Part 5

The Pope was not fully aware of what he did, when he granted the aforesaid power to the inquisition. He supposed that the licentiousness of his priests did not extend beyond women of ill fame; but in this his _holiness_ was mistaken, as he subsequently discovered. All were obliged to obey the summons of the inquisition. Disobedience was heresy--it was death. The number who made their appearance, to lodge information against the priests and confessors, in the single city of Seville, in Spain, was so great that the taking of depositions occupied twenty notaries for thirty days. The inquisitors, worn out with fatigue, determined on taking a recess, and having done so, they reassembled and devoted thirty days more to the same purpose; but the depositions continued to increase so fast, that they saw no use in continuing them, and they finally resolved to adjourn and quash the inquiry. The city of Seville was found to be one vast area of pollution. But Americans will still say, this occurred in the fifteenth century; no such thing can take place now. The whole social system is different now from what it was then. I tell you again, Americans, that you are mistaken in your inference. Priests, nuns and confessors are the same now that they were then, all over the world. Many of you have visited Paris, and do you not there see, at the present day, a _lying-in hospital_ attached to every nunnery in the city? The same is to be seen in Madrid, and the principal cities of Spain. I have seen them myself in Mexico, and in the city of Dublin, Ireland. And what is the object of those hospitals? It is chiefly to provide for the illicit offspring of priests and nuns, and such other unmarried females as the priests can seduce through the confessional. But it will be said, there are no lying-in hospitals attached to nunneries in this country. True, there are not; but I say, of my own knowledge and from my own experience through the confessional, that it would be well if there were; there would be fewer abortions, there would be fewer infants strangled and murdered. It is not generally known to Americans, that the crime of procuring abortion,--a crime which our laws pronounce to be felony,--is a common every-day crime in Popish nunneries. It is not known to Americans,--but let it henceforward be known to them,--that strangling and putting to death infants, is common in nunneries throughout this country. It is not known that this is done systematically and methodically, according to Popish instructions. The _modus operandi_ is this. The _infallible church_ teaches that without baptism even infants cannot go to heaven. The holy church, not caring much now the aforesaid infants may come into this world, but anxious that they should go from it according to the ritual of the church, insists that the infant shall be baptized. This being done, and its soul being thus fitted for heaven, the mother abbess gently takes between her holy fingers the nostrils of the infant, and in the name of the infallible church consigns it to the care of the Almighty; and I beg here to state, from my own knowledge through the confessional, that the father is, in nearly all cases, the individual who baptizes it; thus literally verifying what Erasmus has said in sheer irony,--"_Patres vacantur et Sepe sunt_." I desire to assert nothing, of a character so frightful and disgusting as this, on my own unsupported authority. I could give numberless instances of the truth of my assertions, but let one suffice.

Llorenti, in his History of the Inquisition,--and the reader will bear in mind, that Llorenti is good authority with all Roman Catholics,--relates the following fact. There was among the Carmelite nuns of Lerma, a mother abbess, called mother Agueda. (All the nunneries in the United States have a mother abbess, like the nuns of Lerma.) Agueda was accounted a saint. People came to her, from all the neighboring country, to be cured of their respective diseases. Her mode of curing all diseases was this. She had in her possession a number of small stones, of which she said she was delivered, in all the pains of childbirth. She was delivered of them periodically, for the space of twenty years, according to her own statement and that of her biographer, and by the application of those stones to any diseased person, he was forthwith cured. Rumor, however, got abroad that the _mother abbess_ "was no better than she ought to be," and that, in place of bringing forth stones, she and the other nuns of the convent were bringing forth children for the friars of the Carmelite order, who arranged all her miracles for her, and enabled her for twenty-years to impose upon the public, as the lady prioress of a nunnery and fashionable boarding-school. Whenever she was _confined_ and delivered of a child, the _holy nuns_ strangled it and buried it. All the other nuns did likewise, and probably would have continued to do so to this day, through their successors in office, had not a niece of the mother abbess and _saint_, in a moment of anger, arising from maltreatment, let fall some observations which excited the suspicions of the public authorities. The burying-ground of the nuns was examined, the spot where the strangled infants were buried was pointed out by the niece of the mother abbess, and the bodies found.

This fact is as well authenticated, as that such a place as Lerma has had existence, or that such a wretch as Mother Agueda has ever been born; and I will hazard the assertion, that if the burying-grounds of the nunneries in the United States were dug open, hundreds of the bodies of strangled infants, the offspring of nuns and Popish priests, may be found in them, though it is said they have discovered some chemical process, by which the bones, as well as the flesh of infants, are reduced, in a little time, almost to perfect annihilation.

Virtuous ladies, into whose hands this book by chance may fall, will exclaim, on reading the above, This cannot be true. I will not believe it. Such a thing is impossible. If even nuns had witnessed such things, however depraved they may be, they would fly from such scenes; or at all events, no _nun_, who has ever been once guilty of such crimes, would commit them a second time.--Here, again, we see how little Americans know of Popery, and of the practices of its priests and nuns.

The fact is, Roman Catholic laymen know almost as little of Popery as Protestants. They are not aware, that, when a female goes to confession, she virtually binds herself to answer every question which her confessor proposes, and that the concealment of any thought or deed, which she committed, was a _mortal sin_, sufficient of itself to consign her soul to hell. She believes that the priest sits in the confessional, not as man, but as God. Attend, fellow-citizens, to what I here state to you, and you will easily conceive the possibility, nay, even the probability, nay, even further, the truth of every word I relate to you in relation to the crimes of nuns and priests, within the walls of nunneries.

The woman who goes to confession to a priest, whether a nun or a lay-sister, whether married or single, believes, that while in the _sacred tribunal_ of the confessional, he is divested of his humanity, and acts, not as man, but as God. Nothing, then, is easier, if he has the least fancy for the penitent, than to persuade her that he is _divinely_ commissioned to--------. She does not doubt this, and yields to his wishes. There have been instances,--and there are now thousands of them in Europe, and even in this country,--where a priest tells every good-looking woman who goes to confession to him, that it is her duty to have children by him! Be not startled, American husbands. I make not these statements to hurt or outrage your feelings. I make it in compassion for you, and to prevent you, if possible from permitting your wives or your daughters to go in future to these dens of vice, called _confessionals_.

I can easily fancy one of you saying to your neighbor, who is also a Roman Catholic, and whose wife, as well as yours, goes to confession,--"Well, Mr. A., I care not what may be said against _our_ priest, or against _auricular confession_. My wife goes regularly to confession, and if she heard or saw anything bad on the part of the priests, I should soon know it. I have no doubt of it, says Mr. B. My wife goes also, and so does my daughter, and I suppose nobody will pretend to say that a priest could do anything wrong to _them_. _They_ know better than to be imposed upon. There is no better woman in the world than _my_ wife; come over and dine with me. My wife just told me that she asked the priest to dine with us, and you must come." I can not only fancy this, but I have seen such meetings. I have seen husbands unsuspiciously and hospitably entertaining the very priest who seduced their wives in the confessional, and was the parent of some of the children who sat at the same table with them, each of the wives unconscious of the other's guilt, and the husbands of both, not even suspecting them. The husband of her who goes to confession has no hold upon her affections. If he claims a right to her confidence, he claims what he can never receive; he claims what she has not to give. She has long since given it to her confessor, and he can never recover it. She looks to her confessor for advice in everything. She may appear to be fond of her husband; it is even possible that she may be so in reality. She may be gentle, meek, and obedient to her husband,--her confessor will advise her to be so; but she will not give him her confidence; she cannot,--that is already in the hands of her confessor. He stands an incarnate fiend between man and wife, mother and daughter. All the ties of domestic happiness and reciprocal duties are thus violated with impunity through the instrumentality of _auricular confession_.

Would to God I had never entered that _tribunal_ myself! Would to God it was never in my power to relate as facts what I have now put to paper! But no such happiness was intended for me! It was the will of Providence that I was reserved to witness and relate those deeds of darkness and crime committed under the mask of Popish religion, from which my feelings and disposition shrink with horror. Voltaire, Rousseau, Raynal, Price, Priestley, Paine, Diderot, and others, have done evil by their infidel writings. Evils, great and heavy evils, have been the consequence of their introduction into the United States; but ten-fold greater have been the evils which the introduction of Popery and auricular confession amongst us have brought in their train.

The writings of these infidels have in them, it is true, many of the most exceptionable passages, but, as far as we know, their private lives were generally good. Even in their writings, there was much that was good. They advocated the cause of civil liberty; they pleaded, and pleaded strongly and eloquently, the cause of human rights, and the liberties of man. These were redeeming qualities. These were noble doctrines, and nobly pleaded. But what has Popery brought amongst us? What have Popish priests introduced into this country? Idolatry, debauchery in every shape, and of every hue. Yet Americans will cast into the fire the works of those infidels,--they will not allow their children to read them, lest they may corrupt their morals, though the authors are cold in their graves. But they will send them to Popish schools,--they will allow them to drink lessons of depravity from the eyes of licentious nuns, and hear them from the lips of Popish priests. Strange inconsistency, this! Infidels in theory are shunned as plagues, while practical infidels are cherished amongst us. It is well known to Protestants even in the United States, that it is a common practice of Romish priests to seduce females in the _confessional_, and it is, or should be equally well known that these very priests hear the confessions of the very females whom they seduce. It is an article of faith in the Roman Catholic church, that the crimes of a priest do not disqualify him from _forgiving the sins of his penitent_, and hence it is that their opportunities of demoralizing every community, where they are in the ascendant, almost exceed conception. Persuade a woman that if she sins, you can forgive her as thoroughly and effectually as Almighty God could forgive her, and you take away every check from vice. All restraint is removed. The voice of true religion is silenced, and sin prevails.

The iniquity of Romish priests in the confessional can scarcely be imagined. There is nothing else like it; it is a thing by itself; there is a chasm between itself and other crimes, which human depravity cannot pass. Could I state them all, as I have known them, my readers would feel themselves almost insulated; an ocean and a sea of wonders, and waters of grief and sadness for fallen humanity would ebb and flow around them. Just fancy an innocent female on her knees before an artful, unbelieving priest! But why is she there? Why does not instinct warn her off? Why does not conscious innocence tell her to fly from him? How often do we thank God that we are endowed with reason? How often do we sing his praises, and glorify his name, because he has "made us a little lower than the angels," giving us reason for our guide, and thus raising us above all things that are created? Would it not appear as if things were not so; as if the God of heaven were more bountiful to the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, than to man? Would it not appear that the poet was mistaken, when he said, in the fulness of his heart, and depth of his belief in revelation,!!!!!

"And to be innocent is nature's wisdom; The fledge-dove knows the prowlers of the air, Feared soon as seen, and flatters back to shelter; And the young steed recoils upon his haunches The never-yet-seen adder's hiss first heard. O surer than suspicion's hundred eyes Is that fine sense, which, to the pure in heart, By mere oppugnancy of their own goodness. Reveals the approach of evil."

Would it not seem from this that the gift of reason was no bounty in reality to man? as if instinct was something superior to it? Why does not innocence,--native, conscious innocence,--if, in reality, there is such a thing,--teach woman to flee from those incarnate demons, Romish confessors? Why will they entrust themselves, alone and unprotected by father or mother, brother or honorable lover, with these scheming, artful seducers? Why will mothers, married women, go to confession to these men, or why will husbands be such inconceivable dupes as to permit it? Have husbands any idea of the questions which a confessor puts to their wives? They have not even the remotest. Let me give them a few of these questions, and I assure them, as I have more than once done before, that I state nothing but what I know of my own knowledge. The following are a few of them. 1st. Have you been guilty of adultery or fornication, and how often? 2d. Have you desired to commit either, and how often? 3d. Have you ever intended to commit fornication or adultery? 4th. Have you ever taken pleasure in thinking upon these subjects? 5th. Have you dwelt upon them for any length of time? 6th. Have you ever endeavored to excite your own passions? 7th. Have you ever taken indecent liberties with yourself, or with your husband?

Does any husband really know that when his wife goes to confession,--and probably she leans on his arm while she is going there,--that the above questions are put to her? Assuredly, he does not. Otherwise, we must suppose him a man of base principles in permitting such a thing. But even should he suspect it, and ask his wife whether they were put to her; should he call upon the priest, and bring him and the wife face to face; should he ask them severally whether such interrogatories were put by the priest to the wife, they will jointly and severally deny it under oath, if required, and in doing this, they both feel justified; or, to speak more correctly and plainly, the priest is laughing in his sleeve, and the wife is his dupe. The reason, however, for the course they pursue, is this. The _infallible_ church teaches, that when a priest is in the confessional, he sits there as God, and not as man; and when he denies under oath that he put such questions, he means that he did not put the questions as man, but as God; and when the penitent is asked whether such questions were put to her, she will say on _oath_ they were not, because it was God, and not man, that asked them. I am well aware that this will appear strange to Americans, but it is not the less true. I have asked such questions, and given such reasons over and over again, while acting as a Romish priest. I have asked them, till my soul sickened with disgust. Every priest in Boston asks those questions daily; there is not a priest in the United States who does not ask them. No, not one,--from Aroostook to Oregon, nor from Maine to Louisiana. Judge, then, of the moral waste and wilderness which Romish priests are effecting by hewing and clearing down everything that blooms or bears the fruit of virtue and holiness.

But can such things exist in a civilized country? It is all the result of education,--of bad, vicious, and corrupt education. Let us suppose that a married man has a neighbor whom he believes to be honorable upright, and correct in all his dealings, so much so, that he never had occasion to doubt his word, and would trust him with thousands, nay, millions if he had it. Suppose his wife had the reputation of a good and virtuous woman. Suppose she was considered so by the pious members of her own and every other church in this city. Suppose this individual, to whom I have alluded, should discover that his wife was in the habit of meeting his neighbor very frequently in some retired nook or corner, and holding long and confidential conversation with him,--think you he would not suspect something wrong? Suppose he were to ask his wife what they were talking about, and she should say that he was giving her spiritual counsel,--think you that this would be satisfactory to him? Would he permit those interviews to continue? Surely not. But why distrust the well-known prudence of his wife, and the honor of a man he has known for years? Is it wise in him to suspect a worthy man? It is not only wise, but it is proper. It would even be criminal not to do so. The man who would not forbid these interviews, would be considered a low-spirited wretch, unworthy the society of all honorable men. He would sink even in his own estimation; and how comes it, then, that this very man, so sensitive, so distrustful of the virtue of an honorable neighbor, will permit the same wife to hold _private_ meetings, and _private_ conversations in confessionals and in private rooms, with Romish priests,--strangers, some of them, and foreigners,--notorious for the profligacies of the orders of monks and Jesuits to which they belong, and the countries from which they came. This, I will frankly confess, is a paradox, which my limited powers of ratiocination do not enable me to solve. I will not say that some of those married ladies, who go to confession, are not virtuous women, but I will unhesitatingly say, that many of them have been ruined in the confessional, that they run a fearful risk in going there at all, and as it is truly said, "he that loves the danger, shall perish therein."

Let not married men, or married women, who belong to the Roman Catholic church, suppose that I mean to be disrespectful to them in what I have said or what I may say hereafter. The reverse is the fact To them I have no personal enmity, but I have for them the most sincere compassion. I would rescue them, if I could, from those wolves in sheep's clothing, Romish priests. It is my duty to do so as their fellow-citizen, and it is peculiarly incumbent on me to do so, as I feel that I am the only man in the United States, whose personal knowledge of facts fits him for such a task, and whose peculiar circumstances enable him to do so without bias or prejudice. I am aware they will raise a fresh hue and cry against me; Popish priests and bishops will give tongue, and the whole Romish pack, young and old, married and single, widows and maids, will follow in full chorus. They can do no more than they have done. There is scarcely a law of this land which they have not accused me of violating, ever since I presumed to say that the Bible should be circulated among the poor Roman Catholics, and that the holy mother church was not infallible. The accusations against Luther, Zuingle and Calvin, were not greater or much more numerous, than those which Papists have brought against me, month after month, and year after year, ever since I left them. They have indicted me for assault and battery, for disturbing public worship, by which they meant the crime of worshiping God otherwise than the Pope directed. They have indicted me for rape--keep your countenance, reader--those chaste, moral priests of the Romish church have indicted me for rape. Is not that a high idea, Americans?--scarcely anything equal to it to be found in antiquity, except, perhaps it may be in the conduct of Claudius, the Roman emperor, who, like the priests of the Romish church, had a very _great abhorrence_ of everything that was in the least degree unchaste. Claudius, as the reader must know, succeeded the emperor Caligula, and that notorious wag, though elegant poet and satirist, Juvenal, tells us that he was much in the habit of accusing his subjects of the crime of adultery. "Claudius accusat macchos," says Juvenal; whether he spoke ironically or not, those who know the life of Claudius as well as I do the lives of Romish priests, can tell best. But this is not all. They have accused me of robberies, sending and receiving challenges to fight duels, having two wives--I know not but more--at the same time. In all cases, true bills of indictment have been found; Papists appeared before the grand juries in all cases, and swore like true sons of the _infallible church_, and as long as they had no one to contradict them, the holy church triumphed. In this country, however, there happens, as yet, to be no inquisition, and there are several who doubt not only the infallibility of the Romish church, but even the impeccability of some of her beloved children; and hence it happened that all their indictments evaporated into thin air. These Protestant Americans, "cowards," as Papists call them, "and _sons of cowards and pirates_" have no faith in the infallible church, and doubted the veracity of her pious children, even upon oath The consequence was that I am left to write the history of my venerable but guilty mother, the infallible church, and am not without hope that I shall lead her back to the paths of virtue, from which, in very wantonness of crime, idolatry, brutality and wickedness she has long since departed.

It would be really amusing to see a correct list of the various accusations which Papists have made against me, with the various names and legal titles which they bore. The infallible church alone could properly classify them. There is euphony in the very sound of them; there is a variety, nothing short of oriental, in them. But to be serious; I never did, nor do I now, fear the persecution of Papists, while in the discharge of a duty which I owe to my Maker and Preserver. I could always say with sincerity and with humble gratitude, and I can say so now:!!!!!