Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

A little later, Peter Lombard adopted the views of the monks of Lyons, and wrote a book to support that opinion; but he was refuted by St. Thomas Aquinas, who is justly considered, by the Church of Rome, as the best theologian of that time.

After that, the celebrated order of the Franciscans used all their influence to persuade the world that “Mary was immaculate in her conception,” but they were vigorously opposed and refuted by the not less celebrated order of the Dominicans. These two learned and powerful bodies, during more than a century, attacked each other without mercy on that subject, and filled the world with the noise of their angry disputes, both parties calling their adversaries heretics. They succeeded in driving the Roman Catholics of Europe into two camps of fierce enemies. The “Immaculate Conception” became the subject of burning discussions, not only between the learned universities, between the bishops and the priests and the nuns of those days; but it divided the families into two fiercely contending parties. It was discussed, attacked and defended, not only in the chairs of universities, and the pulpits of the cathedrals, but also in the fields, and in the very streets of the cities. And when the two parties had exhausted the reasons which their ingenuity, their learning, or their ignorant fanaticism could suggest to prove or deny the “Immaculate Conception,” they often had recourse to the stick and to the sword to sustain their arguments.

It will appear almost incredible to-day, but it is a fact, that the greatest number of the large cities of Europe, particularly in Spain, were then reddened with the blood of the supporters and opponents of that doctrine. In order to put an end to these contests, which were troubling the peace of their subjects, the kings of Europe sent deputation after deputation to the Popes to know, from their infallible authority, what to believe on the subject.

Philip III. and Philip IV. made what we may call supreme efforts to force the Popes, Paul V., Gregory XV., and Alexander VII., to stop the shedding of blood, and disarm the combatants, by raising the opinion in favor of the Immaculate Conception to the dignity of a Catholic dogma. But they failed. The only answer they could get from the infallible head of the Church of Rome was, that “that dogma was not revealed in the Holy Scriptures, had never been taught by the Apostles, nor by the Fathers, and had never been believed or preached by the Church of Rome as an article of faith!”

The only thing the Popes could do to please the supplicant kings and bishops, and nations of Europe in those days, was to forbid both parties to call each other heretics: and to forbid to say that it was an article of faith which ought to be believed to be saved.

At the Council of Trent, the Franciscans, and all the partisans of the “Immaculate Conception,” gathered her strength to have a decree in favor of the new dogma; but the majority of the bishops were visibly against that sacrilegious innovation, and they failed.

It was reserved to the unfortunate Pius IX., to drag the Church of Rome to that last limit of human folly. In the last century, a monk, called Father Leonard, had a dream, in which he heard the Virgin Mary telling him: “There would be an end to the wars in the world, and to the heresies and schism in the church, only after a Pope should have obliged, by a decree, all the faithful to believe that she was 'immaculate in her conception.’”

That dream, under the name of a “celestial vision,” had been extensively circulated, by means of little tracts. Many believed it to be a genuine revelation from heaven; and, unfortunately, the good natured, but weak-minded Pius IX., was among the number.

When he was an exile in Gaeta, he had, himself, a dream, which he took for a vision, on the same subject. He saw the Virgin, who told him that he should come back to Rome, and get an eternal peace for the church, only after he should have promised to declare that the “Immaculate Conception” was a dogma, which every one had to believe to be saved. He awoke from his dream much impressed by it; and the first thing he did when up, was to make a vow to promulgate the new dogma as soon as he should be back to Rome, and the world has seen how he has fulfilled that vow.

But, by the promulgation of this new dogma, Pius IX., far from securing an eternal peace to his church, far from destroying what he was pleased to call the heresies which are attacking Rome on every side, has done more to shake the faith of the Roman Catholics than all their enemies.