“Father, my guilt lies not in having recorded my honest convictions, nor in the fact that these records fell into the hands of those who eagerly grasp every opportunity to attack their common enemy, the Church. It lies rather in my weak resistance to those influences which in early life combined to force upon me a career to which I was by temperament and instinct utterly disinclined. It lies in my having sacrificed myself to the selfish love of my mother and my own exaggerated sense of family pride. It lies in my still remaining outwardly a priest of the Catholic faith, when every fiber of my soul revolts against the hypocrisy!”
“You are a subject of the Church!” the Papal Secretary interrupted. “You have sworn to her and to the Sovereign Pontiff as loyal and unquestioning obedience as to the will of God himself!”
Josè turned upon him. “Before my ordination,” he cried, “I was a voluntary subject of the Sovereign of Spain. Did that ceremony render me an unwilling subject of the Holy Father? Does the ceremony of ordination constitute the Romanizing of Spain? No, I am not a subject of Rome, but of my conscience!”
Another dead pause followed, in which for some moments nothing disturbed the oppressive silence. Josè looked eagerly into the delicate features of the living Head of the Church. Then, with decreased ardor, and in a voice tinged with pathos, he continued:
“Father, my mistakes have been only such as are natural to one of my peculiar character. I came to know, but too late, that my life-motives, though pure, found not in me the will for their direction. I became a tool in the hands of those stronger than myself. For what ultimate purpose, I know not. Of this only am I certain, that my mother’s ambitions, though selfish, were the only pure motives among those which united to force the order of priesthood upon me.”
“Force!” burst in one of the Cardinal-Bishops. “Do you assume to make the Holy Father believe that the priesthood can be forced upon a man? You assumed it willingly, gladly, as was your proper return for the benefits which the Mother Church had bestowed upon you!”
“In a state of utmost confusion, bordering a mental breakdown, I assumed it––outwardly,” returned the priest sadly, “but my heart never ceased to reject it. Once ordained, however, I sought in my feeble way to study the needs of the Church, and prepare myself to assist in the inauguration of reforms which I felt she must some day undertake.”
The Pontiff’s features twitched with ill-concealed irritation at this confession; but before he could speak Josè continued:
“Oh, Father, and Cardinal-Princes of the Church, does not the need of your people for truth wring your hearts? Turn from your zealous dreams of world-conquest and see them, steeped in ignorance and superstition, wretched with poverty, war, and crime, extending their hands to you as their spiritual leaders––to you, Holy Father, who should be their Moses, to smite the rock of error, that the living, saving truth may gush out!”