The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-01-11 00:00:00

AVARICE OF POPISH PRIESTS.

In a recent number of the STANDAULD we inserted a letter
from Mr. Eastwood, a zealous and conscientious Roman
Catholic, to his confessor,- the Rev. Richard Brown. Mr.
Eastwood, who resides near Lancaster, is the heir-at-law to
a gentleman who died recently, and, owing to a most unjus-
tifiable influence, left nearly the whole of his property to the
Popish priesthood. Mr. Eastwood press& his claims before
a court of law, but the ingenuity of the Papacy was too much
for him ; and now that some demands, which appear to Mr.
Eastwood to be unjust, are made upon the congregation, that
gentleman has felt it his duty to require some explanation
on the subject from his pastor. Hence have arisen the letter
to which we have alluded, and also the following, which ap-
pears in the Lancaster Gazette of last Saturday, addressed
to the Rev. Richard Brown. Mr. Eastwood administers a
well-merited castigation to his pastor, and, through him, to
Romish priests generally, for subjecting their already-too-
closely-clipped flocks to such frequent shearings.
Are you aware, rev. sir, that some of these wills, written
by sacerdotal hands, are base frauds; impositions of the
blackest dye; fabricated for the purpose of hoodwinking-re-
latives, and deceiving the public? Are you aware that the
hand which but a short time before had offered up the sacred
elements at the altar hesitated not to trace those solemn
words—" In the name of God, Amen,"— on a foul, detest-
able lie that calls to heaven for vengeance, since the God of
all truth is invoked to bear witness to it? Are you aware
that these wills, purporting to he the last testaments of poor
infatuated creatures, are mere records of sordid avarice,—of
the profanation of the confessional ? Have you not heard of
a will being made by a reverend gentleman, who disposed of
his penitent's property, consisting of some thousands, to a
person in his congregation—another penitent—no relation
whatever to the testator? Do you not know that this testa-
tor had brothers and sisters in very indigent circumstances,
and yet this confessor, with this knowledge, did not insert
the name of every one of them in the will ? That not even
the smallest article of the wardrobe was left by this will to
the relatives who stood in want of=slothing ? Have you
not heard of a will being made by a reverend confessor for
his penitent, legally proved by the pseudo sole executor
and sole heir, which was all deception ? Have you not
heard of poor relatives being informed by a reverend, that
their relative (whose will he had made) had left all her pro-
perty to a gentleman, whose name does not appear in the
will, but who bad, with extraordinary kindness, offered to
give to the brothers and sisters £lOO each, which he advised
them to take, or else they would get nothing ? Do you not
know that wills are made, giving to confessors a moderate
legacy, whilst there are spiritual wills behind, which convey
to these confessors the larger portion of the property? I
fear, rev sir, that I am fatiguing, you. I could pursue this
subject to a much greater length. I could show you how
very pious, very holy, very parental have been the labours of
a reverend confessor. I could explain to you how mock
sales of property have been effected ; how bonds have passed
from hand to hand ; how heirs-at-law have been disinhe-
rited ; how it happens that the will of an old maid in this
county is a verbatim copy of the will of an old maid in ano-
ther county ; how bankers' checks, deeds of gift, wills, spi-
ritual wills, and other abominable means are invented to
circumvent weak, deluded victims, and to injure surviving
relatives. This is only a slight sketch of the picture I have
in hand.

I must now, rev. sir, call your attention to a few extracts
from the discourse of a very holy man, the virtuous and
and pious Bishop of Clermont. As some of my Catholic
neighbours do not, I fear, examine sufficiently into the works
of Catholic writers, they may be pleased with this digression.
" That which the Apostle requires in the first place of a
minister is, (says Massillon,) that he do not even allow a sus-
picion to be entertained that he administers his holy and
sublime functions for sordid gain. Our whole ministry is a
ministry of charity, of disinterestedness, and of edification:
what a character, therefore, must that pastor and father bear,
who vigorously exacts a price for the cares and tenderness
bestowed on his own children ; being, as regards them, a
cruel and inexorable extortioner, a degraded mercenary,
equally indifferent as to the salvation or to the loss of his
flock, and solely occupied with the sordid and temporal gain
to be derived from it ! * * Has not the avarice of
priests become so common, that it has passed into a proverb ?
I feel that the dignity of our ministry blushes at these re-
proaches ; and it is with grief that they fall from my lips.
But with whom can I console myself for these scandals, un-
less with you, my brethren, to whom they are known, and
who with me daily lament them ? If these wounds were,
like many others, concealed in the secret of the sanctuary,
We might cast a veil over them ; but from this grasping
avarice there daily arise such contests and scandalous law-
suits, that even the secular courts of justice resound with
the shame of the priesthood."
Mr. Eastwood then denounces some further abominations
so prevalent in the church, of which he is a member, but
says at the same time, in terms of true sincerity, that the
vices of the clergy shake not his faith, which is his greatest
comfort, and though he firmly believes in the sacrament of
penance, &c., he doubts very much the right of confessors
making their penitents' wills. This rower, as he acknow-
ledges with sorrow, he has severely felt.