The San Francisco call., 1896-03-27
PROF. R|ORDAN ON
THE CONFESSIONAL,
Its Origin and History
Explained. by the
Jesuit.
HOPE OF THE PENITENT.
Saints, Martyrs, Scholars and
Thinkers Believed in
Confession.
POWER OF FoRGIvING SINS.
It Belongs to God and Is Transmitted
to the Penitent Through the
Priest.
POWER OF FoRGIvING SINS.

The Rev. Joseph w. Riordan, S.J..
president of Santa Clara College, lectured
on the Catholic Confessional" before an
audience of 5000 people at Metropolitan
Hall last night He said:
Ladies and gentlemen: Three things mainly
az present disturb the peaceful slumbers
OF some OF our fellow-citizens, or prospec-
i've i've ielow-eltlzens, and they are the Pope, the
Jesuits and the Catholic confessional The
Pope, as we have been told again and again
with these walls. is plotting and planning and
unless we are all on the alert has the greatest
and all of US into hfs pocket laughter and
applsuse.l
The confessional, if we are to believe what is
SAD Is the great instrument OF the Jesuits in
making papal recruits. AS the Pope has been
so ably defended by our vicar-general and the
Jesults by Father Yorke [applausel l have
thought that could not employ our time
better this evening than by saying few words
about the Catholic confessional, not, indeed
that may convince those who will not be con-
vlneed, but that such as are desirous of know
know it.
ask no favor in the discussion, ask no
sympathy; only ask fairness, American fair
ness, which considers arguments and not per-
sons, truth and not preconceived opinions.
When speak OF the confessional l. am using
the figure of speech employed by our enemies,
Mnlcn taxes the contalner for the contained,
the confessional for the manifestations that
take place or are supposed to take place in it.
The confessional itself is generally very
simple contriyance. On the outside wooden
frame with q few curtains pendant is all that
meets the eye. The inside consists of three
little compartments; central one for the
conIeSsor and two side ones for the penitents
The central compartment contains q little
bench or seat. The side compartments con-
tain each kneeling stool. A board partition
separates penltents from confesSor; but in the
partition hole. is cut and covered with a
screen OF ine wire gauZe, which with the dark
curtains prevent the penitent from being seen.
Such Is the ordinary confessional as you your
selves may verify by visit to our churches
But why is such an uproar raised against
thing so simple Why such ceaseless warfare
OF calumny and opprobrium? Because our
enemies realize the benefit of such an institu-
tion 10 the church and TO the W orld and be-
cause their hatred is such that they would
rather deprive mankind OF its benefits than
receive those benefits from the hands of the
church. tApplause.l
Confession is indeed a fact; a living, uni
versal fact, co-extensive with Catholicity: q
fact considered by Catholics as the truest test
OF practical faith; fact which, while in many
ways repugnant to our pride, is pTacticed in
youth, middle age and life's decline-nay, even
on the bed.ef sickness when the beauties and
pleasures OF lie have abandoned US and the
angel OF death is claiming US for its own. 1t is
g fact from which no rational individual or
class in the church is exempt; the rich and
the poor, peasant and king, layman and Pope
all, without exception, are, ii good Catholics;
precGcers OF confession.
No wonder, then. that q fact so widespread
and OF such Importance should cause even
superficial students OF our race and of its his.
tory 10 seek its origin. Our enemies have a
ready answer. sit was called into being,' they
say, "by the ignorant, corrupt, designing
priests Of Rome, and was instituted to fetter
consciences and TO foster ignorance. 1t is a
cesspool OF 1niquity, a spreader of corrupt
morals, plague spot in this nineteenth CEN
tury OF liberty and of light"
Softly, ladies and gentlemen; we are not
seeking defamation, we are seeking proofs.
In what country, pray, did confession orig
Inate? Who were the first to teach and to prac-
tice confession? What are the original docu-
ments on which you base your assertions? Tell
US these and you will confer favor. "The
ignorant clergy of the Roman church intro
duced the practice" you tell us and how is it
then that the learned members of that church.
men who in every age for learning and enlight-
enment have left the deepest impress on their
times, and whose works even to-day astonish
US by the wealth of their erudition and the
broadness OF their views; how is it. ask, that
such men admitted and defended anc prac-
ticed confession? How, if cunning and de-
signing clergy. had given it birth, had this
cunning and designing clergy blundered
so egregiously by binding itself by the
very same bonds by which it bound lis dupes?
A cunning and designing clergy would have
said to its ignorant followers: owe who can
forgive your sins can also forgive our own
and yet the fact is that in the doctrine of the
Catholic church no priest no bishop, no arch
bishop, no pope has the least power to forgive
his own sins, but must, like the humblest lay
man, apply for forgiveness to another priest
The clergy have no privileges as regards con-
fession; the only distinction is one of severity
toward them. They have more means of
sanctifcation-they are more guilty if they do
wrong. Go to our churches on the eve of some
great festival and see the long line OF penitents
at the confessional; see the priest who
from afternoon and evening nearly up to
midnight has TO sit in that sitting air his
head oftentimes throbbing with pain, and see
whether q clever, designing priesthood could
be stupid enough to needlessly burden its
members with this thing.
You tell us tnat a corrupt clergy invented
COnld
have so surrounded it with conditions and
Limitations that, while achieving its own ends,
it would exempt itself from annoyances and
Inconvenience; but if you will make calm
study OF the confessional and how the, priest
when called must go even at the risk OF his life
TO hear the confessions OF the poor in their
novels or in the pesthouse, how he must go
when called in the night and in the tempest
you viii find that far from seeking to avoid
annoyances it has multiplied them an hundred
fold. Have you stopped TO consider when you
said that g corrupt priesthood has instituted
confession? Is there then no morality among
good Catholics? One would think that you were
speaking of the races of the Dark Continentin-
stead of people with whom you live. What do
YOU say of st. Vincent de Paul with the
noblest most practical love OF humanity in his
heart, who breathed into his followers, the
sisters OF charity, that pure noble spirit OF self
sacrifice, which, silent in words, has been so
eloquent in deeds as to change on the lips OF
the foul-mouthed foes of the church a curse
and slur and malediction into blessing.
What of ST. Francis de Sales, whose sweet
spirit hallows every page of his writings and
fingers in the Daughters OF the Visitation as
the sweet sunlight of springtide loves to linger
on the landscape? What OF the uumberless
saints and martyrs, the purity OF whose lives
has been attested not by Catholics alone out
by the pagan and the unbelieyer, yet all of
whom practiced as a means of sanctifcation,
some even daily, what speakers within this
hall have been pleased 10 call the abomlnabfe
practice OF the confessional
Calvin was the firstto deny the divine inst1-
tuition of confession, but Calvin was little
over 1900 years TOO late. Back through the
ages from century to century we go and ind
confession practiced by the clergy and the
laity and ineulcated in the writings OF the
fathers back TO the days of the apostles ana the
dawn of Christianity, when the Divine Master
breathed upon his apostles and said: Receive
We the HOLY Ghost. Whose sins We shall tor
give they are forgiven them; whose siiis ye
shall retain they are retained
These words are the words OF Scripture called
in question by no believer, for they. are sub |
stantially the same in the Protestant and IN
the Catholic version. And hence though !
heFesies arose about confession, there was
never dispute about its origin. The Montan-
lists and Noyatians asserted that certain |
grievous sins committed after baptism could |
not be forgiven by the church; the Waldenses |
attributed the power of forgiveness rather to |
the personal virtue of the priest than 70 the |
rights of hie of7oa bllL neither denied tlat 1