University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXVI.

CONTINUATION OF THE TRADE IN MASSES.

THE hour of my absence had been one of anxiety for the
curate and the vicars. But my prompt return filled them
with joy.

"What news!" they all exclaimed.

"Good news," I answered; "the battle has been fierce but
short. We have gained the day; and if we are only true to ourselves,
another great victory is in store for us. The bishop is so
sure that we are the only ones who think of that reform, that he
will not move a finger to prevent the other priests from following
us. This security will make our success infallible. But we
must not lose a moment. Let us address our circular to every
priest in Canada."

One hour later there were more than twenty writers at work,
and before twenty-four hours, more than three hundred letters
were carried to all the priests, giving them the reasons why we
should try, by all fair means, to put an end to the shameful
simoniacal trade in masses which was going on between Canada
and France.

The week was scarcely ended, when letters came from nearly
all the curates and vicars to the bishop, respectfully requesting him
to withdraw his name from "The Society of the Three Masses."
Only fifty refused to comply with our request.

Our victory was more complete than we had expected. But
the bishop of Quebec, hoping to regain his lost ground, immediately
wrote to the bishop of Montreal, my Lord Telemesse, to
come to his help and show us the enormity of the crime we had

committed, in rebelling against the will of our ecclesiastical
superiors.

A few days later, to my great dismay, I received a short and
very cold note from the bishop's secretary, telling me that their
lordships, the bishops of Montreal and Quebec, wanted to see
me at the palace, without delay. I had never seen the bishop of
Montreal, and my surprise and disappointment were great in
finding myself in the presence of a man, my idea of whom was
of gigantic proportions, when in reality he was very small. But
I felt exceedingly well pleased by the admirable mixture of firmness,
intelligence and honesty of his whole demeanor. His eyes
were piercing as the eagle's; but when fixed on me, I saw in them
the marks of a noble and honest heart.

The motions of his head were rapid, his sentences short, and
he seemed to know only one line—the straight one—when approaching
a subject or dealing with a man. He had the merited
reputation of being one of the most learned and eloquent men
of Canada. The bishop of Quebec had remained on his sofa
and left the bishop of Montreal to receive me. I fell at his feet
and asked his blessing, which he gave me in the most cordial
way. Then, putting his hand upon my shoulder, he said in a
Quaker style: "Is it possible that thou art Chiniquy—that young
priest who makes so much noise? How can such a small man
make so much noise?"

There being a smile on his countenance as he uttered these
words, I saw at once that there was no anger or bad feeling in
his heart. I replied: "My lord, do you not know that the most
precious pearls and perfumes are put up in the smallest vases?"

The bishop saw that this was a compliment to his address;
he smilingly replied: "Well, well, if thou art a noisy priest,
thou art not a fool. But tell me, why dost thou want to destroy
our `Three Mass Society' and establish that new one on its ruins,
in spite of thy superiors?"

"My lord, my answer will be as respectful, short and plain as
possible. I have left the `Three Mass Society' because it was
my right to do it, without anybody's permission. I hope our
venerable Canadian bishops do not wish to be served by slaves!"

"I do not say," replied the bishop, "that thou wert bound in
conscience to remain in the `Three Mass Society;' but, can I
know why thou hast left such a respectable association, at the
head of which thou seest thy bishops and the most venerable
priests in Canada?"

"I will again be plain in my answer, my lord. If your lordship
wants to go to hell with your venerable priests by spiriting
away twenty cents from every one of our honest and pious penitents
for masses which you get said for five, by bad priests in
Paris, I will not follow you. Moreover, if your lordship wants
to be thrown into the river by the furious people, when they
know how long and how cunningly we have cheated them with
our simoniacal trade in masses, I do not want to follow you into
the cold stream."

"Well, well!" answered the bishop, "let us drop that matter
forever."

He uttered this short sentence with such an evidence of sincerity
and honesty, that I saw he really meant it. He had, at a
glance, seen that his ground was untenable, in the presence of
priests who knew their rights and had a mind to stand by them.

My joy was great indeed at such a prompt and complete victory.
I again fell at the bishop's feet and asked his benediction
before taking leave of him. I then left to go and tell the
curates and vicars the happy issue of my interview with the
bishop of Montreal.

From that time till now, at the death of every priest, the
Clerical Press never failed mentioning whether the deceased
priest belonged to the "Three" or "One Mass Society."

We had, to some extent, diminished the simoniacal and infamous
trade in masses, but unfortunately we had not destroyed
it; and I know that to-day it has revived. Since I left the
Church of Rome, the bishops of Quebec have raised the "Three
Mass Society" from its grave.

It is a public fact, that no priest dare deny, that the trade
in masses is still conducted on a large scale with France. There
are in Paris and other large cities in that country public agencies
to carry on that shameful traffic. It is, generally, in the

hands of booksellers or merchants of church ornaments. Every
year their houses send a large number of prospectuses through
France and Belgium and other Catholic countries, in which they
say that, in order to help the priests, who having received money
for their masses, don't know where to have them said, they offer
a premium of twenty-five or thirty per cent. to those who will
send them the surplus of the money they have in hand, to offer
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The priests who have such surplus, tempted by that premium,
which is usually paid with a watch or chain, or a chalice, disgorge
a part or the whole of the large sums they possess into
the hands of the pious merchants, who take this money and use
it as they please.

But they never pay the masses in money, they give only merchandise.
For instance, that priest will receive a watch if he
promises to celebrate one or two hundred masses, or a chalice to
celebrate three or four hundred masses. I have, here in hand,
several of the contracts or promissory notes sent by those merchants
of masses to the priests. The public will, no doubt, read
the following documents with interest. They were handed me
by a priest lately converted from the Church of Rome:

Rue de Reimes—Paris.

Ant. Levesques, editor of the works of Mr. Dufriche—Desgenettes.

Cure of Notre Dame des Victoires.

Delivered to the Rev. Mr. Camerle, curate of Ansibeau (Basses Alpes).

                   

	Paris, October 12, 1874. F.
10 metres of Satin cloth, at 22 francs	220.
8 metres of merino, all wool	123.
Month of May	2.
History of Mary Christina	1.40
Life of St. Stanislas Koska	2.
Meditations of the Soul	4.
Jesus Christ, the light of the world	2.
Packing and freight	9.30
Total	363.70

Mr. Curate: We have the honor of informing you that the packages
containing the articles you have ordered on the 4th of October, were shipped

on the 12th of October, to Digne, where we respectfully request you to go
and ask for them. For the payment of these articles, we request you to say
the following masses:

58 ad intentionem of the giver, for the discharge of Rev. Mr. Montet.

58 ad intentionem of the givers, for the discharge of Rev. Mr. Hœg.

100-188 for the dead, for the discharge of Rev. Mr. Wod.

Mr. Curate: Will you be kind enough to say or have said all those
masses in the shortest time possible, and answer these Rev'd gentlemen, if
they make any inquiries about the acquittal of those masses.

Rev. Mr. Camerle: We have the honor of addressing you the invoice
of what we forwarded to you on the 12th of October. On account we have
put to your credit 188 masses. We respectfully request you get said to
the following intentions:

         

73 for the dead, to the acquittal of Rev. Mr. Watters,	For the discharge of Rev. Mr. C—
70 pro defucto,
20 ad intentionem donatis,
13 ad intentionem donatis,
176

Mr. Curate: Be kind enough to say these masses or have them said
as soon as possible, and answer the reverend gentlemen who may inquire
from you about their acquittal. The 188 masses mentioned in our letter of
the 3rd inst., added to the 176 here mentioned, make 364 francs, the value of
the goods sent you. We thought you would like to have the pamphlets of
propaganda we address you.

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.