Priests, Women, and Families

by Jules Michelet

As soon as he is with her, on the contrary, how tranquil she becomes! How he comforts her with one word! How easily he resolves all her scruples! She is well rewarded for having waited and obeyed, and being ever ready to obey. She now feels that obedience is better than any virtue.

Well! let her only be discreet, and she will be led still further. "She must not, when she sins, be uneasy about it; for should she be grieved at it, it would be a sign that she still possessed a leaven of pride. It is the devil, who, to hinder us in our spiritual path, makes us busy with our backslidings. Would it not be foolish for him who runs to stop when he falls, and weep like a child, instead of pursuing his course? These falls have the excellent effect of preserving us from pride, which is the greatest fall of all. God makes virtues of our vices, and these very vices, by which the devil thought to cast us into the pit, become a ladder to mount to heaven."[[2]]

This doctrine was well received. Molinos had the tact to publish, at the same time, another book, that might serve as a passport to this, a treatise on Daily Communion, directed against the Jansenists and Arnaud's great work. The Spiritual Guide was examined with all the favour that Rome could show to the enemy of her enemies. There was scarcely any Religious Order that did not approve of it. The Roman Inquisition gave it three approbations by three of its members, a Jesuit, a Carmelite, and the general of the Franciscans. The Spanish Inquisition approved of it twice;—first, by the general examiner of the order of the Capuchins; and, secondly, by a Trinitarian, the Archbishop of Reggio. It was prefaced with an enthusiastic and extravagant eulogy by the Archbishop of Palermo.

The Quietists must have been at that time very strong in Rome, since one of them, Cardinal Bona, was on the point of being made pope.

The tide turned, contrary to every expectation. The great Gallic tempest of 1682, which, for nearly ten years, interrupted the connection between France and the Holy See, and showed how easily one may dispense with Rome, obliged the pope to raise the moral dignity of the pontificate, by acts of severity. The lash fell especially upon the Jesuits and their friends. Innocent XI. pronounced a solemn condemnation upon the casuists, though rather too late, as these people had been crushed twenty years before by Pascal. But Quietism still flourished: the Franciscans and Jesuits had taken it into favour; the Dominicans were therefore averse to it. Molinos, in his Manuel, had considerably reduced the merits of St. Dominic, and pretended that St. Thomas, when dying, confessed that he had not, up to that time, written anything good. Accordingly, of all the great Religious Orders, that of the Dominicans was the only one which refused its approbation to Molinos' Guide.

The book and its author, examined under this new influence, appeared horribly guilty. The Inquisition of Rome, without taking any notice of the approbations granted twelve years before by their examiners, condemned the Guide, together with some propositions not contained in it, but which they extracted from the examination of Molinos, or from his teaching. This one is not the least curious: "God, to humble us, permits, in certain perfect souls (well enlightened and in their lucid state), that the devil should make them commit certain carnal acts. In this case, and in others, which, without the permission of God, would be guilty, there is no sin, because there is no consent. It may happen, that those violent movements, which excite to carnal acts, may take place in two persons, a man and a woman, at the same moment."[[3]]

This case happened to Molinos himself, and much too often. He underwent a public penance, humbled himself for his morals, and did not defend his doctrine: this saved him. The inquisitors, who had formerly approved of him, must have been themselves much embarrassed about this trial. He was treated with leniency, and only imprisoned, whilst two of his disciples, who had only faithfully applied his doctrine, were burned alive without pity. One was a curate of Dijon, the other a priest of Tudela in Navarre.

How can we be surprised that such a theory should have had such results in morals? It would be much more astonishing if it had not. Besides, these immoral results do not proceed exclusively from Molinosism, a doctrine at once imprudent and too evident, and which they would take good care not to profess. They spring naturally from every practical direction that lulls the will, taking from the person this natural guardian, and exposing him thus prostrate to the mercy of him who watches over the sick couch. The tale told more than once by the middle ages, and which casuists have examined so coldly, the violation of the dead, we here meet with again. The person is left as defenceless by the death of the will, as by physical death.

The Archbishop of Palermo, in his Pindaric eulogy of the Spiritual Guide, says that this admirable book is most especially suitable to the direction of nuns. The advice was understood, and turned to account, especially in Spain. From that saying of Molinos, "That sins, being an occasion of humility, serve as a ladder to mount to heaven," the Molinosists drew this consequence—the more we sin the higher we ascend.

There was among the Carmelites of Lerma a holy woman, Mother Agueda, esteemed as a saint. People went to her from all the neighbouring provinces, to get her to cure the sick. A convent was founded on the spot that had been so fortunate as to give her birth. There, in the church, they adored her portrait placed within the choir; and there she cured those who were brought to her, by applying to them certain miraculous stones which she brought forth, as they said, with pains similar to those of childbirth. This miracle lasted twenty years. At last the report spread that these confinements were but too true, and that she was really delivered. The inquisition of Logrogno having made a visit to the convent, arrested Mother Agueda, and questioned the other nuns, among whom was the young niece of the Saint, Donna Vincenta. The latter confessed, without any prevarication, the commerce that her aunt, herself, and the others had had with the provincial of the Carmelites, the prior of Lerma, and other friars of the first rank. The Saint had been confined five times, and her niece showed the place where the children had been killed and buried the moment they were born. They found the skeletons.