She was soon recalled, however, and wielded an influence which Narvaez could not resist. His successor, Bravo Murillo, sought to get a respite by persuading the Nuncio Brunelli to send her to Rome, but this availed little, for she soon returned, more powerful than ever, with the blessing of Pius IX. Under her guidance, during the remainder of the reign of Isabel II, the camarilla practically ruled the kingdom and precipitated the revolution of 1868, which, for a time, supplanted the monarchy with a republic. With the fall of Isabel she disappeared from public view, in the retirement of the convent of Guadalajara, of which she was the abbess. There she lingered in seclusion, until January 27, 1891, when she died serenely, comforted in her last moments with a telegraphic blessing from Leo XIII.[170]
The Inquisition could suppress Judaism, it could destroy Protestantism, it could render necessary the expulsion of the Moriscos, but it failed when it sought to eradicate the abuses of Mysticism, which not only signalized the ardor of Spanish faith, but were so difficult of differentiation from beliefs long recognized and encouraged by the Church. There seems to be, in the average human mind, an insatiable craving for manifestations of the supernatural. Modern science, with its materialism, may weaken or even eradicate this in the majority, and may explain psychologically much of what seems to be marvellous, but the success in our own land of the curious superstition known as Christian Science shows us how superficial is latter-day enlightenment, and should teach us sympathy rather than disdain for the fantastic exhibitions of credulity which we have passed in review.
CHAPTER VI.
SOLICITATION
THE seduction of female penitents by their confessors, euphemistically known as solicitatio ad turpia or “solicitation,” has been a perennial source of trouble to the Church since the introduction of confession, more especially after the Lateran Council of 1216 rendered yearly confession to the parish priest obligatory. It was admitted to be a prevailing vice, and canonists sought some abatement of the evil by arguing that the priest notoriously addicted to it lost his jurisdiction over his female parishioners, who were thus at liberty to seek the sacrament of penitence from others.[171] A Spanish authority, however, holds that this requires the licence of the parish priest himself and, when he refuses it, the woman must confess to him, after prayer to God for strength to resist his importunities.[172]
It was an evil of which repression was impossible, notwithstanding penalties freely threatened. A virtue of uncommon robustness was required to resist the temptations arising from the confidences of the confessional, and so well was this understood that an exception was made to the rule requiring perfect confession, for reticence as to carnal sins was counselled, when the reputation of the priest rendered it advisable.[173] Few women thus approached, whether yielding or not, could be expected to denounce their pastors to the bishop or provisor, and for her who yielded the path to sin was made easy through the universal abuse of absolution by her accomplice, and this, although objected to on ethical grounds, was admitted to be valid.[174] On the other hand, the peccant confessor could rely on obtaining absolution from a sympathizing colleague, at the cost of penance which had become habitually trivial.
The intercourse between priest and penitent was especially dangerous because there had not yet been invented the device of the confessional—a box or stall in which the confessor sits with his ear at a grille, through which the tale of sins conceived or committed is whispered. Seated by his side or kneeling at his feet, there was greater risk of inflaming passion and much more opportunity for provocative advances. It was not until the middle of the sixteenth century that the confessional was devised, doubtless in consequence of the attacks of heretics, who found in these scandals a fertile subject of animadversion. The earliest allusion to it that I have met occurs in a memorial from Siliceo of Toledo to Charles V, in 1547.[175] In 1565 a Council of Valencia prescribed its use and contemporaneously S. Carlo Borromeo introduced it in his Milanese province, while in 1614 the Roman Ritual commanded its employment in all churches.[176] It was easier to command than to secure obedience, for the priesthood offered a passive resistance which even the Inquisition found it almost impossible to overcome. As early as 1625 it forbade parish priests from hearing confessions in their houses; between 1709 and 1720 we find it occupied in endeavoring to enforce the use of confessionals and, to prevent evasions, such as hearing confessions in cells and chapels, and not in the body of the church.[177] How long-continued was the opposition, and how transparent were the artifices to elude the regulations, are visible in an edict of November 3, 1781, which led to considerable trouble. After alluding to the repeated orders on the subject, and the deplorable results of their disregard, it prescribed that women should be heard only through the gratings of closed confessionals, or of open stalls in the body of the churches, or in chapels open and well lighted. It forbade the use of hand-gratings or handkerchiefs, sieves, bundle of twigs, fans, or other derisive substitutes, and it prescribed minute and highly suggestive regulations as to oratories and private chapels, while a similar series concerning male penitents shows the dread of contamination even with them.[178]
TOLERANCE OF SPIRITUAL COURTS
The crime of solicitation was subject to episcopal jurisdiction and, throughout the middle ages, there was no general legislation prescribing its penalties. Some apocryphal canons visited it with well-deserved severity and, in 1217, Richard Poore, the reforming Bishop of Salisbury, threatened it with fifteen years of penance followed by confinement in a monastery.[179] The spiritual courts, however, were notoriously lenient, and the prevalent sexual laxity tended to sympathy which disarmed severity in the rare cases coming before them. When, during the Reformation, this offence afforded a favorite topic for the heretics, there arose a demand for sharper treatment. In 1587, Iñigo López de Salcedo gives this as a reason for rigorous punishment, and he greatly lauds Matteo Ghiberti, the reforming Bishop of Verona († 1543) for decreeing a series of heavy penalties for attempts on the virtue of female penitents, culminating in deprivation and perpetual imprisonment when they were successful.[180]