If the reader cares to know the danger and the degradation to woman fostered and protected through the Confessional by the Celibate Roman priesthood, he should read “The History of Auricular Confession,” by De Lasteyrie, translated into English and printed in London in 1848. Now and then a Pope or a council undertook to institute reform, but found, as in Spain, prostitution of women by priests through the confessional so widespread and universal that they more often gave up the attempt through fear of scandal and contempt for the Church itself.
Lecky, in his “History of European Morals,” records the case of “the abbot-elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, who in 1171 was found on investigation to have seventeen illegitimate children in a single village; or, an abbot of St. Pelayo, in Spain, who in 1130 was proved to have kept no less than seventy concubines; or Henry III, Bishop of Liège, who was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five illegitimate children.” (History of European Morals. P. 350.)
If the reader remarks that “this is ancient history,” he should remember that a celibate priesthood to-day have the same opportunity, through the secrecy and power of the Confessional, as ever.
I have barely touched on this disgusting but all-important question on the general thesis of Jacolliot, viz.: “The first result of the baneful domination of priests in India was the abasement and moral degradation of woman.”
Rome, who derived her religious code from paganized Egypt, added celibacy to the opportunities and inducements for the degradation of woman. Rome never attained the heights from which the Brahman priesthood plunged into debauchery. Even to-day in the festivals in the Brahman temples wholesale orgies of prostitution are sometimes found, as witnessed and recorded by Jacolliot. From the first, Brahman priests have married and reared families. Their degradation and debauchery, therefore, cannot be charged to their original “Divine Revelation,” but to their corruption of it.
I have given a few brief quotations among hundreds recorded by Jacolliot as to the respect and veneration accorded to woman in early Vedic times, and in the Laws of Manu.
“The Brahman may not approach the altar of sacrifice but with a soul pure, in a body undefiled.
“Spirituous liquors beget drunkenness, neglect of duty, and they profane prayer.
“The antiquity of India stands forth to establish its priority of religious legislation in prohibiting to priests the use of spirituous liquors, and especially in forbidding the pleasures of love when they are about to offer sacrifice.
“The woman whose words and thoughts and person are pure is a celestial balm.