University of Virginia Library

Chapter XVI.

THE PRIEST OF ROME AND THE HOLY FATHERS: OR HOW I
SWORE TO GIVE UP THE WORD OF GOD TO FOLLOW THE
WORD OF MEN.

THERE are several imposing ceremonies at the ordination of
a priest; and I will never forget the joy I felt when the
Roman Pontiff presentnig to me the Bible, ordered me, with a
solemn voice, to study and preach it. That order passed
through my soul as a beam of light. But, alas! those rays of
light and life were soon to be followed, as a flash of lightning
in a stormy night, by the most sudden and distressing darkness!

When holding the sacred volume, I accepted with unspeakable
joy the command of studying and preaching its saving
truth; but I felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon me when I
pronounced the awful oath which is required from every priest:

Many times, with the other students in theology, I had
discussed the nature of that strange oath; still more often, in the
silence of my meditations, alone in the presence of God, I had
tried to fathom the bottomless abyss which, it seemed to me,
was dug under my feet by it, and every time my conscience had
shrunk in terror from its consequences. But I was not the only
one in the seminary who contemplated, with an anxious mind,
its evidently blasphemous nature.

About six months before our ordination, Stephen Baillargeon,
one of my fellow theological students, had said in my presence
to our superior, the Rev. Mr. Raimbault: "Allow me to tell
you that one of the things with which I cannot reconcile my
conscience is the solemn oath we will have to take, `That we

will never interpret the Scriptures except according to the
unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers!' We have not given
a single hour yet to the serious study of the Holy Fathers. I
know many priests, and not a single one of them has ever
studied the Holy Fathers; they have not even got them in their
libraries! We will probably walk in their footsteps. It may
be that not a single volume of the Holy Fathers will ever fall
into our hands! In the name of common sense, how can we
swear that we will follow the sentiments of men of whom we
know absolutely nothing, and about whom, it is more probable,
we will never know anything, except by mere vague hearsay?

Our superior gave evident signs of weakness in his answer
to that unexpected difficulty. But his embarrassment grew
much greater when I said: "Baillargeon cannot contemplate
that oath without anxiety, and he has given you some of his
reasons; but he has not said the last word on that strange oath.
If you will allow me, Mr. Superior, I will present you some
more formidable objections. It is not so much on account of
our ignorance of the doctrines of the Holy Fathers that I tremble
when I think that I will have `to swear never to interpret the
Scriptures except according to their unanimous consent.' Would
to God that I could say, with Baillargeon, `I know nothing of
the Holy Fathers; how can I swear that they will guide me in
all my ways?' It is true that we know so little of them that it
is supremely ridiculous, if it is not an insult to God and man,
that we take them for our guides. But my regret is that we
know already too much of the Holy Fathers to be exempt from
perjuring ourselves, when we swear that we will not interpret
the Holy Scriptures except according to their unanimous
consent.

"Is it not a fact that the Holy Fathers' writings are so
perfectly kept out of sight, that it is absolutely impossible to
read and study them? But even if we had access to them, have
we sufficient time at our disposal to study them so perfectly that
we could conscientiously swear that we will follow them? And
if we don't study them, how can we be exempted from wilful
perjury the day that we will swear to follow them? How can

we follow a thing we do not see, which we do not hear, and
about which we do not know more than the man in the moon?
Our shameful ignorance of the Holy Fathers is a sufficient
reason to make us fear at the approach of the solemn hour that
we will swear to follow them. Yes! But we know enough of
the Holy Fathers to chill the blood in our veins when swearing
to interpret the Holy Scriptures only according to their unanimous
consent. Please, Mr. Superior, tell us what are the texts
of Scripture on which the Holy Fathers are unanimous. You
respect yourself too much to try to answer a question which no
honest man has, or will ever dare to answer. And if you, one
of the most learned men of France, cannot put your finger on
the texts of the Holy Bible and say, `The Holy Fathers are
perfectly unanimous on these texts!' how can we, poor young
ecclesiastics of the humble College of Nicolet, say `The Holy
Fathers are unanimously of the same mind on those texts?'
But if we cannot distinguish to-day, and if we shall never be able
to distinguish between the texts on which the Holy Fathers are
unanimous and the ones on which they differ, how can we dare
to swear before God and man to interpret every text of the
Scriptures only according to the unanimous consent of the
Holy Fathers?

"By that awful oath, will we not be absolutely bound to
remain mute as dead men on every text on which the Holy
Fathers have differed, under the evident penalty of becoming
perjured? Will not every text on which the Holy Fathers
have differed become as the dead carcass which the Israelites
could not touch, except by defiling themselves? After that
strange oath, to interpret the Scriptures only according to the
unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, will we not be absolutely
deprived of the privilege of studying or preaching on a
text on which they have differed?

"The consequences of the oath are legion, and every one of
them seems to me the death of our ministry, the damnation of
our souls! You have read the history of the Church, as we
have it here, written by Henrion, Berrault-Bell-Costel and
Fleury. Well, what is the prominent fact in those reliable

histories of the Church? Is it not that the Church has constantly
been filled with the noise of the controversies of Holy Fathers
with Holy Fathers? Do we not find, on every page, that the
Holy Fathers of one century very often differed from the Holy
Fathers of another century in very important matters? Is it not
a public and undeniable fact, that the history of our Holy Church
is almost nothing else than the history of the hard conflict, stern
divisions, unflinching contradictions and oppositions of Holy
Fathers to Holy Fathers?

"Here is a big volume of manuscript written by me, containing
only extracts from our best Church historians, filled with
the public disputes of Holy Fathers among themselves on almost
every subject of Christainity.

"There are Holy Fathers who say, with our best modern
theologians—St. Thomas, Bellarmine and Liguori—that we
must kill heretics as we kill wild beasts; while many others say
that we must tolerate them! You all know the name of the
Holy Father who sends to hell all the widows who marry a
second time, while other Holy Fathers are of a different mind.
Some of them, you know well, had very different notions from
ours about purgatory. Is it necessary for me to give you the
names of the Holy Fathers, in Africa and Asia, who refused to
accept the supreme jurisdiction we acknowledge in the Pope
over all churches? Several Holy Fathers have denied the
supreme authority of the Church of Rome—you know it; they
have laughed at the excommunications of the Popes! Some
even have gladly died when excommunicated by the Pope,
without doing anything to reconcile themselves to him! What
do we find, in the six volumes of letters we have still from St.
Jerome, if not the undeniable fact that he filled the Church with
the noise of his harsh denunciations of the scriptural views of
St. Augustine on many important points. You have read those
letters? Well, have you not concluded that St. Jerome and St.
Augustine agreed almost only on one thing, which was, to
disagree on every subject they treated?

"Did not St. Jerome knock his head against nearly all the
Holy Fathers of his time? And has he not received hard knocks

from almost all the Holy Fathers with whom he was acquainted?
Is it not a public fact that St. Jerome and several other Holy
Fathers rejected the sacred book of the Maccabees, Judith,
Tobias, just as the heretics of our time reject them?

"And now we are gravely asked, in the name of the God of
Truth, to swear that we will interpret the Holy Scriptures only
according to the unanimous consent of those Holy Fathers, who
have been unanimous but in one thing, which was never to
agree with each other, and sometimes not even with themselves.

"For it is a well-known fact, though it is a very deplorable
one, for instance, that St. Augustine did not always keep to the
same correct views on the text `Thou art Peter, and upon that
rock I will build my church.' After holding correct views on
that fundamental truth he gave it up, at the end of his life, to
say, with the Protestants of our day, that `upon that rock means
only Christ, and not Peter.' Now, how can I be bound by such an
oath to follow the views of men who have themselves been
wavering and changing, when the Word of God must stand as
an unmoving rock to my heart? If you require from us an
oath, why put into our hands the history of the Church, which
has stuffed our memory with the undeniable facts of the endless
fierce divisions of the Holy Fathers on almost every question
which the Scriptures present to our faith?

"Would to God that I could say, with Baillargeon, I know
nothing of the Holy Fathers! Then I could perhaps be at peace
with my conscience, after perjuring myself by promising a thing
that I cannot do.

"I was lately told by the Rev. Mr. Leprohon, that it is
absolutely necessary to go to the Holy Fathers in order to
understand the Holy Scriptures! But I will respectfully repeat
to-day what I then said on that subject.

"If I am too ignorant or too stupid to understand St. Mark,
St. Luke and St. Paul, how can I be intelligent enough to
understand Jerome, Augustine, and Tertullian? And if St.
Matthew, St. John and St. Peter have not got from God the
grace of writing with a sufficient degree of light and clearness
to be understood by men of good-will, how is it that Justin,

Clemens and Cyprian have received from our God a favor of
lucidity and clearness which he denied to His apostles and
evangelists? If I cannot rely upon my private judgment when
studying, with the help of God, the Holy Scriptures, how can I
rely on my private judgment when studying the Holy Fathers?
You constantly tell me I cannot rely on my private judgment to
understand and interpret the Holy Scriptures; but will you
please tell me with what judgment and intelligence I shall have
to interpret and understand the writings of the Holy Fathers, if
it be not with my own private judgment? Must I borrow the
judgment and intelligence of some of my neighbors in order to
understand and interpret, for instance, the writings of Origen?
or shall I be allowed to go and hear what that Holy Father
wants from me with my own private intelligence? But again,
if you are forced to confess that I have nothing else but my
private judgment and intelligence to read, understand and
follow the Holy Fathers, and that I not only can, but I must,
rely on my own private judgment, without any fear, in that
case, how is it that I will be lost if I make use of that same
private and personal judgment when at the feet of Jesus,
listening to His eternal and life-giving words?

"Nothing distresses me so much in our holy religion as this
want of confidence in God when we go to the feet of Jesus to
hear or read His soul-saving words, and the abundance of self-confidence,
when we go among sinful and fallible men, to know
what they say.

"It is not to the Holy Scriptures that we are invited to go to
know what the Lord saith, it is to the Holy Fathers!!

"Would it be possible that, in our Holy Church, the Word
of God would be darkness, and the words of men light!

"This dogma, or article of our religion, by which we must
go to the Holy Fathers in order to know what `The Lord
saith,' and not to the Holy Scripture, is to my soul what a
handful of sand would be to my eyes—it makes me perfectly
blind.

"When our venerable bishop places the Holy Scriptures in
my hands and commands me to study and preach them, I will

understand what he means, and he will know what he says.
He will give me a most sublime work to perform; and, with
the grace of God, I hope I will do it. But when he orders me
to swear that I will never interpret the Holy Scriptures, except
according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, will
he not make a perjured man of me, and will he not say a thing
to which he has not given sufficient attention? For to swear
that we will never interpret anything of the Scriptures, except
according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, is to
swear to a thing as impossible and ridiculous as to take the moon
with our hands. I say more, it is to swear that we will never
study nor interpret a single chapter of the Bible. For it is
probable that there are very few chapters of that Holy Book
which have not been a cause of serious difference between
some of the Holy Fathers.

"As the writings of the Holy Fathers fill at least two
hundred volumes in folio, it will not take us less than ten years
of constant study to know on what question they are or are not
unanimous! If, after that time of study, I find that they are
unanimous on the question of orthodoxy, which I must believe
and preach, all will be right with me. I will walk with a
fearless heart to the gates of eternity, and with the certainty of
following the true way of salvation. But if among fifty Holy
Fathers there are forty-nine on one side and one only on the
opposite side, in what awful state of distress will I be plunged!
Will I not be then as a ship in a stormy night, after she has
lost her compass, her masts and her helm. If I were allowed to
follow the majority, there would always be a plank of saftey to
rescue me from the impending wreck. But the Pope has
inexorably tied us to the unanimity. If my faith is not the
faith of unanimity, I am forever damned. I am out of the
Church!!

"What a frightful alternative is just before us! We must
either perjure ourselves, by swearing to follow a unanimity
which is a fable, in order to remain Roman Catholics, or we
must plunge into the abyss of impiety and atheism by refusing to
swear that we will adhere to a unanimity which never existed."

It was visible, at the end of that long and stormy conference,
that the fears and anxieties of Baillargeon and mine were
partaken of by every one of the students in theology. The
boldness of our expressions brought upon us a real storm. But
our superior did not dare to face or answer a single one of our
arguments; he was evidently embarrassed, and nothing could
surpass his joy when the bell told him that the hour of the
conference was over. He promised to answer us the next day;
but the next day he did nothing but throw dust into our eyes,
and abuse us to his heart's content. He began by forbidding
me to read any more of the controversial books I had bought a
few months before, among which was the celebrated Derry
discussion between seven priests and seven Protestants. I had
to give back the well-known discussion between "Pope and
Maguire," and between Gregg and the same Maguire. I had
also to give up the numbers of the Avenir and other books of
Lamenais, which I had got the liberty, as a privilege, to read.
It was decided that my intelligence was not clear enough, and
that my faith was not sufficiently strong to read those books. I
had nothing to do but to bow my head under the yoke and obey,
without a word of murmur. The darkest night was made
around our understandings, and we had to believe that that
awful darkness was the shining light of God!! We rejected
the bright truth which had so nearly conquered our minds, in
order to accept the most ridiculous sophisms as gospel truths!
We did the most degrading action a man can do—we silenced
the voice of our conscience, and we consented to follow our
superior's views, as a brute follows the order of his master; we
consented to be in the hands of our superiors like a stick in the
hands of the traveler.

During the months which elapsed between that hard-fought,
though lost battle, and the solemn hour of my priestly ordination,
I did all I could to subdue and annihilate my thoughts on that
subject. My hope was that I had entirely succeeded. But, to
my dismay, that reason suddenly awoke, as from a long sleep,
when I had perjured myself, as every priest has to do. A chill
of horror and shame ran through all my frame in spite of

myself. In my inmost soul a cry was heard from my wounded
conscience. "You annihilate the Word of God! You rebel
against the Holy Ghost! You deny the Holy Scriptures to
follow the steps of sinful men! You reject the pure waters of
eternal life, to drink the waters of death."

In order to choke again the voice of my conscience, I did
what my Church advised me to do—I cried to my wafer god
and to the blessed Virgin Mary, that they might come to my
help, and silence the voices which were troubling my peace by
shaking my faith.

With the utmost sincerity, the day of my ordination, I
renewed the promise that I had already so often made, and said
in the presence of God and His angels, "I promise that I will
never believe anything except according to the teachings of my
Holy and Apostolic Church of Rome."

And on that pillow of folly, ignorance and fanaticism I laid
my head to sleep the sleep of spiritual death, with the two
hundred millions of slaves whom the Pope sees at his feet.

And I slept that sleep till the God of our salvation, in His
great mercy, awoke me, by giving to my soul the light, the
truth and the life which are in Jesus Christ.