Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

Reader, please have no contempt for the unfortunate priests and people of Rome, but pity them, when you see them walking in the ways into which intelligent beings ought not to take a step. They cannot help it. The ring of the ox is at their nose, and the Pope holds the end of the rope. Had it not been for that ring, I would not have been long at the feet of the wafer god of the Pope. Let me tell you of one of the shining rays of truth, which were evidently sent by our merciful God, with a mighty power, to open my eyes. But I could not follow it; the iron ring was at my nose; and the Pope was holding the end of the rope.

This was after I had been put at the head of the magnificent parish of Beauport, in the spring of 1840. There was living at “La jeune Lorette,” an old retired priest, who was blind. He was born in France, where he had been condemned to death, under the Reign of Terror. Escaped from the guillotine, he had fled to Canada, where the bishop of Quebec had put him in the elevated post of Chaplain of the Ursuline Nunnery. He had a fine voice, was a good musician, and had some pretensions to the title of poet. Having composed a good number of church hymns, he had been called “Pere Cantique,” but his real name was “Pere Daule.” His faith and piety were of the most exalted character among the Roman Catholics; though these did not prevent him from being one of the most amiable and jovial men I ever saw. But his blue eyes, sweet as the eyes of the dove; his fine yellow hair, falling on his shoulders as a golden fleece; his white, rosy cheeks, and his constantly smiling lips, had been too much for the tender hearts of the good nuns. It was not a secret that “Pere Cantique,” when young, had made several interesting conquests in the monastery. There was no wonder at that. Indeed, how could that young and inexperienced butterfly escape damaging his golden wings, at the numberless burning lamps of the fair virgins? But the mantle of charity had been put on the wounds which the old warrior had received on that formidable battlefield, from which even the Davids, Samsons, Solomons, and many others, had escaped only after being mortally wounded.

To help the poor, blind priest, the curates around Quebec used to keep him by turn in their parsonages, and give him the care and marks of respect due to his old age. After the Rev. Mr. Roy, curate of Charlesbourg, had kept him five or six weeks, I had taken him to my parsonage. It was in the month of May—a month entirely consecrated to the worship of the Virgin Mary, to whom Father Daule was a most devoted priest. His zeal was really inexhaustible, when trying to prove to us how Mary was the surest foundation of the hope and salvation of sinners; how she was constantly appeasing the just wrath of her son Jesus, who, were it not for his love and respect to her would have, long since, crushed us down.

The Councils of Rome have forbidden their blind priests to say their mass; but on account of high piety, he had got from the Pope the privilege of celebrating the short mass of the Virgin, which he knew perfectly by heart. One morning, when the old priest was at the altar, saying his mass, and I was in the vestry, hearing the confessions of the people, the young servant boy came to me in haste, and said, “Father Daule calls you; please come quick.”

Fearing something wrong had happened to my old friend, I lost no time, and ran to him. I found him nervously tapping the altar with his two hands, as in an anxious search for some very precious thing. When very near to him, I said: “What do you want?” He answered with a shriek of distress: “The good god has disappeared from the altar. He is lost! (J’ai perdu le Bon Dieu. Il est disparu de dessus l’autel!”) Hoping that he was mistaken, and that he had only thrown away the good god, “Le Bon Dieu,” on the floor, by some accident, I looked on the altar, at his feet, everywhere I could suspect that the good god might have been moved away by some mistake of the hand. But the most minute search was of no avail; the good god could not be found. I really felt stunned. At first, remembering the thousand miracles I had read of the disappearance and marvellous changes of form of the wafer god, it came to my mind that we were in the presence of some great miracle; and that my eyes were to see some of these great marvels of which the books of the Church of Rome are filled. But I had soon to change my mind, when a thought flashed through my memory, which chilled the blood in my veins. The church of Beauport was inhabited by a multitude of the boldest and most insolent rats I have ever seen. Many times, when saying my mass, I had seen the ugly nose of several of them, who, undoubtedly attracted by the smell of the fresh wafer, wanted to make their breakfast with the body, blood, soul and divinity of my Christ. But, as I was constantly in motion, or praying with a loud voice, the rats had invariably been frightened and fled away into their secret quarters. I felt terror-stricken at the thought that the good god (Le Bon Dieu) had been taken away and eaten by the rats.

Father Daule so sincerely believed what all the priests of Rome are bound to believe, that he had the power to turn the wafer into God, that, after he had pronounced the words by which the great marvel was wrought, he used to pass from five to fifteen minutes in silent adoration. He was then as motionless as a marble statue, and his feelings were so strong that often torrents of tears used to flow from his eyes on his cheeks. Leaning my head toward the distressed old priest, I asked him: “Have you not remained, as you are used, a long time motionless, in adoring the good god, after the consecration?”

He quickly answered, “Yes, but what has this to do with the loss of the good god?”

I replied in a low voice, but with a real accent of distress and awe, “Some rats have dragged and eaten the good god!”

“What do you say?” replied Father Daule. “The good god carried away and eaten by rats?”

“Yes,” I replied, “I have not the least doubt about it.”