This seems to us quite enough. The Catholic will perceive that our learned friend is not very well posted on Catholic matters. He evidently confounds sacramental absolution with indulgences, and indulgences with the dispensations which the church grants in particular cases, not from the law of God, nor the law of nature, but from her own ecclesiastical law; and supposes that the fees paid to the chancery for the necessary legal documents in the various causes that come before it, are the fees paid by the faithful for indulgences and the pardon of their sins. [Footnote 53] A man who speaks of matters of which he knows nothing is liable to say some very absurd things. Nevertheless, the preacher says expressly, and we doubt not means to concede the point made by the tract, that indulgences are not licenses to commit sin, but he has labored to make his concession as little offensive to his Protestant brethren as possible. Still he concedes it. "I think, therefore," he says, "that the author of this tract is right in claiming that it is not just to assert that the Catholic Church grants any indulgence or permission to commit sin." No, she does no such thing, she only "intimates beforehand her willingness, if such and such crimes are committed, to make it all right with the malefactor both in this world and the world to come, for penitence—and CASH." He who should offer cash to pay for absolution would receive for answer, "Thy money perish with thee!"
[Footnote 53: For a full proof of the forgery of the above passage in the book called Tax-Book of the Roman Chancery, see Bishop England's Letters to Dr. Fuller, Works of Bishop England, vol. iii. p. 13.]
"Is IT HONEST to repeat over and over again that Catholics pay the priests to pardon their sins—such a thing is unheard of anywhere in the Catholic Church—when any transaction of the kind is stigmatized as a grievous sin, and ranked along with murder, adultery, blasphemy, etc., in every catechism and work on Catholic theology?"
The preacher thinks it is very honest, because, if the church prohibits and punishes it as simony, it is very evident that it sometimes happens. If the offence had never been committed, the church would never have had occasion to legislate on the matter. It was argued that for a long time the crime of parricide was unknown at Rome, because there was no law prohibiting and punishing it. This is his answer, and a proof, we suppose, of his candor of which he boasts, of his readiness to die rather than knowingly repeat a false charge against the church! The real accusation against the church, which the tract denies can be honestly made, is that Catholics are required to pay, or that the priest can lawfully exact pay, for the pardon or absolution he pronounces in the sacrament of penance. It does not necessarily deny that the thing may sometimes be done, but, if so, it is unlawfully, is a sin, and ranked along with murder, adultery, etc. The sin of simony, in one form or another, has in the history of the church often been committed, and those who committed it are, in general, favorites with Protestant historians, who seldom fail to brand as haughty tyrants and spiritual despots the noble and virtuous popes who struggled energetically against it, and did their best to correct or guard against the evil. But honest men will not hold the church responsible for the misdeeds of unprincipled men, which she prohibits and exerts all the power of her discipline to prevent and punish. The case is too plain to need argument. Penance, the church teaches, is a sacrament, of which absolution is a part, and to sell any sacrament or part thereof is simony, a grievous sin; and though there is no sin that may not have been committed, yet the fact of a priest, however depraved, demanding pay for sacramental pardon or absolution is not known to have ever occurred. The church prohibits it, indeed, but only in prohibiting simony, and we are not aware that she has ever passed any special law against this particular species of simony, and therefore the argument of the preacher falls to the ground, and for aught he shows, it is true to the letter that the thing is unheard of.
"Is IT HONEST to persist in saying that Catholics believe that their sins are forgiven merely by the confession of them to the priest, without a true sorrow for them, or a true purpose to quit them—when every child finds the contrary distinctly and clearly stated in the catechism, which he is obliged to learn before he can be admitted to the sacraments? Any honest man can verify this statement by examining any Catholic catechism."
"Nothing," says the preacher, "could be more conclusive than this logic, if we could constantly presume that the belief and practice of the people always coincide exactly with the teaching of the catechism." If the coincidence were perfect, there would be no sins to confess, no need of the sacrament of penance, and no question as to the condition of ghostly absolution or pardon could ever be raised. But as the preacher finds nothing to object to under this head in the teaching or official practice of the church, we must presume that he finds the logic of the tract, whatever may be the deceptions, if any, practised upon the priest, is quite conclusive, and he certainly concedes quite enough to show that the accusation against the church which the tract repels, cannot be honestly repeated. We would remind the preacher that no one is forced against his will to go to confession, and the very fact of one's going is presumptive proof of sincere sorrow for his sins, and a resolution, weaker or stronger, God helping him, to forsake them. Why should he seek to deceive the priest, when he knows that if he seeks to do so, he would not only receive no benefit from the absolution, but would commit the grievous sin of sacrilege by profaning the sacrament?
"Is IT HONEST to say that Catholics believe that man, by his own power, can forgive sin—when the priest is regarded by the Catholic Church only as the agent of our Lord Jesus Christ, acting by the power delegated to him, according to these words, 'Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained?' St John xx. 23."
The preacher has offered no reply, or, if he has, we have overlooked it, to this grave accusation; perhaps he has none to make. The journals, however, attempt a reply, the purport of which is, that, though the tract states truly the official teaching of the church, yet Catholics practically believe, as every one knows who has had intercourse with them, that it is the priest, not God, who they believe pardons sin. This, too, is in substance the reply of Mr. Bacon throughout. The tract states the doctrine of the church correctly on all the points made, but then that, it is pretended, is not the doctrine of the Catholic people, the practical doctrine of Catholics, and gives no clue to the practical workings of the Roman system—a clear confession that they really have nothing to object to Catholic doctrine and practice, though they have much to object to in what is no doctrine or teaching or practice of the church. The reason of this, we suppose, is, that they have no conception of the church. Now, we think it is very likely that there are many Catholics who cannot define very scholastically the distinction between efficient cause and instrumental or medial cause; but put the question to the most ignorant Catholic you can find. "Do you believe the priest as a man in confession pardons your sins?" as soon as he gets hold of what you are driving at, he will answer: "No; he pardons or absolves them as a priest." This answer means that the priest does not absolve by a virtue in him as a man, but by virtue of his priestly office, to which he is appointed by the Holy Ghost; that is, as the minister, or as the tract says, the agent of our Lord Jesus Christ. All Catholics unhappily do not conform their life to their faith; but you will find that the faith of the people is that of the church, that which the church officially teaches; and there is no room for the distinction which non-Catholic ministers and journals, try, as their best resort in self-vindication, to make between Catholicity in the formularies of the church and the Catholicity that works practically in the faith and lives of the Catholic people, whether learned or unlearned. All this talk about the practical workings of the system is moonshine, at least outside of the record, to which no Catholic is bound to reply. We are required to believe and defend only what the church teaches and requires of her children:
8. The tract concludes with the question,