Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

“My dear countrymen,” I added, “I have not come to tell you to follow me! I did not die to save your immortal souls: I have not shed my blood to buy you a place in heaven; but Christ has done it. Then follow Christ and him alone? Now, I must tell you why I have broken the ignominious and unbearable yoke of men, to follow Christ. You remember that, on the 21st of March last, you signed, with me, an act of submission to the authority of the Bishop of the Church of Rome, with the conditional clause that we would obey them only in matters which were according to the teachings of the Word of God as found in the Gospel of Christ. In that act of submission we did not want to be slaves of any man, but the servants of God, the followers of the Gospel. It was our hope then that our church would accept such a submission. And your joy was great, when you heard that Grand Vicar Dunn was here on the 28th of March, to tell you that Bishop Smith had accepted the submission. But that acceptation was revoked. Yesterday, I was told in the presence of God, by the same bishop, that he ought not to have accepted an act of submission from any priest or people based on the Gospel of Christ! Yes! yesterday, Bishop Smith rejected, with the utmost contempt, the act of submission we had given him, and which he had accepted only two weeks ago, because the ‘Word of God’ was mentioned in it! When I respectfully requested him to tell me the nature of the new act of submission he wanted from us, he ordered me to take away from it ‘the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ, and the Bible,’ if we wanted to be accepted as good Catholics! We had thought, till then, that the sacred Word of God, and the Holy Gospel of Christ were the fundamental and precious stones of the Church of Rome. We loved her on that account, we wanted to remain in her bosom, even when we were forced to fight, as honest men, against that tyrant, O’Regan. Believing that the Church of Rome was the child of the Word of God, that it was the most precious fruit of the divine tree planted on the earth, under the name of the Gospel, we would have given the last drop of our blood to defend her!

“But, yesterday, I have learned, from the very lips of the Bishops of Rome, that we were a band of simpletons in believing those things. I have learned that the Church of Rome has nothing to do with the Word of God, except to throw it overboard, to trample it under their feet, and to forbid us even to name it in the solemn act of submission we had given. I have been told that we could no longer be Roman Catholics, if we persisted in putting the Word of God and the Gospel of Christ as the foundation of our religion, our faith and our submission. When I was told, by the bishop, that I had either to renounce the Word of God as the base of my submission, or the title of priest of Rome, I did not hesitate. Nothing could induce me to give up the Gospel of Christ; and so I gave up the title and position of priest in the Roman Catholic Church. I would rather suffer a thousand deaths than renounce the Gospel of Christ. I am no longer a priest of Rome; but I am more than ever a disciple of Christ, a follower of the Gospel. That Gospel is for me, what it was for Paul: ‘The power of God unto salvation.’ It is the bread of my soul. In it we can satisfy our thirst with the waters of eternal life! No! no!! I could not buy the honor of being any longer a slave to the bishops and popes of Rome, by giving up the Gospel of Christ!

“When I requested the bishop to give me the precise form of submission he wanted from us, he answered: ‘Give me an act of submission without any condition, and promise that you will do anything I bid you.’ I replied:

“‘This is not an act of submission, it is an act of adoration! I will never give it to you.!’

“‘If so,’ he said, ‘you can no longer be a Roman Catholic priest.’

“I raised my hands to heaven, and with a loud and cheerful voice, I said: ‘May God Almighty be forever blessed.’”

I then told them something of my desolation, when alone, in my room; of the granite mountain which had been rolled over my shoulders, of my tears and of my despair. I told them also how my bleeding, dying crucified Saviour had brought me the forgiveness of my sins; how he had offered me eternal salvation as a Gift, and how rich, strong and happy I felt in that gift. I then offered them the Gift and besought them to accept it.

My address lasted more than two hours, and God blessed it in a marvellous way. Its effects were profound and lasting, but it is too long to describe here. In substance, I said: “I respect you too much to impose myself upon your honest consciences, or to dictate what you ought to do on this most solemn occasion. I feel that the hour has come for me to make a great sacrifice; I must leave you! but no! I will not go away before you tell me to do so. You will yourselves break the ties so dear which have united us. Please, pay attention to these, my parting words: “If you think it is better for you to follow the Pope than to follow Christ; that it is better to trust in the works of your hands, and in your own merits, than in the blood of the Lamb, shed on the cross, to be saved; if you think it is better for you to follow the traditions of men than the Gospel; and if you believe that it is better for you to have a priest of Rome, who will keep you tied as slaves to the feet of the bishops, and who will preach to you the ordinances of men, rather than have me preach to you nothing but the pure Word of God, as we find it in the Gospel of Christ, tell it to me by rising up, and I will go!” But to my great surprise nobody moved. The chapel was filled with sobs; tears were flowing from every eye; but not one moved to tell me to leave them! I was puzzled. For though I had hoped that many, enlightened by the copies of the New Testament I had given them, tired of the tyranny of the bishops, and disgusted with the superstitions of Rome, would be glad to break the yoke with me, to follow Christ; I was afraid that the greatest number would not dare to break their allegiance to the church, and publicly give up her authority. After a few minutes of silence, during which I mixed my tears and my sobs with those of my people, I told them: “Why do you not, at once, rise up and tell me to go? You see that I can no longer remain your pastor after renouncing the tyranny of the bishops, and the traditions of men, to follow the Gospel of Christ as my only rule. Why do you not bravely tell me to go away?”

But this new appeal was still without any answer. I was filled with astonishment. However, it was evident to me that a great and mysterious change was wrought in that multitude. Their countenances, their manners were completely changed. They were speaking to me with their eyes filled with tears, and their manly faces beaming with joy. Their sobs, in some way, told me that they were filled with new light; that they were full of new strength, and ready to make the most heroic sacrifices, and break their fetters to follow Christ, and Him alone. There was something in those brave, honest and happy faces which was telling me more effectually than the most eloquent speech: “We have accepted the Gift, we want to be rich, happy, free, and saved in the gift: we do not want anything else; remain among us and help us to love both the gift and the giver!”

A thought suddenly flashed across my mind, and with an inexpressible sentiment of hope and joy, I told them: