Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

“Do these deplorable facts occur very often among the father oblates?” I asked.

My friend raised his eyes, filled with tears, to Heaven, and with a deep sigh, he answered: “Dear Father Chiniquy, would to God that I might be able to tell you that it is the first crime of that nature committed by an oblate. But alas! you know, by what has occurred with our female cook, not long ago, that it is not the first time that some of our fathers have brought disgrace upon us all. And you know also the abominable life of Father Telmont with the two nuns at Ottawa!”

“If it be so,” I replied, “where is the spiritual advantage of the regular clergy over the secular?”

“The only advantage I see,” answered my friend, “is that the regular clergy gives himself with more impunity to every kind of debauch and licentiousness than the secular. The monks being concealed from the eyes of the public, inside the walls of their monastery, where nobody, or at least very few people have any access, are more easily conquered by the devil, and more firmly kept in his chains, than the secular priests. The sharp eyes of the public, and the daily intercourse the secular priests have with their relations and parishioners, form a powerful and salutary restraint upon the bad inclinations of our depraved nature. In the monastery, there is no restraint except the childish and ridiculous punishment of retreats, kissing of the floor, or of the feet, the prostration of the ground as father Brunet did, a few days after your coming among us.

“There is surely more hypocrisy and selfishness among the regular than the secular clergy. That great social organization which forms the human family, is a divine work. Yes! those great social organizations which are called the city, the township, the country, the parish, and the household, where every one is called to work in the light of day, is a divine organization, and makes society as strong, pure and holy as it can be.

“I confess that there are also terrible temptations, and deplorable falls there, but the temptations are not so unconquerable, and the falls not so irreparable, as in these dark recesses and unhealthy prisons raised by Satan only for the birds of night called monasteries or nunneries.

“The priest and the woman who fall in the midst of a well organized Christian society, break the hearts of the beloved mother, cover with shame a venerable father, cause the tears of cherished sisters and brothers to flow, pierce, with a barbed arrow the hearts of thousands of friends; they forever lose their honor and good name. These considerations are so many providential, I dare say divine shields, to protect the sons and daughters of Eve against their own frailty. The secular priest and the woman shrink before throwing themselves into such a bottomless abyss of shame, misery and regret. But behind the thick and dark walls of the monastery, or the nunnery, what has the fallen monk or nun to fear? Nobody will hear of it, no bad consequences worth mentioning will follow, except a few days of retreat, some insignificant, childish, ridiculous penances, which the most devoted in the monastery are practicing almost every day.

“As you ask me, in earnest, what are the advantages of a monastic life over a secular, in a moral and social point of view, I will answer you: In the monastery, man as the image of God forgets his divine origin, loses his dignity; and as a Christian, he loses the most holy weapons Christ has given to his disciples to fight the battle of life. He, at once and forever, loses that law of self-respect, and respect for others, which is one of the most powerful and legitimate barriers against vice. Yes! That great and divine law of self-respect, which God himself has implanted in the heart of every man and woman who live in a Christian society, is completely destroyed in the monastery and nunnery. The foundation of perfection in the monk and the nun is that they must consider themselves as corpses. Do you not see that this principle strikes at the root of all that God has made good, grand and holy in man? Does it not sweep away every idea of holiness, purity, greatness! every principle of life which the Gospel of Christ had for its mission to reveal to the fallen children of Adam?

“What self-respect can we expect from a corpse? and what respect can a corpse feel for the other corpses which surround it? Thus it is that the very idea of monastic perfection carries with it the destruction of all that is good, pure, holy and spiritual in the religion of the gospel. It destroys the very idea of life, to put death into its place.

“It is for that reason that if you study the true history, not the lying history, of monachism, you will find the details of a corruption impossible, anywhere else, not even among the lowest houses of prostitution. Read the Memoirs of Scipio de Ricci, one of the most pious and intelligent bishops our Church has ever had, and you will see that the monks and the nuns of Italy lead the very life of the brutes in the fields. Yes! read the terrible revelations of what is going on among those unfortunate men and women, whom the iron hand of monachism keeps tied in their dark dungeons, you will hear from the very lips of the nuns that the monks are more free with them than the husbands are with their legitimate wives; you will see that every one of those monastic institutions is Sodom!