When the Pope, in the morning of the 8th of December, 1854, answered twice: “I do not know;” to the question put to him: “Is the Virgin Mary Immaculate in her Conception?” and then, a minute after, to the same question, he answered: “Yes! I know it: the Holy Virgin Mary was Immaculate in her Conception;” he proved to his most credulous dupes that he was nothing but a sacrilegious comedian. How would a jury of honest men deal with a witness who, being interrogated about what he knows of a certain fact, would answer: “I know nothing about it;” and a moment after would acknowledge that “he knows everything about it?” Would not such a witness be justly punished as a perjurer?
Such is the sad and unenviable position which the Pope made to himself and to his church, on the 8th of December, 1854. Interrogated by the nations of Europe about what was to be believed on the “Conception of the Virgin Mary,” the Church of Rome, during ten centuries, had answered: “I do not know.” And let every one remember that she wants to be believed INFALLIBLE when she says she “knows nothing about the Immaculate Conception.”
But, to-day, that same church assures us, through the infallible decree of Pius IX., that she knows, and that she has always known and believed that the Virgin Mary was Immaculate!
Has the world ever seen such a want of self-respect, such an unblushing impudence!
What verdict will the Christian world give against that great mother of lies? What punishment will the God of truth administer to that great culprit who swears “yes” and “no” on the same question?
It is a fact, that by the promulgation of this decree, Pius IX. had forever destroyed his prestige in the minds of millions of his followers.
A few days after I had read to my congregation the decree of the pope proclaiming the new dogma, and damning all those who would not believe it, one of my most intelligent and respectable farmers came to visit me, and put to me the following questions on the new articles of faith:
“Mr. Chiniquy, please tell me, have I correctly understood the letter from the pope you read us last Sabbath? Does the pope tell us in that letter that we can find this new dogma of the ‘Immaculate Conception’ in the Holy Scriptures; that it has been taught by the Fathers, and that the church has constantly believed it from the days of the Apostles?”
I answered: “Yes, my friend, the pope tells us all those things in his letter which I read in the church last Sabbath.”
“But, sir, will you be so kind as to read me the verses of the Holy Scriptures which are in favor of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary?”