Popery! As It Was and as It Is. Also, Auricular Confession; And Popish Nunneries

by William Hogan

To the professed infidel I have nothing to say. To him, who mocks and scoffs at the Triune God, I will attach no blame; with him I have nothing in common, further than brotherhood of the same species; but I must appeal to the Christian, and seriously ask him, Why do you encourage such blasphemy as this address to the Virgin Mary? Why do you encourage its propagation amongst your brethren? Why do you hold communion with those who utter it? Would the primitive Christians, if they now lived, hold any communion with idolaters? Would they contribute their money to build temples for Isis and Dagon? Would they basely bend the knee to the golden calf of old? No. Sooner—much sooner—would they lay their heads upon the block. They would look upon it as a denial of their God, and a recantation of their faith in him. Would your Puritan forefathers give the right hand of fellowship to the worshippers of a wooden image? Would they give their money to a priest, to build churches, and teach his followers that they could hew out for them images of wood, possessing power to work miracles, or in other words, to change the laws of nature, which the Eternal Law-Maker alone can change or suspend?

Custom, the point of the bayonet, or even that cruel tyrant, early education, may enforce such idolatry on the Old World; but the free-born American, unbiassed by education—unawed by tyrants—has no apology. His submission to such doctrines is an unqualified surrender of his reason, his religion, and the liberties of his country.

When the star of our independence first arose, it was hailed by the Christian philosophers of the old world, as a foreshadowing of the downfall of tyranny, superstition, and idolatry. They looked upon it as fatal to the bastard Paganism, taught in the Popish church; but what must be their astonishment, if permitted at the present day to look down upon our country, and see our people practising that same Paganism, nicknamed Christianity, and asking from our government protection—a privilege which the framers of our constitution never intended should be extended to tyrants or idolaters!

Here I would stop, and never more put pen to paper, for or against Popery, did I not see many of my fellow-citizens, possessing the finest minds and precious souls, falling victims to the sophistry, ingenuity, and quibbling casuistry of Popish priests and bishops.

It is not long since I saw a letter from the Roman Catholic bishop Fenwick, of the diocese of Massachusetts, in which he informs the authorities of Rome that he is making converts from some of the first families in his diocese. This, I presume, is correct, and these are the very individuals most easily imposed upon. They know nothing of Popery. They are not aware that Papists have two sides to the picture, which they exhibit of their church. One is fair, brilliant, dazzling, and seductive. Nothing is seen in their external forms of worship but showy vestments, dazzling tights, and the appearance of great devotion. Nothing is heard but the softest and most melting strains of music. No wonder these should captivate minds which are strangers to guilt; nor is it strange that they should bring into their church those who are most guilty, in the full assurance that their guilt shall be forgiven, and their crimes effaced from the records of heaven, by only confessing them to one of their priests.

Will the heads of those respectable families, to whom Bishop Fenwick alludes, and from whom he is making so many converts, permit me to ask them, whether they have ever reflected upon what they were doing, in permitting Romish priests to come among them? I have myself been a Catholic priest, as I have more than once stated; I am without any prejudice whatever. If I know myself, I would do an injustice to no man; but I hesitate not to tell those heads of families, whether they are the parents or guardians of those converts to the Romish church, of whom mention is made, that if they have not used all their authority with which the laws of nature and of the land invests them, to prevent these conversions, they are highly culpable. If they are parents, they have become the moral assassins of their own children, and perhaps their own wives. Do any of those fathers know the questions which a Romish priest puts to those children, at confession? Do husbands know the questions which priests put to their wives, at confession? Though a married man, I would blush to mention the least of them.

Though not so fastidious as others, I cannot even think of them, much less name them, without a downcast eye and crimsoned cheek, and particularly those which are put to young and unmarried ladies.

Fathers, mothers, guardians, and husbands of these converts, fancy to yourselves the most indelicate, immodest, and libidinous questions which the most immoral and profligate mind can conceive!!!!! fancy those ideas put into plain English, and that by way of question and answer—and you will then have a faint conception of the conversation which takes place between a pampered Romish priest and your hitherto pure-minded daughters. If, after two or three of these examinations, in that sacred tribunal, they still continue virtuous, they are rare exceptions. After an experience of some years in that church, sooner—far sooner—would I see my daughters consigned to the grave, than see them go to confession to a Romish priest or bishop. One is not a whit better than the other. They mutually confess to each other.

It was not my intention, when I commenced this work, to enter into any thing like a discussion of the doctrines maintained by the Romish church. My sole object was to call the attention of American Republicans to the dangers which were to be apprehended, and would inevitably follow, from the encouragement which they are giving to Popery amongst them. I have, however, deviated a little from my first intention, in more than one instance; but I trust, not without some advantage to many of my readers. I am aware that I have exposed myself to the charge of carelessness and indifference to public opinion, in not paying more attention to the construction and order of my sentences. Did I write for fame, or the applause of this world, I would have been more careful; but, as my object is only to state facts, in language so plain that none can misunderstand it, I have no doubt the reader will pardon any defects which he may find in the language, or want of consecutiveness in the statements, which these pages contain.

I will now ask the attention of the reader, for a few moments, to the Popish doctrine of Indulgences; and I do so because priests and bishops deny that such things as indulgences are now either taught or granted to Catholics. They say from their pulpits and altars that indulgences are neither * bought nor sold by Catholics, and never were.