The Demands of Rome / Her Own Story of Thirty-One Years as a Sister of Charity in the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Providence of the Roman Catholic Church

by Elizabeth Schoffen

To receive communion, the sisters in the convents where I have been, marched to the altar by twos, knelt and received the "body of Christ," but never the "blood." No one is allowed any of the wine, or "blood," except the priest or "substitute Christ."

If, during this ceremony, a crumb of the "body of Christ" should happen to drop on the communion cloth, that spot must be marked, and after the ceremony is completed, the priest sprinkles some "holy water" on the spot, says a few Latin words, makes a few signs with his "holy hands," then it is purified, and whatever is used in this purification is burned, or sometimes washed. The Corporal, which is a piece of linen used for handling the "body and blood of Christ" in the mass, must always be washed or rinsed by the priest before it goes to the laundry, because the sisters who do the work in the laundries have not "holy hands," and the priest's fingers have been consecrated and are therefore "holy."

In speaking on transubstantiation, William Cathcart, in his book, "The Papal System," says (pages 170-171), "The priests scorn the idea that there could be any figure in the declaration: 'This is my body,' but when Paul says: 'For as often as you shall eat and drink the chalice,' they must grant that it is not the chalice but its contents that are to be drunk. If it is not a figurative expression, the priests of Rome should swallow the cup as well as the contents. The words, 'I am the vine, I am the door,' are literal if the expression is not figurative, 'This is my body.' No community would suffer more than the Catholic Church from a non-figurative interpretation of every scripture word. In the Catholic New Testament, Matt. xvi. 22, 23, it is said: 'And Peter taking him began to rebuke him, saying: 'Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee'; who turning said to Peter: 'GO BEHIND ME, SATAN, THOU ART A SCANDAL UNTO ME, because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.' If the words, 'This is my body,' must be taken literally, we would mildly insist that Christ's address to Peter shall be taken literally too when He said to him: 'Go behind me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto me.' According to that interpretation, Peter is the chief of devils, and the Church of Rome, built on Simon, is founded on Beelzebub himself. A literal interpretation of the words, 'This is my body,' leads to sacred cannibalism; and of the saying in Matt. xvi. 22, 23, makes Peter the devil, and Lucifer the foundation of the Papal Church. A figurative view of both passages is the true one."

"Extreme Unction is a Sacrament, in which by the annointing with holy oil and by the prayers of the priest, the sick receive the grace of God, for the good of their souls, and often also of their bodies." (Deharbe's Catechism, Page 114.)

Extreme Unction is commonly known as the Last Sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. It is administered only when there is danger of death.

I often had to prepare the dying for this sacrament. The articles used were a crucifix, holy water, lighted candles, a piece of bread, and five "wads" of absorbing cotton. The priest would come, unwrap his silk bag containing the holy oil (chrism), dip the cotton in the holy oil and apply to the parts of the body where the five senses are located—the forehead, to cleanse the mind of the sins of thought; the eyes, for the sins committed by the sight; the mouth, for the sins of speech; the ears, for the sins of hearing; and the hands and feet, for the sins of feeling. The last members of the poor suffering, I often had a difficult time to get handy for the priest to apply his chrism, particularily in paralysis or accident cases. During all the ceremony the priest is reciting Latin prayers.

The piece of bread is for the priest to cleanse his fingers after the ceremony. It must be destroyed, together with the cotton used, by fire so that no particle of the holy oil will be desecrated.

This sacrament is supposed to help the soul of the person receiving it to heaven, but it does not keep him from the torments of purgatory.

Before a person is entitled or can accept this sacrament he must be baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. The sisters in the hospital must do all in their power to convert Protestants to the Roman Catholic faith before death. I was instructed that I was not a secular nurse, but a religious and Sister of Charity, and as such it was my duty to convert all Protestants and non-Catholics possible.

I remember one very interesting case of this kind that happened soon after I went to St. Vincent's Hospital. My officer, Sister Mary Bonsecours, requested me to go with her to a room occupied by a Methodist lady who was dying, and she would show me how to make converts. In addressing the lady, among other things, she said that the Roman Catholic Church was the only true church. All who were not baptized in it would not be saved and would surely never see God. The lady simply remarked that she was satisfied with her religion. About the third time I accompanied the sister to the lady's room, she was passing into the last agony, and the sister leaned over her and shouted into her ear that her soul was going to hell forever for not being a Roman Catholic. That is the manner in which many of the sisters endeavor to obtain the patient's consent for baptism into the Roman Catholic Church, and if they are yet rational, they are entitled to the last sacrament, Extreme Unction.