Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN THE ROMAN | CATHOLIC COLLEGES.

In order to understand what kind of moral education students in Roman Catholic colleges receive, one must only be told that from beginning to the end they are surrounded by an atmosphere in which nothing but Paganism is breathed. The models of eloquence which we learned by heart were almost exclusively taken from Pagan literature. In the same manner Pagan models of wisdom, of honor, of chastity were offered to our admiration. Our minds were constantly fixed on the masterpieces which Paganism has left. The doors of our understanding were left open only to receive the rays of light which Paganism has shed on the world. Homer, Socrates, Lycurgus, Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Tacitus, Cæsar, Xenophon, Demosthenes; Alexander, Lucretia, Regulus, Brutus, Jupiter, Venus, Minerva, Mars, Diana, etc., etc., crowded each other in our thoughts, to occupy them and be their models, examples and masters for ever.

It may be said that the same Pagan writers, orators and heroes are studied, read and admired in Protestant colleges. But there the infallible antidote, the Bible, is given to the students. Just as nothing remains of the darkness of night after the splendid morning sun has arisen on the horizon, so nothing of the fallacies, superstitions and sophisms of Paganism can trouble or obscure the mind on which that light from heaven, the Word of God, comes every day with its millions of shining rays. How insignificant is the poetry of Homer when compared with the sublime songs of Moses! How pale is the eloquence of Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, etc., when read after Job, David or Solomon! How quickly tumble down the theories which those haughty heathens of old wanted to raise over the intelligence of men when the thundering voice from Sinai is heard; when the incomparable songs of David, Solomon, Isaiah or Jeremiah are ravishing the soul which is listening to their celestial strains! It is a fact that Pagan eloquence and philosophy can be but very tasteless to men accustomed to be fed with the bread which comes down from heaven, whose souls are filled with the eloquence of God, and whose intelligence is fed with the philosophy of heaven.

But, alas! for me and my fellow-students in the college of Rome! No sun ever appeared on the horizon to dispel the night in which our intelligence was wrapped. The dark clouds with which Paganism had surrounded us were suffocating us, and no breath from heaven was allowed to come and dispel them. Moses, with his incomparable legislation, David and Solomon with their divine poems, Job with his celestial philosophy, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Daniel with their sublime songs, Jesus Christ himself with his soul-saving gospel, as well as his apostles Peter, John, Jude, James and Paul—these were all put on the Index!! They had not the liberty to speak to us, and we were forbidden, absolutely forbidden, to read and hear them!

It is true that the Church of Rome, as an offset to that, gave us her principles, precepts, fables and legends that we might be attached to her, and that she might remain the mistress of our hearts. But these doctrines, practices, principles and fables seemed to us so evidently borrowed from Paganism—they were so cold, so naked, so stripped of all true poetry, that if the Paganism of the ancients was not left absolute master of our affections, it still claimed a large part of our souls. To create in us a love for the Church of Rome, our superiors depended greatly on the works of Chateaubriand. The “Genie du Christianisme” was the book of books to dispel all our doubts, and attach us to the Pope’s religion. But this author, whose style is sometimes really beautiful, destroyed, by the weakness of his logic, the Christianity which he wanted to build up. We could easily see that Chateaubriand was not sincere, and his exaggerations were to many of us a sure indication that he did not believe in what he said. The works of De Maistre, the most impudent history-falsificator of France, were also put into our hands as a sure guide in our philosophical and historical studies. The “Memoirs du Comte Valmont,” with some authors of the same stamp, were much relied on by our superiors to prove to us that the dogmas, precepts and practices of the Roman Catholic religion were brought from heaven.

It was certainly our desire as well as our interest to believe them. But how our faith was shaken, and how we felt troubled when Livy, Tacitus, Cicero, Virgil, Homer, etc., gave us the evidence that the greater part of these things had their root and their origin in Paganism.

For instance, our superiors had convinced us that scapulars, medals, holy water, etc., would be of great service to us in battling with the most dangerous temptations, as well as in avoiding the most common dangers of life. Consequently we all had scapulars and medals, which we kept with the greatest respect, and even kissed morning and evening with affection, as if they were powerful instruments of the mercy of God to us. How great, then, was our confusion and disappointment when we discovered in the Greek and Latin historians that those scapulars and medals and statuettes were nothing but a remnant of Paganism, and that the worshippers of Jupiter, Minerva, Diana and Venus believed themselves also free, as we did, from all calamity when they carried them in honor of these divinities! The further we advanced in the study of Pagan antiquity, the more we were forced to believe that our religion, instead of being born at the foot of Calvary, was only a pale and awkward imitation of Paganism. The modern Maximus Pontifex (the Pope of Rome), who, as we were assured, was the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, resembled the “Pontifex Maximus” of the great republic and empire of pagan Rome as two drops of water resemble each other. Had not our Pope preserved not only the name, but also the attributes, the pageantry, the pride, and even the garb of that high pagan priest? Was not the worship of the saints absolutely the same as the worship of the demigods of olden time? Was not our purgatory minutely described by Virgil? Were not our prayers to the Virgin and to the saints repeated, almost in the same words, by the worshippers who prostrated themselves before the images of their gods, just as we repeated them every day before the images which adorned our churches? Was not our holy water in use among the idolaters, and for the same purpose for which it is used among us?

We knew by history the year in which the magnificent temple consecrated to all the gods, bearing the name of Pantheon, had been built at Rome. We were acquainted with the names of several of the sculptors who had carved the statues of the gods in that heathen temple, at whose feet the idolaters bowed respectfully, and words cannot express the shame we felt on learning that the Roman Catholics of our day, under the very eyes and with the sanction of the Pope, still prostrated themselves before the SAME IDOLS, in the SAME TEMPLE, and to obtain the SAME FAVORS!

When we asked each other the question, “What is the difference between the religion of heathen Rome and that of the Rome of to-day?” more than one student would answer: “The only difference is in the name. The idolatrous temples are the same: the idols have not left their places. To-day, as formerly, the same incense burns in their honor? Nations are still prostrated at their feet to give them the same homage and to ask of them the same favors; but instead of calling this statue Jupiter, we call it Peter; and instead of calling that one Minerva or Venus, it is called St. Mary. It is the old idolatry coming to us under Christian names.”

I earnestly desired to be an honest and sincere Roman Catholic. These impressions and thoughts distracted me greatly, inasmuch as I could find nothing in reason to diminish their force. Unfortunately, many of the books placed in our hands by our superiors to confirm our faith, form our moral character, and sustain our piety and our confidence in the dogmas of the Church of Rome, had a frightful resemblance to the histories I had read of the gods and goddesses. The miracles attributed to the Virgin Mary often appeared to be only a reproduction of the tricks and deceits by which the priests of Jupiter, Venus, Minerva, etc., used to obtain their ends and grant the requests of their worshippers. Some of those miracles of the Virgin Mary equalled, if they did not surpass, in absurdity and immorality, what mythology taught us among the most hideous accounts of the heathen gods and goddesses.