As for us, daughters and wives from Montreal who have known by experience the filth of the confessional, we cannot sufficiently bless God for having shown us the error of our ways in teaching us that it was not at the feet of a man as weak and as sinful as ourselves, but at the feet of Christ alone that we must seek salvation.
Julia Herbert,
Marie Rogers,
J. Rocham,
Louise Picard,
Francoise Dirringer,
Eugenie Martin, and
forty-three others.[102]
In reply to a letter of inquiry addressed by myself to Rev. Mr. Chiniquy, the following answer was received.
St. Anne, Kankakee County, Illinois
January 4, 1887
Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Madam
In answer to your honored letter of the 29th Dec. I hasten to say: First. The women of Montreal signed the declaration you see in ‘The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional,’ in the fall of 1877. I do not remember the day. Second. As it is ten years since I left Montreal to come to my Missionary field of Illinois, I could not say if these women are still in Montreal or not. Great, supreme efforts were secretly made by the Bishop of Montreal to show that these names were forged in order to answer and confound me, but the poor Bishop found that the document was too correct, authentic and public to be answered and attacked, and he remained mute and confounded, for many of these women were well known in the city.
Third. You will find the answer to your other questions, in the volume ‘Fifty Years in the Church of Rome,’ which I addressed you by today’s mail.
Respectfully yours in Christ,
C. Chiniquy
The same assertion of priestly infallibility is made today as it was centuries ago, the same declaration of change of nature through priestly celibacy. Upon this question Mr. Chiniquy says:
If any one wants to hear an eloquent oration let him go where the Roman Catholic priest is preaching on the divine institution of auricular confession.