Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

I felt absolutely confounded by that letter. I was so young and so deficient in the qualities required for the high position to which I was so unexpectedly called. I know it was against the usages to put a young and untried priest in such a responsible post. It seemed evident to me that my friends and my superiors had strangely exaggerated to themselves my feeble capacity.

In my answer to the Rev. Mr. Bedard, I respectfully remonstrated against such a choice. But a letter received from the bishop himself, ordering me to go to Charlesbourgh, without delay, to administer that parish during the absence of its pastor, soon forced me to consider that sudden and unmerited elevation as a most dangerous, though providential trial, of my young ministry. Nothing remained to be done by me but to accept the task in trembling, and with a desire to do my duty. My heart, however, fainted within me, and I shed bitter tears of anxiety. When entering into that parish for the first time, I saw its magnitude and importance. It seemed, then, more than ever evident to me that the good Mr. Bedard, and my venerable superiors, had made a sad mistake in putting such a heavy burden on my young and feeble shoulders. I was hardly twenty-four years old, and had not more than nine months’ experience of the ministry.

Charlesbourgh is one of the most ancient and important parishes of Canada. Its position, so near Quebec, at the feet of the Laurentide Mountains, is peculiarly beautiful. It has an almost complete command of the city, and of its magnificent port, where not less than 900 ships then received their precious cargoes of lumber. On our left, numberless ranges of white houses extended as far as the Falls of Montmorency. At our feet the majestic St. Lawrence, dashing its rapid waters on the beautiful “Isle d’Orleans.” To the right the parishes of Lorette, St. Foy, St. Roch, etc., with their high church steeples, reflected the sun’s glorious beams: and beyond, the impregnable citadel of Quebec, with its tortuous ranges of black walls, its numerous cannon and its high towers, like fearless sentinels, presented a spectacle of remarkable grandeur.

The Rev. Mr. Bedard welcomed me on my arrival with words of such kindness that my heart was melted and my mind confounded. He was a man about sixty-five years of age, short in stature, with a well-formed breast, large shoulders, bright eyes, and a face where the traits of indomitable energy were coupled with an expression of unsurpassed kindness.

One could not look on that honest face without saying to himself: “I am with a really good and upright man!” Mr. Bedard is one of the few priests in whom I have found a true honest faith in the Church of Rome. With an irreproachable character, he believed with a child’s faith all the absurdities which the Church of Rome teaches, and he lived according to his honest and sincere faith.

Though the actions of our daily lives were not subjected to a regular and inexorable rule in Charlesbourgh’s as in St. Charles’ parsonage, there was yet far more life and earnestness in the performance of our ministerial duties.

There was less reading of learned, theological, philosophical and historical books, but much more real labor in Mr. Bedard’s than in Mr. Perras’ parish: there was more of the old French aristocracy in the latter priest, and more of the good religious Canadian habitant in the former. Though both could be considered as men of the most exalted faith and piety in the Church of Rome, their piety was of a different character. In Mr. Perras’ religion there was real calmness and serenity, while the religion of Mr. Bedard had more of a flash of lightning and the noise of thunder. The private religious conversations with the curate of St. Charles were admirable, but he could not speak common sense for ten minutes when preaching from his pulpit. Only once did he preach while I was his vicar, and then he was not half through his sermon before the greater part of his auditors were soundly sleeping. But who could hear the sermons of Rev. Mr. Bedard without feeling his heart moved and his soul filled with terror? I never heard anything more thrilling than his words when speaking of the judgments of God and the punishment of the wicked. Mr. Perras never fasted, except on the days appointed by the church: Mr. Bedard condemned himself to fast besides twice every week. The former never drank, to my knowledge, a single glass of rum or any other strong drink, except his two glasses of wine at dinner; but the latter never failed to drink full glasses of rum three times a day, beside two or three glasses of wine at dinner. Mr. Perras slept the whole night as a guiltless child; Mr. Bedard, almost every night when I was with him, rose up, and lashed himself in the most merciless manner with leather thongs, at the end of which were small pieces of lead. When inflicting upon himself those terrible punishments, he used to recite, by heart, the fifty-first Psalm, in Latin, “Miserere mihi Deus secundam magnam misericordiam tuam” (Have mercy upon me, O, Lord, according to thy loving kindness); and though he seemed to be unconscious of it, he prayed with such a loud voice, that I heard every word he uttered; he also struck his flesh with such violence, that I could count all the blows he administered.

One day I respectfully remonstrated against such a cruel self-infliction as ruining his health and breaking his constitution. “Cher petit Frere” (dear little brother), he answered, “Our health and constitution cannot be impaired by such penances, but they are easily and commonly ruined by our sins. I am one of the healthiest men of my parish, though I have inflicted upon myself those salutary and too well-merited chastisements for many years. Though I am old, I am still a great sinner. I have an implacable and indomitable enemy in my depraved heart, which I cannot subdue except by punishing my flesh. If I do not do those penances for my numberless transgressions, who will do them for me? If I do not pay the debts I owe to the justice of God, who will pay them for me?”

“But,” I answered, “Has not our Saviour, Jesus Christ, paid our debts on Calvary? Has he not saved and redeemed us all by his death on the cross? Why, then, should you or I pay again to the justice of God that which has been so perfectly and absolutely paid by our Saviour?”

“Ah! my dear young friend,” quickly replied Mr. Bedard, “that doctrine you hold is Protestant, which has been condemned by the Holy Council of Trent. Christ has paid our debts, certainly; but not in such an absolute way that there is nothing more to be paid by us. Have you never paid attention to what St. Paul says, in his Epistle to the Colossians. I fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in the flesh for his body’s sake, which is the Church. Though Christ could have entirely and absolutely paid our debts, if it had been his will, it is evident that such was not his holy will—he left something behind, which Paul, you, I, and every one of his disciples, should take and suffer in our flesh for his Church. When we have taken and accomplished in our flesh what Christ has left behind, then the surplus of our merits goes to the treasury of the Church. For instance, when a saint has accomplished in his flesh what Christ has left behind for his perfect sanctification, if he accomplishes more than the justice of God requires, that surplus of merits not being any use to him, is put by God into the grand and common treasure, where it makes a fund of merits of infinite value, from which the Pope and the bishops draw the indulgences which they scatter all over the world as the dew from heaven. By the mercy of God, the penances which I impose upon myself, and the pains I suffer from these flagellations, purify my guilty soul, and raising me up from this polluting world, they bring me nearer and nearer to my God every day. I am not yet a saint, unfortunately, but if by the mercy of God, and my penances united to the sufferings of Christ, I arrive at the happy day when all my debts shall be paid, and my sins cleansed away, then if I continue those penances and acquire new merits, more than I need, and if I pay more debts than I owe to the justice of God, this surplus of merits which I shall have acquired will go to the rich treasure of the Church, from which she will draw merits to enrich the multitude of good souls who cannot do enough for themselves to pay their own debts, and to reach that point of holiness which will deserve a crown in heaven. Then, the more we do penance and inflict pains on our bodies, by our fastings and floggings, the more we feel happy in the assurance of thus raising ourselves more and more above the dust of this sinful world, of approaching more and more to that state of holiness of which our Saviour spoke when he said: ‘Be holy as I am holy myself.’ We feel an unspeakable joy when we know that by those self-inflicted punishments we acquire incalculable merits, which enrich not only ourselves, but our holy Church, by filling her treasures for the benefit and salvation of the souls for which Christ died on Calvary.”