"He who made the greatest noise was Donati. I believe he is now at Rome. Father Brandi, too, was also in great vogue. I think he is now prior of St. Gemignani. At St. Vincent, which passes for a very holy retreat, they have also their lovers...."
My pen refuses to reproduce several things which the nuns of Italy have published against their father confessors. But this is enough to show to the most incredulous that the confession is nothing else but a school of perdition, even among those who make a profession to live in the highest regions of Roman Catholic holiness—the monks and the nuns.
Now, from Italy let us go to America and see again the working of auricular confession, not between the holy (?) nuns and monks of Rome, but among the humblest classes of country women and priests. Great is the number of parishes where women have been destroyed by their confessors, but I will speak only of one.
When curate of Beauport, I was called by the Rev. Mr. Proulx, curate of St. Antoine, to preach a retreat (a revival) with the Rev. Mr. Aubry, to his parishioners, and eight or ten other priests were also invited to come and help us to hear the confessions.
The very first day after preaching and passing five or six hours in the confessional, the hospitable curate gave us a supper before going to bed. But it was evident that a kind of uneasiness pervaded the whole company of the father confessors. For my own part, I could hardly raise my eyes to look at my neighbour, and when I wanted to speak a word it seemed that my tongue was not free as usual; even my throat was as if it were choked; the articulation of the sounds was imperfect. It was evidently the same with the rest of the priests. Instead, then, of the noisy and cheerful conversation of the other meals, there were only a few insignificant words exchanged with a half-supressed tone.
The Rev. Mr. Proulx (the curate) at first looked as if he were partaking also of that singular though general despondent feeling. During the first part of the lunch he hardly said a word; but at last, raising his head and turning his honest face towards us, in his usual gentlemanly and cheerful manner, he said:—
"Dear friends, I see that you are all under the influence of the most painful feelings. There is a burden on you that you can neither shake off nor bear as you wish. I know the cause of your trouble, and I hope you will not find fault with me if I help you to recover from that disagreeable mental condition. You have heard in the confessional the history of many great sins, but I know that this is not what troubles you. You are all old enough in the confessional to know the miseries of poor human nature. Without any more preliminaries I will come to the subject. It is no more a secret in this place that one of the priests who has preceded me has been very unfortunate, weak, and guilty with the greatest part of the married women whom he has confessed. Not more than one in ten have escaped him. I would not mention this fact had I got it only from the confessional, but I know it well from other sources, and I can speak of it freely without breaking the secret seal of the confessional. Now what troubles you is that, probably, when a good number of those women have confessed to you what they had done with their confessor, you have not asked them how long it was since they had sinned with him, and in spite of yourselves you think that I am the guilty man. This does, naturally, embarrass you when you are in my presence and at my table. But please ask them, when they come again to confess, how many months or years have passed away since their last love affair with a confessor, and you will see that you may suppose that you are in the house of an honest man. You may look me in the face and have no fear to address me as if I were still worthy of your esteem; for, thanks be to God, I am not the guilty priest who has ruined and destroyed so many souls here."
The curate had hardly pronounced the last word when a general "We thank you; for you have taken away a mountain from our shoulders," fell from almost every lip. "It is a fact that, notwithstanding the good opinion we had of you," said several, "we were in fear that you had missed the right track, and fallen down with your fair penitents into the ditch."
I felt myself much relieved; for I was one of those who, in spite of myself, had my secret fears about the honesty of our host. When, very early the next morning, I had begun to hear the confessions, one of those unfortunate victims of the confessor's depravity came to me, and in the midst of many tears and sobs, she told me with great details what I repeat here in a few lines:—
"I was only nine years old when my first confessor began to do very criminal things with me when I was at his feet, confessing my sins. At first I was ashamed and much disgusted; but soon after I became so depraved that I was looking eagerly for every opportunity of meeting him either in his own house, or in the church, in the vestry, and many times in his own garden when it was dark at night. That priest did not remain very long; he was removed, to my great regret, to another place, where he died. He was succeeded by another one, who seemed at first to be a very holy man. I made to him a general confession with, it seems to me, a sincere desire to give up for ever that sinful life, but I fear that my confessions became a cause of sin to that good priest; for not long after my confession was finished, he declared to me in the confessional his love, with such passionate words that he soon brought me down again into my former criminal habits with him. This lasted six years, when my parents removed to this place. I was very glad of it, for I hoped that, being far away from him, I should not be any more a cause of sin to him, and that I might begin a better life. But the fourth time that I went to confess to my new confessor, he invited me to go to his room, where we did things so horrible together that I do not know how to confess them. It was two days before my marriage, and the only child I have had is the fruit of that sinful hour. After my marriage I continued the same criminal life with my confessor. He was the friend of my husband; we had many opportunities of meeting each other, not only when I was going to confess, but when my husband was absent and my child was at school. It was evident to me that several other women were as miserable and criminal as I was myself. This sinful intercourse with my confessor went on till God Almighty stopped it with a real thunderbolt. My dear only daughter had gone to confess and receive the holy communion. As she had come back from church much later than I expected, I inquired the reason which had kept her so long. She then threw herself into my arms, and with convulsive cries said: 'Dear mother, do not ask me any more to go to confess.... Oh! if you could know what my confessor has asked me when I was at his feet! and if you could know what he has done with me, and he has forced me to do with him when he had me alone in his parlour!'