Female convents : Secrets of nunneries disclosed

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FEMALE CONVENTS.

Preface

superstitions with which he saw religion corrupted. His humanity made him wish to see his fellow creatures freed from such degradation ; but his spirit, never bold enough to maintain such a situation, failed him. His ideas of the duty of submission, united with the natural mildness of his character, confounded the plain and obvious reasoning which a stronger mind would have employed ; and he fell a victim to his own want of determination, and to the artifices of the common enemies of himself, of liberty, and of religion.

Many papers of the immense mass of documents which the original Editor of Ricci's Life has printed, could only be valu. able to those who require to be told, that where superstition and political profligacy reign in their most degraded forms, morality and decency must be entirely forgotten. As the vices of the monks and nuns are sufficiently exposed, we have, therefore, spared the reader the disgusting toil of perusing details which would add no additional proof to a truth already known.

The original work, of which all the valuable and important parts are here presented to the reader, was composed from the autograph manuscripts and private memorials of Ricci. They were furnished to the Editor by the nephew of the Prelate ; and no doubt exists respecting their authenticity.

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

Among "the signs of the times," no one is more replete with melancholy forebodings, than the rapid extension of the monastic system, both in these United States and in Britain. Three hundred years ago, the English Monasteries and Nunneries were demolished by act of parliament ; the preamble of which alleged as the cause of their dissolution, the indescribable turpitude and innumerable atrocities, which were inseparable from their very existence. Throughout all the protestant countries, since the reformation of the sixteenth century, male and female Convents have been abhorred, not only by all Christians, but by every wise and good citizen. They have almost disappeared from France, and in Spain they are hastening to extinction ; in Portugal they have been destroyed ; and in no country on earth, except in this Federal Republic and the British dominions, are they viewed in any other aspect, than as objects of detestation, domicils of inordinate wickedness, or dungeons of unmitigable despair.

During the last five years, many ineffectual attempts have been made to arrest the attention of American Protestants to the true character and pernicious results of the monkish life. The conflagration of the Ursuline Nunnery at Charlestown, however, has elicited a regard to the subject, which it is proper should be improved; and to impress and enlighten the public mind, no mode seemed to be equally adapted, as a selection from the authentic materials of which the ensuing work is composed. The testimony is unexceptionable ; being that of a Roman Catholic Prelate, who was commissioned by a Prince subject to the Papal jurisdiction, expressly to investigate the arcana of conventual life ; and it was compiled by

Vlll INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

a Civilian connected with the Roman hierarchy. The documents, therefore, cannot be objected to as of Protestant origin ; because every fact is affirmed upon the authority of the Roman Prelate, and his Papal coadjutors, or of his deceitful and ferocious persecutors.

The succeeding narrative illustrates the two most impressive topics appertaining to popery, which American citizens can contemplate. Very little reference is made in this work to the theological portions of Romanism. Proselytes to Jesuitism are not collected in this country by the exhibition of the Popish idolatrous ritual, or the blasphemy of the Mass, or the absurdities of transubstantiation, or ludicrous delineations of purgatory, or the obscenities of auricular confession, or the usurped claim to govern conscience and to pardon sin, or even by the all absorbing assumption of infallibility. The primary allurement is, the fraudulent pretext of a superior education, to be obtained through their instrumentality, and the crafty adhesion to the strongest political party, which may temporarily gain the ascendency. Thus it is demonstrated, that the community of Papists in every Protestant country, are a distinct and isolated body, having no common interests with the other part of society ; and always prepared to seize every opportunity to grasp power, and extend their pestiferous influence.

Scipio de Ricci, from whose memoirs the subsequent description of Nunneries is compiled, has also unfolded the unchangeable turpitude and stupendous artifices which now characterize the infernal policy of the Roman Pontiffs and their court of Cardinals. This part of the volume is of equal importance to us, as his developments concerning Monks and Nuns. By the most undeniable historical details, and by other authentic documents, pontifical bulls, decretals, and canons, the fact is incontestable, that the Popes ever have claimed, as Gregory XVI. the reigning " Man of Sin," does now arrogate to wield the destinies of all mankind, upon penalty of the greater excommunication for rejection of his iniquitous authority, or disobedience to his accursed mandates. The discussions concerning the Bull " In Ccena Domini," and the Decretals, are invaluable expositions of the inflexible spirit which guides and determines all the measures that are adopted

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. IX

by the Roman hierarchy. They testify beyond all cavil, that the dissemination of Popish principles, and the fearful increase of Romanists in this country, endanger the whole frame of civil society ; and threaten, unless their progress be efficiently arrested, to subvert the whole fabric of the rights of conscience, and the government and constitution of the United States. European history, and the annals of Canada, Mexico, and South America, attest, that Popery in power, and true freedom as it is understood in this republic, cannot possibly exist together. The present volume renders that statement morally certain. Our grand design by this publication, however, was this ; to unfold the principles, character, and doings of Female Convents. It may probably be objected, that some of the disclosures which the Roman Prelate has made, are so disgusting that they ought not to have been reprinted. In ordinary cases the plea would be admissible — but in reference to Popery it is invalid. A destructive incredulity exists respecting the horrible impurity and deadly practices of Nuns, who are cloaked under various bewitching appellatives, and decorated in meretricious garbs expressly to ensnare and seduce our citizens. That mischievous fascination, it is essential to the public welfare, as well as to the security of the Christian Churches, to unravel and expose in lucid display. Leopold, Prince of Tuscany, merits the gratitude of the whole civilized world, for his attempts to exterminate the Convents in his dominions ; and Scipio de Ricci, the Roman Prelate who endeavored to cleanse those " holds of every foul spirit," indescribably more filthy than even the fabulous Augean stable, "being dead, yet speaketh." After due consultation with the most competent judges, and some of the prominent champions of evangelical truth, in the present " war upon the Beast ;" it was resolved, that the revolting discoveries which the Bishop of Pistoia and Prato made, should be presented to the public unmutilated ; with anxious solicitude that the hideous pictures of Nuns and Nunneries which he has delineated, might tend to the exclusion of that part of "the mystery ot iniquity," from this nominally Christian republic.

What, therefore, are the principal instructions which we derive from the researches that Scipio de Ricci made into the secrets of the Italian Female Convents 1 and what arguments

X INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

can be adduced against the continuance and extension of the monastic system in the United States 1

It is irrelevant now to review the origin and progress of monachism ; nor is it of any importance to inquire into the supposititious benefits and certain injuries, which in former generations Monasteries and Nunneries are alleged to have produced. Our investigation applies to the present period, and to our own country ; and in this aspect, it may justly be propounded for consideration, whether it be not the incumbent duty of the legislatures of the different States to prohibit those institutions by law 1 ?

The perusal of the ensuing pages fully sanctions four general propositions, either of which is amply sufficient to justify the utmost repugnance to Popery, which Christianity inculcates ; and all of which combined evidently demand, that every good citizen should strive by all legitimate methods, to stop this enemy which cometh in like a flood ; and that every sincere Christian should lift up the standard of the spirit of the Lord against him.

I. Nunneries and the conventual mode of life, are altogether contradictory to the Divine appointments respecting the order of nature, and the constitution of mankind and human society.

That declaration of Jehovah, which constitutes the foundation of all human existence, and especially of all our domestic ties and endearments, is coeval with the creation of mankind ; " It is not good that the man should be alone." In his allwise benevolence, the Lord of life made " a help meet for him." The law of Paradise is corroborated by the express mandate of Christianity ; 1 Corinthians, vii. 2. ; " let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." This appointment of God, and this recommendation of the gospel, are both founded, we are assured, upon the same principle, and are proposed for the identical result ; " to avoid fornication."

In all cases whatever, to violate these laws of creation and providence which are manifestly written upon man and his terrestrial existence, endangers our safety, either in its physical, mental, or moral relations. That the monastic system destroys life, entombs the intellect, and engenders inordinate

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XI

corruption of the most direful species, is a fact too notorious now to require proof.

" The monastic life is unnatural, for it is in direct opposition to an original principle of the human mind, by which our species are connected among themselves, the desire of society; and the professed and primary object of monastic institutions is preposterous, because their existence is one continuous crime against God, and against human society, increasing every hour in magnitude and atrocity."

" Go, teach the drone of ghostly haunts, That wastes in indolence his time, Though superstitious hymns he chants, His life is one continued crime."

The monastic system, if universally adopted, would be general suicide. Not merely is the practice opposed because it is unnatural, but because it is unjust and ruinous. Respecting investigations that combine the very existence of mankind, we have no concern with individual exceptions, and especially in cases where no evidence can be proffered to sustain the alleged singularity ; and in truth, where no proof can be valid against the original appointment of God, and the essential constitution of mankind. To all arguments which are based upon the exemplary purity of the voluntary celibate life of men, and the unavoidably coerced unmarried state of many lovely and refined women, there is the Divine retort, " it is not good that the man should be alone." There is universal testimony arising from the constant experience of the human family, that a life of celibacy is a course of unceasing impurity ; and there are historical records which verify that the system of monachism is directly at war with all the benevolent designs of God, and with all the essential interests of mankind.

The original constitution of human relations, as appointed by God, also determines that a life of celibacy is a course of injustice. No man either has a right to live unmarried, or can be justified for his palpable infringement of the Divine law ; and consequently, there is a prior argument of Divine authority against the contrivance of Monks and Nuns which no negative evidence can possibly invalidate. The two chief

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, points upon which reliance is placed as exoneration of the Roman Priesthood, and their cloistered sisters, from the charge of sensuality, are most perversely alleged. One is, their seclusion from the world and its temptations ; and the other is, their abstinence, fasting and macerations. Although it could be evinced, that both those principles were fully carried out, and in their most extensive operation ; nevertheless, the fact would not be demonstrated, that the monastic system could control that attraction between the sexes, which like the other animal instincts, is indispensable to the preservation of human life. But the reverse is the fact. In all ordinary cases, no persons live more luxuriously than the Papal Ecclesiastics, both male and female : and their severance from the world and its fascinations is more nominal than real.

That the abodes of Monks and Nuns are perfectly unnatural ; and as the unavoidable tendency, that they are the prolific sources of the most horrid uncleanness, the ensuing pages awfully prove. Without a constant miracle, they could not be otherwise. The attachment of the sexes towards each other, is indispensable and universal ; without it the race of man in one generation would be extinct. The monastic system vitiates all the social affections, and incarcerates man in a cage of selfishness, and circumscribes all his affections within the restricted limit of his own personal gratifications. Were that unholy device to attain any extension and protracted supremacy, the moral hemisphere would speedily be subverted, and the Gospel of Christ, which is totally opposed to all the monkish infatuation, would again disappear in the more than Egyptian darkness that would overspread the world. The monastic system necessarily demands, that they who adopt it, should be persons deprived of every capacity for general usefulness, and also be men and women destitute of all the usual sensibilities of humanity. Whatever the inmates of convents may have been individually ; whether an occasional Friar may have been gifted with continency, or whether some Nun or noviciate, under almost unparalleled circumstances, may have resisted the evils of the confessor, and the seductive influence of the licentious examples continually around her, is of no importance in deciding this question. This result could not uniformly follow, without the immediate direct interposition

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Xlll

of the " Lord of all." A miraculous intervention of the most extraordinary character, and in comparison with which all the stupendous works of Jesus, the " Son of God," are profoundly eclipsed, must ever be directed in the choice, impulse, and restraint of a few individuals, contrary to the express universal and immutable appointments of God at creation, and the divinely constituted arrangements which he has made for the increase and preservation of mankind, and the blessing of the Church and the world.

II. The monastic system is opposed to personal piety, knowledge, purity, and usefulness, and invariably tends to debase its victims in ignorance, sensuality, crime and anguish. It would not be practicable to present a more lucid view of the character of Nunneries, than in the picture drawn of them by Mackray, in his Essay on the effect of the reformation upon civil society. Every feature of the hideous and appalling view is graphically correct, as proved by the more recent delineations of Scipio de Ricci. Appendix A.

It would be superfluous to attempt an elaborate proof of the proposition, that evangelical piety is incompatible with monastic life. What might be the effect of the system under any possible modifications, it is irrelevant to inquire. Unvarying testimony assures us that " pure religion and undefined," has never yet been exemplified in claustral life. Gloomy superstitious forms, and sanctimonious mummery have been practised with apparent austerity ; but communion with God, love of the brethren, practical piety, and Christian holiness, are profound strangers to the monastic system. In truth, the celibate life, which is its primary and cardinal ingredient, extirpates all that is pure and good. Of this fact, the two English Universities are a remarkable demonstration. In those splendid endowments, it is required that the " fellows," as they are called of the Colleges, shall be unmarried men. The consequence is this, that probably Oxford and Cambridge embody more notorious and inordinate dissoluteness, than any other towns in Britain. This is the legitimate result of retaining, as is still done in England, so large a portion of the antiquated usages and popish corruptions of the dark ages.

The boasts which are so often made of the learning of anterior generations under the papal supremacy; and thelamen- 2

XIV INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

tations that have been offered over the supposed literary losses to the world, by the demolition of the monasteries, are merely idle affectation. The author already quoted has supplied us with an illustration upon this topic not less instructive than convincing. Appendix B.

Of all the drones who ever infested the world, none surpass in perfect uselessness, and its inseparable attendants, vice and misery, the inhabitants of convents. Indolence is their best characteristic. Incarcerated in a gloomy mansion, with no duties to fulfil, no motives to activity, no sympathy or relationship for the exterior world, and no anxiety for its improvement, or feeling for its desolations, of what value are those excrescences upon society]

" In shirt of hair, and weeds of canvass dress'd, Girt with a bell-rope that the Pope has bless'd ; Wearing out life in his pernicious whim, Till his mischievous whimsy wears out him."

No man has a right to absolve himself from all the duties which he owes to the world. No woman can be justified for abandoning all the obligations which she owes to society. No Christian, therefore, possibly can be a Friar or a Nun.

III. Monachism directly counteracts the progress of intelligence, civil and religious freedom, commercial prosperity, and national improvement. It is the peculiar property of Romanism to defile and curse every thing with which it comes into contact : and if there be any part of that " working of Satan," called Popery, which possesses more deleterious qualities than the rest of "the mystery of iniquity," it is the monastic system. An irresistible argument might be framed from the spirit of monkish institutions, which would demonstrate that they must deteriorate the human character, and obstruct all the stable interests of the body politic. Every incentive to progress under its mischievous influence is extirpated. In former ages, when the edifices devoted to Friars and Nuns were found in every district of the European nations, what was their character, and what was the result of their establishment ? Universal barbarism, penury, wretchedness, and crime. All the annals of the thousand years prior to the Reformation, bear the same decisive and unequivocal testimony

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XV

to the benighted, and impoverished, and degraded condition of the then existing people. Could it possibly be otherwise 1 All the impulses to enterprise and personal and social elevation, under the government of the Papacy, and especially within the cloistered battlements, are utterly unknown. Any other knowledge than that which can be made subservient to priestly aggrandizement, is pronounced accursed ; and subjects the possessor of it to imprisonment, torture, and death. Probably the dark dungeons of Popery scarcely unfold a more demonstrative proof, that hostility to science was not the error of one age, but that it is the crime of the Papal system, than the history of Galileo. His experience is undeniable evidence that an inveterate and perpetual warfare is waged by the Pontifical Court, not against pure religion only, but also against true philosophy and the noblest science.

" Galileo had become a convert to the Copernican astronomy ; and, by a succession of most splendid discoveries, had demonstrated the motion of the earth around the sun. The ignorant Pope and besotted Cardinals, and the ferocious Inquisitors, accused that dignified philosopher and the greatest scientific scholar of his age, of the crime of heresy ; and Galileo was cast into a dungeon of the Inquisition. His sublime knowledge was condemned by priestly bigots, all whose intelligence was restricted to the most voluptuous mode of gratifying their inordinate sensual appetites, and who were too grovelling and carnal minded to comprehend his lofty speculations and etherial soarings ; and to that superlative astronomer was presented the alternative, either to deny self-evident mathematical propositions, or to be burnt as a heretic. At seventy years of age, on his knees, and with his hand on the Gospels, he condemned, abjured and cursed his own infallible opinions, and swore before the infamous Inquisitors, that he would never more hold or assert in word or writing the doctrines which he had demonstrated, that the sun is the center of the solar system, and that the earth moves. From that day he never afterwards cither wrote or talked upon the subject of astronomy."

What is the Index Expurgatorius, but a pontifical law, which dooms the whole dominions over which the Pope's jurisdiction extends to Egyptian darkness ? All books, in every f

XVI INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

department of literature, theological, scientific, historical, and upon the ornamental arts, unless they directly or indirectly aid the despotic claims of the Roman Court, are condemned to be burnt. The catalogue begins with the Holy Bible, and includes almost every genuine book which is truly worthy of perusal, either ancient or modern. That prohibition of books is most sedulously complied with in all convents ; and the explorations of Scipio de Ricci among the monasteries and priesthood of Tuscany, convince us that the boasted literary lore of Jesuit seminaries, and Ursuline convents, must necessarily be an imposture ; because all the means of their attaining knowledge are most sedulously and authoritatively, by the Pope and his prelates, and equally by the voluntary design of the monastics, totally excluded.

Popery decrees that " ignorance is the mother of devotion ;" and, of course, of every good quality — but Protestantism proclaims, that " knowledge is power." The monastic system is destructive of illumination, and consequently of liberty. Despotism, of the most abhorrent attributes, is both the very mainspring and aliment of conventual life. It gilds the cross which surmounts the principal turret, — it is the steam-pump by which, at auricular confession, every secret of the heart is evolved, and it is the iron key which locks up in impenetrable darkness the doleful mysteries of those dungeons of despair. The tyranny of the convent extends to every spiritual emotion, as well as to the language, features, demeanor and conduct ; and they must be moulded according to the imperious dictates of the superior and the chaplain.

All this is irreconcilable with freedom ; and it is an indisputable fact, that girls and boys, in this country, who have been trained up in a convent or monastery, unless the grace of God very powerfully operates upon them, exemplify the prominent features of the monastic system. Many persons now well known in society, exhibit such extraordinary varieties, that their companions realize great difficulty in attempting to unravel their complex characters. They are blustering and servile — apparently candid, and yet profoundly deceitful — they mingle the fawning of a parasite with the stubbornness of a .Tiule — and can assume so many forms, that no man can place any reliance scarcely upon their personal identity. It is

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XV11

the natural effect of a monastic education. They were in the basest bondage, and cannot shake off its habits ; they are in freedom, and know not how to improve it. That system which thus necessarily despoils citizens of their best qualities, ought to be execrated : for it is evident, that if extended so as to predominate throughout our country, all genuine freedom would be extinct.

The superiority of Protestantism to Popery, in reference to mercantile enterprise, is so palpable that it requires neither illustration nor proofs. The wisdom of divine Providence is remarkably illustrated in the close connection which, in point of time, exists between the three grand events which have been the instruments, in the dispensations of the merciful Jehovah, in some measure to renovate the world : and the order of their occurrence was not less admirably planned, than the stupendous results which have flowed from them. The art of printing rendered universal the principles of nautical science ; the discovery of Columbus opened a way for adventurous spirits to realize the dignity of emancipation from the Pontifical shackles, by a removal where the thunders of the Vatican did not reverberate; and Luther, Zuingle, Calvin, Knox and Cranmer, broke to atoms the extinguishers which had so long concealed the true light, and liberated man soon commenced to traverse all latitudes and longitudes in search of knowledge and in quest of opulence. The contrast only between Protestant and Papal countries during the last 250 years, discloses a testimony against convents, which it is impossible to gainsay. Monks and Nuns in no form participate in the active duties which cultivate those products that are wafted into all lands, and from which, in return, the comforts and luxuries of life are obtained. Hence it follows, that the indolent life of Monks and Nuns is a barrier to all national improvement. The existing deplorable state of Tuscany, as portrayed in the ensuing pages, was, three hundred years ago, the state of all Europe. The swarms of Friars, and their cloistered paramours, consumed the vitals of every land. Their example encouraged sloth among all orders of the people. Poverty, wretchedness, debasement, and pillage characterized the whole community. It was either a gorgeous display of barbaric magnificence, by the feudal lord of the district, or the most appalling dependence 2*

XVUl INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

and necessity. The history of every country which has ever been cursed by the Papal predominance, and especially the present condition of those who have been emancipated from its thraldom, when contrasted with their anterior state, verifies, that, to indulge any expectation of general benefit from the monastic system and from the predominance of Popery, ia just as wise as to attempt to " gather figs from thistles, and grapes from thorns."

IV. The monastic system nullifies all the requirements of the Christian religion. Its duties are prohibited, its consolations intercepted, and by the operation of monachism, the exertions of gospel philanthropy are abrogated, and the universal diffusion of the Kingdom of God, which is righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, is totally impeded.

It may probably be objected to this allegation, that the Monks of former ages were the persons by whom the Roman Court enlarged the pontifical sway. The fact is admitted, and it redounds still more to the disgrace of Popery and the Friars, that instead of propagating'the glorious Gospel, they only substituted their own more refined idolatry and superstitions for the offensive abominations of Paganism. But transfer men and women to the cells of the convent, its sloth and secrecy, its constant mummeries and restless anxieties for freedom and enjoyment, its insatiable longir.gs, and its constant identity of voluptuous and unsatisfying indulgence : and would you look for evangelical missionaries in those dens of ignorance, sloth, and corruption ?

All the monasteries on earth could not produce a Brainerd, a Swartz, a Vanderkemp, or a Martyn, with the rest of the glorified servants of Christ, exclusive of the living laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Neither idiotism nor lunacy would dream of going into a convent to procure the counterparts of Anne Chater, Harriet Newell, Anne Judson, and the other intrepid and devoted women, who will live in everlasting remembrance when the monastic system, with " the beast and the false prophet, shall be consumed in the lake of fire, burning with brimstone."

When the monkish system commenced, it was merely a flight into the desert, and a temporary abode in solitude, until the infernal storm of malignant persecution had dissipated its

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. XIX

fury. The crafty " Man of Sin " speedily perceived, that the monastic life and vows might easily be transformed into an irresistible machine to support his usurped despotism. Erroneous opinions respecting the superior sanctity of the celibate life, and infatuated whims concerning the refining spirituality of years devoted to contemplation, enlarged the number of Monks ; until their independence of the Prelates permitted them to pass their time in one continuous scene of sensual indulgence. Notwithstanding all the indescribable corruption which characterized the Convents of Friars, and the Nunneries, they maintained their ascendancy over the benighted and superstitious multitude. When we remember the profound ignorance, even of all the residents in the monastic edifices, we cannot feel surprise, although we must abhor their delusions and iniquity, that persons who were given over to "strong delusion," and who commingled all that was good on earth with the Pope's passport to heaven, should have yielded themselves to the support of a pretended, imposing, gaudy ceremonial, which allows every vicious indulgence for money, and which guaranteed an admission into Paradise to all who can purchase the title, sealed by the Pontiff of Rome.

But the monastic system in modern times, and especially in the United States, in its essentially deceptive character, appears masked under the name and in the garb of literary institutions. In all those parts of Europe where the astounding wickedness of the male and female convents was divulged, it was impossible to protract their duration ; their inexpressibly flagrant dissoluteness rendered it absolutely impracticable, either to extenuate their turpitude, or prolong their existence.

But as the number of persons devoted to celibacy, severed from the world, and in inalienable alliance with the Pope, is of vast solicitude to the Roman Court, the Pontiffs of the sixteenth century permitted the priests and their sisters, whose crimes were so odious that he dared not pardon them, and yet whose ungodly services were so valuable, that he could not dispense with them, to imborly themselves under a new and unsuspicious title. Thus many of the unprincipled mendicant Friars became Jesuits, and the most wicked Nuns were embodied under the name of Saint Ursula. The two orders are brother and sister. They are governed by the same principles — .