Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

Now let us hear the answer of the Civilta, the organ of the Pope, to Dr. Newman. “Do you not see that it is only temptation that makes you see everything black? If the Holy Doctors whom you invoke, Ambrose, Jerome, etc., do not decide the controversy in your way, it is not as the Protestant Pall Mall Gazette fancies, because they will not or cannot interpose, but because they agree with St. Peter, and with the petition of the majority. Would you have us make a procession in sackcloth and ashes to avert this scourge of the definition of a verity?” Ibid, p. 281.

The clergy of France, through their organ, L’Univers (Vol. 11, p. 31-34), was still more severe and sarcastic. They had just collected £4,000 to help Dr. Newman to pay the enormous expenses of the suit for his slanders against Father Achille, which he had lost.

Dr. Newman, as it appears by the article from the pen of the celebrated editor of the Univers, had not even had the courtesy to acknowledge the gift, nor the exertions of those who had collected that large sum of money. Now let us see what they thought and said in France about the ex-Professor of Oxford whom they called the “Respectable Convict.” Speaking of the £4,000 sent from France, Veuillot says: “The respectable convict received it, and was pleased; but he gave no thanks and showed no mercy. Father Newman ought to be more careful in what he says; everything that is comely demands it of him. But, at any rate, if his Liberal passion carries him away, till he forgets what he owes to us and to himself, what answer must one give him, but that he had better go on as he set out, silently ungrateful?—L’Univers, Vol. 11. p. 32-34. Ibid, p. 272.

These public rebukes, addressed from Paris and Rome by the two most popular organs of the Church of Rome, tell us the old story; the services of traitors may be accepted, but they are never trusted. Father Newman had not the confidence of the Roman Catholics.

But some one will say: Has not the dignity of Cardinal, to which he has lately been raised, proved that the present Pope has the greatest confidence in Dr. Newman?

Had I not been 25 years a priest of Rome, I would say “Yes!” But I know too much of their tactics for that. The dignity of Cardinal has been given to Drs. Manning and Newman as the baits which the fisherman of Prince Edward Island throw into the sea to attract the mackerels. The Pope, with those long scarlet robes thrown over the shoulders of the two renegades from the Church of England, hopes to catch more English mackerels.

Besides that, we all know the remarkable words of St. Paul: “And those members of the body which we think to be less honourable, upon them we bestow more abundant honours, and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.” (1 Cor. xii., 23.)

It is on that principle that the Pope has acted. He knew well that Dr. Newman had played the act of a traitor at Oxford; that he had been caught in the very act of conspiracy by his Bishops; that he had entirely lost the confidence of the English people. These public facts paralyzed the usefulness of the new convert. He was really a member of the Church of Rome, but he was one of the most uncomely ones; so much so, that the last Pope, Pius IX., had left him alone, in a dark corner, for nearly eighteen years. Leo XIII. was more shrewd. He felt that Newman might become one of the most powerful agents of Romanism in England, if he were only covering his uncomeliness with the rich red Cardinal robe.

But will the scarlet colors which now clothe Dr. Newman make us forget that, to-day, he belongs to the most absurd, immoral, abject and degrading form of idolatry, the world has ever seen? Will we forget that Romanism, these last six centuries, is nothing else than old paganism in its most degrading forms, coming back under a Christian name? What is the divinity which is adored in those splendid temples of modern Rome? Is it anything else but the old Jupiter Tonans? Yes, the Pope has stolen the old gods of paganism, and he has sacrilegiously written the adorable name of Jesus in their faces, that the more deluded modern nations may have less objection to accept the worship of their pagan ancestors. They adore a Christ in the Church of Rome; they sing beautiful hymns to His honor; they build him magnificent temples; they are exceedingly devoted to Him—they make daily enormous sacrifices to extend His power and glory all over the world. But what is that Christ? It is simply an idol of bread, baked every day by the servant girl of the priest, or the neighboring nuns.

I have been 25 years one of the most sincere and zealous priests of that Christ. I have made Him with mine own hands, and the help of my servants for a quarter of a century; I have a right to say that I know Him perfectly well. It is that I may tell what I know of that Christ that the God of the Gospel has taken me by the hand, and granted me to give my testimony before the world. Hundreds of times, I have said to my servant girl what Dr. Newman and all the priests of Rome say, every day, to their own servants or their nuns: “Please make me some wafers, that I may say mass, and give the communion to those who want to receive it.” And the dutiful girl took some wheat flour, mixed it with water, and put the dough between these two well-polished and engraven irons, which she had well heated before. In less time than I can write it, the dough was baked into wafers. Handing them to me, I brought them to the altar, and performed a ceremony which is called “the mass.” In the very midst of that mass, I pronounced on the wafer five magic words, “Hoc est enim corpus meum,” and had to believe, what Dr. Newman and all the priests of Rome profess to believe, that there were no more wafers, no more bread before me, but that what were wafers, had been turned into the great Eternal God who had created the world. I had to prostrate myself, and ask my people to prostrate themselves before the God I had just made with five words from my lips; and the people, on their knees, bowing their heads, and bringing their faces to the dust, adored God whom I had just made, with the help of these heated irons and my servant girl.