University of Virginia Library

Chapter XV.

THE IMPURITITIES OF THE THEOLOGY OF ROME

CONSTRAINED by the voice of my conscience to reveal
the impurities of the theology of the Church of Rome, I
feel, in doing so, a sentiment of inexpressible shame. They are
of such a loathsome nature, that often they cannot be expressed
in any living language.

However great may have been the corruptions in the theologies
and priests of paganism, there is nothing in their records
which can be compared with the depravity of those of the
Church of Rome. Before the day on which the theology of
Rome was inspired by Satan, the world had certainly witnessed
many dark deeds; bvt vice had never been clothed with the
mantle of theology:—the most shameful forms of iniquity had
never been publicly taught in the schools of the old pagan priest,
under the pretext of saving the world. No! neither had the
priests or the idols been forced to attend meetings where the
most degrading forms of iniquity were objects of the most minute
study, and that under the pretext of glorifying God.

Let those who understand Latin read the pages which I give
at the end of my book, "The Pricst, the Woman, and the
Confessional," and then decide as to whether or not the
sentiments therein contained are not enough to shock the
feelings of the most depraved. And let it be remembered that
all those abominations have to be studied, learned by heart and
thoroughly understood by men who have to make a vow never
to marry! For it is not till after his vow of celibacy that the
student in theology is initiated into those mysteries of iniquity.

Has the world ever witnessed such a sacrilegious comedy?

A young man about twenty years of age has been enticed to
make a vow of perpetual celibacy, and the very next day the
Church of Rome puts under the eye of his soul the most infamous
spectacle? She fills his memory with the most disgusting images!
She tickles all his senses and pollutes his ears not by imaginary
representations, but by realities which would shock the most
abandoned in vice!

For, let it be well understood, that it is absolutely impossible
for one to study those questions of Roman Theology, and fathom
those forms of iniquity without having his body as well as his
mind plunged into a state the most degrading. Moreover, Rome
does not even try to conceal the overwhelming power of this
kind of teaching; she does not even attempt to make it a secret
from the victims of her incomparable depravity, but BRAVELY
TELLS them that the study of those questions will act with an
irresistible power upon those organs, and without a blush says
"that pollution must follow!!!"

But in order that the Church of Rome may more certainly
destroy her victims, and that they may not escape from the abyss
which she has dug under their feet, she tells them "There is no
sin for you in those pollutions!" (Dens, vol. i., p. 315.)

But Rome must bewitch, so as the better to secure their
destruction. She puts to their lips the cup of her enchantments,
the more certainly to kill their souls, dethrone God from their
consciences, and abrogate his eternal laws of holiness. What
answer does Rome give those who reproach her with the awful
impurity of her theology. "My theological works," she
answers, "are all written in Latin; the people cannot read them.
No evil, no scandal, therefore, can come from them!" But
this answer is a miserable subterfuge. Is this not the public
acknowledgment that her theology would be exceedingly
injurious to the people if it were read and understood by them?"

By saying, "My theological works are written in Latin,
therefore the people cannot be defiled, as they do not understand
them," Rome does acknowledge that these works would only
act as a pestilence among the people were they read and
understood by them. But are not the one hundred thousand

priests of Rome bound to explain in every known tongue, and
present to the mind of every nation, the theology contained in
those books? Are they not bound to make every polluting
sentence in them flow into the ears, imagination, hearts and
minds of all the married and unmarried women whom Rome
holds in her grasp?

I exaggerate nothing when I say that not fewer than half a
million women every day are compelled to hear in their own
language, almost every polluting sentence and impure notion of
the diabolical science.

And here I challenge, most fearlessly, the Church of Rome
to deny what I say, when I state that the daily average of women
who go to confession to each priest, is ten. But let us reduce the
number to five. Then the two hundred thousand priests
who are scattered over the whole world, hear the confessions
of one million women every day. Well, now, out of
one hundred women who confess, there are at least ninety-nine
whom the priest is bound in conscience to pollute, by questioning
them on the matters mentioned in "The Priest, the Woman and
the Confessional." How can one be surprised at the rapid downfall
of the nations who are under the yoke of the Pope?

The public statistics of the European, as well as of American
nations, show that there is among Roman Catholics nearly double
the amount of prostitution, bastardy, theft, perjury and murder,
than is found among Protestant nations. Where must we, then,
look for the cause of those stupendous facts, if not in the corrupt
teachings of the theology of Rome. How can the Roman
Catholic nations hope to raise themselves in the scale of Christian
dignity and morality as long as there remain two hundred
thousand priests in their midst, bound in conscience every day to
pollute the minds, and the hearts of their mothers, their wives
and their daughters.

And here let me say, once for all, that I am not induced to
speak as I do from any motive of contempt or unchristian feeling
against the theological professors who have initiated me into
those mysteries of iniquity. The Rev. Messrs. Raimbault and
Leprohon were, and in my mind they still are, as venerable as

men can be in the Church of Rome. As I have been myself,
and as all the priests of Rome are, they were plunged into the
abyss without understanding it, into the abyss of the most stolid
ignorance. They were crushed, as I was myself, under a yoke
which bound their understanding to the dust and polluted their
hearts without measure. We were embarked together on a
ship, the first appearance of which was really magnificent, but
the bottom of which was irremediably rotten. Without the
true Pilot on board we were left to perish on unknown shoals.
Out of this sinking ship the hand of God alone, in his merciful
providence, rescued me. I pity those friends of my youth, but
despise them? hate them? No! Never! Never!

Every time our theological teachers gave us our lessons, it
was evident that they blushed in the inmost part of their souls.
Their consciences as honest men were evidently forbidding them,
on the one hand, to open their mouths on such matters, while, on
the other hand, as slaves and priests of the Pope, they were
compelled to speak without reserve.

After our lessons in theology, we students used to be filled
with such a sentiment of shame that sometimes we hardly dared
to look at each other; and, when alone in our rooms, those
horrible pictures were affecting our hearts, in spite of ourselves,
as the rust affects and corrodes the hardest and purest steel.
More than one of my fellow-students told me, with tears of
shame and rage, that they regretted to have bound themselves
by perpetual oaths to minister at the altars of the Church.

One day one of the students, called Desaulnier, who was
sick in the same room with me, asked me: "Chiniquy, what do
you think of the matters which are the objects of our present
theological studies? Is it not a burning shame that we must
allow our minds to be so polluted?"

"I cannot sufficiently tell you my feelings of disgust," I
answered. "Had I known sooner that we were to be dragged
over such a ground, I certainly never would have nailed my
future to the banners under which we are irrevocably bound
to live."

"Do you know," said Desaulnier, "that I am determined

never to consent to be ordained a priest; for when I think of the
fact that the priest is bound to confer with women on all these
polluting matters, I feel an insurmountable disgust and shame."

"I am not less troubled," I replied. "My head aches and
my heart sinks within me, when I hear our theologians telling
us that we will be in conscience bound to speak to females on
these impure subjects. But sometimes this looks to me as if it
were a bad dream, the impure phantoms of which will disappear
at the first awakening. Our Church, which is so pure and holy,
that she can only be served by the spotless virgins, surely cannot
compel us to pollute our lips, thoughts, souls, and even our
bodies, by speaking to strange women on matters so defiling!"

"But we are near the hour at which the good Mr. Leprohon
is in the habit of visiting us. Will you," said I, "promise to
stand by me on what I shall ask him on this subject? I hope to
get from him a pledge that we will not be compelled to be
polluted in the confessional by the women who will confess to
us. The purity and holiness of our superior is of such a high
character, that I am sure he has never said a word to females on
those degrading matters. In spite of all the theologians, Mr.
Leprohon will allow us to keep our tongues and our hearts, as
well as our bodies, pure in the confessional."

"I have had the desire to speak to him on this subject for
some time," rejoined Desaulnier, "but my courage failed me
every time I attempted to do so. I am glad, therefore, that you
are to break the ice, and I will certainly support you, as I have
a longing desire to know something more in regard to the
mysteries of the confessional. If we be at liberty never to
speak to women on those horrors, I will consent to serve the
Church as a priest; but if not, I will never be a priest."

A few minutes after this our superior entered, to kindly
inquire how we had rested the night before. Having thanked
him for his kindness, I opened the volumes of Dens and Liguori,
which were on our table, and, with a blush, putting my fingers
on one of the infamous chapters referred to, I said to him:

"After God, you have the first place in my heart since my
mother's death, and you know it. I take you, not only as my

benefactor, but also, as it were, as my father and mother. You
will therefore tell me all I want to know in these my hours of
anxiety, through which God is pleased to make me pass. To
follow your advice, not to say your commands, I have lately
consented to receive the order of sub-deacon, and I have in
consequence taken the vow of perpetual celibacy. But I will
not conceal the fact from you that I had not a clear understanding
of what I was then doing; and Delsaulnier has just stated to me,
that until recently he had no more idea of the nature of that
promise, nor of the difficulties which we now see ahead of us in
our priestly life, than I had.

"But Dens, Liguori and St. Thomas have given us notions
quite new in regard to many things. They have directed our
minds to the knowledge of the laws which are in us, as well as
in every other child of Adam. They have, in a word, directed
our minds into regions which were quite new and unexplored by
us; and I dare say that every one of those whom we have
known, whether in this house or elsewhere, who have made the
same vow, could tell the same tale.

"However, I do not speak for them; I speak only for myself
and Desaulnier. For God's sake, please tell us if we will be
bound in conscience to speak in the confessional, to the married
and unmarried females, on such impure and defiling questions as
are contained in the theologians before us?"

"Most undoubtedly," replied Rev. Mr. Leprohon; "because
the learned and holy theologians whose writings are in your
hands are positive on that question. It is absolutely necessary
that you should question your female penitents on such matters;
for, as a general thing, girls and married women are too timid
to confess those sins, of which they are even more frequently
guilty than men, therefore they must be helped by questioning
them."

"But have you not," I rejoined, "induced us to make an
oath that we should always remain pure and undefiled? How
is it, then, that to-day you put us in such a position that it is
almost an impossibility for us to be true to our sacred promise?
For the theologians are unanimous that those questions put by

us to our female penitents, together with the recital of their
secret sins, will act with such an irresistible power upon us that
we will be polluted.

"Would it not be better for us to feel those things in the
holy bonds of marriage, with our wives, and according to the
laws of God, than in company and conversation with strange
women? Because, if we are to believe the theologians which
are in our hands, no priest — not even you, my dear Mr.
Leprohon, can hear the confessions of women without being
defiled."

Here Desaulnier interrupted me, and said: "My dear Mr.
Leprohon, I concur in everything Chiniquy has just been telling
you. Would we not be more chaste and pure by living with
our lawful wives, than by daily exposing ourselves in the
confessional in company of women whose presence will irresistibly
drag us into the most shameful pit of impurity? I ask you,
my dear sir, what will become of my vow of perfect and
perpetual chastity, when the seducing presence of my neighbor's
wife, or the enchanting words of his daughter, will have defiled
me through the confessional. After all, I may be looked upon
by the people as a chaste man; but what will I be in the eyes of
God? The people may entertain the thought that I am a strong
and honest man; but will I not be a broken reed? Will God
not be the witness that the irresistible temptations which will
have assailed me when hearing the secret sins of some sweet
and tempting women, will have deprived me of that glorious
crown of chastity for which I have so dearly paid? Men will
think that I am an angel of purity; but my own conscience
will tell me that I am nothing but a skillful hypocrite. For
according to all the theologians, the confessional is the tomb of
the chastity of priests!! If I hear the confession of women, I
will be like all other priests, in a tomb, well painted and gilded
on the outside, but within full of corruption."

Francis Desaulnier, just as he had foretold me, refused to be
a priest. He remained all his life in the orders of the sub-deaconate,
in the College of Nicolet, as a Professor of Philosophy.
He was a man who seldom spoke in conversation, but

thought very much. It seems to me that I still see him there,
under that tall centenary tree, alone, during the long hours of
intermission, and many long days during our holidays, while the
rest of the students passed hither and thither, singing and
playing, on the enchanting banks of the river of Nicolet.

He was a good logician and a profound mathematician; and
although affable to everyone, he was not communicative. I was
probably the only one to whom he opened his mind concerning
the great questions of Christianity—faith, history, the Church
and her discipline. He repeatedly said to me: "I wish I had
never opened a book of theology. Our theologians are without
heart, soul or logic. Many of them approve of theft, lies and
perjury; others drag us, without a blush, into the most filthy
pits of iniquity. Every one of them would like to make an
assassin of every Catholic. According to their doctrine, Christ
is nothing but a Corsican brigand, whose bloody disciples are
bound to destroy all the heretics by fire and sword. Were we
acting according to the principles of those theologians, we would
slaughter all Protestants with the same coolness of blood as we
would shoot down the wolf which crosses our path. With their
hand still reddened with the blood of St. Bartholomew they
speak to us of charity, religion and God, as if there were neither
of them in the world."

Desaulnier was looked upon as "un homme singulier" at
Nicolet. He was really an exception to all the men in the
seminary. For example: Though it was the usage and the law
that ecclesiastics should receive the communion every month,
and upon every great feast day of the Church, yet he would
scarcely take the communion once a year. But let me return to
the interview with our superior.

Desaulnier's fearless and energetic words had evidently
made a very painful impression upon our superior. It was not
a usual thing for his disciples in theology thus to take upon
themselves to speak with such freedom as we both did on this
occasion. He did not conceal his pain at what he called our
unbecoming and unchristian attack upon some of the most holy
ordinances of the Church; and after he had refuted Desaulnier

in the best way he could, he turned to me and said: "My dear
Chiniquy, I have repeatedly warned you against the habit you
have of listening to your own frail reasoning, when you should
only obey as a dutiful child. Were we to believe you we
would immediately set ourselves to work to reform the Church
and abolish the confession of women to priests; we would throw
all our theological books into the fire and have new ones written,
better adapted to your fancy. What does all this prove? Only
one thing, and that is, that the devil of pride is tempting you as
he has tempted all the so-called Reformers, and destroyed them
as he would you. If you do not take care, you will become
another Luther!

"The theological books of St. Thomas, Liguori and Dens
have been approved by the Church. How, therefore, do you
not see the ridicule and danger of your position. One one side,
then, I see all our holy popes, the two thousand Catholic
bishops, all our learned theologians and priests, backed up by
our two hundred millions of Roman Catholics drawn up as an
innumerable army to fight the battles of the Lord; and on the
other side, what do I see? Nothing but my small, though very
dear Chiniquy!

"How, then, is it that you do not fear, when with your
weak reasoning you oppose the mighty reasoning and light of
so many holy popes, venerable bishops and learned theologians?
Is it not just as absurd for you to try to reform the Church by
your small reasons, as it is for the grain of sand which is found
at the foot of the great mountain to try to turn that mighty
mountain out of its place? or for the small drop of water to
attempt to throw the boundless ocean out of its bed, or try to
oppose the running tides of the Polar seas?

"Believe me, and take my friendly advice," continued our
superior, "before it is too late. Let the small grain of sand
remain still at the foot of the majestic mountain! and let the
humble drop of water consent to follow the irresistible currents
of the boundless seas, and everything will be in order.

"All the good priests who have heard the confessions of
women before us have been sanctified and have had their souls

saved, even when their bodies were polluted; for those carnal
pollutions are nothing but human miseries, which cannot defile
a soul which desires to remain united to God. Are the rays of
the sun defiled by coming down into the mud? No! The rays
remain pure, and return spotless to the shining orb whence they
came. So the heart of a good priest — as I hope my dear
Chiniquy will be—will remain pure and holy in spite of the
accidental and unavoidable defilement of the flesh.

"Apart from those things, in your ordination you will receive
a special grace which will change you into another man; and the
Virgin Mary, to whom you will constantly address yourseif will
obtain for you a perfect purity from her Son.

"The defilement of the flesh spoken of by the theologians,
and which, I confess, is unavoidable when hearing the confessions
of women, must not trouble you; for they are not
sinful, as Dens and Liguori assure us. (Dens, vol. i., pages
299, 309.)

"But enough on that subject. I forbid you to speak to me
any more on those idle questions, and, as much as my authority
is anything to you both, I forbid you to say a word more to each
other on that matter!"

It was my fond hope that my dear and so much venerated
Mr. Leprohon would answer me with some good and reasonable
arguments; but he, to my surprise, silenced the voice of our conscience
by "un coup d'etat."

Nevertheless, the idea of that miserable grain of sand which
so ridiculously attempted to remove the stately mountain, and
also of that all but perceptible drop of water which attempted
to oppose itself to the onward motion of the vast ocean, singularly
struck and humbled me. I remained silent and confused, though
not convinced.

This was not all. Those rays of the sun, which could not
be defiled, even when going down into the mud, after bewildering
one by their glittering appearance, left my soul more in the
dark than ever. I could not resist a presentiment that I was in
the presence of an imposition, and of a glittering sophism.
But I had neither sufficient learning, moral courage, nor grace

from God clearly to see through that misty cloud, and to expel
it from my mind.

Almost every month of the ten years which I had passed in
the seminary of Nicolet, priests of the district of Three Rivers
and elsewhere were sent by the bishops to spend two or three
weeks in doing penances for having bastards by their nieces,
their housekeepers and their fair penitents. Even not long
before this conversation with our director, the curate of St.
Francois, the Rev. Mr. Amiot, had in the very same week two
children by two of his fair penitents, both of whom were sisters.
One of those girls gave birth to her child at the parsonage the
very night on which the bishop was on his episcopal visit to
that parish. These public and undeniable facts were not much
in harmony with those beautiful theories of our venerable
director concerning the rays of the sun, which "remained pure
and undefiled, even when warming and vivifying the mud of
our planet." The facts had frequently occurred to my mind
while Mr. Leprohon was speaking, and I was tempted more
than once to ask him respectfully if he really thought these
"shining rays," the priests, had thus come into the mire, and
would then return, like the rays of the sun, without taking back
with them something of the mire in which they had been so
strangely wallowing. But my respect for Mr. Leprohon sealed
my lips.

When I returned to my room, I fell on my knees to ask God
to pardon me for having, for a moment, thought otherwise than
the popes and theologians of Rome. I again felt angry with
myself for having dared, for a single moment, to have arrayed
my poor little and imperceptible grain of sand—drop of water—
and personal and contemptible understanding against that
sublime mountain of strength, that vast ocean of learning, and
that immensely divine wisdom of the popes!

But, alas! I was not yet aware that when Jesus in His
mercy sends into a perishing soul a single ray of His grace, that
there is more light and wisdom in that soul than in all the popes
and their theologians!

I was then taught what the real foundation of the Church of

Rome is, and sincerely believed that to think for myself was a
damnable impiety—that to look and see with my own eyes, and
understand with my own mind, was an unpardonable sin. To
be saved I had to believe, not what I considered to be the truth,
but what the popes told me to be the truth. I had to look and
see every object of faith, just as every true Roman Catholic of
to-day has to look and see the same, through the Pope's eyes or
those of his theologians.

However absurd and impious this belief may be, yet it was
mine, and it is also the belief of every true member of the
Church of Rome to-day. The glorious light and grace of God
could not possibly flow directly from Him to me; they had to
pass through the Pope and his Church, which were my only
mountain of strength and only ocean of light. It was, then, my
firm belief that there was an impassable abyss between myself
and God, and that the Pope and his Church were the only
bridge by which I could have communication with Him. That
stupendously high and most sublime mountain, the Pope, was
between myself and God; and all that was allowed my poor
soul was to raise itself and travel with great difficulty till it
attained the foot of that holy mountain, the Pope, and, prostrating
itself there in the dust, ask him to let me know what my
yet distant God would have me do. The promises of mercy,
truth, light and life were all vested in this great mountain, the
Pope, from whom alone they could descend upon my poor lost
soul!

Darkness, ignorance, uncertainty and eternal loss were my
lot the very moment I ceased worshipping at the feet of the
Pope! The God of Heaven was not my God; He was only the
God of the Pope. The Saviour of the world was not my
Saviour; he was only the Pope's. Therefore it was through
the Pope only that I could receive Christ as my Saviour, and to
the Pope alone had I to go, to know the way, the truth and the
life of my soul!

God alone knows what a dark and terrible night I passed
after this meeting! I had again to smother my conscience,
dismantle my reason, and bring them all under the turpitudes of

the theologies of Rome, which are so well calculated to keep
the world fettered in ignorance, superstition, and death.

But God saw the tears with which I bedewed my pillow
that night. He heard the cry of my agonizing soul, and in His
infinite love and mercy determined to come to my rescue, and
save me. If He saw fit to leave me many years more in the
slavery of Egypt, it was that I might better know the plagues
of that land of darkness, and the iron chains which are there
prepared for poor lost souls.

When the hour of my deliverance came, the Lord took me
by the hand and helped me to cross the Red Sea. He brought
me to the Land of Promise—a land of peace, life and joy which
passeth all understanding.