The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-16 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

THREATENED SPLIT IN THE CHURCH OF
ROME.

The recently published number of the Quarterly Re-
view contains an article, the production evidently of either
a Romish priest or one intimately acquainted with the
workings of the Romish system, which contains revela-
tions so important that we make no apology for placing
its substance before our readers. For some time a con-
troversy has been going on between the Roman Govern-
ment and the Church of Rome in the kingdom of
Bavaria, upon I the subject of some alteration de-
manded by the latter in the practices and regulation of
the church. The rigorous censorship of the press how-
ever, which is exercised in most Catholic countries by
ecclesiastics, together with the care taken by Rome to
preserve secret whatever passes between the pontificate
and the clergy, has hitherto effectually prevented the de-
tails of this dispute from coming to the ears of the laity
or transpiring at all beyond the limits of the chtireh itself.

It has not moreover, up to this period, been pressed to
extremity by those who feel themselves aggrieved, from a
fear,of creating schism and rupture of the establishment.
A change, however, has at length been wrought in this
latter point; and fully recognizing all the dangers and
difficulties attendant upon separation from Rome, the
complainants have now resolved to risk any evils which
might result from such separation rather than continue
to submit to the continuance of the practices against
which they protest.
The four points upon which they have been insisting
are, first, that the public worship should be performed in
all countries in the vernacular tongue ; secondly, that the
cup should be given as well as the bread in the sacrament
to the laity; thirdly, that the frequenting of the confes-
sional should not be compulsory ; fourthly. that the vows
of celibacy shall not be obligatory on the clergy.
With regard to the first of these points they complain
that the " unchangeable" character of the laws of the
church has been pushed so far that it becomes a fraud,
the priests having multiplied the unchangeable laws in
order to obtain money for dispensations to break them.
They complain, too, that this particular law against ver-
nacular prayers has been relaxed elsewhere—but not for
them. In France a prayer-book is used which has the
Latin and the French translation in parallel columns; but
such a work is prohibited in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and
all other countries where the power of the church is abso-
lute. In the north of Germany and the Tyrol they use a
German mass book; but- it is rarely to be met with in
Austria, Bohemia, and Syria. It is urged too that, in
country districts and even in some towns, the priests
themselves know little more of Latin than the people;
and hence the importance of the vernacular being univer-
sally permitted to be used.
On the second point —the refusal of the cup to the
laity—it is urged as opposed to scripture that, of the two
elements composing the sacrament, one should be refused
of which it is specially said " drink ye all of it."
The objections to the third practice—the compulsory
attendance upon the confessional—we shall quote from the
article itself:—
"With the third point commences our difficulty, and one be-
fore which we confess ourselves compelled to yield : we are
precluded from the possibility of proving our position, and we
must ,fate at once our conclusion, which is this—that if it h A
been the intention of any body of men to corrupt the morals of
the human race, to habituate children of both sexes_ to im-
.purity, filth, and profligacy, it would have• been impossible to
have devised a scheme more completely adapted to produce'
that effect than. the practice of the confessional, as is now car-
ried on in the church of Rome. The common sense of mankind,
the ordinary feelings of morality, would have made it impossible
to carry into practice such a project, unless it had assumed the
mask of religious duty to God ; and when the sense of morality
is so far deadened, as that any persons should suppose that
burning alive can be well pleasing to God, it is not difficult for
such to imagine that obscenity in thought nd language should
be so likewise. Whilst:it is obvious that it is imp ssible hereto
prove our assertion, we will at least furnish the means by which
any one who is so inclined may satisfy himself; we recommend
such an one to read the ordinary English Roman Catholic
prayer book, called ' The Garden of the Soul,' at the arts which
relate to self-examination in order to confession : next, the
books which are written to instruct the priests to extort from
reluctant females in the confessional things which no pure-
minded woman has ever imagined; e. g., La Methode pour
la direction des ames dans le tribunal de la Penitence, et pour
le gonvernment des Paroisscs; Paris, 1834 ;" Il Confessore di-
retto per le confessioni della genie di campagna, Bologna,
1824 ;" Le Rituel de Toulon ;' or any similar books which
make in all countees the stock in trade of a priest, and some
or other of which are to be found in all their houses; and then
let them read any work of Theologia Moralis on the confessional
. and the seventh commandment.

" This sunject in Protestant countries is merely either a
matter of speculation and theory, or a handle for controver-
sialists wherewith to attack papists—a task for which, it must
be confessed, the heroes of ' discussion meetings' are singularly
ill qualified. But with the honest. ecclesiastics of Germany,
the Tyrol, Switzerland, Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary,
these things are no speculations and theories, but sad and
painful realities. They know that corruption of the youthful
mind is the natural and almost invariable result; and some are
determined that the fruits of this system shall not be hid in a
corner any more ; but, let. the con'equences be what they may,
the secret recesses of infamy shall be exposed; and the system
be put an end to.. _ _ _

.llt is impossible in the very nature of thin2s that a young
female, or almost any female, can have such a burden on her
conscience as can make her desire often to resort to special and
private confession to a priest; and certainly it ought not to be
tolerated that she should have indecent thoughts suggested to
her, even at the early age of seven years old ; for at this period
do they begin to insinuate their filth in the convents in which
girls are commonly educated. The heads of the church them-
selves admit the liability of abuse through the confessional, and
frequent exhortations are published desiring all women who
have improper solicitations made to them there to denounce the
confessor ; but a moment's consideration will show the inutility
of this exhortation; and one instance which we will give must
suffice for all. An Italian gentleman of our acquaintance re-
moved with his family from the place of his nativity to a town
in another state ; soon after their arrival the wife went-to the
confessional in the pa- ish church, where improper proposals
were made to her ' • she ran home and acquainted her husband:
he made a formal complaint to the proper autho hies in her
name : a day was appointed for the examination cf the charge :
and when the time arrived the lady naturally declined to appear.
It is obvious thatjosiTh proportion as the person offended is de-
licate, and the offence gross, there will be the greater difficulty
of inducing the complainant to come forward; Scarcely any
woman could be found who would go into the presence of se-
veral strange men and repeat the expressions by which her
ears had been insulted. The result, however, was, that the
priest had h s license for hearing confessions taken from him ;
and neither husband or wife have eve gone to the confessional
since that period. The authorities at Rome do all that in them
lie, to repress these disorders: the licenses for hearing con-
fessions are renewed from year to year, and always refused
where well-grounded complaints have been made : but in coun-
trythe p rashes there are no means of redress the cure andl
tel
vicaire are the only priests in it, and the people are
tcoemil,iieendiy.
in their power. Knowing this blot in their system. the h
Capuchins, the
cant orders turn it to their own profit.
and receives
The former t=oes into the church
country district. do not choose
the confessions of those who for reasonsvarioutshela
people is
one a priest, the other a lay brother,
confess to the secular priest; whilst h
community.
The to
is
given much
make
Twab
rtootuhrert,hwr(ituhg through
the contributions of the oes
faithful°u nfdo rfirt rne
bheonuesfietdtosof Itioetuhcsoee
obvious:
donkey
Tos
ty,
es t, andeeamff,e, cannotal't
son frp et seebe
ogisrmygspet re osmyme
Smythe
t—phoedne ent
might
ha I
int
a. e
fuller defence of the term • beastly,' which he applies to May-
nooth— (see his pamphlet, published at Chelmsford;—than that
twhhoicshubhicecht a. s
Tdho
en e,
te iLheed
ihaat de b
object,e en m ohreewfeuvl
el yr aecfqhuraiiengtieedguf•eitrh.
ward this point at the present time is not so much with refe-
rence to its effect upon the laity as to its effect upon the priests
themselves • and whoever int nds to take the trouble of con-
sulting the works to which allusion has been made, should
remember that these books are the private and secret studies of
those who from their earliest years have taken vows of celibacy
upon them ; who live alone, shut up in their own solitary cham-
ber, apart from all the world, lor many hours every day. Such
persons require a peculiar al,sence from all demoralizing words
and thoughts; it ought to be their unremitting labour to banish
every imagination, even the most transient, upon details of
viee ; whereas, to sit alone and study all the forms and varia-
tions of impurity upon which Spanish and French casuists have
written, analysing and classifying every variety of crime which
the most brutal and sensual of mankind have ever perpetrated,
as in the works of Sanchez, Escobar, Sa, Fadundez, Gobat,
&c., &c., is the sure and certain method to make the vows a
nullity."

The writer goes on to remark upon the practice, in
France and elsewhere, arising out of the immorality thus
engendered amongst the priesthood, of holding periodical
visitations for the investigat on of charges lodged and
the infliction of punishment. In the dioceses of the North
of Germany, where a bishop's court sits twice a week, he
says,

"So great and so incessant are the horrors brought tolight, that
the excellent prelate who presides over one see more immediately
under our eye, passes the whole night afterwards in fasting and
tears of penitence for the things which have come before him. The
extent of immorality is so great that it is considered a good sign of
a priest if be is known to keep a mistress without causing any
public scandal, and no notice is taken of him. If, however, she
lies at the parsonage, or if they quarrel so that a disturbance is
produced in the villager then he is removed to another parish; if
the same thing occurs a second time the same treatment is pursued;
if it is repeated a third time, he is degraded, all employment and
means of livelihood are taken from Lim; and many such are to be
seen throughout Germany breaking stones upon the road, or serving
as privates in the army. These, however, are not the immoralities
which produce upon the minds of bishops such effects as have been
above described. They are such as cannot be put upon paper—hide-
ous unnameable crimes—committed in the most holy places, because
supposed to be the most secure from the eye of man, regardless of
the eye of God. In Italy such offences, when not screened by some
powerful patron, are punished by incarceration in a convent, with
starving and repeated flagellation, which frequently terminate in
death. But in Germany no such power exist, ; more liberal, but
less cruel; more tolerant both of good and evil. The example of
the court in the neighbourhood of the place to which we are now re-
ferring, tended not many years ago to sanction some of the worst of
the crimes above alluded to ; and though it is now mended, the effects
of past days are not worn out."

With respect to the fourth point, the celibacy of the
clergy, the Reviewer states that—

" It is a remarkable feature in the case that all the profligate clergy
are strongly in favour of the continuance of the law of celibacy, whilst
all the moral clergy are for abolishing it. The Protestants in these
dioceses generally say, that this is in order that they may continue
their flagitious courses in a way which it would be more difficult to
do if they were married, but this is not the real ground of their re-
sistance. They resist it because they know that it is popular at
head quarters to resist it ; and they take the side of the authorities
at Rome in order to make friends to themselves of the Mammon of
unrighteousness, that they may be in their turn befriended."
Admirable as are those grounds on whieh to plant
noticeslave or tworyof,theinPthaepacy,iv rejoices us
Review,
indicating
that those who are thus raising themselves against these
evils are also departing from at least one of the funda-
mental heresies of the Papacy. The fact to which we
allude is thus referred to:— .

has no objection to
another title from the
have
eisreoviivoeuds,
"Those in favour of it are now r..enerally styled I Disciples of
many bystanders who sympathise, little either with them or their an-
tagonists. They are called Jesus worshippers,' the others ' Mary
shareailer the;a ndesignation.d:'i'e King o
fßut they Bavaria,
li
worshippers' (Mariadinsten); and these sobriquets clearly indicate
another great practical abuse of the Papacy; as to which the two par-
ties have already come into open collision.
see
say practical—for
however cleaily educated Romanists may see the demarkation be-
tween douleia and latreia however sincerely they may protest against
injustice when charged with giving to a dead woman thahonour and,
worship due only to God—the fact is entirely- undeniable That in
Roman Catholic countries thousands and tens of thousands live and
die in habitual reliance on the intercession and mediation, not of the
Saviour;but of the Virgin, . nd other saints departed."

We close our present notice of the subject with the fol-
lowing remarks, which hear more in Med,ately upon the
working of Popery amongst ourselves, At p. 165 it is
said,—