Without answering a word, the bishop struck his fist violently upon the table, and crossed the room at a quick step, two or three times; then turning towards me, and pointing his finger to my face, he exclaimed in an indescribable accent of rage:
“Now, I see the truth of what Mr. Spink told me! you are not only my bitterest enemy, but you are at the head of my enemies. You take sides with them against me. You approve of their libellous writings against me! I will never give back those church vestments. They are mine, as the French Canadian church is mine! Do you not know, that the ground on which the churches are built, as well as the churches themselves, and all that belongs to the church, belongs to the bishop? Was it not a burning shame to use those fine vestments in a poor miserable church of Chicago, when the bishop of that important city was covered with rags? It was in the interest of the episcopal dignity, that I ordered those rich and splendid vestments, which were mine by law, to be transferred from that small and insignificant congregation, to my cathedral of St. Mary, and if you had an ounce of respect for your bishop, Mr. Chiniquy, you would immediately go to your countrymen and put a stop to their murmurs and slanders against me; by simply telling them that I have taken what was mine from that church, which is mine also, to the cathedral, which is altogether mine.
“Tell your countrymen to hold their tongues, and respect their bishop, when he is in the right, as I am to-day.”
I had, many times, considered the infamy and injustice of the law which the bishops have had passed all over the United States, making every one of them a corporation, with the right of possessing personally all the church properties of the Roman Catholics. But I had never understood the infamy and tyranny of that law so clearly as in that hour.
It is impossible to describe with ink and paper the air of pride and contempt with which the bishop really in substance, if not in words, told me:
“All those things are mine. I do what I please with them, you must be mute and silent when I take them away from you. It is against God Himself that you rebel when you refuse me the right of dispossessing you of all those properties which you have purchased with your own money, and which have not cost me a cent!”
In that moment I felt that the law which makes every bishop the only master and proprietor of all the religious goods, houses, churches, lands and money of their people as Catholics, is simply diabolical: and that the church which sanctions such a law, is antichristian. Though it was, at the risk and peril of every thing dear to me, that I should openly protest against that unjust law, there was no help; I felt constrained to do so with all the energy I possessed.
I answered: “My lord, I confess that this is the law, in the United States; but this is a human law, directly opposed to the Gospel. I do not find a single word in the Gospel which gives this power to the bishop. Such a power is an abusive, not a divine power, which will sooner or later destroy our holy church, in the United States, as it has already mortally wounded her in Great Britain, in France and in many other places. When Christ said, in the Holy Gospel, that He had not enough of ground whereon to lay His head, He condemned, in advance, the pretensions of the bishops who lay their hands on our church properties as their own. Such a claim is an usurpation and not a right, my lord. Our Saviour Jesus Christ protested against that usurpation, when asked by a young man to meddle in his temporal affairs with his brothers; He answered that “He had not received such power.” The Gospel is a long protest against that usurpation; in every page, it tells us that the Kingdom of Christ is not of this world. I have myself given $50 to help my countrymen to buy those church vestments. They belong to them, and not to you!”
My words, uttered with an expression of firmness which the bishop had never yet seen in any of his priests, fell upon him, at first, as a thunderbolt. They so puzzled him, that he looked at me, a moment, as if he wanted to see if it was a dream or a reality, that one of his priests had the audacity to use such language, in his presence.
But, soon, recovering from his stupor, he interrupted me by striking his fist again on the table, and saying in anger: