The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

4. "Nonne extra tribunal, vel in ipso confessionis actu, aliquia dixi aut egi cum intentione diabolicâ has personas seducendi? (Idem, idem.)

Have I not, either during or after confession, done or said anything with a diabolical intention of seducing my female penitents?

"What arch-enemy of our holy religion is so bold and impious as to put to our saintly priests such an impudent and insulting question?" may ask some of our Roman Catholic readers. It is easy to answer. This great enemy of your religion is no less than a justly offended God, admonishing and reproving your priests for exposing both you and themselves to dangerous allurements and seductions. It is his voice speaking to their consciences, and warning them of the danger and corruption of auricular confession. It says to them: Beware! for ye might be tempted, as surely you will, to do or say something against honor and purity. Husbands and fathers, who rightly value the honor of your wives and daughters more than all treasures, who consider it too precious a boon to be exposed to the dangers of pollution, and who would prefer to lose your life a thousand times than to see those you love most on earth fall in the snares of the seducer, read once more and ponder what your church asks the priest after he has heard your wife or daughter in confession: "Have you not, either during or after confession, done or said anything with a diabolical intention of seducing your female penitents?"

If your priest remains deaf to these words addressed to his conscience, you cannot help giving heed to them and understanding their full significance. You can not be easy and fear nothing from that priest in those close interviews with your wives and daughters, when his superiors and your own Church tremble for him, and question his purity and honesty. They see a great danger for both the confessor and his penitent; for they know that confession has many a time been the pretence or the cause of the most shameful seductions.

If there was no real danger for the chastity of women, in confessing to a man their most secret sins, do you believe that your popes and theologians would be so stupid as to acknowledge it and put to confessors questions that would be most insulting and out of place, should there be no occasion for them?

Is it not presumption and folly on your part to think that there is no danger, when the Church of Rome tells you positively that there is danger, and uses the strongest terms in expressing her uneasiness and apprehension?

Why, your church sees the most pressing reasons to fear for the honor of your wives and daughters, as well as for the chastity of her priest: and still you remain unconcerned, indifferent to the fearful peril to which they are exposed! Are you like the Jewish people of old, to whom it was said; "Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not?" (Isa. vi, 9).

But if you see or suspect the danger you are warned of; if the eye of your intelligence can fathom the dreadful abyss where the dearest objects of your heart are in danger of falling, then it behoves you to keep them from the paths that lead to the fearful chasm. Do not wait till it is too late, when they are too near the precipice to be rescued. You may think the danger to be far off, while it is near at hand. Profit by the sad experience of so many victims of confession who have been irretrievably lost, irrecoverably ruined for time and eternity. The voice of your conscience, of honor, of God himself, tells you that it may become too late to save them from destruction, through your neglect and procrastination. While thanking God for having preserved them from temptations that have proved fatal to so many married or unmarried women, do not lose a single moment in taken the necessary means to keep them from temptation and falls.

Instead of allowing them to go and kneel at the feet of a man to obtain the remission of their sins, lead them to the cross, the only place where they can secure pardon and peace everlasting. And why, after so many unfruitful attempts, should they try any longer to wash themselves in a puddle, when the pure waters of eternal life are offered them so freely, through Christ Jesus, their only Saviour and Mediator?

Instead of seeking their pardon from a poor and miserable sinner, weak and tempted as they are, let them go to Christ, the only strong and perfect man, the only hope and salvation of the world.