Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

After we have seen the Protestant scholar raising himself, on his eagle wings, to the highest spheres of intelligence, happiness and light, and marching unimpaired toward his splendid destinies, let us turn our eyes toward the Roman Catholic student, and let us consider and pity him in the supreme degradation to which he is subjected.

That young Roman Catholic scholar is born with the same bright intelligence as the Protestant one; he is endowed by his Creator with the same powers of mind as his Protestant neighbor; he has the same impulses, the same noble aspirations implanted by the hand of God in his breast. He is sent to school apparently, like the Protestant boy, to receive what is called “Education.” He at first understands that word in its true sense; he goes to school in the hope of being raised, elevated as high as his intelligence and his personal efforts will allow. His heart beats with joy, when at once the first rays of light and knowledge come to him; he feels a holy, a noble pride at every new step he makes in his upward progress; he longs to learn more, he wants to rise higher; he also takes up his wings, like the young eagle, and soars up higher.

But here begin the disappointments and tribulations of the Roman Catholic student; for he is allowed to raise himself—yes, but when he has raised himself high enough to be on a level with the big toes of the Pope, he hears piercing, angry, threatening angry cries coming from every side—“Stop! stop! Do not raise yourself higher than the toes of the Holy Pope!... Kiss those holy toes, ... and stop your upward flight! Remember that the Pope is the only source of science, knowledge and truth!... The knowledge of the Pope is the ultimate limit of learning and light to which humanity can attain.... You are not allowed to know and believe what his Holiness does not know and believe. Stop! stop! Do not go an inch higher than the intellectual horizon the Supreme Pontiff of Rome, in whom only is the plenitude of the true science which will save the world.”

Some will perhaps answer me here: “Has not Rome produced great men in every department of science?” I answer, Yes; as I have once done before. Rome can show us a long list of names which shine among the brightest lights of the firmament of science and philosophy. She can show us her Copernices, her Galileos, her Pascals, her Bossuets, her Lamenais, etc., etc. But it is at their risk and peril that those giants of intelligence have raised themselves into the highest regions of philosophy and science. It is in spite of Rome that those eagles have soared up above the damp and obscure horizon where the Pope offers his big toes to be kissed and worshipped as the ne plus ultra of human intelligence; and they have invariably been punished for their boldness.

On the 22nd of June, 1663, Galileo was obliged to fall on his knees in order to escape the cruel death to which he was to be condemned by the order of the Pope; and he signed with his own hand the following retractation: “I abjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the motion of the earth,” etc., etc.

That learned man had to degrade himself by swearing a most egregious lie, namely, that the earth does not move around the sun. Thus it is that the wings of that giant eagle of Rome were clipped by the scissors of the Pope. That mighty intelligence was bruised, fettered, and, as much as it was possible to the Church of Rome, degraded, silenced and killed. But God would not allow that such a giant intellect should be entirely strangled by the bloody hands of that implacable enemy of light and truth—the Pope. Sufficient strength and life had remained in Galileo to enable him to say, when rising up, “This will not prevent the earth from moving!”

The infallible decree of the infallible Pope, Urban VIII., against the motion of the earth, is signed by the Cardinals Felia, Guido, Desiderio, Antonio, Bellingero, and Fabricicio. It says, “In the name and by the authority of Jesus Christ, the plenitude of which resides in His vicar, the Pope, that the proposition that the earth is not the center of the world, and that it moves with a diurnal motion is absurd, philosophically false, and erroneous in faith.”

What a glorious thing for the Pope of Rome to be infallible! He infallibly knows that the earth does not move around the sun! And what a blessed thing for the Roman Catholics to be governed and taught by such an infallible being. In consequence of that infallible decree, you will admire the following act of humble submission of two celebrated Jesuit astronomers, Lesueur and Jacquier: “Newton assumes in his third book the hypothesis of the earth moving around the sun. The proposition of that author could not be explained, except through the same hypothesis: we have, therefore, been forced to act a character not our own. But we declare our entire submission to the decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs of Rome against the motion of the earth.” (Newton’s “Principia,” vol. iii., p. 450.)

Now, please tell me if the world has ever witnessed any degradation like that of Roman Catholics? I do not speak of the ignorant and unlearned, but I speak of the learned—the intelligent ones. There you see Galileo condemned to gaol because he had proved that the earth moved around the sun, and to avoid the cruel death on the rack of the holy Inquisition if he does not retract, he falls on his knees and swears that he will never believe it—in the very moment that he believes it! He promises, under a solemn oath, that he will never say it any more, when he is determined to proclaim it again the very first opportunity! And here you see two other learned Jesuits, who have written a very able work to prove that the earth moves around the sun; but, trembling at the thunders of the Vatican, which are roaring on their heads and threaten to kill them, they submit to the decrees of the Popes of Rome against the motion of the earth. These two learned Jesuits tell a most contemptible and ridiculous lie to save themselves from the implacable wrath of that great light-extinguisher whose throne is in the city of the seven hills.

Lamenais, a Roman Catholic priest, who lived in this very century, was one of the most profound philosophers and eloquent writers which France has ever had. But Lamenais was publicly excommunicated for having raised himself high enough in the regions of Gospel light to see that “liberty of conscience” was one of the great privileges which Christ has brought from heaven for all the nations, and which He has sealed with His blood! No man has ever raised himself higher in the regions of thought and philosophy than Pascal; but the wings of that giant eagle were clipped by the Pope. Pascal was an outcast in the Church of Rome. He lived and died an excommunicated man! Bossuet is one of the most eloquent orators which Rome has given to the world. But Veuillot, the editor of the Univers (the official journal of the Roman Catholic clergy of France) assures us that Bossuet was a disguised Protestant.