University of Virginia Library

Chapter LV.

THE ECCLESIASTICAL RETREAT—CONDUCT OF THE PRIESTS—
THE BISHOP FORBIDS ME TO DISTIBUTE THE BIBLE.

ON the first of Aug., 1855, I received the following letter:

You will have the goodness to attend a spiritual retreat to be given
next month at the college, in Chicago, for the clergy of the diocese of
Chicago and Quincy.

The spiritual exercises, which will be conducted by the Rt. Rev. the
Bishop of Louisville, are to commence on Tuesday, the 28th of Aug., and
will terminate on the following Sunday. This arrangement will necessitate
your absence from your church on Sunday, the 14th, after Pentecost, which
you will make known to your congregation. No clergyman is allowed to be
absent from this retreat without the previous written consent of the bishop
of the diocese, which consent will not be given except in cases which he will
judge to be of urgent necessity.

Wishing to study the personnel of that Irish clergy of which
Bishop Vandeveld had told such frightful things, I went to St.
Mary's University, two hours ahead of time.

Never did I see such a band of jolly fellows. Their dissipation
and laughter, their exchange of witty, and too often, unbecoming
expressions, the tremendous noise they made in addressing
each other, at a distance: Their "Hallo, Patrick!" "hallo,
Murphy!" "hallo, O'Brien! how do you do? How is Bridget?
Is Marguerite still with you?" The answers: "Yes! yes! She
will never leave me;" or "no! no! the crazy girl is gone," were
invariably followed by outbursts of laughter.

Though nine-tenths of them were evidently under the influence

of intoxicating drinks, not one could be said to be drunk.
But the strong odor of alcohol, mixed with the smoke of cigars,
soon poisoned the air and made it suffocating.

I had withdrawn in a corner, alone, in order to observe everything.

What stranger, in entering that large hall, would have suspected
that those men were about to begin one of the most solemn
and sacred actions of a priest of Jesus Christ! With the
exception of five or six, they looked more like a band of carousing
raftsmen, than priests.

About an hour before the opening of the exercises, I saw
one of the priests with hat in hand accompanied by two of
the fattest and most florid of the band, going to every one, collecting
money and with the most hilarity and pleasure, each
one threw his bank bills into the hat. I supposed that this collection
was intended to pay for our board, during the retreat,
and I prepared the $15 I wanted to give. When they came near
me—the big hat was literally filled with five and ten dollar bills.
Before handing my money to them, I asked: "What is the object
of that collection?"

"Ah! ah!" they answered with a hearty laugh, "Dear
Father Chiniquy, is it possible that you do not know it yet!
Don't you know that, when we are so crowded as we will be
here, this week, the rooms are apt to become too warm, and we
get thirsty? Then a little drop to cool the throat and quench the
thirst, is needed?" and the collectors laughed outright.

I answered politely, but seriously: "Gentlemen, I came here
to meditate and pray; and when I am thirsty, the fresh and pure
water of Lake Michigan will quench my thirst. I have given
up, long ago, the use of intoxicating drinks. Please excuse me,
I am a teetotaler."

"So we are!" they answered with a laugh; "We have all
taken the pledge from Father Mathew; but this does not prevent
us from taking a little drop to quench our thirst and keep
up our health. Father Mathew is not so merciless as you
are."

"I know Father Mathew well;" I answered, "I have

written to him and seen him many times. Allow me to tell you
that we are of the same mind about the use of intoxicating
drink."

"Is it possible! you know Father Mathew! and you are exchanging
letters with him! What a holy man he is, and what
good he has done in Ireland, and everywhere!" they answered.

"But the good he has done will not last long," I said, "if
all his disciples keep their pledges as you do."

As we were talking, a good number of priests came around
to hear what was said; for it was evident to all, that the bark
of their collectors, not only had come to shallow waters, but
had struck on a rock.

One of the priests said: "I thought we were to be preached
by Bishop Spaulding; I had no idea that it was Father Chiniquy
who had that charge."

"Gentlemen," I answered, "I have as much right to preach
to you in favor of temperance as you have to preach to me in
favor of intemperance. You may do as you please about the
use of strong drink, during the retreat; but I hope I also may
have the right to think and do as I please, in that matter."

"Of course," they all answered, "But you are the only one
who will not give us a cent to get a little drop."

"So much the worse for you all, gentlemen, if I am the only
one. But please excuse me, I cannot give you a cent for that
object."

They then left me, saying something which I could not understand,
but they were evidently disgusted, with what they considered
my stubbornness and want of good manners.

I must, however, say here, that two of them, Mr. Dunn,
pastor of one of the best congregations in Chicago, and the other
unknown to me, came to congratulate me on the stern rebuke I
had given the collectors.

"I regret," said Mr Dunn, "the five dollars I have thrown
into that hat. If I had spoken to you before, and had known
that you would be brave enough to rebuke them, I would have
stood by you, and kept my money for better use. It is really a
shame that we should be preparing ourselves for a retreat by

wasting $500 for such a shameful object. They have just told
me that they have raised that sum for the champagne, brandy,
whisky and beer they will drink, this week. Ah! what disgrace!
What a cry of indignation would be raised against us, if
such a shameful thing should be known! I am sorry about the
unkind words those priests have spoken to you; but you must
excuse them, they are already full of bad whisky.

"Do not think, however, that you are friendless, here, in
our midst. You have more friends than you think among the
Irish priests; and I am one of them, though you do not know
me. Bishop Vandeveld has often spoken to me of your grand
colonization work, among the French."

Mr. Dunn, then, pressed my hand in his, and taking me a
short distance from the others, said:

"Consider me, hereafter, as your friend: you have won my
confidence by the fearless way in which you have just spoken,
and the common sense of your arguments.

"You have lost a true friend in Bishop Vandevelde. I fear
that our present bishop will not do you justice. Lebel and
Carthyvel have prejudiced him against you. But I will stand
by you, if you are ever unjustly dealt with, as I fear you will,
by the present administration of the diocese. I fear we are on
the eve of great evils. The scandalous suit which Bishop
O'Regan has brought upon his predecessor is a disgrace. If
he has gained $50,000 by it, he has forever lost the respect and
confidence of all his priests and diocesans.

"After the mild and paternal ruling of Bishop Vandevelde,
neither the priests, nor the people of Illinois will long bear the
iron chains which the present bishop has in store for us all."

I thanked Mr. Dunn for his kind words, and told him that I
had already tasted the paternal love of my bishop by being
twice dragged by Spink before the criminal court for having
refused to live on good terms with the two most demoralized
priests I have ever known.

He, then, speaking with a more subdued voice, said:

"I must tell you, confidentially, that one of those priests,
Lebel, will be turned out ignominiously from the diocese, during

the retreat. Last week, a new fact, which surpasses all his
other abominations, has been revealed and proved to the bishop,
for which he will be interdicted."

At that moment, the bell called us to the chapel to hear the
regulations of the bishop in reference to the retreat, after which
we sang the matins.

At 8 P. M., we had our first sermon by Bishop Spaulding,
from Kentucky. He was a fine-looking man, a giant in stature,
and a good speaker. But the way in which he treated his subject,
though very clever, left, in my mind, the impression that he
did not believe a word of what he said. At certain times,
there was much fire in his elocution, but it was a fire of straw.
He delivered two sermons, each day; and the Rev. Mr. Vanhulest,
a Jesuit, gave us two meditations, each of them lasting from
forty to fifty minutes. The rest of the time was spent in reading
aloud the life of a saint, reciting the breviarum, examination
of conscience and going to confession.

We had half an hour for meals, followed by one hour of recreation.
Thus were the days spent. But the nights! the
nights! what shall I say of them! What pen can describe the
orgies I witnessed during those dark nights! and who can
believe what I shall have to say about them! though I will not
and cannot say the half of what I have seen and heard!

I got from the Rev. Mr. Dunn, then one of the bishop's
counselors, and soon after, Vicar General, the statement that the
sum of $500 was expended in intoxicating drinks during the six
days of the retreat. I ought to say during the five nights. My
pen refuses to write what my eyes saw and my ears heard during
the long hours of those nights, which I cannot forget though
I should live a thousand years.

The drinking used to begin about 9 o'clock, as soon as the
lights were put out. Some were handing the bottles from bed
to bed, while others were carrying them to those at a distance,
at first, with the least noise possible; but half an hour had not
elapsed before the alcohol was beginning to unloose the tongues,
and upset the brain. Then the bons mots, the witty stories,
at first, were soon followed by the most indecent and shameful

recitals. Then the songs, followed by the barking of dogs, the
croaking of frogs, the howling of wolves. In a word, the cries
of all kinds of beasts, often mixed with the most lascivious
songs, the most infamous anecdotes flying from bed to bed, from
room to room, till one or two o'clock in the morning.

One night three priests were taken with delirium tremens,
almost at the same time. One cried out that he had a dozen
rattle-snakes at his shirt; the second was fighting against thousands
of bats which were trying to tear his eyes from their
sockets: and the third, with a stick, was repulsing millions of
spiders which, he said, were as big as wild turkeys, all at work
to devour him. The cries and lamentations of those three priests
were really pitiful! To those cries, add the lamentations of
some dozen of them whose overloaded stomachs were ejecting
in the beds and all around, the enormous quantity of drink they
had swallowed!

The third day, I was so disgusted and indignant, that I determined
to leave, without noise, under the pretext that I was sick.
It was not a false pretext; for I was really sick. There was no
possibility of sleeping before two or three o'clock. Besides, the
stench in the dormitories was horrible.

There was, however, another thing which was still more
overwhelming me. It was the terrible moral struggle in my
soul from morning till night, and from night till morning,
when the voice of conscience, which I had to take for the
voice of Satan, was crying in my ears: "Do you not clearly see
that your church is the devil's church—that those priests, instead
of being the Lamb's priests, are the successors of the old
Bacchus' priests? Read your Bible a little more attentively, and
see if this is not the reign of the great harlot, which is defiling
the world with her abominations? How can you remain in
such a church! how long will you remain in this sea of Sodom?
come out! come out of Babylon, if you do not want to perish with
her! Can the tree which bears such fruits, be the tree of life?
Can the priests who surround you, be the priests, the ambassadors
of the Saviour of the world? Can the Son of God, come
down every morning in body, in soul, and divinity into the hands

and stomach of such men? Can the nations be led into the
ways of God by them? are you not guilty of an unpardonable
crime when you are planting, with your own hands, over this
magnificent country, a tree bearing such fruits? How dare you
meet your God, after you have so deceived yourself and the people
as to believe and say that these are the representatives, the
leaders, the priests of the church out of which there is no salvation!"

Oh! what an awful thing it is to resist the voice of God! To
take him for the evil one, when, by his warnings, he seeks to
save your soul! Although the horrible scandal I had seen distressed
me more than human words can tell, those mental conflicts
were still more distressing. Fearing lest I should entirely lose
my faith in my religion, and become an absolute infidel, by remaining
any longer in the midst of such profligacy, I determined
to leave; but before doing so, I waated to consult the new
friend whom the Providence of God had given me in Mr.
Dunn. It scemed the unbearable burden which was on my
shoulders would become lighter, by sharing it with such a sympathetic
brother priest.

I went to him, after dinner, and taking him apart, I told him
all about the orgies of last night, and asked his advice on my
determination not to continue that retreat, which was evidently
nothing else than a blind, and a sacrilegious comedy, to
deceive the world.

He answered: "You teach me nothing, for I spent last night
in the same dormitory where you were. One of the priests told
me all about those orgies, yesterday; I could hardly believe what
he said, and I determined to see and hear for myself what was
going on. You do not exaggerate, you do not even mention half
of the horrors of last night. It baffles any description. It is simply
incredible for any one who has not himself witnessed them.
However, I do not advise you to leave. It would forever ruin
you in the mind of the bishop, who is not already too well disposed
in your favor. The best thing you can do is to go and
tell everything to Bishop Spaulding. I have done it this morning;
but I felt that he did not believe the half of what I told

him. When the same testimony comes from you, then he will
believe it, and will probably take some measures, with our own
bishop, to put an end to those horrors. I have something to tell
you, confidentially, which surpasses, in a measure, anything you
know of the abominations of these last three nights.

"A respectable policeman, who belongs to my congregation.
came to me this morning, to tell me that the first night, six prostitutes,
dressed as gentlemen; and last night, twelve came to the
University, after dark, entered the dormitory, and went, directed
by signals, to those who had invited them, each being provided
with the necessary key. I have just reported the thing to Bishop
O'Regan; but instead of paying any attention to what I said,
he became furious against me, and nearly turned me out of his
room, saying: `Do you think that I am going to come down
from my dignity of bishop to hear the reports of degraded
policemen or of vile spies! Shall I become the spies of my
priests? If they want to damn themselves, there is no help, let
them go to hell! I am not more obliged or able than God himself
to stop them! Does God stop them? Does He punish
them? No! Well! you cannot expect from me, more zeal and
power than in our common God!"

"With these fine words ringing in my ears," said good Mr.
Dunn, "I had to leave his room at the double quick. It is of
no use for us to speak to Bishop O'Regan, on that matter. It
will do no good. He wants to get a large subscription from
those priests, at the end of the retreat, and he is rather inclined
to pet than punish them, till he obtains the $100,000 he wants
to build his white marble palace on the lake shore."

I replied: "Though you add to my desolation, instead of
diminishing it, by what you say of the strange principles of our
bishop, I will speak to my lord Spaulding as you advise me."

Without a moment's delay, I went to his room. He received
me very kindly, and did not at all seem surprised at what I said.
It was as if he had been accustomed to see the same, or still
worse abominations. However, when I told him the enormous
quantity of liquor drank, and that retreat would be only a
ridiculous comedy, if no attempt at reform was tried, he agreed

with me; "but it would be advisable to try it," he said.
"Though this is not in our programme, we might give one or
two sermons on the necessity of priests giving an example of
temperance to their people. Will you please come with me to
the room of my lord O'Regan, that we may confer on the matter,
after you have told him what is going on?"

Although the Bishop of Chicago seemed puzzled at seeing
me entering the room with my lord Spaulding, he was as polite
as possible. He listened with more attention than I expected to
the narrative I gave of what is going on among the priests.
After telling him my sad story, Bishop Spaulding said: "My
lord of Chicago: These facts are very grave, and there cannot
be any doubt about the truth of what we have just heard. Two
other gentlemen gave me the same testimony this morning."

"Yes!" said Bishop O'Regan, "it is very sad to see that our
priests have so little self-respect, even during such solemn days
as those of a public retreat. The Rev. Mr. Dunn has just told
me the same sad story as Father Chiniquy. But what remedy
can we find for such a state of things? Perhaps it might do well
to give them a good sermon on temperance. Mr. Chiniquy, I
am told that you are called `the temperance apostle of Canada.'
and that you are a powerful speaker on that subject; would you
not like to give them one or two addresses on the injury
they are doing to themselves and to our holy church, by their
drunkenness?"

"If those priests could understand me in French," I replied,
"I would accept the honor you offer me, with pleasure; but to
be understood by them, I would have to speak in English; and
I am not sufficiently free in that language to attempt it. My
broken English would only bring ridicule upon the holy cause
of temperance.

"But my lord Spaulding has already preached on that subject
in Kentucky, and an address from his lordship would be
listened to with more attention and benefit from him than from
me."

It was, then, agreed that he should change his programme,
and give two addresses on temperance, which he did. But

though these addresses were really eloquent, they were pearls
thrown before swine.

The drunken priests slept as usual; and even snored, almost
through the whole length of the delivery. It is true that we
could notice a little improvement and less noise the following
nights; the change, however, was very little.

The fourth day of the retreat, the Rev. Mr. Lebel came to
me with his bag in his hand. He looked furious. He said:

"Now, you must be satisfied, I am interdicted and turned
out ignominiously from this diocese. It is your work! But
mind what I tell you; you will, also, soon, be turned out from
your colony by the mitred tyrant who has just struck me down.
He told me, several times, that he would, at any cost, break your
plans of French colonization, by sending you to the south-west
of Illinois, along the Mississippi, to an old French settlement,
opposite St. Louis.

"He is enraged against you for your refusing to give him
your fine property at St. Anne."

I answered him: "You are mistaken when you think that I
am the author of your misfortunes. You have disgraced yourself,
by your own acts. God has given you talents and qualities,
which, if cultivated, would have exalted you in the church,
but you have preferred to destroy those great gifts, in order to
follow the evil inclinations of your poor degraded human nature;
you reap to-day what you have sown. Nobody is more sorry
than I am, for your misfortune, and my most sincere wish is that
the past may be a lesson to guide your steps in the future. The
desire of my bishop to turn me out of my colony does not
trouble me. If it is the will of God to keep me at the head of
that great work, the Bishop of Chicago will go down from his
episcopal throne before I go down the beautiful hill of St.
Anne. Adieu!"

He soon disappeared. But how the fall of this priest, whom
I had so sincerely loved, saddened me!

The next Sabbath was the last day of the retreat. All the
priests went in procession to the cathedral, to receive the holy
communion, and every one of them ate, what we had to believe

the true body, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. This, however,
did not prevent thirteen of them from spending the greater
part of the next night in the calaboose, to which they had been
taken by the police, from houses of ill-fame, where they were
rioting and fighting. The next morning, they were discharged
from the hands of the police by paying pretty round sums of
money for the trouble of the night!

The next day, I went to Mr. Dunn's parsonage to ask him
if he could give me any explanation of the rumor which was
afloat, and to which Mr. Lebel had made allusion, that it was
the intention of the bishop to remove me from my colony to
some distant part of his diocese.

"It is unfortunately too true," said he. "Bishop O'Regan
thinks that he has a mission from heaven to undo all his predecessor
has done, and as one of the best and grandest schemes of
Bishop Vandevelde was to secure the possession of this magnificent
State of Illinois to our church, by inducing all the Roman
Catholic emigrants from France, Belgium and Canada, to settle
here, our present bishop does not conceal that he will oppose that
plan by removing you to such a distance, that your colonization
plans will be at an end. He says that the French are, as a general
thing, rebels and disobedient to their bishops. He prefers
seeing the Irish coming, on account of their proverbial docility
to their ecclesiastical superiors.

"I have, in vain, tried to change his mind. I told you, before,
that he often asks my opinion on what I think the best thing to
be done for the good of the diocese. But I do not think that he
intends to follow my advice! it is just the contrary. My impression
now is, that he wants to know our views, only for the
pleasure of acting diametrically in opposition to what we advise."

I must not omit to say, that we had been requested to spend
the forenoon of Monday, in the University, for an important affair
which the Bishop had to propose to his clergy. We were
all there, in the great hall, at the appointed hour. Even the
thirteen priests who had spent the best part of the night at the
police station, heard the voice of their bishop, and they were
there, as docile lambs.

We knew beforehand, the proposition which was to be put
before us. It was to build a palace for our bishop, worthy of the
great Illinois State, the cost of which would be about $100,000.

Though every one of us felt that this was most extravagant
in such a young and poor diocese, nobody dared to raise his
voice against that act of pride and supreme folly. Every one
promised to do all in his power to raise that sum, and to show our
good will, we raised among ourselves, at once, $7,000, which we
gave in cash or in promissory notes.

After this act of liberality, we were blessed and dismissed by
our bishop.

I was but a few steps from the University, when an Irish
priest, unknown to me, ran after me to say: "My lord O'Regan
wants to see you immediately." And, five minutes later, I was
alone with my bishop, who, without any preface, told me:

"Mr. Chiniquy, I hear very strange and damaging things
about you, from every quarter. But the worst of all is, that you
are a secret Protestant emissary; that, instead of preaching the
true doctrines of our holy church, about the immaculate conception,
purgatory, the respect and obedience due to their superiors
by the people, auricular confession, etc., etc., you spend a part
of your time in distributing Bibles and New Testaments among
your emigrants; I want to know from your own lips, if this be
true or not."

I answered: "A part of what the people told you about the
matter is not true; the other is true. It is not true that I neglect
the preaching of the doctrines of our holy church, about purgatory,
immaculate conception of Mary, auricular confession, or
the respect due to our superiors. But it is true that I do distribute
the Holy Bible and the Gospel of Christ, among my
people."

"And instead of blushing at such unpriestly conduct, you
seem to be proud of it," angrily replied the bishop.

"I do not understand, my lord, why a priest of Christ could
blush for distributing the Word of God among his people; as I
am bound to preach that Holy Word, it is not only my right,
but my duty to give it to them. I am fully persuaded that there

is no preaching so efficacious and powerful as the preaching of
God Himself, when speaking to us in His Holy Book."

"This is sheer Protestantism, Mr. Chiniquy, this is sheer
Protestantism," he answered me, angrily.

"My dear bishop," I answered calmly, "if to give the Bible
to the people and invite them to read and meditate on it, is Protestantism,
our holy Pope Pius VI. was a good Protestant, for
in his letter to Martini, which is probably in the first pages of
the beautiful Bible I see on your lordship's table, he not only
blesses him for having translated that Holy book into Italian,
but invites the people to read it."

The bishop, assuming an air of supreme contempt, replied:

"Your answer shows your complete ignorance on the subject
on which you speak so boldly. If you were a little better
informed on that grave subject, you would know that the translation
by Martini, which the Pope advised the Italian people to
read, formed a work of twenty-three big volumes in folio,
which, of course, nobody except very rich and idle people could
read. Not one in ten thousand Italians have the means of purchasing
such a voluminous work; and not one one in fifty thousand
have the time or the will to peruse such a mass of endless
commentaries. The Pope would never have given such an advice
to read a Bible, as the one you distribute so imprudently."

"Then, my lord, do you positively tell me that the Pope
gave permission to read Martini's translation because he knew
that the people could never get it on account of its enormous
size and price, and do you assure me that he would never have
given such an advice had the same people been able to purchase
and read that holy work?"

"Yes, sir! It is what I mean," answered the bishop, with an
air of triumph, "for I know, positively, that this is the fact."

I replied, calmly: "I hope your lordship is unwillingly mistaken;
for if you were correct, the stern and unflinching principles
of logic would force me to think and say that that Pope,
and all his followers were deceivers, and that encyclical, a public
fraud in his own hands; for we, Catholic priests, make use of it,
all over the world, and reprint it at the head of our own Bibles,

to make the people, both Protestants and Catholics, believe that
we approve of their reading our own versions of that Holy
Book."

Had I thrown a spark of fire in a keg of powder, the explosion
would not have been more prompt and terrible than the rage
of that prelate. Pointing his finger to my face, he said:

"Now, I see the truth of what I have been told, that you are
a disguised Protestant, since the very day you were ordained a
priest.

"The Bible! the Bible! is your motto! For you, the Bible
is everything, and the holy church, with her Popes and bishops,
nothing! what an insolent, I dare say, what a blasphemous word
I have just heard from you! You dare call an encyclical letter
of one of our most holy Popes, a fraud!"

In vain, I tried to explain; he would not listen, and he silenced
me by saying:

"If our holy church has, in an unfortunate day, appointed
you one of her priests in my diocese, it was to preach her doctrines,
and not to distribute the Bible! If you forget that, I will
make you remember it!"

And with that threat on my head, as a Damocles' sword, I
had to take to the door, which he had opened, without any au
revoir. Thanks be to God, this first persecution and these outrages
I received for my dear Bible's sake, did not diminish my
respect for God's Holy Word nor my confidence in it. On the
contrary, on reaching home, I took it, fell on my knees, and
pressing it to my heart, I asked my Heavenly Father to grant
me the favor to love it more sincerely, and follow its divine
teachings with more fidelity, till the end of my life.