"So much the better; you would then confess to God, who alone is able to remit sins. Does your Eminence imagine that the holy fathers ever dreamt of confessing? Bishop Fenelon says that he sought throughout the whole of their biography, and examined the minutest detail of their lives, and their pious and religious practices, and found not one single word about confession. 'We must therefore conclude,' he adds, 'that confession was not in use at that epoch.'"
"But those fathers were saints, and therefore did not require it."
"Saints, I agree, as far as holy life goes, far more so than we are; but your Eminence, I suppose, would not infer that they were without sin; for you must remember it is written, 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.'"[46]
"Well, St. John here says that we ought to confess our sins; and this is precisely what I wish to do."
"I consider that the Evangelist here speaks of confessing to God those sins committed against God; in the same manner as St. James speaks of confessing to men those sins especially committed against men, when he says, 'Confess your faults one to another.' Thus, for instance, if I should offend your Eminence, I know I am in duty bound to come and acknowledge my offence, and implore forgiveness; and your Eminence knows equally well what is written: 'If thy brother trespass against thee ... and if he repent, forgive him: and if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.'[47] Such is the law of confession according to the Gospel; clear, and sufficiently easy for the comprehension of the meanest capacity. Now, we must not confound these laws with those of the Council of Lateran under Innocent III., and of the last Council of Trent. According to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we are only obliged to confess our sins to God; according to the Canons and the Decretals we ought to reveal them also to a priest, called a confessor."
This conversation entered deeply into the mind of the Cardinal, and I believe produced a good effect; since, some years after, when I met with him in Rome, he said to me, "I remember well our conference at Orvieto, touching Confession; and the more I have reflected upon it, the more true I have found it." Certain it is, that from that time such were my sentiments; for which reason I desisted from Confession, and counselled others to do the same, so far as their sins alone were concerned. The case was widely different when I had to exercise my ministry; not as regarded authority, with which I did not consider myself invested, but for the sake of charity and friendship—then I fulfilled it most willingly. I was the friend of all those who came to confide their secrets to me, and to receive counsel and advice; and I exercised this duty with the greater pleasure the more I saw they were in want of it. I was particularly attentive to the instruction of the young men, but as to bigots, I drove them from my confessional.
During the time of my ministry in the Romish Church, I have confessed a vast number of persons—I should think many thousands, and of all classes. At first I did so, in the firm belief that in virtue of the power conferred upon me by the bishop, I really had authority to pardon sins; and subsequently, my persuasion was that Confession, made to a priest, as a sacrament, had the efficacy of obtaining pardon from God, and that the words of the Absolution were a declaration to that effect. In the first case, I acted, if not according to the doctrine of the Bible, at least in accordance with the tenets of the Roman Church. But in the second, I acted neither in agreement with the Bible, nor with the Church of Rome. Under this conviction, then, it was that I at last omitted the form of Absolution, as being unquestionably anti-scriptural, and limited myself to a prayer, muttered between the teeth, according to the usual mode of giving absolution; and in which I asked God to regard the faith of those penitent people, granting to them pardon of their sins, through the merits of Jesus Christ.
Yet even then I found occasion to accuse myself; since those who had made their confession to me, believed that they went away absolved, through the efficacy of my ministry. They were deceived, therefore, in consequence of my silence; yet, on the other hand, if I had spoken out, and explained my sentiments, they would have been scandalized and offended at my not conforming to the usual custom. I found, therefore, that the better way was to give up the so-called Confessional, wherein, as the people imagine, the priest becomes invested with the authority of a forgiver of sins; and to those who asked me to listen to them, I proposed any place, excepting the confessional, where we could both sit down, and have our conversation without any show of hypocrisy. This system I began in Rome, and followed also in Naples; confessing many persons, and even nuns, at the grating of the parlours; or rather, I held a conference with them on their moral and religious wants; terminating with a prayer to God, that He would pardon their sins, through the blood of our Lord.
This system, however, could not be continued without my coming under the notice of the Inquisition. In fact, when I was called to answer to the charges against me, I was accused of having acted with contempt towards religion—in spretum religionis—since I had not observed the laws and ordinances of the Church. At last I was tired of living in the midst of opposition. My conscience daily alienated me more and more from the practices of popery, whilst my soul expanded to the convictions of pure Christianity. I had taken an aversion to image worship, to the adoration of relics, the patronage of saints, and their whole catalogue of miracles. In Viterbo, I had often ridiculed the history of the monastery di Gradi, in which it is asserted, that in or about the year 1220, while St. Domenico di Guzman was on his way through those parts, staying in the house of Cardinal Capoccio, bishop of that city, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, one night appeared to both the cardinal and the saint, and conducted them in spirit to the site of the present church of the monastery di Gradi, where at that time stood a forest; and here, addressing the two holy men, she said, "It is my desire to have a convent established in this place for my dear brethren the Predicatori, [Preachers,] where I shall be honoured, and my rosary preached up by them." So saying, she burnt a circle in the wood with a lighted torch, marking out the boundary of the future building. Now, as the vision appeared to each of them, in the morning they compared notes, and setting out together to the wood, found there a circle actually marked out by fire. This history, which is entered in the chronicles of the monastery, is received by the monks as a fifth gospel. Was it possible that I should longer give credence to such a story?
There is also, in Viterbo, another monastery of Dominican monks, called La Madonna della Quercia; the history of which is, that an image painted on a tile, and placed in an oak-tree, in the midst of a wood, began performing miracles about the commencement of the fifteenth century. Devout supplicants thronged from all parts, and the graces that were bestowed, and the miracles that were performed, according to report, surpassed the most sanguine expectations. Thousands were said to have been healed of various infirmities; thousands to have received, in various ways, assistance from Providence; in dangers, in persecutions, in recovering lost property, and in retrieving their honour. But the greatest and most astounding miracles of all were those performed on persons who had been blind from their birth, and instantaneously recovered their sight, by the virtue of that same picture; and on others who eight days after death had returned to life.