Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

When Mr. Bedard was feeding my soul with these husks, he was speaking with great animation and sincerity. Like myself, he was far away from the Good Father’s house. He had never tasted of the bread of the children. Neither of us knew anything of the sweetness of that bread. We had to accept those husks as our only food, though it did not remove our hunger.

I answered him: “What you tell me here is what I find in all our ascetic books and theological treatises, and in the lives of all our saints. I can hardly reconcile that doctrine with what I read this morning in the 2d chapter of Ephesians. Here is the verse in my New Testament: ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he has quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved; for by grace ye are saved, through faith, and not of ourselves, it is this gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.’

“Now, my dear and venerable Mr. Bedard, allow me respectfully to ask, how it is possible that your salvation is only by grace, if you have to purchase it every day by tearing your flesh and lashing your body in such a fearful manner? Is it not a strange favour—a very singular grace—which reddens your skin with your blood, and bruises your flesh every night?”

“Dear little brother,” answered Mr. Bedard, “when Mr. Perras spoke to me, in the presence of the bishop, with such deserved eulogium of your piety, he did not conceal that you had a very dangerous defect, which was to spend too much time in reading the Bible, in preference to every other of our holy books. He told us more than this. He said that you had a fatal tendency to interpret the Holy Scriptures too much according to your own mind, and in a sense which is rather more Protestant than Catholic. I am sorry to see that the curate of St. Charles was but too correct in what he told us of you. But, as he added that, though your reading too much the Holy Scriptures brought some clouds in your mind, yet when you were with him, you always ended by yielding to the sense given by our holy Church. This did not prevent me from desiring to have you in my place during my absence, and I hope we will not regret it, for we are sure that our dear young Chiniquy will never be a traitor to our holy Church.”

These words, which were given with a great solemnity, mixed with the good manners of the most sincere kindness, went through my soul as a two-edged sword. I felt an inexpressible confusion and regret, and, biting my lips, I said: “I have sworn never to interpret the Holy Scriptures except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, and with the help of God, I will fulfil my promise. I regret exceedingly to have differed for a moment from you. You are my superior by your age, your science and your piety. Please pardon me that momentary deviation from my duty, and pray that I may be as you are—a faithful and a fearless soldier of our holy Church to the end.”

At that moment the niece of the curate came to tell us that the dinner was ready. We went to the modest, though exceedingly well-spread table, and to my great pleasure, that painful conversation was dropped. We had not sat at the table five minutes, when a poor man knocked at the door and asked a piece of bread for the sake of Jesus and Mary. Mr. Bedard rose from the table, went to the poor stranger, and said: “Come, my friend, sit between me and our dear little Father Chiniquy. Our Saviour was the friend of the poor: he was the father of the widow and the orphan, and we, his priests, must walk after him. Be not troubled; make yourself at home. Though I am the curate of Charlesbourgh, I am your brother. It may be that in heaven you will sit on a higher throne than mine, if you love our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and his holy mother, Mary, more than I do.”

With these words, the best things that were on the table were put by the good old priest on the plate of the poor stranger, who, with some hesitation, finished by doing honor to the excellent viands.

After this, I need not say that Mr. Bedard was charitable to the poor; he always treated them as his best friends. So also was my former curate of St. Charles; and, though his charity was not so demonstrative and fraternal as that of Mr. Bedard, I had never yet seen a poor man go out of the parsonage of St. Charles whose breast ought not to have been filled with gratitude and joy.

Mr. Bedard was as exact as Mr. Perras in confessing once, and sometimes twice, every week; and, rather than fail in that humiliating act, they both, in the absence of their common confessors, and much against my feelings, several times humbly knelt at my youthful feet to confess to me.

These two remarkable men had the same views about the immorality and the want of religion of the greater part of the priests. Both have told me, in their confidential conversations, things about the secret lives of the clergy which would not be believed were I to publish them; and both repeatedly said that auricular confession was the daily source of unspeakable depravities between the confessors and their female, as well as male penitents; but neither of them had sufficient light to conclude from those deeds of depravity that auricular confession was a diabolical institution. They both sincerely believed, as I did then, that the institution was good, necessary and divine, and that it was a source of perdition to so many priests only on account of their want of faith and piety; and principally from their neglect of prayers to the Virgin Mary.