The mysteries of the Neapolitan convents: with a brief sketch of the early life of the authoress

Front matter

Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents.

m

MYSTERIES

Author's Preface

In writing these Memoirs, it lias been my intention to confirm, so far as my experience goes, the reasonableness, and the justice of the measure now before the Italian government, supx^ressing monasticism ; and, at the same time, to undeceive those, if there remain any, who really believe that thes^ institutions are the asylums of all the religious virtues.

That the individuals confined in these convents are entirely useless to society, there are none, at the present day, who ai*e ignorant. But this is not sufficient. I propose also to show, in the revelations I shall make, that they are not only useless, and even noxious, but that they represent an order of ideas long since effete, and that they are in direct opposition to the opinions of the civilized world in the nineteenth century.

Without monastical seclusion, would so many beautiful young women ever allow themselves to be buried by unnatural parents, or through the artifices of their confessors, in prisons inaccessible to every social illumination, to every voice of humanity? Or would they ever be tempted to make a vow, which snatches them away, irrecoverably, from the duties and affections of the family, for which they were especially created by God, and, after a con-

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VI AUTHOR S PREFACE.

sumptive existence, descend prematurely to the tomb, denied, in their last illness and death, the care and sympathy of mothers, sisters, or friends ? I know that they are not few nor powerless, those who wear the cassock, as well as those who do not, who are still partisans of monasticism ; and that it may be objected, that if my judgment of the effects of monasticism be true, all the nuns, since they have now the liberty to do so, would, ere this, have abandoned the cloister, and that the convents ought now to be uninhabited. It is very certain that this has not happened to any great extent, especially in these our meridional pi'ovinces.

To this I reply, that the confessors of these unfortunate creatures make it their especial care to depress the spirits of their penitents, instilling into their minds egotism and misanthroijy, which certainly form no part of the religion of Christ, and making them believe that outside of the parlatorio are to be found only perdition and hell, and that the maledictions of heaven and the thunders of Rome are held in readiness to be launched upon the head of the poor creature who passes the threshold of the convent after once having taken the vows. The nun who believes these things — and they who dare to doubt them are few — can scarcely be expected to commit what she is taught to regard so great a sacrilege.

If it should be thought that I have been silent in regard to some particulars, or that I have purposely left in the shade some vicissitudes of my own life, which were not unworthy to see the light, I can only say, that I have felt constrained, in several instances, to strike out from these Memoirs, the advantages of some

AUTHOE'S preface. VII

colorings and dramatic reliefs, wliicli would, I am well convinced, have made them more attractive. But this loss is entirely my own ; these excisions have been made out of respect due to the dead, — to families as well as to myself.

ENBICHETTA CAEACCIOLO.

Castellamaee, 1864,

TRANSLATOR TO THE READER.

The "Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents" was written mainly withi a view to expose to the world the monastic system, as it has existed in Italy until within a few years ; and as it exists, of course, to-day in every country in which it is tolerated ; and incidentally, to justify the action of the Italian government in suppressing the institution of monasticism in that country.

From the date of this decree, some six or seven years back, no more monks or nuns can be made there. Monastical property has been confiscated, the monSs and nuns now living being allowed, by the government, a small daily stipend for their subsistence, and when these die there will be an end of monasticism in what now comprises the kingdom of Italy.

The circulation of this book there has contributed, in no slight degree, it is conceded, to reconcile the people to the action of the government, by placing before them, in all its enormity, a veritable account of the wickedness and irreligion which are found to exist in these institutions, under the garb of the religious life.

The authoress has shown that the shutting up of young girls in the seclusion and inertia of convent life is the worst possible use

IX

X TEANSLATOR TO THE READER.

to which they can be put. That seijarating them from the world, from intercourse with their families and friends, and placing them where they are compelled to regard their priestly confessor as father, mother, brother, and sister, they frequently come, naturally enough pei'haps, to look upon him also as a lover; and that, in consequence, the vice of prostitution is by no means uncommon in convents. That this monotonous life leads also to insanity, and that although, in the monastical nomenclature, the nuns are called the "Spouses of Christ," and are generally supposed to lead a pure and holy life before God, yet she shows that vice and crime of almost every descrij)tion are as common within these sacred ( .P) enclosures, as they are in the world outside.

Of all this we apprehend the reader will be fully convinced before he finishes the book.

That the authoress has «• nothing extenuated nor aught set down in malice," some one may be found, perhaps, to doubt. If this sceptical reader could have had the advantage which the translator has had of living for several years in these Neapolitan provinces, and of hearing all the statements in this book confirmed by the most intelligent Italians, — even by some priests, who belonged to the liberal party, — and of reading the reports of the criminal courts, of the trials of monks and priests, which have taken place there within a few years, for crimes committed within these temples dedicated to God, — to the enormity of which there is nothing recorded in this book which affords any parallel, — he would no longer doubt that Signorina Caracciolo* might have used much stronger colors than she has used in the picture she has given of convent life.

• Pronounced Car-ratsh-e-o-lo.

TRANSLATOR TO THE READER. XI

The judicious reader will not fail to observe that the revelations in this book afford no argument, nor is it claimed that they do, against the Eoman Catholic religion itself; but, against priestly intolerance, hypocrisy, and bigotry, and against the institution of monasticism as it exists to-day, it is reeking with such stubborn facts and scathing arguments as cannot fail to command the attention of the most indifferent reader.

Bkooklyn, N. T., Sept., 186?.

Introduction

The deeply interesting narrative, written and published in the Italian language, a few years ago, from the pen of a noble lady, a grand-daughter of Genaro Caracciolo, Prince of Forino, under the title of " The Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents, with a Brief Sketch of the early Life of the Author," of which the following is a translation, is one of the most remarkable of the productions which the reviving spirit of Italian freedom has evoked, within the last few years, since priestly tjTanny has lost its power in that classic and beautiful, but long oppressed, and down-trodden land, to fetter the press, and since awakened Italy has been in a state of transition from despotism and anarchy to constitutional liberty and unity.

The American translator of the work, well known as a veteran publisher of the city of 'New York, has enjoyed unusual facilities for his task as a translator, and for gaining a thorough and practical knowledge of the working of the Eomish system in Italy, having resided for several years in the ISTeapolitan dominions, and in the very midst of the scenes so graphically brought before the eye of the reader, in the interesting narrative of the ex- Benedictine Nun, Signorina Caracciolo.

2 xm

XIV INTKODUCTION.

Had the authoress of this volume dared to issue this exposure of convent life, in any part of the Pope's dominions, she would have soon felt the weight of the strong arm of papal power and vindictiveness. Thank God, the temporal dominions of the Pope have been, of late years, rapidly contracting in dimensions ; while the degree of freedom enjoyed in other portions of Italy has been constantly increasing, just in proportion as the power and influence of the Pope and priests have been diminishing. Had any one presumed to write and to print such a woi'k as the following, in the kingdom of Naples, a dozen years ago, during the reign of the cruel and bigoted Ferdinand, that j)et and tool of Pope Pius IX., the author would have been soon effectually silenced, either by the executioner, or by being consigned to those gloomy and terrible dungeons, where, in the year 1857, Mr. Gladstone found not less than thirteen thousand suffering patriots, the languishing victims of I'oyal and priestly vengeance.

The ten years that have passed away, since the friends of liberty and Protestantism were horrified and electrified by the terrible revelations of the unveiled prisons of Naples, have been fruitful in great and glorious events. The bloody tyrants of Naples have been driven from their throne; Garibaldi has marched through the land, unfurling the banner of freedom ; the larger portion of the domains of the Pope has cast off his hateful rule ; Venice, at last, has been annexed to Italy ; and now, with the excei)tion of a petty principality around the city of Rome, about the size of the State of Connecticut, all Italy is united in one mild and peaceful government, under Victor Emanuel ; while throughout the entix'e peninsula, with the insignificant exception men-

INTRODUCTION. XV

tioned, the press is unfettered ; liberty of conscience is guaranteed by the law ; the Bible in the vernacular may be circulated and read in Florence, and Turin, and Venice, and even in Naples, as freely as in London, or in New York ; * and what is, pei'haps, as signal a blessing as any we have named, considered with respect to the future prosperity of Italy, the convents, both male and female, have been suppressed, the lauds and possessions used for ages to support in idleness myriads of woi"se than useless monks and nuns have been confiscated to the government, and their lazy and worthless inmates have been sent forth into the world, to earn at least a portion of their living, like honest men and women.

In accomplishing this last-named result, the work now given to the American public, in an English dress, effected a most important part. When published in Italian, it was, at once, seen to be a thorough, fearless, and authentic exposure, of the misery, the slavery, and the horrors of female convent life, and of the tyranny and lust of the priestly libertines, who, under the guise of confessors, have free ingress to these female prison-houses, and possess an almost absolute control over the bodies and the souls of their wretched inmates.

* The impotent rage and dismay of the papal priesthood, at the advance of religious freedom in Naples, and throughout the kingdom of Italy, may be seen from the following extract from a recent pastoral of the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples. " Audacity has arrived at such a height," says he, " as to erect in Naples, in the midst of a people whoUy Catholic, and in one of the most beautiful and popular quarters, a public temple to Protestanism." From the language and spirit of this, and similar documents, we may gather what would be the consequences to Protestantism and to freedom, should the Pope ever regain his lost power and influence in Italy.

XVI INTRODUCTION.

Written by a lady, belonging to a princely family, -well known as one of the most noble and distinguished of the former kingdom of Naples ; detailing, as the work does, in a style which possesses, at once, all the charm of a romance, with all the simplicity and verisimilitude of truth itself, the actual interior of eveiy-day convent life, by one, who simply relates what she had herself seen and experienced; published amid the very scenes she so vividly describes, in the immediate vicinity of the convents where she had been immured, and where she herself and the other actors in the history were extensively and familiarly known, and where, consequently, her statements might have been easily refuted if exaggerated or false, yet where no one of the parties inculpated dared to deny the literal truth of her statements, — it is not strange that such a work, written under such circumstances, should have produced a wonderful excitement among the Italian people, and contributed, as it unquestionably did, in a large degree, to that enlightenment of the public mind of all classes, from the prince to the peasant, which eventually resulted in those decrees for the suppression of monasteries and nunneries, which in a few years will rid the whole of reconstructed Italy of these swarming nests of tyranny, laziness, impurity, and corruption, which have, for ages, been the curse of every popish country, but more than all others, of poor, pope-ridden and priest-ridden Italy.

Speaking of the present work, in the original Italian, says a gifted clergyman (the Rev. J. A. Wylie, LL. D.), who had spent much time in that country, and was, therefore, well qualified to write of " the awakening of Italy, and the crisis of Rome :" —

INTRODUCTIOlSr. XVII

"But wliy reason from the laws of the human constitution, when there are so many facts at hand telling us what convents have been always and everywhere? But the other day Henrietta Caracciolo opened the doors of the N"eapolitan cloisters, and bade us look with our own eyes. Her womanly delicacy has partly concealed the hideousness which she dared not nakedly discover ; still no reader of ' The Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents,' of ordinary penetration, can fail to see the awful sufferings of which these places are the abodes, and the shameful wickedness enacted within their walls. In the convent, there is no moral light and air ; and to expect love to blossom in a convent is like expecting color in the darkness, or life in a sepulchre. The heart, finding nothing without, turns in upon itself, and becomes the seat of foul desires, or of evil passions. Her description I'eminds us of the picture which Paul draws of the heathen world, — 'without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.' Instead of a paradise of purity and love, the cloister, as here drawn, is a pandemonium, the inmates of which hiss and sting like serpents, and torment one another like furies. And then the vow, which makes their sufferings immortal, leaves them hope of escape only in the grave. Never was there on earth slavery more foul or bitter; and never was there decree more humane and merciful than that by which Italy declared that this bondage should no longer disgrace its soil or oppress its children."

Such a moral cancer could be cured by no mild or external remedies. If eradicated at all, it must be by the knife of entire and unsparing excision.

XVIU INTRODUCTION.

Some few attempts had been made, at dijfferent times, by zealous and well-meaning men in the Romish church, to reform these institutions without destroying them, and to lessen the disorders and imijurities of convent life. They speedily found, however, that the task was a more formidable one than that of Hercules, in attempting to cleanse the fabled Augean stables, and soon abandoned it in despair.

Such an abortive effort was made near the close of the last centuiy, about the time of the French Revolution, by Scipio di Ricci, an Italian Roman Catholic bishop, who, at the command of Leopold, the reigning Duke of Tuscany, undertook the task of inquiring into, and, if possible, of rooting out the terrible abominations which were known to prevail in the convents of that part of the Italian peninsula. In the disclosures made at that time, by this Romish bishop, all, and more than all that is charged in the present work against these " holds of every foul spirit," is proved without the shadow of a doubt. In that work, there are given several letters and memorials from prioresses and others of the more aged and virtuous inmates of the Italian nunneries, who mourned over these horrible corruptions, and sighed in vain for their correction. A few sentences from one or two of these letters, descriptive of the nature and extent of these immoralities of the monks and nuns, may be regarded as a specimen of many. Says the aged Flavia Peraccini, Prioress of the Convent of Catherine of Pistoia: "It would require both time and memory to recollect what has occurred during the twenty-four years that I have had to do with monks, and aU that I have heard tell of them. With the exception of three or four, all that I ever knew.

INTEODUCTION. XIX

alive or dead, are of the same character. They have all the same maxims and the same conduct. . . . The priests are the husbands of the nuns and the lay brothers of the lay sisters. . . . They deceive the innocent, and even, those that are more circumsj)ect, and it would need a miracle to convei'se with them and not fall. ' Poor creatures,' said I to an English provincial, ' they think they are leaving the world to escape danger, and they only meet with greater.' God is my witness," adds this Eoman Catholic lady-prioress, "I speak without passion. The monks have never done anything to me personally, to make me dislike them ; but I will say that so iniquitous a race as the monks nowhere exists. . . . Do not suppose that this is the case in our convent alone. It is just the same at Lucca, at Prato, at Pisa, at Perugia. Everywhere it is the same ; eveiywhere the same disorders, everywhere the same abuses i^revail. Let the superiors suspect as they may, they do not know even the smallest part of the enormous wickedness that goes on between the monks and the nuns."

One of the other letters is addressed to the Grand Duke himself, by a nun of the Convent of Castiglion Piorentino, who describes herself as "about fifty years of age," in which, after detailing similar corruptions and vices in the convent, she requests the duke to institute the necessary investigations into these disorders, without making known the fact that she had communicated with him. The reason she assigns for this request sjaeaks volumes as to the terrible internal condition of these prison-houses of miseiy and despair. "For," says she, "if what I now write to you were known, it would be sufficient to cause me to be poisoned by my companions, who are totally given up to vice."

XX INTRODUCTION.

Testimonies such as these, not from Protestant sources, but from the inmates of the convents themselves, confirming, as they do, most conclusively the testimony of the authoress of the jDresent volume, must be admitted even by Roman Catholics as absolutely conclusive proof of the incurable corrujDtion of these institutions.

It may be asked, however, if such proofs had been previously given to the world, why had not these institutions been long ago suppressed ? And what need is there of the present work as an additional proof of the damning corruption which had already been so fully established?

To the first of these questions it may be replied : Till within a few years, throughout the whole of Italy, the influence of Pope, and cardinals, and priests has, for ages, been paramount and allpervading. The fact of the debasing slavery and the licentiousness and corruption of the convents would to them have been no reason for their suppression. Papal Rome has ever remained true to the inspired description of her character. " Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth."

The brave and patriotic Garibaldi, born and bred amid these scenes, knew whereof he affirmed, when lately, addressing the students of the University of Pavia, he spoke of the cause of his country's degradation, and said: "In the midst of Italy, at its very heart, there is a cancer called Popery, — an imposture called Popery. Yes, young men, we still have a formidable enemy, the more formidable because it exists among the ignorant classes, where it rules by falsehood, because it is sacrilegiously covered

INTEODUCTION. XXI

witli the cloak of religion. Its smile is the smile of Satan. This enemy, young men, is the Popish priest ! — with few exceptions, the priests ! "

To the second of these questions, — what need of yet another ex]posure of the abominations of the convent system? — it may be replied : The minds of the Italian people were prepared by recent events for this work at the time of the publication of the original ; and the minds of the American public are prepared at the present juncture for the publication of this work in an English transla- 'tion. The terrible revelations of Bishop Ricci have been cited in confirmation of the present work; but these revelations were made many years ago, and few of the present generation, either in Europe or America, have ever heard of them; there was need, therefore, of a work, such as "The Mysteries of the ITeapolitan Convents," to convince the Italian people that these institutions were too radically corrupt for even the hope of reformation, and that the cause of humanity, as well as that of decency and morality, demanded their entire and universal suppression.

The suppression of the monasteries and nunneries throughout the whole of Italy, with the exception of the papal States, was successfully accomplished, chiefly through the energy and firmness of Count Cavour, prime minister to King Victor Emanuel. In the session of the Chamber of Deputies for 1864, it was enacted that, "The religious orders should be no longer recognized by the state ; that their houses should be suppressed, and their goods placed under an ecclesiastical board ; and that the members of the suppressed corporations should acquu-e their civil and political rights from the date of the publication of the law."

XXII INTRODUCTION.

The Bumber of these institutions existing in Italy at the time of the suppression will sound startling to American and to Protestant ears. Let it teach them to beware of the gradual, but steady and rapid growth, in their own laud, of these same useless and corrupt institutions, which have been spewed out, even from papal countries of the Old World, as a curse, an abomination, and a disgrace.

The number of convents actually suppressed in Italy was 2,382. Of these, 1,506 were male convents or monasteries, and 876 were female convents or nunneries. The value of the property possessed by them was forty million lire, or about eight millions of dollars. The number of the useless drones who inhabited these swarming hives was 15,494 monks, and 18,198 nuns; 4,468 lay brothers, and 7,671 lay sisters; besides 13,441 monks of the mendicant orders, and 8,967 lay brothers ; making a total of 63,239 persons. For these figures, taken from State papers, furnished by a member of the Parliament of Italy, we are indebted to the work of Dr. Wylie, before referred to. As this army of monks and nuns, thus turned adrift upon the world, had lived perfectly useless lives, and but a few of them were acquainted with any useful occupation, a small pension was granted them during life. "In Naples alone, according to the ' Conciliatore'' of that city, not fewer than eleven convents of monks and six of nuns were suppressed during the first half of 1865. A few years more, and the last mendicant monk in Italy, who has worn sandals and borne wallet, will be carried to the tomb, and the country completely freed from an incubus which has for ages crushed it." It is honor enough for the work of

INTRODUCTION. XXIII

Henrietta Caracciolo, now introduced to the American public, to have contributed to a result so full of blessing and of promise to the beautiful country of her birth.

Would that a copy of this work, now given to the Englishspeaking American public, could be placed in every Protestant family in the United States ! And in Roman Catholic families, too ; for there are many such who are beginning to distrust the teachings of their priests, and to suspect the utility and the purity of the nunneries that are springing up throughout the land, yawning to engulf their daughters in the same vortices of slavery and corruption, as those from which the ex-Benedictine nun who wrote this volume was so happy to be released, and which are so graphically and truthfully described in her interesting narrative.

If such a circulation were given to this work, I believe that many a- Protestant parent, now vmsuspectingly or heedlessly entrusting a son or a daughter to the male and female Jesuits who are filling the land with papal convents, under the guise of educational institutions, would see the folly and the wickedness of a course so suicidal to the best interests of their children for time and for eternity; many a Protestant young lady about to listen to the seducing persuasions of the wily Jesuits, who would entice her to enter these popish seminaries, would fly from them as she would from a serpent or an adder ; and perchance some poor Catholic girl, too, about to utter the irrevocable vow, warned by the example and the terrible experience of Henrietta Caracciolo, would draw back from the fearful gulf before her, and have reason forever to thank God and the writer of this boob

XXIV INTRODUCTION.

for the light that has warned her of the temble abyss of misery and despair, before she had made the fatal plunge. American convents, awed into at least an appearance of decency by the Protestant sentiment of the country, may throw a more impenetrable Tcil of concealment over their dark proceedings; but human nature is the same everywhere ; their character is the same ; no less than Italian convents here described are they all dark prison-houses, to those who enter them, of slavery, misery, corruption, and despair.

Strange that they should ever exist in these free and enlightened United States ! Stranger still that they should sometimes grow and flourish through the patronage and support of Protestant Americans ! But, strangest of all, that American politicians should sell themselves to Rome, and buy Catholic votes with subsidies drawn from the pockets of Protestant tax-payers to these un-American, jjopish institutions ! Let such timeservers and trucklers to an effete and degrading and tyrannical superstition, learn, from the perusal of the present volume, what the example of a noble Italian woman can teach them, of the inconsistency of such conduct with their characters as professed patriots, as Americans, as Protestants !

J. BOWLING.

New York, September, 1867.

COKTE]S"TS.

INTEODUCTION, by Dr. Bowling,

Chapter I. Inpancy

Birth — My father removes to Bari — Singular event — Return to Naples — Straitened circumstances — My father appointed Governor of Keggio — An amusing English sea-captain — Voyage to Messina — Reception at Reggio, . . 35

CHAPTER n.

EAELY LOVES.

Carlo My unhappy passion for him — Disappointment and distress at his

marrying another— Visit of King Ferdinand to Reggio— Accident to my sister Josephine — Alarming illness of my sister and myself— Domenico , 43

CHAPTER HI.

.4 JEALOUSY.

The three F's —Domenico very attentive — His grandfather demands my hand in marriage, from my parents, for his grandson — They are offended, and Domenico is prohibited from visiting our house— His terrible jealousy— My mother's 3 25

XXVI CONTENTS.

.anger — Domenico more jealous than ever, and my mother more determined — Description of the grand festa of the Assumption at Messina — Kupture of the relations existing between Domenico and myself— Peace 68

CHAPTER IV.

SOEEOW.

Earthquake at Eeggio— "We fly for safety to the piazza— Meet Domenico — His interview and reconciliation with my mother — He goes to Naples — We return to our house — Sudden illness of my father— His death, . , . .81

CHAPTER V.

THE. CLOISTEE.

Funeralof my father— Keturn to Naples— "We meet Domenico there — "We mutually pledge ourselves to each other— He returns to Eeggio — His jealousy — My mother breaks off the match — A servant of my aunt, the Abbess of San Gregorio, brings me a present of confectionery, and informs me that the nuns of that convent have voted to admit me — Astounding news — I demand an explanation from my mother, who assures me that it is her own work, and* that she is driven to it by her stinted means, as well as by the determination to prevent my marriage with Domenico — She assures me that I may leave the convent at the end of a couple of months, if I do not like it — "V^isit the convent with her — First impressions— My mother thanks the nuns, according to custom, for admitting me — Keturn home — Preparations — Marriage of my sister Josephine — Entrance into the convent — Sensation of horror, . 89

CHAPTER VI.

THE ABANDONIVIENT.

My mother deserts me — Two young nuns wait upon me around the convent— Description of the building and its appointments, pictures, etc. — Extracts from