“Do you not recollect that the bishop of Ottawa had the audacity to take one of your letters out of the postoffice and read it, hoping the shameful act would never be known? I shall never forget the noble independence with which you protested against that abuse of power, and with what indignation you threatened to drag that haughty bishop before the courts of Justice, if he did not ask pardon for that outrage! Were you revolting against the church of Christ then? No! for you knew that her principles of truth and justice could not sanction such brigandage. So I did not revolt against the church of Christ, when I resisted the insolence and outrages of the bishop of Chicago.
“Like St. Jerome, I know the rights of the bishops: I respect their authority. The Catholic Hierarchy is to me a holy and venerable institution. But when men sheltering themselves behind those holy institutions, trample under their feet the principles of justice, truth and holiness, which the gospel of Christ inculcates, I will fight to the end, with my poor emigrants, for the preservation of their Christian rights.
“You say that before all, we must be frankly and sincerely ‘Catholics.’ I answer, yes. But when one is wrongfully deprived of this glorious name before men, because he opposes, as I have done, the brigandage of a bishop who believes all is allowed him, he can remain in peace, and be like St. Paul, who did not care what men said or thought of him. To be anathematized, because I have devoted myself to the welfare of my brethren, is not such a sad destiny as some people think. St. Paul said:
“I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
“The favor after which the apostle of the Gentiles sighed, has been accorded me. I can not complain of it. Besides, does not Christ himself say to those who labor to scatter seeds of justice and truth upon the earth, that they ought not expect to be treated better than He?
“From every part of Canada and the United States men of distinction cease not to cry: ‘Courage!’ It is true that several curse us, but it is because they are forced to do it. Many keep silent for fear of their masters, but their prayers and sympathies are for us. The bishops will see, sooner or later, that in order to retain their power on earth, that power must be founded, as in heaven, upon justice and truth.
“When the priests of Canada, to please the bishops, contrary to their convictions, have degraded their own sacerdotal character in my person; when they have burned the effigy of the proscribed, having no more the glorious privilege of burning his body; when the father whom, by the grace of God, I have snatched from an abyss, cursed me; when this dear young man who has, so many times, blessed me, because I have shown him the gospel, the way of honor and virtue, by removing the stumbling block of intemperance offered to his weakness, has been forced to curse me; when that poor woman, who, by the grace of God, owes me the bread she eats, and the few days of holy felicity she has enjoyed upon earth, has cursed me; when this fine little child, who has so many times blessed my name, because God made use of me to give him back a father, has cursed me, there will be a silence of sorrow in Canada, around my proscribed name.
“Then a reaction will take place. A great prestige will be destroyed. A great power, holy and benevolent in its origin, but fallen by its excesses, will be destroyed. God grant that, in the midst of those ruins, there may be no tears, no blood!!
“This is not prophecy, it is history. Yes, let the Canadian clergy open the records of the past, and they will find where their blind and demoralizing obedience to the bishops, leads them and their good and generous people, if not to infidelity and atheism.
“You advise me, dear Mr. Brassard, to put myself in the canonical ways; but have I not already done so? Have not the bishops of Canada told you that the letter signed by me, has already placed me in that position?