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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 87

The Chiniquy Lectures — Second Series. — Delivered in the Protestant Hall, Sydney. — The Celibacy of the Priests and Nuns Reviewed by the Light of the Gospel and their Own Historians

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The Chiniquy Lectures

Second Series.

Delivered in the Protestant Hall, Sydney.

The Celibacy of the Priests and Nuns Reviewed by the Light of the Gospel and their Own Historians.

The reverend lecturer prefaced his lecture by saying that he had not, as far as he could remember, lectured on this subject publicly before, and his object to-night was, not to satisfy the curiosity of the audience, but to show them still another reason to thank God because their forefathers had been delivered from the yoke of Popery. He said that when he was a priest he had persuaded ninety-three Protestants to join the Church of Rome, but he was sure that if they had known what he was going to tell the audience then, they would not have given up the light for the darkness. He then said—Celibacy is a Pagan Institution. The priests of ancient Greece and Home were celebates, as the priests of India and China are at the present day. They are obliged to live outside the sacred bonds of marriage. But every one knows how the old Pagan priests of Babylon and Greece kept their celibacy, just as well as the modern priests of China and Hindostan and Home keep it to-day. Celibacy is a diabolical institution. It came from the devil. God has never said it is holy for man to be alone, nor that it is more good for man to live without his wife. He has positively said quite the contrary from the beginning. At the creation He said to Himself, "Let us give Adam a helpmeet." And as heaven and earth shall pass away before the Word of God, so what He said to Adam in the Garden of Eden, he says to mankind now. And a, Christ came to fulfil the law of His Father, He could not, nor did He ever, give any command contrary to the will of God, His Father. Paul, who tells us that God spoke to him about that matter, says positively these very words:—"Now, concerning the things whereof you wrote unto me, it is good for a man not to touch a woman." But he explains himself. He says it might be good, on account of the troubles of that time, for some men not to marry because then they were exposed constantly to the risk of martyrdom and other troubles of those persecuting days. But he says immediately—"Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." This is the Spirit of God, who speaks to every one of us, and says positively that it is the wish, the command of God-that if we wish to sanctify ourselves we should follow His holy laws in that respect. And what does Paul say again? "This is a true saying—if a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good work. A bishop, then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach, &c." Now, the first quality which the Holy Ghost requires from a bishop is to have a wife. Does not God himself tell us that the forced celibacy of Rome is a diabolical institution, when He says—" Now, the Spirit speaketh expressly that in latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth?" 1 Tim. iv. I must tell you a thing that will surprise you. When I studied my theology, and came to the conclusion that it was the will of God that I should be a priest, it was necessary that I should make a vow of celibacy before I could take holy orders. Before making that vow I studied the Scriptures, and it seemed to me that Christ never asked such a sacrifice from any man. We were twenty ecclesiastics preparing ourselves for the priesthood, and when the time came for taking the oath, I wanted to know on what ground it was required of us; our Superior told us that Jesus Christ had ordered it; and when I asked him for the passage to that effect in the New Testament, he gave page 36 us for his answer what Christ said to Peter, when Peter told Him that for His sake they had given up everything. Christ said, that all those who for His sake had given up their wife, their children, their father, their mother, and so forth, would have eternal life in His kingdom. "You see,' said the Superior," that Peter proclaims he had given up his wife when he had given up everything for Christ's sake, and that Jesus answered that such and such would be his reward for this sacrifice." I said to my Superior—" It seems to me that you are not perfectly correct when you say the Apostles had given up their wives." He looked at me in the face, and repeated what he had said several times before—"Chiniquy, you are becoming a Protestant; you are constantly appealing to the Bible against what I tell you." "Well," I said, "there is no evil in referring to the Scriptures, and I respectfully ask you to let me read you a passage," and I read him this passage before the ecclesiastics—Am I not an Apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? . . . . Mine answer to them that do examine me is this: Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other Apostles, and as the brethern of the Lord and Cephas?" (1 Cor. chap. ix. ver. 1, et seq.) I invited him to read the passage again, and I pointed out that Paul positively said that every Apostle had his wife, and that when they travelled their wives went with them. The Superior was thunderstruck. He read the passage again, and he said, "When Paul speaks of the women whom the Apostles used to have travelling with them, he does not mean they were their wives; but they were women who used to go with them to wash their linen. (Laughter.) That seems incredible to you who all make use of your common sense in interpreting the Scriptures which are so simple that a child may understand them. You see how the Church of Rome will squeeze the Scriptures to attain her end. We had a long discussion on the matter, but I had to yield. The Superior said to me—" You are here just as a grain of sand before a big mountain. How dare you bring your little intelligence on that matter against the intelligence of our mighty Church? You are just like a drop of water in the mighty ocean; did you ever hear of a little drop of water attempting to resist the current, of the ocean? Our Holy Church," he continued, "is covering the whole world with her glory. She began at the foot of Calvary and she will continue to the end of the world. She counts her subjects by hundreds of millions, and yet you dare to question her teaching. Shame upon you! If you want to resist, go away and you will be a Protestant. Begin to-day if you wish. You read the Bible too much. It is better for you to take things as your Superiors give them to you, than to try, with your poor intelligence, to find out the meaning yourself." He spoke to me in this way for half an hour, till I was overwhelmed, frightend, ashamed to find myself in the position of a little grain of sand trying to remove a mountain. And his beautiful comparison, which was only dust thrown in my eyes, blinded me. I will never forget the terrible effect produced on my mind by the thought that I was daring to revolt against my Church. And where could I land if I resisted the interpretation of my Church! I would be lost, and rather than be lost I gave up my intelligence. I became a brute, a man without any manhood, just as every poor ecclesiastic is in the Church of Rome. I pity the poor young students who are preparing themselves to be priests. They are honest, but they are cruelly deceived they dare not resist the empty power of Popery which crushes them down. They prefer to think themselves wrong than to think their Church might be wrong. Well, my friends, I made the vow. But when after many years I saw with my own eyes the working of celibacy, when I read in the Romish books, not in the books of Protestants, that the great majority of the ecclesiastics, not poor priests only but ex-Popes had lived publicly with women after they had sworn a solemn vow to live as celibates, when read the history of Stephen, of Alexander VI., when I read of the scandalous life of priests, bishops, and cardinals in Rome, then I said to myself, "Am I bound to believe that such corruptions come from God, that God has given to man an institution which brings him in spite of himself to lead the life of a bruto? You may understand my faith was shaken. One time the priests of Spain were publicly living such a scandalouslife with their penitents, there were so many public infamies that the Pope, in order to stop the torrent of iniquity which threatened to ruin Spain, passed a law that every woman and girl who had been seduced by a priest, might go before an ecclesiastical tribunal and denounce him. Well, the first day, so many came to the house where the tribunal sat, that it could not hold them. Six notaries were employed to take depositions, but they could not attend to a tenth part of the women. They then appointed twenty notaries, but as their was still no prospect of their being able to receive all the depositions, thirty notaries were appointed, and the period for making the depositions was extended from three months to six months. After the six months expired they page 37 found that they had still plenty of work before them, so they relinquished the task as impossible, as they saw that every priest would have to be excommunicated. Perhaps one in a thousand was pure. This happened in Seville, in Spain, the most Catholic country in the world. Bishops Vaughan and Gould will not dare to come forward and deny that. They may send ladies to "refute" the statements (laughter), but I do not care for them. They know it is true, and they dare not deny it. (Cheers.) Now let us look at France, I will give you for my authority a man whom no man here will contradict, Father Hyacinthe. He says positively, and he knows what he says, that in one hundred priests in France, there are ninty-nine who fall into sin, who commit iniquity, in the sight of God, with some of their women, married or unmarried. That is the life of the priests in France. If you see these men as I have done, you will find them gentlemen, well-educated. They seem to be honest, they say their mass every morning, they preach every Sabbath, and have all the exterior of men who live according to their promise in the ways of honour. But their life is most scandalous, and the people of France know it. Why was it that the people of France, in the year 1702, after having spoken in a voice of thunder for many years to the priests and nuns and asked them in vain to put an end to their abominable vices, rose one day in their terrible wrath, and said, "It is impossible to reform our priests and nuns; the only way to serve them is to kill them "And what did they do? It is horrible to think of it. If I had not gone there to study this matter with my own eyes, and question men who had seen the Revolution days, I could not have believed it. But I have met with men who had seen things with their own eyes. The enraged populace took thousands and thousands of priests and performed what they called a Republican marriage, tying a priest and a nun together back to back and throwing them into the sea. The priests were living in such a state of public infamy (for their scandalous conduct was no secret; every boy and girl in France knew of it) that the people said there was no remedy but to have recourse to that public marriage. Imagine a people so noble, so great, so intelligent as the French, doing such deeds! One day when I was visiting the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, in Paris, I was talking to the three priests who were employed by Napoleon to show visitors the monuments of that remarkable cemetery. One of those priests was an old man who had seen the Revolution, and I asked him if the accounts of the immorality and degradation of the priests and nuns were true. He said, "The immorality was far worse than anything you have read in the history of the time. I was a monk and have seen their abominations." You remember that during the last war in France, when the Prussians were besieging the city of Paris, the Parisians, who, according to the public mind, are the most polite people in the world, one day took the bishop and sixty priests, ranged them along a wall and ordered a hundred soldiers to shoot them down as dogs. And the bishop and the priests were shot dead. Why? I am sure if I asked you, many of you would say you do not know. This is the reason. One day I had in my room one of those who shot at the bishop and the priests and he gave me all the details. He was an officer, well-educated, knew at least ten languages, and was exceedingly advanced in literature and in science. I asked him why such men as the French could become so savage as to murder those defenceless priests. "What crime had they committed? It was most infamous to murder them, I said, He answered "I will give you the reason. We have published it; but it is so horrible that it is not believed. A few days before that shooting we had gone to visit the nunnery of Picpus, an immense establishment of nuns in Paris. We saw there a nun (a near relation of mine) and she told us if we were to dig a few feet beneath the floor we would find a mystery of iniquity that would make us put an end to those dens of infamy, the convents. We dug, and we found the bones of dear little children, enough to fill many carts. We were beside ourselves, and we took the priests prisoners. It is said we took them as political prisoners because they betrayed us to the Prussians. That was not the only reason, although they were false enough to be such traitors. But the principal reason why I loaded my gun and felt a satisfaction in taking part in the shooting, was because I had seen with my own eyes the bones of those dear little children."

This is the celibacy of Rome. It is horrible, horrible. Now my friends I would put before you a fact, not a fact of old times, but of the present day, a fact which no priest will dare deny. It is the nistory of the Neapolitan Nunneries, written by a lady known all over Italy under the name of the Countess Henrietta Carracciolo. She thought the best way to go to heaven was to become a nun, so she consecrated herself, made the vow of celibacy, and went to a nunnery. She passed through all the grand ceremonies about which the Church of Rome make so much noise. The officers of the court and the princes of Italy filled the church, and the grand ladies of the; kingdom were the witnesses of her so-called consecration to Jesus page 38 Christ as a nun. She was honest, and thought she was going into the midst of angels. "After a year," she writes in her celebrated work, "I had reason to change my mind, for I saw with my eyes that the nuns, without a single exception, were living with the priests in the most infamous, scandalous way; several priests came to me to tempt, me to commit sin with them, but I told them I was a lady, and would on no consideration consent to lose my self-respect. I fought my battle well, but I was afraid I might end by falling into the ditch with the rest of the nuns; so I went to the superior and asked permission to be allowed to go to a certain nunnery which had the reputation of being one of the holiest, because I had not found the good example I had expected in the one I first entered. After a year or two of supplication I was allowed to change. At first I thought all was going on well, but I soon saw that the abominations and infamies which I had seen in the other nunnery were just the daily bread of those so-called virgins, and I was struck with horror and disgust. I left that nunnery' and went to another; and for nearly twenty years I changed from one to another, in the hope that I would escape the contagion, and would find some house where there were honest priests and nuns. After those years of experience of a nun, I went to the Archbishop Cardinal of Naples, and told him I had entered the nunnery and consecrated myself to God, in the hope that I would lead the life of a lady and a Christian woman, but finding that impossible, I wished to go back into the world where women had permission to marry, and every man had his wife, and every woman her husband. In the nunnery, I said, the priests and nuns lead a life of infamy. He refused me permission to go, as he said I had taken a vow and could not break it. I threatened to break the door if he would not let me out, and he said "If you break the door, I will find you !" This was before the last Revolution. However, during the night I went out, but the next day the secret police of the bishop (for he had his police as well as the State) arrested me, took me back to the nunnery, and I was put into a horrible dungeon, where, for two years, I had to sleep On the bare ground; and had nothing to eat but black bread and impure water. I came to such a degree of emaciation that my mind began to wander, and I tried to kill myself. I stabbed myself, but I had not strength enough to pierce the bone, and I fell to the ground unconscious, bathed in my blood. After two years, my mother, who was a great princess, and my brothers, who were officers in the army of the king, went to the Pope, and told him that if he would not release me they would raise such a hurricane as would make his throne fall. The Pope feared, and he gave permission for me to go back into the world." These are the Countess's words, and after she left the nunnery she wrote a book, a copy of which I have in my hands. The title of the book is "Mysteries of the Neapolitan Convents." The book made a terrible sensation in Italy, as she told as much as a lady could of the life of the priests and nuns. A member of the Italian Parliament drew the attention of the House to the book, and said that as it slandered the holy nuns, many of whom were their own sisters or daughters, and as the nunneries to which it alluded were filled with the purest blood of the kingdom, the ladies of the nobility, the authoress of the book should be punished and her book suppressed. But another member proposed that a committee of five should be appointed, with the mover of the first motion as the President, and that they should visit every nunnery of which the book spoke, make an inquiry, and if they found her statement untrue, he proposed to punish her and suppress the book. "But," said he, "if we find that it is true, we must immediately put an end to the Nunneries in Italy." Well, the next day, this committee of Italian Roman Catholics began their inspection, and what was their report when they had finished their work? They reported to the Parliament that they had found the immoralities of the priests and nuns worse than the book said. All this happened before the last Italian Revolution, and this is the book which afforded Garibaldi such help in sweeping everything before him. A cry of indignation was raised through all the magnificent peninsula of Italy; every man and woman cried shame on the religion which thus degraded their purest women, and immediately the law was passed to prohibit a lady in Italy from becoming a nun. (Cheers.) Nearly all the nunneries were shut, and sold for the benefit of the nation; and the nuns went and got married. I will give you some facts of my own knowledge, and which are public in Canada. A priest whom I knew well-a fine-looking man, a good speaker, with a fine voice for singing, had gone to the parish of Vercheres, about 160 miles from Quebec. During the days of revival he, heard the confession of a beautiful girl, and fell in love with her, and she fell in love with him. He said to her "I see you love me, and I love you, and I want you to come with me to Quebec. There, I am with a bishop and four other priests, and you will lead a most happy life; you will be well paid, well cared for, well dressed, and well fed." The girl consented, thinking she could not lose such a fine page 39 opportunity. He told her he was going to Montreal that day, but the steamer would return in two days and he would be on board; he instructed her to come down to the wharf at midnight, dressed as a man, and to throw her own clothes into the river, so that her parents might think she was drowned. She obeyed the priest and went with him. The next day, the poor parents were distracted at the loss of their daughter, whom they supposed to be drowned—the mother nearly died of grief. The story wont round the parish that the girl had been most pious during the stay of the priest; had been to confession, and for a long time each day during the eight days that he remained, and that for some reason or other she had drowned herself. The parents had a lot of masses said, in order to take her soul out of purgatery. All this time she was sleeping in the room of the bishop; but I have too much respect for you to tell you the life they were leading. I was a young priest at the time, and had often occasion to go to the bishop's palace; I had been many times struck with the handsome appearance of the bishop's "servant man." I thought he was more like a fine looking girl; but when I knew that he slept in the bishop's room, I banished the thought, and told the devil who had put it into my head, to get behind me. I was not the learned man in these matters that I am now. I was green. Matters went on thus for four years. I had in Quebec a near relation, who was one of the first dignitaries of the city. One day he took me aside to tell me a secret, that he and some of his friends had their suspicions about the servant man of the bishop; they believed he was not a man. He thought I should go and speak to the bishop about it; but I preferred that he should undertake the delicate task himself. Well, he went to the bishop, and told him what he and his friends suspected. The bishop's face turned red as a coal and then deadly pale, and he said "Oh, it is nothing; but I thank you for telling me that rumour, as I do not wish to give any offence, I must discharge my man." But it was no easy matter to turn her out. She was holding them with a rope which they could not break without danger, and they trembled before her. The bishop did not know what to do. Just then a priest come from the country, and he was looking for such a servant man as the bishop's (because this was not the only case of a girl being dressed as a man and living with a priest), and he asked the bishop if he could recommend him such a one. The bishop told him that he had just the one for him, and he handed him over the girl, after first having giving her a hundred pounds to close her lips. The priest went to a place called Les Eboulements, and the people congratulated him on having found such a polite and obliging young man. The girl remained four years with the priest, but she then began to grow insolent to all around her. She was the master of the priest, and he trembled before her. Well, the priest, to put an end to these suspicions, persuaded her to marry the daughter of the beadle! (Sensation.) They were married in the parish church, and everything went on well. The "servant man" lived in the neighbouring house of the priest, and used to attend to his wants day and night, as usual, and passed for the husband of the beadle's daughter. This went on for a year, when something came so pressing against the priest, that he had to change to another parish, and another priest called Tetreau took his place. A cousin of Tetreau, who came from Vercheres, the same place as the "servant man," paid a visit to the priest. Seeing her at work in the garden he entered into conversation with her. The "servant man" asked him from what part of Canada he came, and he told him Vercheres. When the girl heard the name, she turned pale. The man scanned her features and with a terrible imprecation he exclaimed, "Margaret! is it possible you are here dressed as a man, when we have wept you as dead,?" "Don't speak any more!" she said. But he had already said too much, as there were three or four witnesses. The news spread like lightning through the village. She was brought before the court, and a doctor was ordered to [unclear: cortify] to her sex. He certified to her being a woman, and the marriage between her and the beadle's daughter was annulled. The priest Tetreau, not knowing she had lived with the bishop, wrote his lordship and informed him of all that had happened, that this so-called man was a girl, and had lived an infamous life with the former priest, and he asked for his advice in the matter. You can understand the terrible position of the poor bishop. Immediately he sent his secretary to give the girl five hundred pounds to leave the country, and to impress on her the necessity of fleeing at once, or else she would likely be sent to the penitentiary for personating a man. The girl was very glad to get the two thousand dollars and she left the country. Since then, she had become a Protestant, but she is not brave enough to come before the public with these facts. But they are well known throughout Canada. When the priest Tetreau knew how she had lived with the bishop and the live priests, he sent his resignation to the bishop, and wrote to him, 'Our Church is the church of the devil; she is that church which God calls the mother of harlots. I leave it. (Cheers.) He became a zealous Methodist minister, and continued page 40 so for thirty-two years; only eight months ago it was I who closed his eyes in Montreal, when he passed away to the better land. I regret the necessity of bringing these things before your mind, but I believe it is quite time for you to know what kind of men you have in your midst, who want to rule your country, who pretend to be the Apostles of Christ. When you speak of their abominable life, they say, "We know there are bad priests, there was a Judas among the apostles." But you may answer them, "If the twelve Apostles had been twelve Judases and Christ had been a rogue, I suppose you would not come and say that Christ and his Apostles were sent by God to preach the Gospel. In the Church of Rome it is not the minority as among the Apostles, who are given to these abominations, it is the immense majority. I say here, before the world, and if Bishops Vaughan and Gould want to know names they can have them, that in Australia not more than four or five years ago, a beautiful, but poor servant girl, had stolen some little thing and was sent to gaol. The gaoler noticed that she was soon to be a mother and he asked her about it. She told him that the bishop was the father of the child. When the parents heard of it, they were enraged, and they brought an action against the bishop. Immediately the bishop went to the family and gave them a great sum of money to leave the country, and in a few days they all left for California. And the little boy that was born there is a little bishop. (Laughter.) All these facts are public in Sydney and I have the names of all the parties. Bishops Vaughan and Gould know that fact as well as I do, and they will not dare to deny them. Now I ask you to pray God to give these poor deluded people His saving light. You have heard here a lady of Sydney giving you her own private experience. I tell the priests boldly that I can bring one thousand women in Australia to prove that priests have tried to destroy their honour. Friends, it is horrible. We must pray to God that He will open the eyes of these poor deluded men who are so cruelly kept in the dark. God has said the day will come when He will destroy that Church. Let us pray that that day may come soon, when He will shake the walls of Babylon with His breath, and the angels of the Lord will sing "Babylon is fallen."(Applause.)