Let me make this more plain by supposing a case or two, by way of illustration. Suppose the Popish bishop of New York were a young, athletic, amorous man; suppose he fixed his eye upon a young married woman, or some fascinating lady of his flock—the supposition is a very wild one, I admit—suppose he try to seduce one or either at the confessional, and she reject his criminal overtures,—how would his Popish lordship act on this occasion? He always has at his elbow some friar, and that friar a foreigner, whom he directs to go, instanter, and hear the confession of those ladies. The friar knows his duty too well to disobey the orders of the Pope's viceroy in New York, and the whole affair is hushed up, perfectly to the satisfaction of the ladies, who are absolved from their sins, and entirely to that of his lordship, who Knows full well that the affair will never be heard of again. This friar is a sort of spiritual rover, and as soon as he has done his business in New York, is despatched to Boston, or elsewhere, until he visits perhaps every diocese in the Union. He then returns home to Rome, never to visit this country again. Another is sent in his place, and thus the work of seduction and immorality goes on, from year to year, in Popish confessionals, and almost under our very eyes, without our knowledge, while the guilty monsters, priests and bishops, are rioting at our hospitable tables, feasting upon our richest viands, and sipping our oldest wines. Things are so arranged in the Popish church, that the crimes of the priests in or out of the confessional, are seldom known to the great mass of the people. Such are the means adopted by the church of Rome to cloak and conceal from the public eye the profligacies of her priests and bishops, that it is almost impossible to detect these culprits and bring them to legal punishment. If, for instance, a priest commit a crime in Boston, which the representative of the Popish church in that city thinks may, by possibility, come to light, and throw any discredit upon the church, or diminish his own personal influence in that city, funds are placed in his hands by the church, to meet the expenses of removing him to any part of the world he chooses, and the guilty priest needs only what is technically called an exeat, to insure him a warm reception from any Popish bishop in the universe. It is a general practice of the bishops in the Romish church, to exchange guilty priests with each other; they are very punctual in reciprocating such favors. When nuns or Roman Catholic females commit crimes in convents, which can no longer be concealed, the holy and infallible church provides means for their instant removal to a different diocese. But should they still persevere in their iniquities, and should it be found impossible to prevent further illicit intercourse between them and their confessors, means are provided to send them to some foreign country. We have now several foreign nuns in the United States. By foreign nuns I do not mean foreigners who became nuns in this country. I mean those who became nuns in foreign countries, and who have been sent amongst us as such, for the purpose of educating our children, and educating them in the doctrines of their pure religion. And I positively assert, to the best of my own belief, and partly of my own personal knowledge, that there is not to be found among them an individual, much of whose previous life has not been spent in criminal intercourse and illicit connexion with their confessors and priests. This is no random assertion of mine. I make the allegation with shame and sorrow, but the cause of truth demands it; and justice to my fellow citizens who are in the habit of sending their children to school to these consummate hypocrites, renders it imperative upon me that I should declare the truth, however unpalatable it may be.
Will the reader indulge me, while I quote a passage or two from the London Quarterly Review, for June, 1844? The editors of that periodical are gentlemen of great respectability, and men of well-established veracity, whose statements confirm some of my assertions. "The heads of the Church themselves, admit the liability of abuse through the confessional, and frequent exhortations are published, desiring all women, who have improper solicitations made to them there, to denounce the confessor; but a moment's consideration will show the inutility of this exhortation; and one instance, which we shall give, must suffice for all. An Italian gentleman of our acquaintance, removed with his family, from the place of his nativity, to a town in another State; soon after their arrival the wife went to the confessional, in the parish church, where improper proposals were made to her; she ran home and acquainted her husband; he made a formal complaint to the proper authorities, in her name; a day was appointed for the examination of the charge; and when the time arrived, the lady naturally declined to appear. It is obvious that just in proportion as the person offended, is delicate, and the offence gross, there will be the greater difficulty in inducing the complainant to come forward." The truth of this is obvious to all, and here lies one great security against detecting a licentious and criminal priest. Were it not for this, our citizens would hoot at them as they walked our streets. Were it not for this, Popish priests and confessors would never be admitted into their houses, or occupy a seat at the table of any decent or virtuous family. I know so well, of my own knowledge, the nature of those questions and solicitations, that are offered by Popish priests to women in the confessional, that I can scarcely believe any woman could be found, who would appear in the presence of men, or before any tribunal, civil or ecclesiastical, and repeat the language by which her ears have been insulted.
Popish priests understand human nature well; they know the timid and shrinking disposition of a virtuous woman. They feel that they are safe from public prosecution, so long as their solicitations and criminal overtures are known only to women of reputation. If it were not for this, our criminal courts could not contain the number of those reverend wretches, among Popish priests, who should appear before our criminal tribunals. Even Roman Catholic laymen, of rank and intelligence, have no idea of the enormities committed by their priests. Effectual means are taken, by the Church of Rome, to conceal their enormities from the public eye. The extent of immorality is so great in Catholic countries, in Germany, France, and, sub rosa, in Ireland, that it is considered an evidence of prudence, in a priest, to keep a mistress, rather than be a public scandal. It is thought by the Irish that their priests are peculiarly chaste and virtuous; they boast of this. I know the Irish priests as well as any other man living; I have lived among them; I was one of them; I acted as a confessor among them, and held in that capacity a higher position than any of my age in the country; and I solemnly declare, that I never knew a chaste man among them. Every parish priest that ever I knew in Ireland, kept a mistress whom he called a housekeeper, or some female whose duty or whose apparent business it seemed to be, to superintend his wardrobe or some such thing; but such is the credulity of the poor Irish, and such their idolatrous veneration for their priests, that I really believe, if they detected one of them in flagranti crimine, they would not credit the testimony of their own senses. It occurs, sometimes,—though very seldom,—that one of those Irish priests is detected; the punishment, in that case, is simply his removal to another parish. I have known immoralities committed in the houses of Irish parish priests, so heinous that they cannot be put to paper; and yet the poor Irish Catholics, who seem fated to be the victims of every species of delusion and imposture, look upon their priests as perfect models of piety-; and consider their agent, Daniel O'Connell,—that enemy of peace and happiness,—as one of the most perfect specimens of patriotism that ever basked in the pure air of freedom. The poor Irish believe, most implicitly, in the necessity of Auricular Confession; and such is their delusion, that many of them, even in this country, will not be persuaded, at this day, that their priests take any pay for absolving them from their sins and forgiving their crimes. It is not many days ago since a respectable physician in Boston told me that an Irish Roman Catholic, in that city, offered to bet him five hundred dollars that Roman Catholic priests demanded no pay for pardoning sins. Can this be delusion, or infatuation, or is it a species of witchery that thus deceives, enchains, and blinds a people, in all other respects of quick imagination and natural talents? I am free to confess, that I know not how to account for it myself. I am perfectly at a loss what to call it; but there it is, strange as it may appear.
I would ask that gentleman who offered to make the above bet, or any other Roman Catholic who ever lived in Ireland, whether he has heard of such a thing as stations of confession, which are held two or three times a year by every parish priest in Ireland; or whether he has ever heard of such a thing as the Viaticum, which is given to the sick, after confession, and in arliculo mortis. I cannot suppose that there is, in this country, an Irish Roman Catholic who has not seen and heard of both, and who does not know that these are modes and practices adopted by Irish priests for the purpose of collecting payment for the pardon of sins. There are regulations published in each diocese in Ireland, and put forth among the priests, by episcopal authority, regulating clerical dues. Specific sums are laid down for mass, and for auricular confession,—which the Church of Rome calls a sacrament, by the name of penance,—for marriage, for baptism, extreme unction, &c. The parish priest selects two or more houses in each parish,—invariably those the most wealthy among the farmers,—and gives notice from the altar, the Sunday previous, that on a certain day, of the coming week, he will hold a station of confession at the house of A————; this notice is equivalent to saying,—and is understood in no other sense, all of you who have not come to confession for a certain time, or who wish to go to confession now, come forward and pay me my dues. The wily priest never says, come and pay me for pardoning your sins; that would never do. Protestants may hear it, and it would surely go abroad that Irish priests were not entirely disinterested, and that they could no more live by prayer alone than other people. I have, by order of the parish priest, for whom I acted as curate during a short time, held many of those stations of confession, and never did a Yankee pedler drive a harder bargain with his customers, than I was compelled to make with those who came to confession to me, for payment for pardoning their sins; 'crediti amici,' however strange the declaration may appear to you; I have been ordered by the same Popish priest, in Ireland, to administer what is called, in Popish parlance, the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and to give to the dying patient the Viaticum; I have done so hundreds of times, but never until, by order of the same priest, payment was made to me in advance, whenever there was the least doubt of the ability of the patient or his friends to pay. Before the Viaticum is given, or permitted to be given by the Irish bishops, it is required that the dying sinner should confess; for be it known, the poor Irish Catholic is persuaded, that this Viaticum or wafer, made of flour and water, is the great God himself. The Viaticum is contained in a small box, called a pixis, and large enough to contain from ten to fifty of these wafers or Gods, and is carried in the breeches pocket of the priest. Do not laugh, American Protestants, or imagine that I am dealing in fables; I have gone, hundreds of times, to hear the confessions of dying Irish Papists, and given them one of these Viaticums or Gods, fifty or sixty of which, I have often carried at a time in my pocket My orders were, upon all occasions, never to give absolution or the Viaticum, to any one, until payment was first insured to me; otherwise I had to pay the parish priest out of my own funds. Scenes which take place on such occasions, are truly heart-rending. The poor sick and simple Irish Catholic, believes that he shall be damned to all eternity, if he is not anointed and forgiven his sins by the priest. He would cheerfully pay him if he had the means; he would cheerfully sell the blanket that shelters him from the cold blasts of winter, to pay the hard-hearted priest; but the blanket is often worth nothing, is often but a filthy, lousy rag, such as no American can form the least conception of, though the well-fed priest lives in luxury. I have known some curates in Ireland, who had no means of their own, to take the chickens, the ducks, or turkeys of poor men whom they anointed, and who had no money to pay the priest for pardoning their sins, and tie the legs of those fowls together, throwing them across their saddles, and carrying them home to pay the parish priest The poor curate perhaps was not worth a dollar, and dare not return to the priest without bringing with him his dues.
It is extremely unpleasant to dwell upon the disgusting scenes which are daily witnessed in the sick rooms of the Irish peasantry. The idea of dying without obtaining absolution and extreme unction from a Roman Catholic priest, is agonizing and intolerable to a poor Irish Papist, and it is considered as an everlasting stigma even upon his posterity. Every effort is therefore made to procure a shilling, which is the minimum charge made by a priest for administering extreme unction. Any man may judge of the feelings and mental distress of a dying man who believes that he has not an hour longer to live, and that his eternal salvation depends upon the absolution of his sins and the application of extreme unction, or blessed oil, by his priest. But the dying individual is not the only one who suffers; the wife, the children, and grandchildren, participate in his mental sufferings; and those warm-hearted creatures would give, and do give, the last potato from their table, or the last basket of turf in their possession, to a priest, rather than witness any longer the sufferings of the dying parent. It must seem strange that this people should not make some effort to shake off the chains with which their priests have bound them to the car of Popery; but they will not. Such is the influence of superstition over their minds, that they will suffer on forever, unless Protestant Christians do something to relieve them. The Protestant government of Great Britain would willingly break those chains which bind this generous and warm-hearted people to Popery, but they will not have them broken. The Popish bishops of Ireland have recently refused to accept the provision which the Protestant government of Great Britain seems willing to make for the support of the Roman Catholic church and priests in Ireland. That demon in human shape—that traitor in the guise of a patriot and Christian—Daniel O'Connell, advises the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland not to accept the state provision which Great Britain is willing to make for the priests of the Irish Catholic church. This man's drafts upon the credulity of mankind are very large—so large that I believe they cannot be honored much longer. Why do Irish priests refuse the state provision which Great Britain is willing to make for them? Why do they not accept it from that source, rather than drag it from the poor, in shillings, in chickens, ducks, turkies, barrels of potatoes, pounds of butter, cishes of turf, &c. &c.? Why does Daniel O'Connell advise them, in his traitorous harangues, not to receive the liberal provision which the British government seems willing to make for them? The reason is plain to the most careless and superficial thinker. The traitor knows very well that the ultimate success of all his ambitious designs depends upon the cooperation of the Popish church and its priests in Ireland. He knows full well that if the priests were paid by the State, they would lose their influence with the people, and that he would lose the cooperation of both in his treacherous designs to overthrow Protestant governments and Protestant religion in England and elsewhere. Disguise it as he may, cover it over with Jesuitical varnish of what thickness or depth be pleases, it is evident that the overthrow of Protestantism in Church and State is the grand object which O'Connell and the Popish church have in view, in their present movements, both in Ireland and in the United States. The Popish bishops and O'Connell are aware that the moment the parish priests and curates of Ireland were paid their dues, they (the bishops and O'Connell) must lose their influence with the great mass of the people. This is evident to myself. But what sort of influence would they lose? Must they lose that influence which a Christian minister of the gospel would like to possess over his flock, and which every good man likes to see in all evangelical religions? I answer in the negative, and I challenge fair contradiction. They could lose nothing which a pious Christian or a good citizen would desire to retain. They could only lose their influence as rebels to God and traitors to the rights of man.
Will Americans reflect for a moment that we have about three millions of the disciples of O'Connell and Popish bishops in this country? Let every lover of our constitution ponder seriously upon this fact.
How do Popish bishops persuade their people to blind submission to their will, and to the will of the traitor O'Connell? It is done through the confessional.
That is the channel through which the poison of treason and idolatry is infused into the minds of Papists. But let that O'Connell take heed, lest the fate of Dante, once as good a Roman Catholic as himself, should overtake him. Apropos, Corporal Brownson, Bishop Fenwick's mouth-piece in Boston, makes a boast of the fact that Dante was a Roman Catholic, and assures us that he was an honor to the Popish Church. I wonder whether the Corporal has ever read Dante's poem on Hell? If he has, I would advise him to have written on the door of every Popish confessional, that caution which Dante recommended to be posted on its portals. I have not a copy of Dante in my possession, but it was something to this effect, "Pause before you enter this gate" This caution should be written in large letters upon the door of every Romish confessional in the civilized world. I can assure those who enter that accursed tribunal, that they may as well enter the hell described by Dante. I owe an apology to the public for the frequent mention of the name of Brownson, in these pages; but he has proved to me so great and prolific a source of mixed sadness and merriment, that I could not avoid frequent allusion to his name. I verily believe that were it not for him, I could scarcely write the present volume.
"Without thee [Corporal Browson ] nothing lofty could I sing; Come, then, and with thyself thy genius bring."
The Corporal, I understand, is now lecturing in Philadelphia, on the infallibility of the Romish church,—and the simple purity of its democratic form of government.