The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional | Page 3

confessors they are for ever lost! But, being absolutely

unable to trample under their feet the laws of self-respect and decency
which God Himself has impressed in their souls, they live in constant
dread of eternal damnation. No human words can tell their desolation
and distress when, at the feet of their confessors, they find themselves
between the horrible necessity of speaking of things on which they
would prefer to suffer the most cruel death rather than to open their lips,
or to be for ever damned if they do not degrade themselves for ever in
their own eyes by speaking on matters which a respectable woman will
never reveal to her own mother, much less to a man!
I have known only too many of these noble-hearted women, who, when
alone with God, in a real agony of desolation and with burning tears,
had asked Him to grant them what they considered the greatest favour,
which was to lose so much of their self-respect as to be enabled to
speak of those unmentionable things just as their confessors wanted
them to speak; and, hoping that their petition had been granted, they
went again to the confessional-box, determined to unveil their shame
before the eyes of that inexorable man. But, when the moment had
come for the self-immolation, their courage failed, their knees trembled,
their lips became pale as death. Cold sweat flowed from all their pores!
The voice of modesty and womanly self-respect was speaking louder
than the voice of their false religion. They had to go out of the
confessional-box unpardoned--nay, with the burden of a new sacrilege
on their conscience.
Oh, how heavy is the yoke of Rome--how bitter is human life--how
cheerless is the mystery of the cross to those deluded and perishing
souls! How gladly they would rush into the blazing piles with the
Brahmin women, if they could hope to see the end of their unspeakable
miseries through the momentary tortures which would open to them the
gates of a better life!
I do here publicly challenge the whole Roman Catholic priesthood to
deny that the greater part of their female penitents remain a certain
period of time--some longer, some shorter--under that most distressing
state of mind.
Yes, by far the greater majority of women, at first, find it next to

impossible to pull down the sacred barriers of self-respect which God
Himself has built around their hearts, intelligences, and souls, as the
best safeguard against the snares of this polluted world. Those laws of
self-respect, by which they cannot consent to speak an impure word
into the ears of a man, and which shut all the avenues of their hearts
against his unchaste questions, even, when speaking in the name of
God--those laws of self-respect are so clearly written in their
conscience, and they are so well understood by them to be a most
Divine gift, that, as I have already said, many prefer to run the risk of
being for ever lost by remaining silent.
It takes many years of the most ingenious (I do not hesitate to call it
diabolical) efforts on the part of the priests to persuade the majority of
their female penitents to speak on questions which even pagan savages
would blush to mention among themselves. Some persist in remaining
silent on those matters during the greatest part of their lives, and many
prefer to throw themselves into the hands of their merciful God and die
without submitting to the defiling ordeal, even after they have felt the
poisonous stings of the enemy, rather than receive their pardon from a
man who, as they feel, would have surely been scandalized by the
recital of their human frailties. All the priests of Rome are aware of this
natural disposition of their female penitents. There is not a single
one--no, not a single one of their moral theologians, who does not warn
the confessors against that stern and general determination of the girls
and married women never to speak in the confessional on matters
which may, more or less, deal with sins against the seventh
commandment. Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, Bailly, &c.--in a word, all the
theologians of Rome--own that this is one of the greatest difficulties
which the confessors have to contend with in the confessional-box.
Not a single Roman Catholic priest will dare to deny what I say on this
matter; for they know that it would be easy for me to overwhelm them
with such crowd of testimonies that their grand imposture would for
ever be unmasked.
I intend, some future day, if God spares me and gives me time for it, to
make known some of the innumerable things which the Roman

Catholic theologians and moralists have written on this question. It will
form one of the most curious books