Roman Catholicism in Spain

by Anonymous

Auricular Confession, a sacrament inseparable from that of communion—Obligatory on all once a-year—Plan of discovering defaulters—How punished—Evils of confession—Power of the priest—Four evils pointed out—Discoveries in the Inquisition in 1820—Facility of obtaining absolution—Louis XIV.—Robbers and assassins—The confessional—Practice, how conducted—Expiatory acts—Refusal of absolution—A husband disguised as his wife’s confessor—The injunction of secrecy on part of confessor—Advantages of the knowledge he gains—Jesuits advocate the confessional—No fees for confession, but gratuities are generally given.

Confession is one of the sacraments of the Church of Rome. Roman Catholicism, at least in Spain, requires that all believers shall celebrate that sacrament, as well as the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, at least once a-year. Confessors amplify this obligation, and require their penitents to observe both these sacraments frequently. Devout persons who aspire to greater spiritual perfection practise these observances once a week. Still, however, the church is satisfied with an annual celebration of them by each of its members, and fixes the period for that performance at Easter. The infraction of this rule is considered a mortal sin, and the clergy use every possible means to enforce the precept. The two sacraments are inseparable, and to obey

the injunction of confession and communion is called “to comply with the church,” (cumplir con la Iglesia).

The method employed by the clergy to discover delinquents with reference to these obligations, is as rigid and severe as any that can be devised by the most despotic civil authority. About the middle of Lent the priest and one of his assistants form a general census of all their parishioners. In the acts of confession and communion, the penitent receives two tickets, which certify his obedience to the paschal precept, and when the assigned period is over for these observances, the priest goes from house to house to gather the tickets; so that it is impossible to conceal any infraction of the rule. Until within the last few years, it was the custom to write the names of all defaulters upon a board, exposed to public view in the churches, by way of punishment of the delinquents; and, consequently, those who were the subjects of this punishment were badly looked upon by the towns-people, and considered as atheists and heretics. The result of this absurd penal code was, that men preferred sacrilege to dishonour, and complied externally with the precept, making an imperfect confession, receiving the eucharist in a state of culpability, and committing, consequently, in the eyes of a Roman Catholic, one of the blackest crimes. Whether it was on account of a grave inconvenience resulting from this mode of punishment, or by virtue of that decay in the ecclesiastical influence in Spain, so notable in recent years, we cannot determine, but that practice has now been completely abolished; and even in Madrid and the principal cities of the kingdom, the

“complying with the church” has lost its compulsory character, and been reduced to those who truly believe in its efficacy. It is true that the clergy still give tickets, as testimonials, to those who perform acts of confession and communion, but they have not the temerity to go from house to house to collect them as formerly, and the clergy who would venture to demand them would be exposed to mortification and rebuke. Still, however, in some families, the children are bound in duty to prove before the paternal tribunal their compliance with those obligations, by means of those official documents; but even this test is easily evaded by the purchase of the tickets, which are publicly sold in the churches by the sacristans and other inferior agents of the priesthood, for the moderate sum of a peseta, (ten-pence.)

The practice of confession, however, is not quite extinct, particularly among the inferior classes of society, and it is natural that the clergy should represent it as absolutely necessary to the salvation of souls, looking to the great advantages which they themselves derive from it. By means of the sacrament of confession, the confessor makes himself the absolute master of the conscience of his penitent,—not merely of his own secrets, but of those of his whole family; he directs all their operations, and superintends all their domestic concerns, as well as their social and even their political affairs. The confessor has constantly suspended over the head of his penitent the terrible menace of eternal punishment. It is not the pure and genuine law of God which the devotee observes,—it is the law of God

explained, augmented, or diminished, and often distorted, by the voice of a fallible man, only his equal, and perhaps vastly inferior to him in point of erudition and purity of morals. The devotee has no right to obey God in the way he understands the precepts imposed upon him by God and God’s church. In his view, God and the church are a sort of concrete centred in the confessor. The confessor not only directs him, but punishes him with the severest penances that a confessor can enjoin, for the penal code of the confessional not only embraces the religious practices of fasting, alms, scourging, and other inflictions, which are entirely at the disposal of that terrible judge, but he has, or assumes to have, the power of denying absolution; that is to say, of condemning the soul to the terrible state of mortal sin, of interposing himself between the sinner and the divine mercy, and of annulling the consoling hopes of Him who in compassion to human weakness has said, “I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.” The confessor is just as frail, as mortal, as subject to human weakness, as susceptible of human passions and vices, as the penitent himself. The character he assumes to perform, by the imposition of his hands, does not allay in him either the violence of appetite, or the claims of self-interest. How is it possible to believe that, in the exercise of his ministry, he can entirely rid himself of sentiments of hatred, sympathy, rancour, and envy, with respect to the man or woman who kneels at his feet, imploring through him the pardon of sin?

People greatly deceive themselves who imagine that the confessional, at least in Spain, bears the least analogy to the case of a man who, burthened with sorrow and repentance, comes in confidence to deposit the weight of the burden which oppresses him on the bosom of his friend. No; do not believe that the penitent hopes to find in the confessor a kind consoling guide to wipe away his tears, pour into his bosom the balm of hope, and present to him an endearing hand which may lead him in the way of holiness. The confessor is an implacable judge, who speaks with gentle smiles or bland insinuations, but who tears out, with an imperious tone and formidable menaces, the secrets of the heart, and not only those which may be connected with crime worthy of deep contrition and sincere repentance, but even others which pertain to an order of things exempt from the sinfulness attaching to human actions. The confessor has an absolute right to know every thing without exception. The most insignificant actions, and even the most innocent ones, must come to his knowledge. He is not content with the spontaneous declaration that the penitent feels disposed to make of all infractions of duty; but he insists on examining the case with the most scrupulous minuteness, and takes as much pains as would a clever, cunning lawyer to extract every particle of evidence from the witnesses for or against a culprit on his trial. Under this last point of view, auricular confession may be considered as the most tyrannical, odious, and unmoral institution, which superstition, leagued with sordid interests, could ever have invented.

Innumerable are the abuses made of this wicked instrument by the Spanish clergy, and which have resulted in the abandonment of the confessional by every educated, discreet, and intelligent man. Of those abuses we shall only point out four of the most important, and which have most efficaciously contributed to bring auricular confession into disrepute.

First. The great interest of the clergy being to consolidate the papal power, the confession serves to ascertain the extent of hostilities raised against that power by philosophy, impiety, the tendency to religious reform, and the general spirit of the age. The confessor asks every penitent whether he has any prohibited or simply profane books; if he, or his parents, or his friends, listen to the conversation or discourse of heretics, or murmur against the ecclesiastical power, or satirise the conduct of the clergy, or even attend balls, theatres, or other profane amusements. Many confessors give to these things infinitely greater importance than to the infraction of the Decalogue. If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then the confessor requires, under pain of refusing absolution, that such books be given up,—that all further communication with the enemies of the church be discontinued,—and that such carnal entertainments as balls and theatres, and the like, be renounced for ever.