Hence it is that priests, in France and elsewhere, have gold
watches, rich house furniture, and interesting books, purchased
with the money paid by our poor deluded Canadian Catholics to
their priests for masses which are turned into mercantile commodities
in other places. It would be difficult to say who makes
the best bargain between those merchants of masses, the priests
to whom they are sold, or those from whom they are bought at
a discount of twenty-five to thirty per cent.
The only evident thing is the cruel deception practiced on the
credulity and ignorance of the Roman Catholics by their priests
and bishops. To-day, the houses of Dr. Anthony Levesques in
Paris are the most accredited in France. In 1874, the house of
Mesme was doing an immense business with its stock of masses,
but in an evil day, the Government suspected that the number of
masses paid into their hands, exceeded the number of those celebrated
through their hired priests. The suspicion soon turned
into certainty when the books were examined. It was then
found that an incredible number of masses, which were to empty
the large room of purgatory, never reached their destination, but
only filled the purse of the Parisian mass merchant; and so the
unlucky Mesme was uncermoniously sent to the penitentiary to
meditate on the infinite merits of the holy sacrifice of the mass,
which had been engulfed in his treasures.
But these facts are not known by the poor Roman Catholics
of Canada, who are fleeced more and more by their priests, under
the pretext of saving souls from purgatory.
A new element of success in the large swindling operations
of the Canadian priests has lately been discovered. It is well
known that in the greater part of the United States, the poor
deluded Irish pay one dollar to their priest, instead of a shilling,
for a low mass. Those priests whose conscience are sufficiently
elastic (as is often the case), keep the money without ever thinking
of having the masses said, and soon get rich. But there are
some whose natural honesty shrinks from the idea of stealing;
but unable to celebrate all the masses paid for and requested at
their hands, they send the dollars to some of their clerical friends
in Canada, who, of course, prefer these one dollar masses to the
twenty-five cent ones paid by the French Canadians. However,
they keep that secret and continue to fill their treasury.
There are, however, many priests in Canada who think it less
evil to keep those large sums of money in their own hands, than
to give them to the bishops to trafic with the merchants of Paris.
At the end of one of the ecclesiastical retreats in the seminary of
St. Sulpice in 1850, Bishop Bourget told us that one of the
priests who had lately died, had requested him, in the name of
Jesus Christ, to ask every priest to take a share in the $4,000
which he had received for masses he had never said. We
refused to grant him that favor, and those $4,000 received by
that priest, like the millions put into the hands of other priests
and the bishops, turned to be nothing less than an infamous
swindling operation under the mask of religion.
To understand what the priests of Rome are, let the readers
note what is said in the Roman Catholic Bible, of the priest of
Babylon:
"And King Astyges was gathered to his fathers, and Cyrus,
of Persia, received his kingdom, and Daniel conversed with the
king, and was honored above all his friends. Now the Babylonians
had an idol, called Bel, and there were spent upon him,
every day, twelve measures of fine flour, and forty sheep and
six vessels of wine. And the king worshipped it and went daily
to adore: but Daniel worshipped his own God, and the king said
unto him: `Why dost thou not worship Bel?' who answered and
said: `because I may not worship idols made with hands, but the
living God, who hath created the heavens and the earth, and
hath sovereignty over all flesh.' Then the king said: `Thinkest
thou not that Bel is a living God! Seest thou not how much
he eateth and drinketh every day?'
"Then Daniel smiled and said: `Oh, king! be not deceived;
for this is but clay within and brass without, and did never eat
or drink anything.'
"So the king was wroth, and called for his priests and said:
`If ye tell me not who this is that devoureth these expenses, ye
shall die; but if ye can certify me that Bel devoureth them, then
Daniel shall die, for he has spoken blasphemy against Bel.' And
Daniel said unto the king: `Let it be according to thy word.'
"Now the priests of Bel were three score and ten, besides
their wives and children.
"And the king went with Daniel to the temple of Bel—so
Bel's priests said: `Lo! we got out, but thou, O king, set on
the meat, and make ready the wine, and shut the door fast, and
seal it with thine own signet; and to-morrow when thou comest
in, if thou findest not that Bel hath eaten up all, we will suffer
death; or else, Daniel, that speaketh falsely against Bel shall die—
and they little regarded it, for under the table they had made a
privy entrance, whereby they entered continually and consumed
those things.'
"So when they were gone forth, the king set meats before
Bel.
"Now Daniel had commanded his servants to bring ashes,
and those they strewed throughout all the temple, in the presence
of the king alone: then they went out, and shut the door, and
sealed it with the king's signet, and so departed.
"Now in the night came the priests, with their wives and
children, as they were wont to do, and did eat and drink up all.
"In the morning betimes the king arose, and Daniel with him.
"And the king said, `Daniel, are the seals whole?' And he
said, `Yea, O king, they be whole.' And as soon as they had
opened the door, the king looked upon the table, and cried with
a loud voice: `Great art thou, O Bel! and with thee there is no
deceit at all.' Then laughed Daniel, and held the king that he
should not go in, and said: `Behold now the pavement, and
mark well whose footsteps are these.' And the king said: `I
see the footsteps of men, women and children.' And then the
king was angry, and took the priests, with their wives and children,
who showed him the privy doors, where they came in
and consumed such things as were on the tables.
"Therefore the king slew them, and delivered Bel into
Daniel's power, who destroyed him and his temple."
Who does not pity the king of Babylon, who, when looking
at his clay and brass god, exclaimed: "Great art thou, O Bel,
and with thee there is no deceit!"
But, is the deception practiced by the priests of the Pope on
their poor, deluded dupes, less cruel and infamous? Where is
the difference between that Babylonian god, made with brass
and baked clay, and the god of the Roman Catholics, made
with a handful of wheat and flour, baked between two hot
polished irons?
How skilful were the priests in keeping the secret of what
became of the rich daily offerings brought to the hungry god!
Who could suspect that there was a secret trap through which
they came with their wives and children to eat the rich offerings?
So, to-day, among the simple and blind Roman Catholics,
who could suppose that the immense sums of money given every
day to the priests to glorify God, purify the souls of men, and
bring all kinds of blessings upon the donors, were, on the contrary,
turned into the most ignominious and swindling operation
the world has ever seen?
Though the brass god of Babylon was a contemptible idol,
is not the wafer god of Rome still more so? Though the priests
of Bel were skilful deceivers, are they not surpassed in the art of
deception by the priests of Rome! Do not these carry on their
operations on a much larger scale than the former?
But, as there is always a day of retribution for the great
iniquities of this world, when all things will be revealed; and
just as the cunning of the priests of Babylon could not save
them, when God sent his prophet to take away the mask, behind
which they deceived their people, so let the priests of Rome
know that God will, sooner or later, send his prophet, who will
tear off the mask, behind which they deceive the world. Their
big, awkward and flat feet will be seen and exposed, and the
very people whom they keep prostrated before their idols, crying:
"O God! with thee there is no deceit at all!" will become
the instruments of the justice of God in the great day of retribution.
