It will be seen that solicitation subject to inquisitorial action was so purely technical an offence, and one so difficult of precise definition, that it offered many doubtful points affording ample opportunity of evasion by the adroit. Gregory XV had sought to be precise and explicit, but the ingenuity of casuists and evildoers continued to find exceptions and, in 1661, the Roman Inquisition rendered sixteen decisions on disputed points, but its ingenuity was baffled by so intricate a subject, and it was obliged to leave some matters rather darkened than illuminated.[225] Then it was pointed out that the papal briefs were silent as to handing love-letters to penitents during confession and, as everything not specifically prohibited was held to be licit, this was assumed to be allowable, until Alexander VII stamped the proposition as erroneous.[226] After this the perverted ingenuity of the casuists had free scope until, in 1741, Benedict XIV, in the solemn bull Sacramentum Pœnitentiæ, deplored that human wickedness was perverting to the destruction of souls that which God had instituted for their salvation. He renewed and confirmed the brief of Gregory XV, and added to its definitions all attempts in the confessional to lead penitents astray by signs, nods, touching, indecent words and writings, whether to be read there or subsequently. In eloquent words he warned all those in authority to see that the wandering sheep, endeavoring to re-enter the fold, should not be abandoned to the cruel beasts seeking their destruction, and he branded the sacrilegious seducers as ministers of Satan, rather than of Christ.[227] Still, it was only the technical heresy and not morality that was considered, and illicit relations between spiritual father and daughter, outside of the confessional, were left unpunished as before.
ABSOLUTION OF ACCOMPLICE
At the same time he endeavored to suppress the most flagrant abuse connected with solicitation—an abuse which, more than anything else, smoothed the path for the seducer—the absolution of the woman by her partner in guilt. Alexander VII, in 1665, had only gone so far as to condemn the proposition that this absolution relieved her from the obligation of denouncing her seducer—a proposition which proves how audacious were the laxer moralists of the period who asserted it.[228] Benedict now formally prohibited the guilty confessor from hearing the confession of his accomplice, except on the death-bed when no other confessor could be had; he deprived him of the power of granting absolution, which consequently was invalid, and the attempt to do so imposed ipso facto excommunication, strictly reserved to the Holy See.[229] As this excommunication suspended all the functions of the priest until removal, its observance would have gone far to check any abuse that was not incurable, but neither priest nor penitent paid to it the slightest attention. It is impossible to trace, in the business of the Spanish Inquisition, any result from Benedict’s well-meant legislation. Trials for solicitation continued as numerous as ever, and the only difference observable is that, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the sentences almost invariably assume that the culprit has incurred excommunication for absolving his accomplice; that, until he obtains absolution from this, he must abstain from using his functions, that he must consult his conscience as to his ministrations hitherto while under this irregularity, and that his penitents must be discreetly warned to repeat their confessions which, having been made to him, were invalid. This continued to the end and is a feature in the case of Fray Josef Montero, the last one sentenced by the Córdova tribunal, April 24, 1819.[230]
MORALITY DISREGARDED
It is no wonder that confessors endeavored to evade the technical definitions of the papal briefs for, if they could do so, no matter how heinous was their guilt there was practically no penalty. Juan Sánchez asserts that a priest who has commerce with his penitent is not obliged to specify the fact when making confession, for it is not incest and there is no papal prohibition of it.[231] All authorities, from that time to this, tell us that he can obtain absolution from any confessor, for it is not a reserved case, which shows the universal benignity of the bishops and the popes, who have the power of reserving to themselves the absolution of what sins they please.[232] It is easy to understand, therefore, how, in the trials, the inquisitors bent their energies to obtain definite evidence as to the exact location and time of the acts of solicitation, and how the accused sought to prove, not his innocence, but his dexterity in evading the definitions of the papal decrees. A suggestive example is the case of Doctor Pedro Mendizabal, cura of the parish of Santa Ana in the City of Mexico. He was denounced, June 21, 1809, by Doña María Guadalupe Rezeiro, by command of her confessor, when she stated that, in January, 1807, she made to him a general confession, too long to be finished in one day. On returning to his church to complete it, she was told to go up to his room, when he said he was too busy to listen to her. She retired but, on her way down stairs, his servant recalled her and, on entering his apartment, he threw his arms around her, professed ardent love and promised to support her if she would become his mistress, which she refused. As he had thus eluded the definitions of Benedict XIV, four calificadores out of six reported that he was not technically guilty of solicitation. The denunciation was filed away and, in 1817, there came another, of which he had warning in order that he might spontaneously accuse himself, as he did. It was from an attractive young girl of 17, and investigation developed four more cases of girls of whom he was confessor. Abundant evidence showed habitual indecent liberties—hugging, kissing, sitting in his lap, in presence of their families or even in public resorts. He had been ordered out of two houses and, on appeal to the archbishop, he had been forbidden to confess one of the girls who was a boarder in a convent. The distraction of the mother of the first accuser, endeavoring to save her daughter from one whose authority as a priest overawed her, is very touching and suggestive. Yet in all this there was no proof of anything in the act of confession—as one of the calificadores piously remarked, “God, in his goodness, preserved him from this.” Two calificadores argued at much length that he was not guilty of solicitation; then two others proved that he was guilty, and finally two more laboriously demonstrated that the first pair were correct. This is the last document in the case. It is dated November 3, 1819, and, as the Inquisition was suppressed in June, 1820, and as there is no endorsement on the record showing that the case was concluded, Mendizabal undoubtedly escaped to continue his corrupting career, especially as he had four out of six calificadores in his favor.[233]
The technicalities, which eliminated morality from consideration, resulted in curious contrasts. In November 1762, Fray Clemente de Cartagena went to Toledo to assist in the profession of his neice Gerónima, in the Bernardine convent, where he already had a sister. He and his sister were in the confessional near the altar, when some duty called her away and she told Gerónima to go to her uncle. She seated herself in the confessional, while he occupied the penitent’s place outside and, in an affectionate talk, he asked her to kiss him. The next day he said to her that he had forgotten at the moment that they were in the confessional; this made no impression on her, until she heard the nuns talking about the exceeding delicacy of such matters, and she consulted Fray Fernando de San Josef, who ordered her to denounce her uncle. This she did in writing, and Fray Fernando conveyed it to the tribunal, which duly took up the case. We shall see that prosecutions required two distinct and separate denunciations; inquiries, according to custom, were made of all the other tribunals; fortunately for Fray Clemente nothing was found against him and the case was suspended, but if there had been, or if subsequently he chanced to draw upon himself a denunciation, the innocent kiss to his neice would count as though he had deliberately seduced a penitent.[234] It was the spot and not the nature of the act that was decisive.
Against this may be set the case of Cristóbal Ximeno, parish priest of Manzanera, a brute who was in the habit of violating the young girls of his church, who came to his house for examination in the Doctrina Cristiana, as a preparation for communion at marriage, until mothers would not trust their daughters there alone. They were his penitents, but the outrage was not in the confessional and he had nothing to fear under the papal decrees. At length, however, he made himself liable to the Inquisition by pretending to confess Pasquala Torres, at her marriage, without absolving her and then, when administering communion to her and her bridegroom, dropping the host into the ciborium—a sacrilege for which he was duly punished by the Valencia tribunal.[235] So complete, indeed, is the dissociation of morals and solicitation, that some doctors hold that, when a priest is confessing a sick woman, if she falls into delirium or stupor, he can violate her without exposing himself to denunciation. It is satisfactory, however, to be told that the weight of authority is opposed to this opinion.[236]
FLAGELLATION
Yet there was one species of abuse of the confessional, not contemplated in the papal briefs, which the Spanish Inquisition, by a somewhat forced construction, classed with solicitation. This, which was known as flagellation, consisted in imposing penance of the discipline and administering it on the spot, or letting the penitent administer it herself, in either case requiring her to disrobe and expose herself to a greater or less degree. Sometimes this was mingled with the debased mystic ardor, of which we have seen examples above, leading both parties to expose themselves and lash one another. The earliest case that I have met of this occurred in 1606, at Nájera, when María Escudero, a widow aged 40, testified that she had long confessed to the Franciscan Fray Diego de Burgos. They exchanged vows of obedience to each other; he would visit her in her house when they would discipline each other with exposure almost complete, under agreement that their eyes should be kept closed. Then he introduced a pious exercise still more indecent, but he was always scrupulously correct in the confessional. She chanced to make a general confession to another priest who refused absolution unless she would denounce Fray Diego. The case was evidently novel and dragged on until 1609, when it reached the Suprema, which submitted the matter to two calificadores. One opined that the acts savored of the heresy of the Adamites and Alumbrados; the other attributed it merely to imprudent simplicity and ignorance. Apparently there was no precedent for guidance and the case seems to have been suspended.[237] A parallel case, with a different ending, was one in which there were a number of women concerned and the practices were foul almost beyond belief. The priest was an ignorant and simple man who, by the advice of another confessor, came with the women to denounce themselves. He was sentenced to rigid reclusion in a convent, where he died after giving a most edifying example, and the women were not prosecuted, as they were mostly barefooted Carmelites and Capuchins.[238]