Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

NINE STARTLING CONSEQUENCES OF THE DOGMA OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION—THE OLD PAGANISM UNDER A CHRISTIAN NAME.

On the day of my ordination to the priesthood, I had to believe, with all the priests of Rome, that it was within the limits of my powers to go into all the bakeries of Quebec, and change all the loaves and biscuits in that old city, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, by pronouncing over them the five words: Hoc est enim corpus meum. Nothing would have remained of these loaves and biscuits but the smell, the color, the taste.

2. Every bishop and priest of the cities of New York and Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Paris and London, etc., firmly believes and teaches that he has the power to turn all the loaves of their cities, of their dioceses, nay, of the whole world, into the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Saviour Jesus Christ. And, though they have never yet found it advisable to do that wonderful miracle, they consider, and say, that to entertain any doubt about the power to perform that marvel, is as criminal as to entertain any doubt about the existence of God.

3. When in the Seminary of Nicolet, I heard, several times, our Superior, the Rev. Mr. Raimbault, tell us that a French priest having been condemned to death in Paris, when dragged to the scaffold had, through revenge, consecrated and changed into Jesus Christ all the loaves of the bakeries of that great city which were along the streets through which he had to pass; and though our learned superior condemned that action in the strongest terms, yet he told us that the consecration was valid, and that the loaves were really changed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of the Saviour of the world. And I was bound to believe it under pain of eternal damnation.

4. Before my ordination I had been obliged to learn by heart, in one of the most sacred books of the Church of Rome, (Missale Romanism, p. 63) the following statement: “If, after the consecration, the consecrated bread disappear, taken away by the wind, or through any miracle; or dragged away by an animal, let the priest take a new bread, consecrate it, and continue his mass.”

And at page 57 I had learned, “If a fly or spider fall into the chalice, after the consecration, let the priest take and eat it, if he does not feel an insurmountable repugnance; but if he cannot swallow it, let him wash it and burn it and throw the ashes into the sacrarium.”

5. In the month of January, 1834, I heard the following fact from the Rev. Mr. Paquette, curate of St. Gervais, at a grand dinner which he had given to the neighboring priests:

“When young, I was the vicar of a curate who could eat as much as two of us, and drink as much as four. He was tall and strong, and he has left the dark marks of his hard fists on the nose of more than one of his beloved sheep; for his anger was really terrible after he drank his bottle of wine.

“One day, after a sumptuous dinner, he was called to carry the good god (Le Bon Dieu), to a dying man. It was mid-winter. The cold was intense. The wind was blowing hard. There was at least five or six feet of snow, and the roads were almost impassable. It was really a serious matter to travel nine miles on such a day, but there was no help. The messenger was one of the first marguilliers (elders) who was very pressing, and the dying man was one of the first citizens of the place. The curate, after a few grumblings, drank a tumbler of good Jamaica with his marguillier as a preventative against the cold, went to church, took the good god (Le Bon Dieu), and threw himself into the sleigh; wrapped as well as possible in his large buffalo robes.

“Though there were two horses, one before the other, to drag the sleigh, the journey was a long and tedious one, which was made still worse by an unlucky circumstance. They were met half-way by another traveler coming from the opposite direction. The road was too narrow to allow the two sleighs and horses to remain easily on firm ground when passing by each other, and it would have required a good deal of skill and patience in driving the horses to prevent them from falling into the soft snow. It is well known that when once horses are sunk into five or six feet of snow, the more they struggle the deeper they sink.