4. "Nonne extra tribunal, vel in ipso confessionis actu, aliquia dixi aut egi cum intentione diabolica has personas seducendi? (Idem, idem.)

Have I not, either during or after confession, done or said anything with a diabolical intention of seducing my female penitents?

"What arch-enemy of our holy religion is so bold and impious as to put to our saintly priests such an impudent and insulting question?" may ask some of our Roman Catholic readers. It is easy to answer. This great enemy of your religion is no less than a justly offended God, admonishing and reproving your priests for exposing both you and themselves to dangerous allurements and seductions. It is his voice speaking to their consciences, and warning them of the danger and corruption of auricular confession. It says to them: Beware! for ye might be tempted, as surely you will, to do or say something against honor and purity. Husbands and fathers, who rightly value the honor of your wives and daughters more than all treasures, who consider it too precious a boon to be exposed to the dangers of pollution, and who would prefer to lose your life a thousand times than to see those you love most on earth fall in the snares of the seducer, read once more and ponder what your church asks the priest after he has heard your wife or daughter in confession: "Have you not, either during or after confession, done or said anything with a diabolical intention of seducing your female penitents?"

If your priest remains deaf to these words addressed to his conscience, you cannot help giving heed to them and understanding their full significance. You can not be easy and fear nothing from that priest in those close interviews with your wives and daughters, when his superiors and your own Church tremble for him, and question his purity and honesty. They see a great danger for both the confessor and his penitent; for they know that confession has many a time been the pretence or the cause of the most shameful seductions.

If there was no real danger for the chastity of women, in confessing to a man their most secret sins, do you believe that your popes and theologians would be so stupid as to acknowledge it and put to confessors questions that would be most insulting and out of place, should there be no occasion for them?

Is it not presumption and folly on your part to think that there is no danger, when the Church of Rome tells you positively that there is danger, and uses the strongest terms in expressing her uneasiness and apprehension?

Why, your church sees the most pressing reasons to fear for the honor of your wives and daughters, as well as for the chastity of her priest: and still you remain unconcerned, indifferent to the fearful peril to which they are exposed! Are you like the Jewish people of old, to whom it was said; "Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not?" (Isa. vi, 9).

But if you see or suspect the danger you are warned of; if the eye of your intelligence can fathom the dreadful abyss where the dearest objects of your heart are in danger of falling, then it behoves you to keep them from the paths that lead to the fearful chasm. Do not wait till it is too late, when they are too near the precipice to be rescued. You may think the danger to be far off, while it is near at hand. Profit by the sad experience of so many victims of confession who have been irretrievably lost, irrecoverably ruined for time and eternity. The voice of your conscience, of honor, of God himself, tells you that it may become too late to save them from destruction, through your neglect and procrastination. While thanking God for having preserved them from temptations that have proved fatal to so many married or unmarried women, do not lose a single moment in taken the necessary means to keep them from temptation and falls.

Instead of allowing them to go and kneel at the feet of a man to obtain the remission of their sins, lead them to the cross, the only place where they can secure pardon and peace everlasting. And why, after so many unfruitful attempts, should they try any longer to wash themselves in a puddle, when the pure waters of eternal life are offered them so freely, through Christ Jesus, their only Saviour and Mediator?

Instead of seeking their pardon from a poor and miserable sinner, weak and tempted as they are, let them go to Christ, the only strong and perfect man, the only hope and salvation of the world.

O poor deluded Catholic woman! listen no longer to the deceiving words of the Church of Rome, who has no pardon, no peace for you, but only snares; who offers you thraldom and shame in return for the confession of your sins! But listen rather to the invitations of your Saviour, who has died on the cross that you might be saved, and who alone can give rest to your weary souls.

Harken to His words when he says to you: "Come to me, O ye heavily laden, crushed, as it were, under the burden of your sins, and I shall give you rest.... I am the physician of your souls.... Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.... Come then to me and ye shall be healed.... I have sent back nor lost none who have come to me.... Invoke my name.... believe in me.... repent.... love God and your neighbor as yourself, and you shall be saved.... For all who believe in me and call upon my name, shall be saved.... When I am raised up between heaven and earth, I shall draw every one to me"....

O, mothers and daughters, instead of going to the priest for pardon and salvation, go to Jesus, who is so pressingly inviting you, and the more so as you have more need of divine help and grace. Even if you are as great a sinner as Mary Magdalene you can, like her, wash the feet of the Saviour with the flowing tears of your repentance and your love, and like her, receive the pardon of your sins.

To Jesus then, and to him alone for the confession and pardon of your sins: for there only you can find peace, light, and life!

* * * * *

CHAPTER XI.

SOME OF THE MATTERS ON WHICH THE PRIEST OF ROME MUST QUESTION HIS PENITENTS.

A CHAPTER FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF LEGISLATORS, HUSBANDS, AND FATHERS.

* * * * *

Dens wants the confessors to interrogate on the following matters:—

1. "Peccant uxores, quae susceptum viri semen ejiciunt, vel ejicere conantur." (Dens, tom. vii. p. 147).

2. "Peccant conjuges mortaliter, si copula incepta, cohibeant seminationem."

3. "Si vir jam seminaverit, dubium fit an femina lethaliter peccat, si se retrahat a seminando; aut peccat lethaliter vir non expectando seminationem uxoris." (p. 153).

4. "Peccant conjuges inter se circa actum conjugalem. Debet servari modus, sive situs; imo ut non servetur debitum vas, sed copula habeatur in vase praepostero, alioquoque non naturali. Si fiat accedendo a postero, a latere, stando, sedendo, vel si vir sit succumbus." (p. 166).

5. "Impotentia. Est incapacitas perficiendi copulam carnalem perfectam cum seminatione viri in vase se debito, seu, de se, aptam generationi. Vel, ut si mulier sit nimis arcta respectu unius viri, non respectu alterius". (vol. vii. p. 273).

6. "Notatur quod pollutio, in mulieribus possit perfici, ita ut semen earum non effluat extra membrum genitale.

Indicium istius allegat Billuart, si scilicet mulier sensiat seminis resolutionem cum magno voluptatis sensu, qua completa, passio satiatur" (vol. iv. p. 168).

7. "Uxor se accusans, in confessione, quod negaverit debitum, interrogetur an ex pleno rigore juris sui id petiverit" (vol. vii. p. 168).

8. "Confessarius poenitentem, qui confitetur se peccasse cum sacerdote, vel sollicitatam ab eo ad turpia, potest interrogare utrum ille sacerdos sit ejus confessarius, an in confessione sollitaverit" (vol. vi. p. 294).

There are a great many other unmentionable things on which Dens, in his fourth, fifth, and seventh volumes, requires the confessor to ask from his penitent, which I omit.

Now let us come to Liguori. That so-called Saint, Liguori is not less diabolically impure than Dens, in his questions to the women. But I will cite only two of the things on which the spiritual physician of the Pope must not fail to examine his spiritual patient:—

1. "Quaerat an sit semper mortale, si vir immitat pudenda in os uxoris?...

Verius affirmo quia, in hoc actu, ob calorem oris, adest proximum periculum pollutionis, et videtur nova species luxuriae contra naturam, dicta, irruminatio."

2. "Eodem modo, Sanchez damnat virum de mortali, qui, in actu copulae, immiteret digitum in vas praeposterum uxoris; quia, ut ait, in hoc actu adest affectus ad Sodomiam" (Liguori, tom. vi. p. 935).

The celebrated Burchard, Bishop of Worms, has made a book of the questions which had to be put by the confessors to their penitents of both sexes. During several centuries it was the standard book of the priests of Rome. Though that work to-day is out of print, Dens, Liguori, Debreysne, &c., &c., have ransacked its polluting pages, and given them to study to the modern confessors, in order to question their penitents. I will select only a few questions of the Roman Catholic bishop to the young men:—

1. "Fecisti solus tecum fornicationem ut quidam facere solent; ita dico ut ipse tuum membrum virile in manum tuam acciperes, et sic duceres praeputium tuum, et manu propria commoveres, ut, sic, per illam delectationem semen projiceres?"

2. "Fornicationem fecisti cum masculo intra coxas; ita dico ut tuum virile membrum intra coxas alterius mitteres, et sic agitando semen funderes?"

3. "Fecisti fornicationem, ut quidem facere solent, ut tuum virile membrum in lignum perforatum, aut in aliquod hujus modi mitteres, et, sic, per illam commotionem et delectationem semen projiceres?"

4. "Fecisti fornicationem contra naturam, id est, cum masculis vel animalibus coire, id est cum equo, cum vacca, vel asina, vel aliquo animali?" (vol. i. p. 136.)

Among the questions we find in the Compendium of the Right Rev. Burchard, Bishop of Worms, which must be put to women, are the following (p. 115):—

1. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres solent, quoddam molimen, aut machinamentum in modum virilis membri ad mensuram tuae voluptatis, et illud loco verendorum tuorum aut alterius cum aliquibus ligaturis, ut fornicationem faceres cum aliis mulieribus, vel alia eodem instrumento, sive alio tecum?"

2. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut jam supra dicto molimine, vel alio aliquo machinamento, tu ipsa in te solam faceres fornicationem?"

3. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, quando libidinem se vexantem extinguere volunt, quae se conjungunt quasi coire debeant et possint, et conjungunt invicem puerperia sua, et sic, fricando pruritum illarum extinguere desiderant?"

4. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut cum filio suo parvulo fornicationem faceres, ita dico ut filium tuum supra turpidinem tuam poneres ut sic imitaberis fornicationem?"

5. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut succumberes aliquo jumento et illud jumentum ad coitum qualicumque posses ingenio, ut sic coiret tecum?"

The celebrated Debreyne has written a whole book, composed of the most incredible details of impurities, to instruct the young confessors in the art of questioning their penitents. The name of the book is "Moechiology," or "treaty on all the sins against the six (seven) and the nine commandments, as well as on all the questions of the married life which refer to them."

That work is much approved and studied in the Church of Rome. I do not know that the world has ever seen anything comparable to the filthy and infamous details of that book. I will cite only two of the questions which Debreyne wants the confessor to put to his penitent.

To the young men (page 95) the confessor will ask:—

"Ad cognoscendum an usque ad pollutionem se tetigerint, quando tempore et quo fine se tetigerint; an tunc quosdam motus in corpore experti fuerint, et per quantum temporis spatium; an cessantibus tactibus nihil insolitum et turpe acciderit; an non longe majorem in corpore voluptatem perceperint in fine tactuum quam in eorum principio; an tum in fine quando magnam delectationem carnalem senserunt, omnes motus corporis cessaverint; an non madefacti fuerint?" &c., &.

To the girl the confessor will ask:—

"Quae sese tetigisse fatentur, an non aliquem pruritum extinguere tentaverit, et utrum pruritus ille cessaverit cum magnam senserint voluptatem; an tunc, ipsimet tactus cessaverint?" &c., &c.

The Right Rev. Kenrick, late Bishop of Boston, United States, in his book for the teaching of confessors on what matters they must question their penitents, has the following, which I select among thousands as impure and damnable to the soul and body:—

"Uxor quae, in usu matrimonii, se vertit, ut non recipiat semen, vel statim post illud acceptum surgit, ut expellatur, lethaliter peccat; sed opus non est ut diu resupina jaceat, quum matrix, brevi, semen attrahat, et mox, arctissime claudatur" (vol. iii. p. 317).

"Puellae patienti licet se vertere, et conari ut non recipiat semen, quod injuria ei immittitur; sed, exceptum, non licet expellere, quia jam possessionem pacificam habet, et haud absque injuria naturae ejiceretur" (tom. iii. p. 317).

"Conjuges senes plerumque coeunt absque culpa, licet contingat semen extra vas effundi; id enim per accidens fit ex infirmitate naturae. Quod si vires adeo sint fractae ut nulla sit seminandi intra vas spes, jam nequeunt jure conjugii uti" (tom. iii. p. 317).

* * * * *

Notes

[1] "To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." (1 Cor. vii. 2.)

[2] A silver box containing consecrated bread, which is believed to be the real body, blood, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

[3] And remark that all their religious authors who have written on that subject hold the same language. They all speak of those continual degrading temptations; they all lament the damning sins which follow those temptations; they all entreat the priests to fight those temptations and repent of those sins.

[4] He is dead long ago.

[5] By the word penitents, Rome means not those who repent, but those who confess to the priest.

[6] He died many years after when at the head of the Laval University.

* * * * *

Corrections made to printed original.

Chapter I. Para. 9. "I do here publicly challenge the whole Roman Catholic priesthood" - 'hear' in original.

ibid. Para 13. "everywhere they struggle nerve themselves with a superhuman courage" - 'stuggle' in original.

Chapter II. Para. 1. "The terrible and mysterious cause of her death was known" - 'known' in original.

Chapter III. Para 9. "he suspects that nobody but his co-sinner brethren" - 'brethern' in original.

Chapter V. Para 12. "a good, honest, Christian, and godly thing" - 'Christain' in original.

ibid. Para 36. "particularly if high education has added to her natural shrewdness." - 'particulary' in original.

Chapter VI. Para 30. "humiliation and opprobrium of the questionable privileges of an uncertain paternity." - 'questioable' in original

ibid. Para 39. "it is nothing else than a school of immorality." - 'im-' at end of one line is not completed in original, this completion seems best to fit the sense of the next paragraph.

CHAPTER VII. Heading - 'CHAPTER VIII.' in original.

ibid. Para 12. "the obligation and power which every one of His disciples had of forgiving" - 'desciples' in original.

Chapter IX. Para 80. "secreto et absque arbitrio" - 'and' for 'et' in original. "aliquid loquendum habet" - 'loquem dum' in original

ibid. Para 89. "Curiosum genus ad cognoscendam vitam alienam;" - 'cognescendam' in original

ibid. Para 121. "ex hisque perpetua infamia denigrari!" - 'hisgue' in original

Chapter XI. Para 20. "which must be put to women" - 'womem' in original.

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