The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional | Page 5

to swim with me and all her priests in those
waters of Sodom and Gomorrha, under the pretext that their self-will

would be broken down, their fear of sin and humility increased, and
that they would be purified by our absolutions.
In the beginning of my priesthood, I was not a little surprised and
embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady,
whom I used to meet almost every week in her father's house, entering
the box of my confessional. She used to go to confess to another young
priest of my acquaintance, and she was looked upon as one of the most
pious girls of the city. Though she had disguised herself as much as
possible, that I might not know her, I thought that I was not
mistaken--she was the amiable Mary * * * *
Not being absolutely sure of the correctness of my impressions, I left
her entirely under the hope that she was a perfect stranger to me. At the
beginning she could hardly speak; her voice was suffocated by her sobs;
and, through the little apertures of the thin partition between her and
me, I saw two streams of big tears trickling down her cheeks.
After much effort, she said: "Dear Father, I hope you do not know me,
and that you will never try to know me. I am a desperately great sinner.
Oh! I fear that I am lost! But if there is still any hope for me to be saved,
for God's sake, do not rebuke me! Before I begin my confession, allow
me to ask you not to pollute my ears by the questions which our
confessors are in the habit of putting to their female penitents. I have
already been destroyed by those questions. Before I was seventeen
years old, God knows that His angels are not more pure than I was; but
the chaplain of the Nunnery where my parents had sent me for my
education, though approaching old age, put to me in the confessional a
question which, at first, I did not understand; but, unfortunately, he had
put the same questions to one of my young class-mates, who made fun
of them in my presence, and explained them to me; for she understood
them too well. This first unchaste conversation of my life plunged my
thoughts into a sea of iniquity, till then absolutely unknown to me;
temptations of the most humiliating character assailed me for a week,
day and night; after which, sins which I would blot out with my blood,
if it were possible, overwhelmed my soul as with a deluge. But the joys
of the sinner are short. Struck with terror at the thought of the

judgments of God, after a few weeks of the most deplorable life, I
determined to give up my sins and reconcile myself to God. Covered
with shame, and trembling from head to foot, I went to confess to my
old confessor, whom I respected as a saint and cherished as a father. It
seems to me that with sincere tears of repentance I confessed to him the
greatest part of my sins, though I concealed one of them through shame,
and respect for my spiritual guide. But I did not conceal from him that
the strange questions he had put to me at my last confession were, with
the natural corruption of my heart, the principal cause of my
destruction.
"He spoke to me very kindly, encouraged me to fight against my bad
inclinations, and, at first, gave me very kind and good advice. But when
I thought he had finished speaking, and as I was preparing to leave the
confessional-box, he put to me two new questions of such a polluting
character that I fear neither the blood of Christ nor all the fires of hell
will ever be able to blot them out from my memory. Those questions
have achieved my ruin; they have stuck to my mind as two deadly
arrows; they are day and night before my imagination; they fill my very
arteries and veins with a deadly poison.
"It is true that, at first, they filled me with horror and disgust; but, alas!
I soon got so accustomed to them that they seemed to be incorporated
with me, and as though becoming a second nature. Those thoughts have
become a new source of innumerable criminal thoughts, desires, and
actions.
"A month later, we were obliged, by the rules of our convent, to go to
confess; but this time, I was so completely lost that I no longer blushed
at the idea of confessing my shameful sins to a man; it was the very
contrary. I had a real, diabolical pleasure in the thought that I should
have a long conversation with my