered; “but before we go further we would be much gratified to receive from you the light we want on the difficulties which I have just stated.”
“You have spoken as a true heretic,” replied Mr. Leprohon, with an unusual vivacity; “and were it not for the hope which I entertain that you said those things more to receive the light you want than to present and support the heretical side of such an important question, I would at once denounce you to the bishop. You speak of the Holy Scriptures just as a Protestant would do. You appeal to them as the only source of Christian truth and knowledge. Have you forgotten that we have the holy traditions to guide us, the authority of which is equal to that of the Scriptures?
“You are correct when you say that we do not find any direct proof in the Bible to enforce the vows of celibacy upon those who desire to consecrate themselves to the service of the Church. But if we do not find the obligation of that vow in the Bible, we find it in the holy traditions of the Church.
“It is an article of faith that the vow of celibacy is ordered by Jesus Christ, through His Church. The ordinances of the Church, which are nothing but the ordinances of the Son of God, are clear on that subject, and bind our consciences, just as the commandments of God upon Mount Sinai; for Christ has said, those who do not hear the Church must be looked upon as heathen and publicans. There is no salvation to those who do not submit their reasoning to the teachings of the Church.
“You are not required to understand all the reasons for the vow of celibacy; but you are bound tobelieve in its necessity and holiness, as the Church has pronounced her verdict upon that question. It is not your business to argue about those matters; but your duty is to obey the Church, as dutiful children obey a kind mother.
“But who can have any doubt about the necessity of the vows of celibacy, when we remember that Christ had ordered His apostles to separate themselves from their wives?—a fact on which no doubt can remain after hearing St. Peter say to our Saviour, ‘Behold, we have forsaken all and followed thee; what shall we have, therefore?’ (Matt. xix. 27). Is not the priest the true representative of Christ on earth? In his ordination, is not the priest made the equal, and, in a sense, the superior of Christ? for when he celebrates Mass he commands Christ, and that very Son of God is bound to obey! It is not in the power of Christ to resist the orders of the priest. He must come down from heaven every time the priest orders Him. The priest shuts Him up in the holy tabernacles or takes him out of them, according to his own will.
“By becoming priests of the New Testament you will be raised to a dignity which is much above that of angels. From these sublime privileges flows the obligation of the priest to raise himself to a degree of holiness much above the level of the common people, a holiness equal to that of the angels. Has not our Saviour, when speaking of the angels, said, ‘Neque nubent neque nubentur?’ They marry not, nor are given in marriage. Surely, since the priests are the messengers and angels of God, on earth they must be clad with angelic holiness and purity.
“Does not Paul say that the state of virginity is superior to that of marriage? Does not that saying of the apostle show that the priest, whose hands every day touch the divine body and blood of Christ, must be chaste and pure, and must not be defiled by the duties of married life? That vow of celibacy it like a holy chain, which keeps us above the filth of this earth and ties us to heaven. Jesus Christ, through His holy Church, commands that vow to his priests as the most efficacious remedy against the inclinations of our corrupt nature.
“According to the holy Fathers, the vow of celibacy is like a strong, high tower, from the top of which we can fight our enemies, and be perfectly safe from their darts and weapons.
“I will be happy to answer your other objections, if you have any more,” said Mr. Leprohon.
“We are much obliged to you for your answers,” I replied, “and we will avail ourselves of your kindness to present you with some other observations.
“And, firstly, we thank you for having told us that we find nothing in the Word of God to support the vows of celibacy, and that it is only by the traditions of the Church that we can prove their necessity and holiness. It was our impression that you desired us to believe that the necessity of that vow was founded on the Holy Scriptures. If you will allow it, we will discuss the traditions another time, and will confine ourselves to-day to the different texts to which you referred in favor of celibacy.
“When Peter says, ‘We have given up everything,’ it seems to us that he had no intention of saying that he had forever given up his wife by a vow. For St. Paul positively says, many years after, that Peter had his wife; that he was not only living with her in his own house, but was traveling with her when preaching the gospel. The words of Scripture are of such evidence on that subject that they can neither be obscured by any shrewd explanation nor by any tradition, however respectable it may appear.
“Though you know the words of Paul on that subject, you will allow us to read them: ‘Have we not power to eat and drink? have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?’ (1 Cor. ix., 4, 5). St. Peter saying, ‘We have forsaken everything’ could not mean then that he had made a vow of celibacy, and that he would not live with his wife as a married man. Evidently the words of Peter mean only that Jesus had the first place in his heart—that everything else, even the dearest objects of his love, as father, mother, wife, were only secondary in his affections and thoughts.
“Your other text about the angels who do not marry, from which you infer the obligation and law of the vow of celibacy, does not seem to us to bear on that subject as much as you have told us. For, be kind enough to again read the text: ‘Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven’ (Matt. xxii. 29, 30). You see that when our Saviour speaks of men who are like angels, and who do not marry, He takes care to observe that he speaks of the state of men after the resurrection. If the Church had the same rule for us that Christ mentioned for the angelic men to whom He refers, and would allow us to make a vow never to marry after the resurrection, we would not have the slightest objection to such a vow.
“You see that our Saviour speaks of a state of celibacy; but He does not intimate that that state is to begin on this side of the grave. Why does not our Church imitate and follow the teachings of our Saviour? Why does she enforce a state of celibacy before the resurrection, while Christ postpones the promulgation of this law till after that great day?
“Christ speaks of a perpetual celibacy only in heaven! On what authority, then, does our Church enforce that celibacy on this side of the grave, when we still carry our souls in earthly vessels?
“You tell us that the vow of celibacy is the best remedy against the inclinations of our corrupt nature; but do you not fear that your remedy makes war against the great one which God prepared in His wisdom? Do we not read in our own vulgate: ‘Propter fornicationem autem quisque suam uxorem habeat, et unaquaquæ virum suum’? ‘To avoid fornication let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband’ (2 Cor. vii. 2.)
“Is it not too strange, indeed, that God does tell us that the best remedy He had prepared against the inclinations of our corrupt nature is in the blessings of a holy marriage. ‘Let every man have his own wife, and every woman her own husband.’ But now our Church has found another remedy, which is more accordant to the dignity of man and the holiness of God, and that remedy is the vow of celibacy!”
The sound of my last words were still on my lips when our venerable superior, unable any longer to conceal his indignation, abruptly interrupted me, saying:
“I do exceedingly regret to have allowed you to go so far. This is not a Christian and humble discussion between young Levites and their superior, to receive from him the light they want. It is the exposition and defence of the most heretical doctrines I have ever heard. Are you not ashamed, when you try to make us prefer your interpretation of the Holy Scriptures to that of the Church? Is it to you, or to His holy Church, that Christ promised the light of the Holy Ghost? Is it you who have to teach the Church, or the Church who must teach you? Is it you who will govern and guide the Church, or the Church who will govern and guide you?
“My dear Chiniquy, if there is not a great and prompt change in you and in those whom you pretend to represent, I fear much for you all. You show a spirit of infidelity and revolt which frightens me. Just like Lucifer, you rebel against the Lord! Do you not fear to share the eternal pains of his rebellion?
“Whence have you taken the false and heretical notions you have, for instance, about the wives of the apostles? Do you not know that you are supporting a Protestant error, when you say that the apostles were living with their wives in the usual way of married people? It is true that Paul says that the apostles had women with them, and that they were even traveling with them. But the holy traditions of the Church tell us that those women were holy virgins, who were traveling with the apostles to serve and help them in different ways. They were ministering to their different wants—washing their underclothes, preparing their meals, just like the housekeeper whom the priests have to-day. It is a Protestant impiety to think and speak otherwise.
“But only a word more, and I am done. If you accept the teaching of the Church, and submit yourself as doubtful children to that most holy Mother, she will raise you to the dignity of the priesthood, a dignity much above kings and emperors in this world. If you serve her with fidelity, she will secure to you the respect and veneration of the whole world while you live, and procure you a crown of glory in heaven.
“But if you reject her doctrines, and persist in your rebellious views against one of the most holy dogmas; if you continue to listen to the voice of your own deceitful reason rather than to the voice of the Church, in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, you become heretics, apostates and Protestants; you will lead a dishonored life in this world, and you will be lost for all eternity.”
Our superior left us immediately after these fulminating words. Some of the theological students, after his exit, laughed heartily, and thanked me for having so bravely fought and gained a glorious victory. Two of them, Joseph Turcot and Benony Legendre, disgusted by the sophisms and logical absurdities of our superior left the seminary a few days after. The rest, with me, had not the moral courage to follow their example, but remained, stunned by the last words of our superior.
I went to my room and fell on my knees, with a torrent of tears falling from my eyes. I was really sorry for having wounded his feelings, but still more so for having dared for a moment to oppose my own feeble and fallible reason to the mighty and infallible intelligence of my Church!
At first it appeared to me that I was only combatting, in a respectful way, against my old friend, Rev. Mr. Leprohon; but I had received it from his own lips that I had really fought against the Lord!
After having spent a long and dark night of anguish and remorse, my first action, the next day, was to go to confession, and ask my confessor, with tears of regret, pardon for the sins I had committed and the scandal I had given.
Had I listened to the voice of my conscience, I certainly would have left the seminary that day; for they told me that I had confounded my superior and pulverized all his arguments. Reason and conscience told me that the vow of celibacy was a sin against logic, morality and God; that that vow could not be sustained by any argument from the Holy Scriptures, logic or common sense. But I was a most sincere Roman Catholic. I had therefore to fight a new battle against my conscience and intelligence, so as to subdue and silence them forever! Many a time it was my hope, before this, to have succeeded in slaughtering them at the foot of the altar of my Church; but that day, far from being forever silenced and buried, they had come out again with renewed force, to waken me from the terrible illusions in which I was living. Nevertheless, after a long and frightful battle, my hope was that they were perfectly subdued and buried under the feet of the holy Fathers, the learned theologians and the venerable popes, whose voice only I was determined now to follow. I felt a real calm after that struggle. It was evidently the silence of death, although my confessor told me it was the peace of God. More than ever I determined to have no knowledge, no thought, no will, no light, no desires, no science but that which my Church would give me through my superior. I was fallible, she was infallible! I was a sinner, she was the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ! I was weak, she had more power than the great waters of the ocean! I was but an atom, she was covering the world with her glory! What, therefore, could I have to fear in humbling myself to her feet, to live of her life, to be strong of her strength, wise of her wisdom, holy with her holiness? Had not my superior repeatedly told me that no error, no sin would be imputed to me as long as I obeyed my Church and walked in her ways?
With these sentiments of a most profound and perfect respect for my Church, I irrevocably consecrated myself to her service on the 4th of May, 1832, by making the vow of celibacy and accepting the office of sub-deacon.
XV. THE IMPURITIES OF THE THEOLOGY OF ROME
“The mother of harlots and abominations.”—REV. xvii. 5.
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 or 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 pages which I give at the end of my book, “The Priest, the Woman, and the Confessional,” and then 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 puts 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 those 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, dethrone God from their consciences, and abrogate his eternal laws of holiness. What answer does Rome give those who reproach her with the awful impurity of her 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, imagination, 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 science.
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 two hundred thousand priests who are scattered over the whole world, hear the confessions of one million 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 Priest, the Woman and the Confessional.” 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 as 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 two 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 venerable 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 into the abyss 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 merciful providence, rescued me. I pity those friends of my youth, but despise them? hate them? No! Never! Never!
Every time our 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 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,” said I, “promise to stand by me on what I shall 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 on 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 be at liberty never to speak to women on those 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 inquire 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 that I had not a clear understanding of what I was then 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 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 to-day you put us in such a position that it is almost an 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 feel 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 neighbor’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 women, 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 of corruption.”
Francis Desaulnier, just as he had foretold me, refused to be a priest. He remained all his life in the orders of the 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 bloody disciples are bound to destroy all the heretics by 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 ones 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 our 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 but 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, venerable bishops and learned theologians? Is it not just as absurd for you to try to reform the Church by your small reasons, 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 sanctified 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 those 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, 309.)
“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 perceptible 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 a 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 and 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 a 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 to-day 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 to-day. 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 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 lost soul!
Darkness, ignorance, uncertainty and eternal loss were my lot the very moment I ceased worshipping 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, superstition, and death.
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.
Chapter XVI
THE PRIEST OF ROME AND THE HOLY FATHERS: OR HOW I SWORE TO GIVE UP THE WORD OF GOD TO FOLLOW THE WORD OF MEN.
There are several imposing ceremonies at the ordination of a priest; and I will never forget the joy I felt when the Roman Pontiff presenting to me the Bible, ordered me, with a solemn voice, to study and preach it. That order passed through my soul as a beam of light. But, alas! those rays of light and life were soon to be followed, as a flash of lightning in a stormy night, by the most sudden and distressing darkness!
When holding the sacred volume, I accepted with unspeakable joy the command of studying and preaching its saving truth; but I felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon me when I pronounced the awful oath which is required from every priest: “I will never interpret the Holy Scriptures except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers.”
Many times, with the other students in theology, I had discussed the nature of that strange oath; still more often, in the silence of my meditations, alone in the presence of God, I had tried to fathom the bottomless abyss which, it seemed to me, was dug under my feet by it, and every time my conscience had shrunk in terror from its consequences. But I was not the only one in the seminary who contemplated, with an anxious mind, its evidently blasphemous nature.
About six months before our ordination, Stephen Baillargeon, one of my fellow theological students, had said in my presence to our superior, the Rev. Mr. Raimbault: “Allow me to tell you that one of the things with which I cannot reconcile my conscience is the solemn oath we will have to take, ‘That we will never interpret the Scriptures except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers!’ We have not given a single hour yet to the serious study of the Holy Fathers. I know many priests, and not a single one of them has ever studied the Holy Fathers; they have not even got them in their libraries! We will probably walk in their footsteps. It may be that not a single volume of the Holy Fathers will ever fall into our hands! In the name of common sense, how can we swear that we will follow the sentiments of men of whom we know absolutely nothing, and about whom, it is more probable, we will never know anything, except by mere vague hearsay?
Our superior gave evident signs of weakness in his answer to that unexpected difficulty. But his embarrassment grew much greater when I said: “Baillargeon cannot contemplate that oath without anxiety, and he has given you some of his reasons; but he has not said the last word on that strange oath. If you will allow me, Mr. Superior, I will present you some more formidable objections. It is not so much on account of our ignorance of the doctrines of the Holy Fathers that I tremble when I think that I will have ‘to swear never to interpret the Scriptures except according to their unanimous consent.’ Would to God that I could say, with Baillargeon, ‘I know nothing of the Holy Fathers; how can I swear that they will guide me in all my ways?’ It is true that we know so little of them that it is supremely ridiculous, if it is not an insult to God and man, that we take them for our guides. But my regret is that we know already too much of the Holy Fathers to be exempt from perjuring ourselves, when we swear that we will not interpret the Holy Scriptures except according to their unanimous consent.
“Is it not a fact that the Holy Fathers’ writings are so perfectly kept out of sight, that it is absolutely impossible to read and study them? But even if we had access to them, have we sufficient time at our disposal to study them so perfectly that we could conscientiously swear that we will follow them? And if we don’t study them, how can we be exempted from wilful perjury the day that we will swear to follow them? How can we follow a thing we do not see, which we do not hear, and about which we do not know more than the man in the moon? Our shameful ignorance of the Holy Fathers is a sufficient reason to make us fear at the approach of the solemn hour that we will swear to follow them. Yes! But we know enough of the Holy Fathers to chill the blood in our veins when swearing to interpret the Holy Scriptures only according to their unanimous consent. Please, Mr. Superior, tell us what are the texts of Scripture on which the Holy Fathers are unanimous. You respect yourself too much to try to answer a question which no honest man has, or will ever dare to answer. And if you, one of the most learned men of France, cannot put your finger on the texts of the Holy Bible and say, ‘The Holy Fathers are perfectly unanimous on these texts!’ how can we, poor young ecclesiastics of the humble College of Nicolet, say ‘The Holy Fathers are unanimously of the same mind on those texts?’ But if we cannot distinguish to-day, and if we shall never be able to distinguish between the texts on which the Holy Fathers are unanimous and the ones on which they differ, how can we dare to swear before God and man to interpret every text of the Scriptures only according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers?
“By that awful oath, will we not be absolutely bound to remain mute as dead men on every text on which the Holy Fathers have differed, under the evident penalty of becoming perjured? Will not every text on which the Holy Fathers have differed become as the dead carcass which the Israelites could not touch, except by defiling themselves? After that strange oath, to interpret the Scriptures only according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, will we not be absolutely deprived of the privilege of studying or preaching on a text on which they have differed?
“The consequences of the oath are legion, and every one of them seems to me the death of our ministry, the damnation of our souls! You have read the history of the Church, as we have it here, written by Henrion, Berrault-Bell-Costel and Fleury. Well, what is the prominent fact in those reliable histories of the Church? Is it not that the Church has constantly been filled with the noise of the controversies of Holy Fathers with Holy Fathers? Do we not find, on every page, that the Holy Fathers of one century very often differed from the Holy Fathers of another century in very important matters? Is it not a public and undeniable fact, that the history of our Holy Church is almost nothing else than the history of the hard conflict, stern divisions, unflinching contradictions and oppositions of Holy Fathers to Holy Fathers?
“Here is a big volume of manuscript written by me, containing only extracts from our best Church historians, filled with the public disputes of Holy Fathers among themselves on almost every subject of Christianity.
“There are Holy Fathers who say, with our best modern theologians—St. Thomas, Bellarmine and Liguori—that we must kill heretics as we kill wild beasts; while many others say that we must tolerate them! You all know the name of the Holy Father who sends to hell all the widows who marry a second time, while other Holy Fathers are of a different mind. Some of them, you know well, had very different notions from ours about purgatory. Is it necessary for me to give you the names of the Holy Fathers, in Africa and Asia, who refused to accept the supreme jurisdiction we acknowledge in the Pope over all churches? Several Holy Fathers have denied the supreme authority of the Church of Rome—you know it; they have laughed at the excommunications of the Popes! Some even have gladly died when excommunicated by the Pope, without doing anything to reconcile themselves to him! What do we find, in the six volumes of letters we have still from St. Jerome, if not the undeniable fact that he filled the Church with the noise of his harsh denunciations of the scriptural views of St. Augustine on many important points. You have read those letters? Well, have you not concluded that St. Jerome and St. Augustine agreed almost only on one thing, which was, to disagree on every subject they treated?
“Did not St. Jerome knock his head against nearly all the Holy Fathers of his time? And has he not received hard knocks from almost all the Holy Fathers with whom he was acquainted? Is it not a public fact that St. Jerome and several other Holy Fathers rejected the sacred book of the Maccabees, Judith, Tobias, just as the heretics of our time reject them?
“And now we are gravely asked, in the name of the God of Truth, to swear that we will interpret the Holy Scriptures only according to the unanimous consent of those Holy Fathers, who have been unanimous but in one thing, which was never to agree with each other, and sometimes not even with themselves.
“For it is a well-known fact, though it is a very deplorable one, for instance, that St. Augustine did not always keep to the same correct views on the text ‘Thou art Peter, and upon that rock I will build my church.’ After holding correct views on that fundamental truth he gave it up, at the end of his life, to say, with the Protestants of our day, that ‘upon that rock means only Christ, and not Peter.’ Now, how can I be bound by such an oath to follow the views of men who have themselves been wavering and changing, when the Word of God must stand as an unmoving rock to my heart? If you require from us an oath, why put into our hands the history of the Church, which has stuffed our memory with the undeniable facts of the endless fierce divisions of the Holy Fathers on almost every question which the Scriptures present to our faith?
“Would to God that I could say, with Baillargeon, I know nothing of the Holy Fathers! Then I could perhaps be at peace with my conscience, after perjuring myself by promising a thing that I cannot do.
“I was lately told by the Rev. Mr. Leprohon, that it is absolutely necessary to go to the Holy Fathers in order to understand the Holy Scriptures! But I will respectfully repeat to-day what I then said on that subject.
“If I am too ignorant or too stupid to understand St. Mark, St. Luke and St. Paul, how can I be intelligent enough to understand Jerome, Augustine, and Tertullian? And if St. Matthew, St. John and St. Peter have not got from God the grace of writing with a sufficient degree of light and clearness to be understood by men of good-will, how is it that Justin, Clemens and Cyprian have received from our God a favor of lucidity and clearness which he denied to His apostles and evangelists? If I cannot rely upon my private judgment when studying, with the help of God, the Holy Scriptures, how can I rely on my private judgment when studying the Holy Fathers? You constantly tell me I cannot rely on my private judgment to understand and interpret the Holy Scriptures; but will you please tell me with what judgment and intelligence I shall have to interpret and understand the writings of the Holy Fathers, if it be not with my own private judgment? Must I borrow the judgment and intelligence of some of my neighbors in order to understand and interpret, for instance, the writings of Origen? or shall I be allowed to go and hear what that Holy Father wants from me with my own private intelligence? But again, if you are forced to confess that I have nothing else but my private judgment and intelligence to read, understand and follow the Holy Fathers, and that I not only can, but I must, rely on my own private judgment, without any fear, in that case, how is it that I will be lost if I make use of that same private and personal judgment when at the feet of Jesus, listening to His eternal and life-giving words?
“Nothing distresses me so much in our holy religion as this want of confidence in God when we go to the feet of Jesus to hear or read His soul-saving words, and the abundance of self-confidence, when we go among sinful and fallible men, to know what they say.
“It is not to the Holy Scriptures that we are invited to go to know what the Lord saith, it is to the Holy Fathers!!
“Would it be possible that, in our Holy Church, the Word of God would be darkness, and the words of men light!
“This dogma, or article of our religion, by which we must go to the Holy Fathers in order to know what ‘The Lord saith,’ and not to the Holy Scripture, is to my soul what a handful of sand would be to my eyes—it makes me perfectly blind.
“When our venerable bishop places the Holy Scriptures in my hands and commands me to study and preach them, I will understand what he means, and he will know what he says. He will give me a most sublime work to perform; and, with the grace of God, I hope I will do it. But when he orders me to swear that I will never interpret the Holy Scriptures, except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, will he not make a perjured man of me, and will he not say a thing to which he has not given sufficient attention? For to swear that we will never interpret anything of the Scriptures, except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, is to swear to a thing as impossible and ridiculous as to take the moon with our hands. I say more, it is to swear that we will never study nor interpret a single chapter of the Bible. For it is probable that there are very few chapters of that Holy Book which have not been a cause of serious difference between some of the Holy Fathers.
“As the writings of the Holy Fathers fill at least two hundred volumes in folio, it will not take us less than ten years of constant study to know on what question they are or are not unanimous! If, after that time of study, I find that they are unanimous on the question of orthodoxy, which I must believe and preach, all will be right with me. I will walk with a fearless heart to the gates of eternity, and with the certainty of following the true way of salvation. But if among fifty Holy Fathers there are forty-nine on one side and one only on the opposite side, in what awful state of distress will I be plunged! Will I not be then as a ship in a stormy night, after she has lost her compass, her masts and her helm. If I were allowed to follow the majority, there would always be a plank of safety to rescue me from the impending wreck. But the Pope has inexorably tied us to the unanimity. If my faith is not the faith of unanimity, I am forever damned. I am out of the Church!!
“What a frightful alternative is just before us! We must either perjure ourselves, by swearing to follow a unanimity which is a fable, in order to remain Roman Catholics, or we must plunge into the abyss of impiety and atheism by refusing to swear that we will adhere to a unanimity which never existed.”
It was visible, at the end of that long and stormy conference, that the fears and anxieties of Baillargeon and mine were partaken of by every one of the students in theology. The boldness of our expressions brought upon us a real storm. But our superior did not dare to face or answer a single one of our arguments; he was evidently embarrassed, and nothing could surpass his joy when the bell told him that the hour of the conference was over. He promised to answer us the next day; but the next day he did nothing but throw dust into our eyes, and abuse us to his heart’s content. He began by forbidding me to read any more of the controversial books I had bought a few months before, among which was the celebrated Derry discussion between seven priests and seven Protestants. I had to give back the well-known discussion between “Pope and Maguire,” and between Gregg and the same Maguire. I had also to give up the numbers of the Avenir and other books of Lamenais, which I had got the liberty, as a privilege, to read. It was decided that my intelligence was not clear enough, and that my faith was not sufficiently strong to read those books. I had nothing to do but to bow my head under the yoke and obey, without a word of murmur. The darkest night was made around our understandings, and we had to believe that that awful darkness was the shining light of God!! We rejected the bright truth which had so nearly conquered our minds, in order to accept the most ridiculous sophisms as gospel truths! We did the most degrading action a man can do—we silenced the voice of our conscience, and we consented to follow our superior’s views, as a brute follows the order of his master; we consented to be in the hands of our superiors like a stick in the hands of the traveler.
During the months which elapsed between that hard-fought, though lost battle, and the solemn hour of my priestly ordination, I did all I could to subdue and annihilate my thoughts on that subject. My hope was that I had entirely succeeded. But, to my dismay, that reason suddenly awoke, as from a long sleep, when I had perjured myself, as every priest has to do. A chill of horror and shame ran through all my frame in spite of myself. In my inmost soul a cry was heard from my wounded conscience. “You annihilate the Word of God! You rebel against the Holy Ghost! You deny the Holy Scriptures to follow the steps of sinful men! You reject the pure waters of eternal life, to drink the waters of death.”
In order to choke again the voice of my conscience, I did what my Church advised me to do—I cried to my wafer god and to the blessed Virgin Mary, that they might come to my help, and silence the voices which were troubling my peace by shaking my faith.
With the utmost sincerity, the day of my ordination, I renewed the promise that I had already so often made, and said in the presence of God and His angels, “I promise that I will never believe anything except according to the teachings of my Holy and Apostolic Church of Rome.”
And on that pillow of folly, ignorance and fanaticism I laid my head to sleep the sleep of spiritual death, with the two hundred millions of slaves whom the Pope sees at his feet.
And I slept that sleep till the God of our salvation, in His great mercy, awoke me, by giving to my soul the light, the truth and the life which are in Jesus Christ.
Chapter XVII
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIESTHOOD: OR ANCIENT AND MODERN IDOLATRY.
I was ordained a priest of Rome in the Cathedral of Quebec, on the 21st of September, 1833, by the Right Reverend Sinai, first Archbishop of Canada. No words can express the solemnity of my thoughts, the superhuman nature of my aspirations, when the delegate of the Pope, imposing his hands on my head, gave me the power of converting a wafer into the real substantial body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ! The bright illusion of Eve, as the deceiver told her “Ye shall be as gods,” was child’s play compared with what I felt when, assured by the infallible voice of my Church that I was not only on equal terms with my Saviour and God, but I was in reality above Him! and that hereafter I would not only command, but create Him!!
The aspirations to power and glory which had been such a terrible temptation in Lucifer were becoming a reality in me! I had received the power of commanding God, not in a spiritual and mystical, but in a real, personal and most irresistible way.
With my heart full of an inexpressible joy and gratitude to God, and with all the faculties of my soul raised to exaltation, I withdrew from the feet of the pontiff to my oratory, where I passed the rest of the day in meditation on the great things which my God had wrought in me.
I had, at last attained the top of that power and holiness which my Church had invited me to consider from my infancy as the most glorious gift which God had ever given to man! The dignity which I had just received was above all the dignities and the thrones of this world. The holy character of the PRIESTHOOD had been impressed on my soul, with the blood of Christ, as an imperishable and celestial glory. Nothing could ever take it away from me in time or eternity. I was to be a priest of my God forever and ever. Not only had Christ let His divine and priestly nature fall on my shoulders, but He had so perfectly associated me with Himself as the great and eternal Sacrificator, that I was to renew, every day of my life, His atoning SACRIFICE! At my bidding, the only and eternally begotten Son of my God was now to come into my hands in person! The same Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father was to come down every day into my breast, to unite His flesh to my flesh, His blood to my blood, His divine soul to my poor sinful soul, in order to walk, work and live in me and with me in the most perfect unity and intimacy!
I passed the whole day and the greater part of the night in contemplating the superhuman honors and dignities which my beloved Church had conferred on me. Many times I fell on my knees to thank God for His mercies towards me, and I could hardly speak to Him except with tears of joy and gratitude. I often repeated the words of the Holy Virgin Mary: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour.”
The privileges granted to me were of a more substantial kind than those bestowed upon Mary. She had been obeyed by Christ only when He was a child. He had to obey me now, although He was in the full possession of His eternal glory!
In the presence of God and His angels, I promised to live a holy life as a token of my gratitude to Him. I said to my lips and my tongue, “Be holy now; for you will not only speak to your God: you will give Him a new birth every day!” I said to my heart, “Be holy and pure now; for you will bear every day the Holy of Holies.” To my soul I said, “Be holy now; for you will henceforth be most intimately and personally united to Christ Jesus. You will be fed with the body, blood, soul and divinity of Him before whom the angels do not find themselves pure enough!”
Looking on my table, where my pipe, filled with tobacco, and my snuff-box were lying, I said: “Impure and noxious weeds, you will no more defile me! I am the priest of the Almighty. It is beneath my dignity to touch you any more!” and opening the window I threw them into the street, never to make use of them again.
On the 21st of September, 1833, I had thus been raised to the priesthood; but I had not yet made use of the divine powers with which I had been invested. The next day I was to say my first Mass, and work that incomparable miracle which the Church of Rome calls TRANSUBSTANTIATION.
As I have already said, I had passed the greater part of the night between the 21st and 22nd in meditation and thanksgivings. On the morning of the 22nd, long before the dawn of day, I was dressed and on my knees. This was to be the most holy and glorious day of my life! Raised the day before, to a dignity which was above the kingdoms and empires of the world, I was now for the first time, to work a miracle at the altar which no angel or seraph could do.
At my bidding Christ was to receive a new existence! The miracle wrought by Joshua, when he commanded the sun and moon to stop, on the bloody plain of Gibeon, was nothing compared to the miracle that I was to perform that day. When the eternal Son of God would be in my hands, I was to present myself at the throne of mercy, with that expiatory victim of the sins of the world pay the debt, not only of my guilty soul, but of all those for whom I should speak? The ineffable sacrifice of Calvary was to be renewed by me that day with the utmost perfection!
When the bell rang to tell me that the hour was come to clothe myself with the golden priestly robes and go to the altar, my heart beat with such a rapidity that I came very near fainting. The holiness of the action I was to do, the infinite greatness of the sacrifice I was about to make, the divine victim I was to hold in my hands and present to God the Father! the wonderful miracle I was to perform, filled my soul and my heart with such sentiments of terror, joy and awe, that I was trembling from head to foot; and if very kind friends, among whom was the venerable secretary of the Archbishop of Quebec, now the Grand Vicar Cazault, had not been there to help and encourage me, I think I would not have dared to ascend the steps of the altar.
It is not an easy thing to go through all the ceremonies of a mass. There are more than one hundred different ceremonies and positions of the body, which must be observed, with the utmost perfection. To omit one of them willingly, or through a culpable neglect or ignorance, is eternal damnation. But thanks to a dozen exercises through which I had gone the previous week, and thanks be to the kind friends who helped and guided me, I went through the performances of that first mass much more easily than I expected. It lasted about an hour. But when it was over, I was really exhausted by the effort made to keep my mind and heart in unison with the infinite greatness of the mysteries accomplished by me.
To make one’s self believe that he can convert a piece of bread into God requires such a supreme effort of the will, and complete annihilation of intelligence, that the state of the soul, after the effort is over, is more like death than life.
I had really persuaded myself that I had done the most holy and sublime action of my life, when, in fact I had been guilty of the most outrageous act of idolatry! My eyes, my hands and lips, my mouth and tongue, and all my senses, as well as the faculties of my intelligence, were telling me that what I had seen, touched, eaten, was nothing but a wafer; but the voices of the Pope and his Church were telling me that it was the real body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. I had persuaded myself that the voices of my senses and intelligence were the voices of Satan, and that the deceitful voice of the Pope was the voice of the God of Truth! Every priest of Rome has to come to that strange degree of folly and perversity, every day of his life, to remain a priest of Rome.
The great imposture taught under the modern word TRANSUBSTANTIATION, when divested of the glare which Rome, by his sorceries, throws around it, is soon seen to be what it is—a most impious and idolatrous doctrine.
“I must carry the ‘good god’ to-morrow to a sick man,” says the priest to his servant girl. In plain French: “Je dois porter le ‘Bon Dieu’ demain a un malade, dit le praitre a sa servante; mais il n’y en a plus dans le tabernacle.” “But there are no more in the tabernacle. Make some small cakes, that I may consecrate them to-morrow.” And the obedient domestic takes some wheat flour, for no other kind of flour is fit to make the god of the Pope. A mixture of any other kind would make the miracle of “transubstantiation” a great failure. The servant girl accordingly takes the dough, and bakes it between two heated irons, on which are graven the following figures, ✝/C.H.S. When the whole is well baked, she takes her scissors and cuts those wafers, which are about four or five inches large, into smaller ones of the size of an inch, and respectfully hands them over to the priest.
The next morning the priest takes the newly-baked wafers to the altar, and changes them into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. It was one of those wafers that I had taken to the altar in that solemn hour of my first mass, and which I had turned into my Saviour by the five magical words—HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM!
What was the difference between the incredible folly of Aaron on the day of his apostasy in the wilderness, and the action I had done when I worshipped the god whom I made myself, and got my friends to worship? Where, I ask, is the difference between the adoration of the calf-god of Aaron and the wafer-god which I had made on the 22nd September, 1833. The only difference was, that the idolatry of Aaron lasted but one day, while the idolatry in which I lived lasted a quarter of a century, and has been perpetuated in the Church of Rome for more than a thousand years.
What has the Church of Rome done by giving up the words of Christ, “Do this in remembrance of me,” and substituting her dogma of Transubstantiation? She has brought the world back to the old heathenism. The priest of Rome worships a Saviour called Christ. Yes; but that Christ is not the Christ of the gospel. It is a false and newly-invented Christ whom the Popes have smuggled from the Pantheon of Rome, and sacrilegiously called by the adorable name of our Saviour Jesus Christ.
I have often been asked: “Was it possible that you sincerely believed that the wafer could be changed into God by you?” And, “Have you really worshipped that wafer as your Saviour?”
To my shame, and to the shame of poor humanity, I must say “Yes.” I believed as sincerely as every Roman Catholic priest is bound to believe it, that I was creating my own Saviour-God every morning by the assumed consecration of the wafer; and I was saying to the people, as I presented it to them, “Ecce agnus Dei”—“This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world; let us adore him”—prostrating myself on my knees, I was adoring the God made by myself, with the help of my servant; and all the people prostrated themselves to adore the newly-made god!
I must confess, further, that though I was bound to believe in the existence of Christ in heaven, and was invited by my Church to worship Him as my Saviour and my God, I had, as every Roman Catholic has, more confidence, faith and love towards the Christ which I had created with a few words of my lips, than towards the Christ of heaven.
My Church told me, every day of my life, and I had to believe and preach it, that though the Christ of heaven was my Saviour, He was angry against me on account of my sins; that He was constantly disposed to punish me according to His terrible justice; that He was armed with lightning and thunder to crush me; and that, were it not for His mother, who day and night was interceding for me, I should be cast into that hell which my sins had so richly deserved. All the theologians, with St. Liguori at their head, whose writings I was earnestly studying, and which had received the approbation of infallible popes, persuaded me that it was Mary whom I had to thank and bless, if I had not yet been punished as I deserved. Not only had I to believe this doctrine, but I had to preach it to the people. The result was for me, as it is for every Roman Catholic, that my heart was really chilled, and I was filled with terror every time I looked to the Christ of heaven through the lights and teachings of my Church. He could not, as I believed, look to me except with an angry face; He could not stretch out His hand towards me except to crush me, unless His merciful mother or some other mighty saint interposed their saving supplications to appease His just indignation. When I was praying to that Christ of the Church of Rome, my mind was constantly perplexed about the choice I should make of some powerful protector, whose influence could get me a favorable hearing from my irritated Saviour.
Besides this, I was told, and I had to believe it, that the Christ of heaven was a mighty monarch, a most glorious king surrounded by innumerable hosts of servants, officers and friends, and that, as it would not do for a poor rebel to present himself before his irritated King to get his pardon, but he must address himself to some of His most influential courtiers, or to His beloved mother, to whom nothing can be refused, that they might plead his cause; so I sincerely believed that it was better for me not to speak myself to Jesus Christ, but to look for some one who would speak for me.
But there would be no such terrors or fears in my heart when I approached the Saviour whom I had created myself! Such an humble and defenceless Saviour, surely, had no thunder in His hands to punish His enemies. He could have no angry looks for me. He was my friend, as well as the work of my hands. There was nothing in Him which could inspire me with any fear. Had I not brought Him down from heaven? And had He not come into my hands that He might hear, bless and forgive me?—that He might be nearer to me, and I nearer to Him?
When I was in His presence, in that solitary church, there was no need of officers, of courtiers, of mothers to speak to Him for me. He was no longer there a mighty monarch, an angry king, who could be approached only by the great officers of His court; He was now the rebuked of the world, the humble and defenceless Saviour of the manger, the forsaken Jesus of Calvary, the forgotten Christ of Gethsemane.
No words can give any idea of the pleasure I used to feel when, alone, prostrated before the Christ whom I had made at the morning mass, I poured out my heart at His feet. It is impossible for those who have not lived under those terrible illusions to understand with what confidence I spoke to the Christ who was then before me, bound by the ties of His love for me! How many times, in the colder days of winter, in churches which had never seen any fire, with an atmosphere 15 degrees below zero, had I passed whole hours alone, in adoration of the Saviour whom I had made only a few hours before! How often have I looked with silent admiration to the Divine Person who was there alone, passing the long hours of the day and night, rebuked and forsaken, that I might have an opportunity of approaching Him, and of speaking to Him as a friend to his friend, as a repenting sinner to his merciful Saviour. My faith—I should rather say my awful delusion, was then so complete that I scarcely felt the biting of the cold! I may say with truth, that the happiest hours I ever had, during the long years of darkness into which the Church of Rome had plunged me, were the hours which I passed in adoring the Christ whom I had made with my own lips. And every priest of Rome would make the same declaration, were they questioned on the subject.
It is a similar principle of monstrous faith that leads widows in India to leap with cries of joy into the fire which will burn them into ashes with the bodies of their deceased husbands. Their priests have assured them that such a sacrifice will secure eternal happiness to themselves and their departed husbands.
In fact, the Roman Catholics have no other Saviour to whom they can betake themselves than the one made by the consecration of the wafer. He is the only Saviour who is not angry with them, and who does not require the mediation of virgins and saints to appease His wrath. This is the reason why Roman Catholic churches are so well filled by the poor blind Roman Catholics. See how they rush to the foot of their altars at almost every hour of the day, sometimes long before the dawn! Go to some of their churches, even on a rainy and stormy morning, and you will see crowds of worshippers, of every age and from every grade of society, braving the storm and the rain, walking through the mud to pass an hour at the foot of their tabernacles!
How is it that the Roman Catholics, alone, offer such a spectacle to the civilized world? The reason is very simple and plain. Every soul yearns for a God to whom it can speak, and who will hear its supplications with a merciful heart, and who will wipe away her penitential tears. Just as the flowers of our gardens turn naturally towards the sun which gives them their color, their fragrance and their life, so every soul wants a Saviour who is not angry but merciful towards those who come unto Him—A Saviour who will say to the weary and heavy laden: “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”—A God, in fine, who is not armed with Thunder and Lightning, and does not require to be approached only by saints, virgins and martyrs; but who, through his son Jesus, is the real, the true and the only friend of Sinners.
When the people think that there is such a God,—such a loving Saviour to be found in the tabernacle, it is but natural that they should brave the storms and the rains, to worship at his feet, to receive the pardon of their sins.
The children of light, the disciples of the gospel, who protest against the errors of Rome, know that their Heavenly Father is everywhere ready to hear, forgive and help them. They know that it is no more “at Jerusalem, nor on this or that mountain,” or at church that God wants to be worshipped (John iv. 21.) They know that their Saviour liveth, and is everywhere ready to hear those who invoke His name; that He is no more in that desert, or in that secret chamber (Matt. xxiv.) They know that He is everywhere—that He is ever near to those who look to his bleeding wounds and want to wash their robes in His blood. They find Jesus in their most secret closets when they enter them to pray;—they meet Him and converse with Him when in the fields, behind the counter, traveling on railroads or steamers—everywhere they meet with Him, and speak to Him as friend to friend.
It is not so with the followers of the Pope. They are told contrary to the gospel (Matt. xxiv. 22.), that Christ is in this Church—in that secret chamber or tabernacle! Cruelly deceived by their priests, they run, they brave the storms to go as near as possible to that place where their merciful Christ lives. They go to the Christ who will give them a hearty welcome, who will listen to their humble prayers, and be compassionate to their tears of repentance.
Let Protestants cease to admire poor deluded Roman Catholics who dare the storm and go to church even before the dawn of day. This devotion, which so dazzles them, should excite compassion, and not admiration; for it is the logical result of the most awful spiritual darkness. It is the offspring of the greatest imposture the world has ever seen, it is the natural consequence of the belief that the priest of Rome can create Christ and God by the consecration of a wafer, and keep Him in a secret chamber.
The Egyptians worshipped God under the form of crocodiles and calves: The Greeks made their gods of marble or of gold: The Persian made the sun his god: The Hottentots make their gods with whale-bone, and go far through the storms to adore them: The Church of Rome makes her god out of a piece of bread! Is this not idolatry?
From the year 1833, to the day that God in his mercy opened my eyes, my servant had used more than a bushel of wheat flour, to make the little cakes which I had to convert into the Christ of the mass. Some of these I ate; others I carried about with me for the sick; and others I placed in the tabernacle for the adoration of the people.
I am often asked:—“How is it that you could be guilty of such a gross act of idolatry?” My only answer is the answer of the blind man of the gospel: “I know not, only this one thing I know, that I was blind, and could not see. But Jesus has touched my eyes and now I see.” (John ix. ii).
Chapter XVIII
NINE STARTLING CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOGMA OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION—THE OLD PAGANISM UNDER A CHRISTIAN NAME.
On the day of my ordination to the priesthood, I had to believe, with all the priests of Rome, that it was within the limits of my powers to go into all the bakeries of Quebec, and change all the loaves and biscuits in that old city, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by pronouncing over them the five words: HOC EST ENIM CORPUS MEUM. Nothing would have remained of these loaves and biscuits but the smell, the color, the taste.
2. Every bishop and priest of the cities of New York and Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Paris and London, etc., firmly believes and teaches that he has the power to turn all the loaves of their cities, of their dioceses, nay, of the whole world, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And, though they have never yet found it advisable to do that wonderful miracle, they consider, and say, that to entertain any doubt about the power to perform that marvel, is as criminal as to entertain any doubt about the existence of God.
3. When in the Seminary of Nicolet, I heard, several times, our Superior, the Rev. Mr. Raimbault, tell us that a French priest having been condemned to death in Paris, when dragged to the scaffold had, through revenge, consecrated and changed into Jesus Christ all the loaves of the bakeries of that great city which were along the streets through which he had to pass; and though our learned superior condemned that action in the strongest terms, yet he told us that the consecration was valid, and that the loaves were really changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Saviour of the world. And I was bound to believe it under pain of eternal damnation.
4. Before my ordination I had been obliged to learn by heart, in one of the most sacred books of the Church of Rome, (Missale Romanism, p. 63) the following statement: “If, after the consecration, the consecrated bread disappear, taken away by the wind, or through any miracle; or dragged away by an animal, let the priest take a new bread, consecrate it, and continue his mass.”
And at page 57 I had learned, “If a fly or spider fall into the chalice, after the consecration, let the priest take and eat it, if he does not feel an insurmountable repugnance; but if he cannot swallow it, let him wash it and burn it and throw the ashes into the sacrarium.”
5. In the month of January, 1834, I heard the following fact from the Rev. Mr. Paquette, curate of St. Gervais, at a grand dinner which he had given to the neighboring priests:
“When young, I was the vicar of a curate who could eat as much as two of us, and drink as much as four. He was tall and strong, and he has left the dark marks of his hard fists on the nose of more than one of his beloved sheep; for his anger was really terrible after he drank his bottle of wine.
“One day, after a sumptuous dinner, he was called to carry the good god (Le Bon Dieu), to a dying man. It was mid-winter. The cold was intense. The wind was blowing hard. There was at least five or six feet of snow, and the roads were almost impassable. It was really a serious matter to travel nine miles on such a day, but there was no help. The messenger was one of the first marguilliers (elders) who was very pressing, and the dying man was one of the first citizens of the place. The curate, after a few grumblings, drank a tumbler of good Jamaica with his marguillier as a preventative against the cold, went to church, took the good god (Le Bon Dieu), and threw himself into the sleigh; wrapped as well as possible in his large buffalo robes.
“Though there were two horses, one before the other, to drag the sleigh, the journey was a long and tedious one, which was made still worse by an unlucky circumstance. They were met half-way by another traveler coming from the opposite direction. The road was too narrow to allow the two sleighs and horses to remain easily on firm ground when passing by each other, and it would have required a good deal of skill and patience in driving the horses to prevent them from falling into the soft snow. It is well known that when once horses are sunk into five or six feet of snow, the more they struggle the deeper they sink.
“The marguillier, who was carrying the ‘good god,’ with the cure, naturally hoped to have the privilege of keeping the middle of the road and escaping the danger of getting his horses wounded, and his sleigh broken. He cried to the other traveler, in a high tone of authority: “Traveler! let me have the road. Turn your horses into the snow! Make haste, I am in a hurry. I carry the good god!”
“Unfortunately the traveler was a heretic, who cared much more for his horses than for the “good god.” He answered:
“Le Diable emporte ton Bon Dieu avant que je ne casse le cou de mon cheval!” “The devil take your god before I consent to break the neck of my horse. If your god has not taught you the rules of law and of common sense, I will give you a free lecture on that matter,” and jumping out of his sleigh, he took the reins of the front horse of the marguillier to help him to walk on the side of the road, and keep the half of it for himself.
“But the marguillier, who was naturally a very impatient and fearless man, had drank too much with my curate, before he left the parsonage, to keep cool, as he ought to have done. He also jumped out of his sleigh, ran to the stranger, took his cravat in his left hand and raised his right one to strike him in the face.
“Unfortunately for him, the heretic seemed to have foreseen all this. He had left his overcoat in the sleigh and was more ready for the conflict than his assailant. He was also a real giant in size and strength. As quick as lightning his right and left fists fell like iron masses on the face of the poor marguillier, and threw him on his back in the soft snow, where he almost disappeared.
“Till then the curate had been a silent spectator; but the sight and the cries of his friend, whom the stranger was pommelling without mercy, made him lose his patience. Taking the little silk bag which contained the ‘good god’ from about his neck, where it was tied, he put it on the seat of the sleigh, and said: ‘Dear good god! Please remain neutral; I must help my marguillier! Take no part in this conflict, and I will punish that infamous Protestant as he deserves.’
“But the unfortunate marguillier was entirely put hors de combat before the curate could go to his help. His face was horribly cut—three teeth were broken—the lower jaw dislocated, and the eyes were so terribly damaged that it took several days before he could see anything.
“When the heretic saw the priest coming to renew the battle, he threw down his other coat to be freer in his movements. The curate had not been so wise. Relying too much on his herculean strength, covered with his heavy overcoat, on which was his white surplice, he threw himself on the stranger, like a big rock which falls from the mountain and rolls upon the oak below.
“Both of these combatants were real giants, and the first blows must have been terrible on both sides. But the ‘infamous heretic’ probably had not drank so much as my curate before leaving home, or perhaps he was more expert in the exchange of these bloody jokes. The battle was long and the blood flowed pretty freely on both sides. The cries of the combatants might have been heard at a long distance, were it not for the roaring noise of the wind, which at that instant was blowing a hurricane.
“The storm, the cries, the blows, the blood, the surplice and the overcoat of the priest torn to rags, the shirt of the stranger reddened with gore, made such a terrible spectacle, that in the end the horses of the marguillier, though well-trained animals, took fright and threw themselves into the snow, turned their backs to the storm and made for home. They dragged the fragments of the upset sleigh a pretty long distance, and arrived at the door of their stable with only some diminutive parts of the harness.
“The ‘good god’ had evidently heard the prayer of my curate, and he had remained neutral; at all events he had not taken the part of his priest, for he lost the day, and the infamous Protestant remained master of the battle-field.
“The curate had to help his marguillier out of the snow in which he was buried, and where he had lain like a slaughtered ox. Both had to walk, or rather crawl, nearly half a mile in snow to their knees, before they could reach the nearest farmhouse, where they arrived when it was dark.
“But the worst is not told. You remember when my curate had put the box containing the ‘good god’ on the seat of the sleigh, before going to fight. The horses had dragged the sleigh a certain distance, upset and smashed it. The little silk bag, with the silver box and its precious contents, was lost in the snow, and though several hundred people had looked for it, several days at different times, it could not be found. It was only late in the month of June, that a little boy, seeing some rags in the mud of the ditch, along the highway, lifted them and a little silver box fell out. Suspecting that it was what the people had looked for so many days during the last winter, he took it to the parsonage.
“I was there when it was opened; we had the hope that the ‘good god’ would be found pretty intact, but we were doomed to be disappointed, The good god was entirely melted away. Le Bon Dieu etait fondu!”
During the recital of that spicy story, which was told in the most amusing and comical way, the priests had drunk freely and laughed heartily. But when the conclusion came: “Le Bon Dieu etait fondu!”
“The good god was melted away!” There was a burst of laughter such as I never heard—the priests striking the floor with their feet, and the table with their hands, filled the house with the cries, “The good god melted away!”
“The good god melted away!”
“Le Bon Dieu est fondu!” “Le Bon Dieu est fondu!” Yes, the god of Rome, dragged away by a drunken priest, and really melted away in the muddy ditch. This glorious fact was proclaimed by his own priests in the midst of convulsive laughter, and at tables covered with scores of bottles just emptied by them!
6. About the middle of March, 1839, I had one of the most unfortunate days of my Roman Catholic priestly life. At about two o’clock in the afternoon, a poor Irishman had come in haste from beyond the high mountains, between Lake Beauport and the river Morency, to ask me to go and anoint a dying woman. It took me ten minutes to run to the church, put the “good god” in the little silver box, shut the whole in my vest pocket and jump into the Irishman’s rough sleigh. The roads were exceedingly bad, and we had to go very slowly. At 7 p. m. we were yet more than three miles from the sick woman’s house. It was very dark, and the horse was so exhausted that it was impossible to go any further through the gloomy forest. I determined to pass the night at a poor Irish cabin which was near the road. I knocked at the door, asked hospitality, and was welcomed with that warm-hearted demonstration of respect which the Roman Catholic Irishman knows, better than any other man, how to pay to his priests.
The shanty, twenty-four feet long by sixteen wide, was built with round logs, between which a liberal supply of clay, instead of mortar had been thrown, to prevent the wind and cold from entering. Six fat, though not absolutely well-washed, healthy boys and girls, half-naked, presented themselves around their good parents as the living witnesses that this cabin, in spite of its ugly appearance, was really a happy home for its dwellers.
Besides the eight human beings sheltered beneath that hospitable roof, I saw, at one end, a magnificent cow with her newborn calf, and two fine pigs. These two last boarders were separated from the rest of the family only by a branch partition two or three feet high.
“Please your reverence,” said the good woman, after she had prepared our supper, “excuse our poverty, but be sure that we feel happy and much honored to have you in our humble dwelling for the night. My only regret is that we have only potatoes, milk and butter to give you for your supper. In these backwoods, tea, sugar and wheat flour are unknown luxuries.”
I thanked that good woman for her hospitality, and caused her to rejoice not a little by assuring her that good potatoes, fresh butter and milk, were the best delicacies which could be offered to me in any place. I sat at the table and ate one of the most delicious suppers of my life. The potatoes were exceedingly well-cooked—the butter cream and milk of the best quality, and my appetite was not a little sharpened by the long journey over the steep mountains.
I had not told these good people, nor even my driver, that I had “Le bon Dieu,” the good god, with me in my vest pocket. It would have made them too uneasy, and would have added too much to my other difficulties. When the time of sleeping arrived, I went to bed with all my clothing, and slept well; for I was very tired by the tedious and broken roads from Beauport to these distant mountains.
Next morning, before breakfast and the dawn of day, I was up, and as soon as we had a glimpse of light to see our way, I left for the house of the sick woman, after offering a silent prayer.
I had not traveled a quarter of a mile when I put my hand into my vest pocket, and to my indescribable dismay, I found that the little silver box containing the “good god” was missing. A cold sweat ran through my frame. I told my driver to stop and turn back immediately, that I had lost something which might be found in the bed where I had slept. It did not take five minutes to retrace our way.
On opening the door I found the poor woman and her husband almost besides themselves, and distressed beyond measure. They were pale and trembling as criminals who expected to be condemned.
“Did you not find a little silver box after I left?” I said.
“O, my God!” answered the desolate woman, “Yes, I have found it, but would to God I had never seen it. There it is.”
“But why do you regret finding it, when I am too happy to find it here, safe in your hands?” I replied.
“Ah! your reverence, you do not know what a terrible misfortune has just happened to me not more than half a minute before you knocked at the door.”
“What misfortune can have fallen upon you in so short a time,” I answered.
“Well, please your reverence, open the little box and you will understand me.”
I opened it, but the “good god” was not in it!! Looking in the face of the poor distressed woman, I asked her, “What does this mean? It is empty!”
“It means,” answered she, “that I am the most unfortunate of women! Not more than five minutes after you had left the house, I went to your bed and found that little box. Not knowing what it was, I showed it to my children and to my husband. I asked him to open it, but he refused to do it. I then turned it on every side, trying to guess what it could contain; till the devil tempted me so much that I determined to open it. I came to this corner, where this pale lamp is used to remain on that little shelf, and I opened it. But, O, my God; I do not dare to tell the rest.”
At these words she fell on the floor in a fit of nervous excitement—her cries were piercing, her mouth was foaming. She was cruelly tearing her hair with her own hands. The shrieks and lamentations of the children were so distressing that I could hardly prevent myself from crying also.
After a few moments of the most agonizing anxiety, seeing that the poor woman was becoming calm, I addressed myself to the husband, and said: “Please give me the explanation of these strange things?”
He could hardly speak at first, but as I was very pressing, he told me with a trembling voice: “Please your reverence; look into that vessel that the children use, and you will perhaps understand our desolation! When my wife opened the little silver box, she did not observe the vessel was there, just beneath her hands. In the opening, what was in the silver box fell into that vase, and sank! We were all filled with consternation when you knocked at the door and entered.”
I felt struck with such unspeakable horror at the thought that the body, blood, soul and divinity of my Saviour, Jesus Christ, was there, sunk into that vase, that I remained speechless, and for a long time did not know what to do. At first it came to my mind to plunge my hands into the vase and try to get my Saviour out of that sepulchre of ignominy. But I could not muster courage to do so.
At last I requested the poor desolated family to dig a hole three feet deep in the ground, and deposit it, with its contents, and I left the house, after I had forbidden them from ever saying a word about that awful calamity.
7. In one of the most sacred books of the laws and regulations of the Church of Rome (Missale Romanism), we read, page 58, “If the priest after the communion vomit, and that in the vomited matter the consecrated bread appears, let him swallow what he has vomited. But if he feels too much repugnance to swallow it, let him separate the body of Christ (the consecrated bread), from the vomited matter, till it be entirely corrupted, and then throw it into the sacrarium.”
8. When a priest of Rome, I was bound, with all the Roman Catholics, to believe that Christ had taken His own body, with his own hand to His mouth! and that he had eaten Himself, not in a spiritual, but in a substantial, material way! After eating himself, he had given himself to each one of his apostles, who then ate him also!!
9. Before closing this chapter, let the reader allow me to ask him, if the world in its darkest ages of paganism has ever witnessed such a system of idolatry, so debasing, impious, ridiculous and diabolical in its consequences as the Church of Rome teaches in the dogma of transubstantiation!
When, with the light of the gospel in hand, the Christian goes into those horrible recesses of superstition, folly and impiety, he can hardly believe what his eyes see and his ears hear. It seems impossible that men can consent to worship a god whom the rats can eat! A god who can be dragged away and lost in a muddy ditch by a drunken priest! A god who can be eaten, vomited, and eaten again by those who are courageous enough to eat again what they have vomited!!
The religion of Rome is not a religion: it is the mockery, the destruction, the ignominious carricature of religion. The Church of Rome, as a public fact, is nothing but the accomplishment of the awful prophecy: “Because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved, God shall send them strong delusions that they might believe a lie.” (2 Thess. ii. x. xi.)
XIX. VICARAGE AND LIFE AT ST. CHARLES, RIVIERRE BOYER
On the 24th September, 1833, Rev. Mr. Casault, secretary of the bishop of Quebec, presented to me the official letters which named me the vicar of the Rev. Mr. Perras, arch-priest, and curate of St. Charles, Rivierre Boyer, and I was soon on my way, with a cheerful heart, to fill the post assigned to me by my superior.
The parish of St. Charles is beautifully situated about twenty miles south-west of Quebec, on the banks of a river, which flows in its very midst, from north to south. Its large farm-houses and barns, neatly white-washed with lime, were the symbols of peace and comfort. The vandal axe had not yet destroyed the centenary forests which covered the country. On almost every farm a splendid grove of maples had been reserved as the witness of the intelligence and taste of the people.
I had often heard of the Rev. Mr. Perras, as one of the most learned, pious and venerable priests of Canada. I had even been told that several of the governors of Quebec had chosen him for the French teacher of their children. When I arrived he was absent on a sick call, but his sister received me with every mark of refined politeness. Under the burden of her five and fifty years she had kept all the freshness and amiability of youth. After a few words of welcome, she showed me my study and sleeping room. They were both perfumed with the fragrance of two magnificent bouquets of the choicest flowers, on the top of one of which was written the words: “Welcome to the angel whom the Lord sends to us as his messenger.” The two rooms were the perfection of neatness and comfort. I shut the doors and fell on my knees to thank God and the blessed Virgin for having given me such a home. Ten minutes later I came back to the large parlor, where I found Miss Perras waiting for me, to offer me a glass of wine and some excellent “pain de savoie,” as it was the universal custom, then, to do in every respectable house. She then told me how her brother, the curate, and herself were happy when they heard that I was to come and live with them. She had known my mother before her marriage, and she told me how she had passed several happy days in her company.
She could not speak to me of any subject more interesting, than my mother; for, though she had died a few years before, she had never ceased to be present to my mind, and near and dear to my heart.
Miss Perras had not spoken long when the curate arrived. I rose to meet him, but it is impossible to adequately express what I felt at that moment. The Israelites were hardly struck with more awe when they saw Moses coming down from Mount Sinai, than I was at the first sight I had of that venerable man.
Rev. Mr. Perras was then about sixty-five years old. He was a tall man—almost a giant. No army officer, no king ever bore his head with more dignity. But his beautiful blue eyes, which were the embodiment of kindness, tempered the dignity of his mien. His hair, which was beginning to whiten, had not yet lost its golden lustre. It seemed as if silver and gold were mixed on his head to adorn and beautify it. There was on his face an expression of peace, calm, piety and kindness, which entirely won my heart and respect. When, with a smile on his lips, he extended his hands towards me, I felt beside myself, I fell on my knees and said: “Mr. Perras, God sends me to you that you may be my teacher and my father. You will have to guide my first and inexperienced steps in the holy ministry. Do bless me and pray that I may be a good priest as you are yourself.”
That unpremeditated and earnest act of mine, so touched the good old priest, that he could hardly speak. Leaning towards me, he raised me up and pressed me to his bosom, and with a voice trembling with emotion he said, “May God bless you, my dear sir, and may he also be blessed for having chosen you to help me carry the burden of the holy ministry in my old age.” After half-an-hour of the most interesting conversation, he showed me his library, which was very large and composed of the best books which a priest of Rome is allowed to read; and he very kindly put it at my service.
Next morning, after breakfast, he handed me a large and neat sheet of paper, headed by these latin words:
“ORDO DUCIT AD DEUM.”
It was the rule of life which he had imposed upon himself, to guide all the hours of the day in such a way that not a moment could be given to idleness or vain pastime.
“Would you be kind enough,” he said, “to read this and tell me if it suits your views? I have found great spiritual and temporal benefits in following these rules of life, and would be very happy if my dear young coadjutor would unite with me in walking in the ways of an orderly, Christian and priestly life.
I read this document with interest and pleasure, and handed it back to him saying: “I will be very happy, with the help of God, to follow with you the wise rules set down here for a holy and priestly life.”
Thinking that these rules might be interesting to the reader, I give them here in full:
1. Rising, 5.30 a. m.
2. Prayer and meditation 6 to 6.30 a. m.
3. Mass, hearing confession and recitation of brevarium 6.30 to 8 a. m.
4. Breakfast 8 a. m.
5. Visitation of the sick, and reading the lives of 8.30 to 10 a. the saints m.
6. Study of philosophical, historical, or theological books 11 a. m. to 12.
7. Dinner 12 to 12.30.
8. Recreation and conversation 12.30 to 1.30.
9. Recitation of vespers 1.30 to 2 p. m.
10. Study of history, theology or philosophy 2 to 4 p. m.
11. Visit to the holy sacrament and reading “Imitation of Jesus Christ,” 4 to 4.30 p. m.
12. Hearing of confessions, or visit to the sick, or study 4.30 to 6 p. m.
13. Supper 6 to 6.30 p. m.
14. Recreation 6.30 to 8 p. m.
15. Chaplet—reading of the Holy Scriptures and prayer 8 to 9 p. m.
16. Going to bed 9 p. m.
Such was our daily life during the eight months which it was my privilege to remain with the venerable Mr. Perras, except that Thursdays were invariably given to visit some of the neighboring curates, and the Sabbath days spent in hearing confessions, and performing the public services of the church.
The conversation of Mr. Perras was generally exceedingly interesting. I never heard from him any idle, frivolous talking, as it is so much the habit among the priests. He was well versed in the literature, philosophy, history and theology of Rome. He had personally known almost all the bishops and priests of the last fifty years, and his memory was well stored with anecdotes and facts concerning the clergy, from almost the days of the conquest of Canada. I could write many interesting things, were I to publish what I heard from him, concerning the doings of the clergy. I will only give two or three of the facts of that interesting period of the church in Canada.
A couple of months before my arrival at St. Charles, the vicar who preceded me, called Lajus, had publicly eloped with one of his beautiful penitents, who, after three months of public scandal, had repented and come back to her heart-broken parents. About the same time a neighboring curate, in whom I had great confidence, compromised himself also, with one of his fair parishioners, in a most shameful, though less public way. These two scandals, which came to my knowledge almost at the same time, distressed me exceedingly, and for nearly a week I felt so overwhelmed with shame, that I dreaded to show my face in public, and I almost regretted that I ever became a priest. My nights were sleepless; the best viands of the table had lost their relish. I could hardly eat anything. My conversations with Mr. Perras had lost their charms. I even could hardly talk with him or anybody else.
“Are you sick, my young friend?” said he to me one day.
“No, sir, I am not sick, but I am sad.”
He replied, “Can I know the cause of your sadness? You used to be so cheerful and happy since you came here. I must bring you back to your former happy frame of mind. Please tell me what is the matter with you? I am an old man and I know many remedies for the soul as well as for the body. Open your heart to me, and I hope soon to see that dark cloud which is over you pass away.”
“The two last awful scandals given by the priests,” I answered, “are the cause of my sadness. The news of the fall of these two confreres, one of whom seemed to me so respectable, has fallen upon me like a thunderbolt. Though I had heard something of that nature when I was a simple ecclesiastic in the college, I had not the least idea that such was the life of so many priests. The fact of the human frailty of so many, is really distressing. How can one hope to stand up on one’s feet when he sees such strong men fall by one’s side? What will become of our holy church in Canada, and all over the world, if her most devoted priests are so weak and have so little self-respect, and so little fear of God?”
“My dear young friend,” answered Mr. Perras, “Our holy church is infallible. The gates of hell can not prevail against her; but the assurance of her perpetuity and infallibility does not rest on any human foundation. It does not rest on the personal holiness of her priests; but it rests on the promises of Jesus Christ. Her perpetuity and infallibility are a perpetual miracle. It requires the constant working of Jesus Christ to keep her pure and holy, in spite of the sins and scandals of her priests. Even the clearest proof that our holy church has a promise of perpetuity and infallibility, is drawn from the very sins and scandals of her priests; for those sins and scandals would have destroyed her long ago, if Christ was not in the midst to save and sustain her. Just as the ark of Noah was miraculously saved by the mighty hand of God, when the waters of the deluge would otherwise have wrecked it, so our holy church is miraculously prevented from perishing in the flood of iniquities by which too many priests have deluged the world. By the great mercy and power of God, the more the waters of the deluge were flowing on the earth, the more the ark was raised towards heaven by these very waters. So it is with our holy church. The very sins of the priests make that spotless spouse of Jesus Christ fly away higher and higher towards the regions of holiness, as it is in God. Let, therefore, your faith and confidence in our holy church, and your respect for her, remain firm and unshaken in the midst of all these scandals. Let your zeal be rekindled for her glory and extension, at the sight of the unfortunate confreres who yield to the attacks of the enemy. Just as the valiant soldier makes superhuman efforts to save the flag, when he sees those who carried it fall on the battle-field. Oh! you will see more of our flag-bearers slaughtered before you reach my age. But be not disheartened or shaken by that sad spectacle; for once more our holy church will stand forever, in spite of all those human miseries, for her strength and her infallibility do not lie in men, but in Jesus Christ, whose promises will stand in spite of all the efforts of hell.
“I am near the end of my course, and thanks be to God, my faith in our holy church is stronger than ever, though I have seen and heard many things, compared with which, the facts which just now distress you are mere trifles. In order the better to inure you to the conflict, and to prepare you to hear and see more deplorable things than what is now troubling you, I think it is my duty to tell you a fact which I got from the late Lord Bishop Plessis. I have never revealed it to anybody, but my interest in you is so great that I will tell it to you, and my confidence in your wisdom is so absolute, that I am sure you will never abuse it. What I will reveal to you is of such a nature that we must keep it among ourselves, and never let it be known to the people, for it would diminish, if not destroy, their respect and confidence in us, respect and confidence, without which, it would become almost impossible to lead them.
“I have already told you that the late venerable Bishop Plessis was my personal friend. Our intimacy had sprung up when we were studying under the same roof in the seminary of St. Sulpice, Montreal, and it had increased year after year till the last hour of his life. Every summer, when he had reached the end of the three months of episcopal visitation of his diocese, he used to come and spend eight or ten days of absolute rest and enjoyment of private and solitary life with me, in this parsonage. The two rooms you occupy were his, and he told me many times that the happiest days of his episcopal life were those passed in this solitude.
“One day he had come from his three months’ visit, more worn out than ever, and when I sat down with him in this parlor, I was almost frightened by the air of distress which covered his face. Instead of finding him the loquacious, amiable and cheerful guest I used to have in him, he was taciturn, cast down, distressed. I felt really uneasy for the first time, in his presence, but as it was the last hour of the day, I supposed that this was due to his extreme fatigue, and I hoped that the rest of the night would bring about such a change in my venerable friend, that I would find him the next morning, what he used to be, the most amiable and interesting of men.
“I was, myself, completely worn out. I had traveled nearly thirty miles that day, to go to receive him at St. Thomas. The heat was oppressive, the roads very bad, and the dust awful. I was in need of rest, and I was hardly in my bed, when I fell into a profound sleep, and slept till three o’clock in the morning. I was then suddenly awakened by sobs and half-suppressed lamentations and prayers, which were evidently coming from the bishop’s room. Without losing a moment, I went and knocked at the door, inquiring about the cause of these sobs. Evidently the poor bishop had not suspected that I could hear him.
“‘Sobs! Sobs!’ he answered, ‘What do you mean by that. Please go back to your room and sleep. Do not trouble yourself about me, I am well,’ and he absolutely refused to open the door of his room. The remaining hours of the night, of course, were sleepless ones for me. The sobs of the bishop were more suppressed, but he could not sufficiently suppress them to prevent me from hearing them. The next morning his eyes were reddened with weeping, and his face was that of one who had suffered intensely all the night. After breakfast I said to him: “My lord, last night has been one of desolation to your lordship; for God’s sake, and in the name of the sacred ties of friendship, which has united us during so many years, please tell me what is the cause of your sorrow. It will become less the very moment you share it with your friend.”
“The bishop answered me: ‘You are right when you think that I am under the burden of a great desolation; but its cause is of such a nature, that I cannot reveal it even to you, my dear friend. It is only at the feet of Jesus Christ and His holy mother, that I must go to unburden my heart. If God does not come to my help, it is sure that I must die from it. But I will carry with me into my grave, the awful mystery which kills me.’
“In vain, during the rest of the day, I did all that I could to persuade Monseigneur Plessis to reveal the cause of his grief. I failed. At last, through respect for him, I withdrew to my own room, and left him alone, knowing that solitude is sometimes the best friend of a desolated mind. His lordship, that evening, withdrew to his sleeping room sooner than usual, and I retired to my room much later. But sleep was out of the question for me that night, for his desolation seemed to be so great, and his tears so abundant, that when he bade me ‘good night,’ I was in fear of finding my venerable, and more than ever dear friend, dead in his bed the next morning. I watched him, without closing my eyes, from the adjoining room, from ten o’clock till the next morning. Though it was evident that he was making great efforts to suppress his sobs, I could see that his sorrow was still more intense that night, than the last one, and my mental agony was not much less than his, during those distressing hours.
“But I formed an extreme resolution, which I put into effect the very moment that he came out of his room the next morning, to salute me.
“‘My Lord,’ said I, ‘I thought till the night before last, that you honored me with your friendship, but I see to-day that I was mistaken. You do not consider me as your friend, for if you would look upon me as a friend worthy of your confidence, you would unburden your heart unto mine. A true friend has no secret from a true friend. What is the use of friendship if it be not to help each other to carry the burdens of life! I found myself honored by your presence in my house, so long as I considered myself as your own friend. But now, that I see I have lost your confidence, please allow me frankly to say to your lordship, that I do not feel the same at your presence here. Besides, it seems to me very probable that the terrible burden which you want to carry alone will kill you, and that very soon, and I do not at all like the idea of finding you suddenly dead in my parsonage, and having the coroner holding his inquest on your body, and making the painful inquiries which are always made upon one suddenly taken by death, particularly when he belongs to the highest ranks of society. Then, my lord, be not offended if I respectfully request your lordship to find another lodging as soon as possible.’
“My words fell upon the bishop like a thunderbolt. He seemed to awaken from a profound sleep. With a deep sigh he looked in my face, with his eyes rolling in tears, and said:
“‘You are right, Perras, I ought never to have concealed my sorrow from such a friend as you have always been for more than half a century to me. But you are the only one to whom I can reveal it. No doubt your priestly and Christian heart will not be less broken than mine; but you will help me with your prayers and wise counsels to carry it. However, before I initiate you into such an awful mystery, we must pray.’
“We then knelt down and, we said together a chaplet to invoke the power of the Virgin Mary, after which we recited Psalm li: ‘Misere mihi.’ Have mercy upon me, O Lord!
“There, sitting by me on this sofa, the bishop said: ‘My dear Perras, you are the only one to whom I could reveal what you are about to hear, for I think you are the only one who can hear such a terrible secret without revealing it, and because, also, you are the only friend whose advice can guide me in this terrible affliction.
“‘You know that I have just finished the visit of my immense diocese of Quebec. It has taken me several years of hard work and fatigue, to see by my own eyes, and know by myself, the gains and losses—in a word, the strength and life of our holy church. I will not speak to you of the people. They are, as a general thing, truly religious and faithful to the church. But the priests. O, Great God! will I tell you what they are? My dear Perras, I would almost die with joy, if God would tell me that I am mistaken. But, alas! I am not mistaken. The sad, the terrible truth is this (putting his right hand on his forehead,) the priests! Ah! with the exception of you and three others, are infidels and atheists! O, my God! my God! what will become of the church in the hands of such wicked men!’ and covering his face with his hands, the bishop burst into tears, and for one hour could not say a word. I myself remained mute.
“At first I regretted having pressed the bishop to reveal such an unexpected mystery of iniquity. But, taking counsel of our very fathomless humiliation and distress, after an hour of silence, spent in pacing the walks of the garden, almost unable to look each other in the face, I said: ‘My lord, what you have told me is surely the saddest thing that I ever heard; but allow me to tell you that your sorrows are out of the limits of your high intelligence and your profound science. If you read the history of our holy church, from the seventh to the fifteenth century, you will know that the spotless spouse of Christ has seen as dark days, if not darker, in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, as she does in Canada, and though the saints of those days deplored the errors and crimes of those dark ages, they have not killed themselves with their vain tears as you are doing.’
“Taking the bishop by the hand, I led him to the library, and opened the pages of the history of the church, by Cardinals Baronius and Henrion, I showed him the names of more than fifty Popes who had evidently been atheists and infidels. I read to him the lives of Borgia, Alexander VI. and a dozen others, who would surely and justly be hanged to-day by the executioner of Quebec, were they, in that city, committing one half of the public crimes of adultery, murder, debauchery of every kind, which they committed in Rome, Avignon, Naples, etc., etc. I read to him some of the public and undeniable crimes of the successors of the apostles, and of the inferior clergy, and I easily and clearly proved to him that his priests, though infidels and atheists, were angels of pity, modesty, purity and religion, when compared with a Borgia, who publicly lived as a married man with his own daughter, and had a child by her. He agreed with me that several of the Alexanders, the Johns, the Piuses and the Leos, were sunk much deeper in the abyss of every kind of iniquity than his priests.
“Five hours passed in so perusing the sad but irrefutable pages of the history of our holy church, wrought a marvelous and beneficial change in the mind of Monseigneur Plessis.
“My conclusion was, that if our holy church had been able to resist the deadly influence of such scandals during so many centuries in Europe, she would not be destroyed in Canada, even by the legion of atheists by whom she is served to-day.
“The bishop acknowledged that my conclusion was correct. He thanked me for the good I had done him, by preventing him from despairing of the future of our holy church in Canada, and the rest of the days which he spent with me, he was almost as cheerful and amiable as before.
“Now, my dear young friend,” added Mr. Perras, “I hope you will be as reasonable and logical in your religion as Bishop Plessis, who was probably the greatest man Canada has ever had. When Satan tries to shake your faith by the scandals you see, remember that Stephen, after having fought with his adversary,—the Pope Constantine II., put out his eyes and condemned him to die. Remember that other Pope, who through revenge against his predecessor, had him exhumed, brought his dead body before judges, then charged him with the most horrible crimes, which he proved by the testimony of scores of eye-witnesses, got him (the dead Pope), to be condemned to be beheaded and dragged with ropes through the muddy streets of Rome, and thrown into the river Tiber. Yes, when your mind is oppressed by the secret crimes of the priests, which you will know, either through the confessional or by public rumor, remember that more than twelve Popes have been raised to that high and holy dignity by the rich and influential prostitutes of Rome, with whom they were publicly living in the most scandalous way. Remember that young bastard, John XI., the son of Pope Sergius, who was consecrated Pope, when only twelve years old, by the influence of his prostitute mother, Marosian, but who was so horribly profligate that he was deposed by the people and the clergy of Rome.
“Well, if our holy church has been able to pass through such storms without perishing, is it not a living proof that Christ is her pilot, that she is imperishable and infallible because St. Peter is her foundation, ‘Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram edificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non prevalebunt adversus eam.’”
Oh, my God! what shall I confess to my confusion, what my thoughts were during that conversation, or rather that lecture of my curate, which lasted more than an hour! Yes, to thy eternal glory, and to my eternal shame, I must say the truth. When the priest was exhibiting to me the horrible unmentionable crimes of so many of our Popes, to calm my fears and strengthen my shaken faith, a mysterious voice was repeating to the ears of my soul, the dear Saviour’s words: “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them,” and in spite of myself the voice of my conscience cried in thundering tones that a church, whose head and members were so horribly corrupt, could not, by any means, be the Church of Christ.
But the most sacred and imperative law of my church, which I had promised by oaths, was, that I would never obey the voice of my conscience, nor follow the dictates of my private judgment, when they were in opposition to the teachings of my church. Too honest to admit the conclusions of Mr. Perras, which were evidently the conclusions of my church, I was too cowardly and too mean to bravely express my own mind, and repeat the words of the Son of God: “By their fruits ye shall know them! A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit!”
Chapter XX
PAPINEAU AND THE PATRIOTS, IN 1833—THE BURNING OF “LE CANADIEN” BY THE CURATE OF ST. CHARLES.
The name of Louis Joseph Papineau will be forever dear to the French Canadians; for whatever may be the political party to which one belongs in Canada, he cannot deny that it is to the ardent patriotism, the indomitable energy, and the remarkable eloquence of that great patriot, that Canada is indebted for the greater part of the political reforms which promise in a near future to raise the country of my birth to the rank of a great and free nation.
It is not my intention to speak of the political parties which divided the people of Canada into two camps in 1833. The long and trying abuses under which our conquered race was groaning, and which at last brought about the bloody insurrections of 1837 and 1838, are matters of history, which do not pertain to the plea of this work. I will speak of Papineau, and the brilliant galaxy of talented young men by whom he was surrounded and supported, only in connection with their difficulties with the clergy and the Church of Rome.
Papineau, Lefontaine, Bedard, Cartier and others, though born in the Church of Rome, were only nominal Romanists. I have been personally acquainted with every one of them, and I know they were not in the habit of confessing. Several times I invited them to fulfil that duty, which I considered, then, of the utmost importance to be saved. They invariably answered me with jests, which distressed me; for I could see that they did not believe in the efficacy of auricular confession. These men were honest and earnest in their efforts to raise their countrymen from the humiliating and inferior position which they occupied compared with the conquering race. They well understood that the first thing to be done in order to put the French Canadians on a level with their British compatriots, was to give good schools to the people; and they bravely set themselves to show the necessity of having a good system of education, for the country as well as for the city. But at the very first attempt they found an insurmountable barrier to their patriotic views in the clergy. The priests had everywhere the good common sense to understand that their absolute power over the people was due to its complete ignorance. They felt that that power would decrease in the same proportion that light and education would spread among the masses. Hence the almost insurmountable obstacles put by the clergy before the patriots, to prevent them from reforming the system of education. The only source of education, then in Canada, with the exception of the colleges of Quebec, Montreal and Nicolet, consisted in one or two schools in the principal parishes, entirely under the control of the priests, and kept by their most devoted servants, while the new parishes had none at all. The greater part of these teachers knew very little more, and required nothing more from their pupils, than the reading of the A, B, C, and their little catechism. When once admitted to the first communion, the A, B, C, and the little catechism were soon forgotten, and 95 in 100 of the French Canadian people were not even able to sign their names! In many parishes, the curate, with his school-teacher, the notary, and a half-dozen of others, were the only persons who could read or write a letter. Papineau and his patriotic friends understood that the French Canadian people were doomed to remain an inferior race in their own country, if they were left in that shameful state of ignorance. They did not conceal their indignation at the obstacles placed by the clergy to prevent them from amending the system of education. Several eloquent speeches were made by Papineau, who was their “Parliament Speaker,” in answer to the clergy. The curates, in their pulpits, as well as by the press, tried to show that Canada had the best possible system of education—that the people were happy—that too much education would bring into Canada the bitter fruits which had grown in France,—infidelity, revolution, riots, bloodshed; that the people were too poor to pay the heavy taxes which would be imposed for the new system of education. In one of his addresses, Papineau answered this last argument, showing the immense sums of money, foolishly given by those so-called poor people, to gild the ceilings of the church (as was the usage then). He made a calculation of the tithes paid to the priests; of the costly images and statues of saints, which were to be seen then, around all the interior of the churches, and he boldly said that the priests would do better to induce the people to establish good schools, and pay respectable teachers, than to lavish their money on objects which were of so little benefit.
That address, which was reproduced by the only French paper of Quebec, “Le Canadien,” fell upon the clergy like a hurricane upon a rotten house, shaking it to its foundation. Everywhere Papineau and his party were denounced as infidels, more dangerous than Protestants, and plans were immediately laid down to prevent the people from reading “Le Canadien,” the only French paper they could receive. Not more than half a dozen were receiving it in St. Charles; but they used to read it to their neighbors, who gathered on Sabbath afternoons to hear its contents. We at first tried, through the confessional, to persuade the subscribers to reject it, under the pretext that it was a bad paper; that it spoke against the priests and would finally destroy our holy religion. But, to our great dismay, our efforts failed. The curates then had recourse to a more efficacious way of preserving the faith of the people.
The postmaster of St. Charles was, then, a man whom Mr. Perras had got educated at his own expense in the seminary of Quebec. His name was Chabot. That man was a perfect machine in the hands of his benefactor. Mr. Perras forbade him to deliver any more of the numbers of that journal to the subscribers, when there would be anything unfavorable to the clergy in its columns. “Give them to me,” said he, “that I may burn them, and when the people come to get them, give them such evasive answers, that they may believe that it is the editor’s fault, or of some other post-offices, if they have not received it.” From that day, every time there was any censure of the clergy, the poor paper was consigned to the flames. One evening, when Mr. Perras had, in my presence, thrown a bundle of these papers into the stove, I told him: “Please allow me to express to you my surprise at this act. Have we really the right to deprive the subscribers of that paper, of their property? That paper is theirs, they have paid for it. How can we take upon ourselves to destroy it without their permission! Besides, you know the old proverb: Les pierres parlent. (Stones speak.) If it were known by our people that we destroy their papers, would not the consequences be very serious? Now, Mr. Perras, you know my sincere respect for you, and I hope I do not go against that respect by asking you to tell me by what right or authority you do this? I would not put this question to you if you were the only one who does it. But I know several others who do just the same thing. I will, probably, be obliged, when a curate, to act in the same manner, and I wish to know on what grounds I shall be justified in acting as you do.”
“Are we not the spiritual fathers of our people,” answered Mr. Perras.
I replied, “Yes, sir, we are surely the spiritual fathers of our people.” “Then,” rejoined Mr. Perras, “we have in spiritual matters all the rights and duties which temporal fathers have, in temporal things, toward their children. If a father sees a sharp knife in the hands of his beloved but inexperienced child, and if he has good reasons to fear that the dear child may wound himself, nay, destroy his own life with that knife, is it not his duty, before God and man, to take it from his hands and prevent him from touching it any more?”
“Yes,” I answered, “but allow me to draw your attention to a little difference which I see between the corporal and the spiritual children of your comparison. In the case you bring forward, of a father who takes away the knife from the hands of a young and inexperienced child, that knife has, very probably, been bought by the father. It has been paid for with that father’s money. It is, then, the father’s knife. But the papers of your spiritual children, which you have thrown into your stove, have been paid for by them, and not by you. They are theirs, then, before the laws of God and man, and they are not yours.”
I saw that my answer had cut the good old priest to the quick, and he became more nervous than I had ever seen him. “I see that you are young,” answered he; “you have not yet had time to meditate on the great and broad principles of our holy church. I confess there is a difference in the rights of the two children to which I had not paid attention, and which, at first sight, may seem to diminish the strength of my argument. But I have, here, an argument which will satisfy you, I hope. Some weeks ago, I wrote to our venerable Bishop Panet about my intention of burning that miserable and impious paper, “Le Canadien,” to prevent it from poisoning the minds of our people against us, and he has approved me, adding the advice, to be very prudent, and to act so secretly that there would be no danger in being detected. Here is the letter of the holy bishop, you may read it, if you like.”
“I thank you,” I replied, “I believe that what you say in reference to that letter is correct. But suppose that our good bishop has made a mistake in advising you to burn those papers, would you not have some reasons to regret that burning, should you, sooner or later, detect that mistake?”
“A reason of regretting to follow the advice of my superiors! Never! Never? I fear, my dear young friend, that you do not sufficiently understand the duties of an inferior, and the sacred rights of superiors in our holy church. Have you not been told by your superiors in the college of Nicolet, that there can be no sin in an inferior, who obeys the orders or counsels of his legitimate superiors?”
“Yes sir,” I answered, “the Rev. Mr. Leprohon has told us that, in the college of Nicolet.”
“But,” rejoined Mr. Perras, “your last question makes me fear that you have forgotten what you have learned there. My dear young friend, do not forget that it was the want of respect to their ecclesiastical superiors, which caused the apostacy of Luther and Calvin, and damned so many millions of heretics who have followed them. But in order to bring your rebellious mind under the holy yoke of a perfect submission to your superiors, I will show you, by our greatest and most approved theologian, that I can burn these papers, without doing anything wrong before God.”
He then went to his library, and brought me a volume of Liguori, from which he read to me the following Latin words: Docet Sanchez, No. 19.—Parato aliquem occidere licite posse suaderi ut ab eo furetur, vel ut fornicatur (Page 419.) “It is allowed to commit a sin of a lesser degree, in order to prevent one of a graver nature.” With an air of triumph he said, “Do you see now that I am absolutely justifiable in destroying these pestilential papers. According to those principles of our holy Church, you know well that even a woman is allowed to commit the sin of adultery with a man who threatens to kill her, or himself, if she rebukes him; because murder and suicide are greater crimes, and more irremediable than adultery. So the burning of those papers, though a sin, if done through malice, or without legitimate reasons, ceases to be a sin; it is a holy action the moment I do it, to prevent the destruction of our holy religion, and to save immortal souls.”
I must confess, to my shame, that the degrading principles of absolute submission of the inferior to the superiors, which flattens everything to the ground in the Church of Rome, had so completely wrought their deadly work on me, that it was my wish to attain to that supreme perfection of the priest of the Church of Rome, to become like a stick in the hands of my superiors—like a corpse in their presence. But my God was stronger than his unfaithful and blind servant, and he never allowed me to go down to the bottom of that abyss of folly and impiety. In spite of myself, I had left in me sufficient manhood to express my doubts about that awful doctrine of my Church.
“I do not want to revolt against my superiors,” I answered, “and I hope God will prevent me from falling into the abyss where Luther and Calvin lost themselves. I only respectfully request you to tell me, if you would not regret the burning of these papers, in case you would know that Bishop Panet made a mistake in granting you the power of destroying a property which is neither yours nor his—a property over which neither of you has any control?”
It was the first time that I was not entirely of the same mind with Mr. Perras. Till then, I had not been brave, honest or independent enough to oppose his views and his ipse dixit, though often tempted to do so. The desire of living in peace with him; the sincere respect which his many virtues and venerable age commanded in me; the natural timidity, not to say cowardice, of a young, inexperienced man, in the presence of a learned and experienced priest, had kept me, till then, in perfect submission to the views of my aged curate. But it seemed impossible to yield any longer, and to bow my conscience before principles, which seemed to me then, as I am sure they are now, subversive of everything which is good and holy among men. I took the big Bible, which was on the table, and I opened it at the history of Susanna, and I answered: “My dear Mr. Perras, God has chosen you to be my teacher, and I have learned many things since it has been my privilege to be with you. But I have much more to learn, before I know all that your books and your long experience have taught you. I hope you will not find fault with me, if I honestly tell you that in spite of myself, there is a doubt in my mind about this doctrine of our theologians,” and I said: “Is there anything more sublime, in the whole Bible, than that feeble woman Susanna, in the hands of those two infamous men? With a diabolical impudence and malice, they threaten to destroy her, and to take her before a tribunal which will surely condemn her to the most ignoble death, if she does not consent to satisfy their criminal desires. She is just in the position alluded to by Liguori. What will she do? Will she be guided by the principles of our theologians? Will she consent to become an adulteress in order to prevent those two men from perjuring themselves, and becoming murderers, by causing her to be stoned to death, as was required by the law of the Jews? No! She raises her eyes and her soul towards the God whom she loves and fears more than anything in the world, and she says: “I am straitened on every side, for if I do this thing it is death unto me; and if I do it not, I cannot escape your hands. It is better for me to fall into your hands, and not to do it, than to sin in the sight of the Lord.” Has not God Almighty himself shown that he approved of that heroic resolution of Susanna, to die rather than commit adultery. Does He not show that He planted, Himself, in that noble soul, the principle that it is better to die than break the laws of God when he brought his prophet Daniel, and gave him a supernatural wisdom to save the life of Susanna? If that woman had been guided by the principles of Ligouri, which, I confess to you with regret, are the principles accepted everywhere in our Church (principles which have guided you in the burning of “Le Canadien,”) she would have consented to the desires of those infamous men. Nay, if she had been interrogated by her husband, or by the judges on that action, she would have been allowed to swear before God and men, that she was not guilty of it. Now, my dear Mr. Perras, do you not find that there is some clashing between the Word of God, as taught in the Holy Scriptures, and the teachings of our Church, through the theologians?”
Never have I seen such a sudden change in the face and manners of a man, at I saw in that hour. That Mr. Perras, who had, till then, spoken with so much kindness and dignity, completely lost his temper. Instead of answering me, he abruptly rose to his feet, and began to pace the room with a quick step. After some time, he told me: “Mr. Chiniquy, you forget that when you were ordained a priest, you swore that you would never interpret the Holy Scriptures according to your own fallible private judgment; you solemnly promised that you would take them only according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers speaking to you through your superiors. Has not Ligouri been approved by the Popes, by all the bishops of the Church? We have then, here, the true doctrine which must guide us. But instead of submitting yourself with humility, as it becomes a young and inexperienced priest, you boldly appeal to the Scriptures, against the decisions of Popes and bishops; against the voice of all your superiors, speaking to you through Liguori. Where will that boldness end? Ah! I tremble for you if you do not speedily change; you are on the high road to heresy!”
These last words had hardly fallen from his lips when the clock struck 9 p. m. He abruptly stopped speaking, and said: “This is the hour of prayer.” We knelt and prayed.
I need not say that that night was a sleepless one to me. I wept and prayed all through its long dark hours. I felt that I had lost, and forever, the high position I had in the heart of my old friend, and that I had probably compromised myself, forever, in the eyes of my superiors, who were the absolute masters of my destinies. I condemned myself for that inopportune appeal to the Holy Scriptures, against the ipse dixit of my superiors. I asked God to destroy in me that irresistible tendency by which I was constantly going to the Word of God to know the truth, instead of remaining at the feet of my superiors, with the rest of the clergy, as the only fountain of knowledge and light.
But, thanks be to God, that blasphemous prayer was never to be granted.