The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional Part 14

Have the prophets of the Old Testament or the apostles of the New ever said a word about "auricular confession" as a condition for pardon? No--never.

What does David say? "I confess my sins unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." (Psalm x.x.xii, 5.)

What does the Apostle John say? "If we say that we have fellows.h.i.+p with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellows.h.i.+p with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His son cleanseth us from sin;

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to CLEANSE us from all unrighteousness." (i. John i, 6-9.)

This is the language of the prophets and apostles. This is the language of the Old and the New Testament. It is to G.o.d and Him alone that the sinner is requested to confess his sins. It is from G.o.d and Him alone that he can expect his pardon.

The apostle Paul writes fifteen epistles, in which he speaks of all the duties imposed upon human conscience by the laws of G.o.d and the prescriptions of the Gospel of Christ. A thousand times he speaks to sinners and tells them how they may be reconciled to G.o.d. But does he say a word about auricular confession? No, not one!

The apostles Peter, John, Jude address six letters to the different churches--in which they state with the greatest detail what the different cla.s.ses of Christians have to do. But again, not a single word comes from them about auricular confession.

St. James says, "confess your faults one to another." But this is so evidently the repet.i.tion of what the Saviour had said about the way of reconciliation between those who had offended one another, and it is so far from the dogma of a secret confession to the priest, that the most zealous supporters of auricular confession have not dared to mention that text in favour of their modern invention.

But if we look in vain in the Old and New Testament for a word in favour of auricular confession as a dogma, will it be possible to find that dogma in the records of the first thousand years of Christianity? No! for the more one studies the records of the Christian church during the first ten centuries, the more he will be convinced that auricular confession is a miserable imposture, of the darkest days of the world and the church.

We have the life of Paul, the hermit, of the third century, by one of the early fathers of the church. But not a word is said in it of his confessing his sins to any one, though a thousand things are said of him which are of a far less interesting character.

So it is with the life of St. Mary, the Egyptian. The minute history of her life, her public scandals, her conversion, long prayers and fastings in solitude, the detailed history of her last days and of her death, all these we have; but not a single word is said of her confessing to any one. It is evident that she lived and died without ever having thought of going to confess.

The deacon Pontius wrote also the life St. Cyprien, who lived in the third century; but he does not say a word of his ever having gone to confession, or having heard the confession of any one. More than that, we learn from this reliable historian that Cyprien was excommunicated by the Pope of Rome, called Stephen, and that he died without having ever asked from any one absolution from that excommunication; a thing which has not seemingly prevented him from going to Heaven, since the infallible Popes of Rome, who succeeded Stephen, have a.s.sured us that he is a saint.

Gregory of Nyssa has given us the life of St. Gregory of Neo-Caesarea, of the 3rd century, and of St. Basil, of the 4th century. But neither speak of their having gone to confess, or having heard the confession of any one. It is thus evident that those two great and good men, with all the Christians of their times, lived and died without ever knowing any thing about the dogma of auricular confession.

We have the interesting life of St Ambrose, of the 4th century, by Paulinus; and from that book it is as evident as two and two make four, that St. Ambrose never went to confess.

The history of St Martin of Tours, of the 4th century by Severus Sulpicius of the 5th century, is another monument left by antiquity to prove that there was no dogma of auricular confession in those days; for St. Martin has evidently lived and died without ever going to confess.

Pallas and Theodoret have left us the history of the life, sufferings and death of St. Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, who died at the beginning of the 5th century, and both are absolutely mute about that dogma. No fact is more evident, by what they say, than that holy and eloquent bishop lived and died also without ever thinking of going to confess.

No man has ever more perfectly entered into the details of a Christian life, when writing on that subject, than the learned and eloquent St Jerome, of the 5th century. A great number of his admirable letters are written to the priests of his day, or to some Christian ladies and virgins, who had requested him to give them some good advices about the best way to lead a Christian life. His letters, which form five volumes, are most interesting monuments of the manners, habits, views, morality, practical and dogmatical faith of the first centuries of the church; and they are a most unanswerable evidence that auricular confession, as a dogma, had then no existence, and is quite a modern invention. Would it be possible that Jerome could have forgotten to give some advices or rules about auricular confession, to the priests of his time who asked his counsel about the best way to fulfil their ministerial duties, if it had been one of their duties to hear the confessions of the people? But we challenge the most devoted modern priest of Rome to find a single line in all the letters of St Jerome in favour of auricular confession. In his admirable letter to the priest Nepotia.n.u.s, on the life of priests, vol. II, p. 203, when speaking of the relations of priests with women, he says: "Solus c.u.m sola, secreto et absque arbitrio vel teste, non sedeas. Si familiarus est aliquid loquendum, habet nutricem majorem domus, virginem, viduam, vel maritatam; non est tam inhumana ut nullum praeter te habeat cui se audeat credere."

"Never sit in secret, alone, in a retired place, with a female who is alone with you. If she has any particular thing to tell you, let her take the female attendant of the house, a young girl, a widow, or a married woman.

She can not be so ignorant of the rules of human life as to expect to have you as the only one to whom she can trust those things."

It would be easy to cite a great number of other remarkable pa.s.sages where Jerome shows himself the most determined and implacable opponent of those secret "tete-a-tete" between a priest and a female, which, under the plausible pretext of mutual advice and spiritual consolation, are generally nothing but bottomless pits of infamy and perdition for both. But this is enough.

We have also the admirable life of St. Paulina, written by St. Jerome. And though in it he gives us every imaginable detail of her life when young, married and widow, though he tells us even how her bed was composed of the simplest and rudest materials, he has not a word about her ever having gone to confess. Jerome speaks of the acquaintances of St. Paulina and gives their names; he enters into the minutest details of her long voyages, her charities, her foundations of monasteries for men and women, her temptations, human frailties, heroic virtues, her macerations and her holy death: but he has not a word to say about the frequent or rare auricular confessions of St. Paulina; not a word about her wisdom in the choice of a prudent and holy (?) confessor.

He tells us that after her death, her body was carried to her grave on the shoulders of bishops and priests, as a token of their profound respect for the saint. But he never says that any of those priests sat there in a dark corner with her, and forced her to reveal to their ears the secret history of all the thoughts, desires, and human frailties of her long and eventful life. Jerome is an unimpeachable witness that his saintly and n.o.ble friend St. Paulina lived and died without having ever thought of going to confess.

Possidius has left us the interesting life of St. Augustine, of the fifth century; and again it is in vain that we look for the place or the time when that celebrated bishop of Hippo went to confess, or heard the secret confessions of his people.

More than that, St. Augustine has written a most admirable book, called: "Confessions," in which he gives us the history of his life. With that marvellous book in hand, we follow him, step by step, wherever he goes; we are the witnesses of what he does and thinks; we attend with him those celebrated schools, where his faith and morality were so sadly wrecked; he takes us with him into the garden where, wavering between heaven and h.e.l.l, bathed in tears, he goes under the fig-tree and cries, "Oh Lord! how long will I remain in my iniquities!" Our soul thrills with emotions, with his soul, when we hear, with him, the sweet and mysterious voice: "Tolle!

lege!" take and read. We run with him to the places where he had left his gospel book; with a trembling hand, we open it, and we read: "Let us walk honestly as in the day ... put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ..." (Rom. xiii, 13, 14.)

That incomparable book of Augustine makes us weep and shout with joy with him; it initiates us into all, his most secret actions, to all his sorrows, anxieties and joys, it reveals and unvails his whole life. It tells us where he goes, with whom he sins, and with whom he praises G.o.d; it makes us pray, sing and bless the Lord with him. Is it possible that Augustine could have been to confess without telling us when, where and to whom he made confession? Could he have received the absolution and pardon of his sins from his confessor, without making us partakers of his joys, and requesting us to bless that confessor with him.

But, it is in vain that you look in that book for a single word about auricular confession. That book is an unimpeachable witness that neither Augustine nor his saintly mother Monica, whom it mentions so often, lived and died without ever having been to confess. That book may be called the most crus.h.i.+ng evidence to prove that, "the dogma of auricular confession"

is a modern imposture.

From the beginning to the end of that book, we see that Augustine believed and said that G.o.d alone could forgive the sins of men, and that it was to Him alone that men had to confess in order to be pardoned. If he writes his confession, it is only that the world might know how G.o.d had been merciful to him, and that they might help him to praise and bless the merciful Heavenly Father. In the tenth book of his Confessions, chapter III, Augustine protests against the idea that men could do anything to cure the spiritual leper, or forgive the sins of their fellow-men; here is his eloquent protest: "Quid mihi ergo est c.u.m hominibus ut audiant confessiones meas, quasi ipsi sanaturi sint languores meas? Curiosum genus ad cognoscendam vitam alienam; desidiosum ad corrigendam."

"What have I to do with men that I might be obliged to confess my sins to them, as if they were able to heal my infirmities? Oh Lord! that human race is very fond of knowing the sins of their neighbors; but they are very neglectful in correcting their own lies."

Before Augustine had built up that sublime and imperishable monument against auricular confession, St. John Chrysostom had raised his eloquent voice against it, in his homily on the 50th Psalm, where, speaking in the name of the Church, he said: "We do not request you to go to confess your sins to any of your fellow-men, but only to G.o.d!"

Nestorius, of the 4th century, the predecessor of John Chrysostom, had, by a public defense, which the best Roman Catholic historians have had to acknowledge, solemnly forbidden the practice of auricular confession. For, just as there has always been thieves, drunkards and malefactors in the world, so there has always been men and women who, under the pretext of opening their minds to each other for mutual comfort and edification, were giving themselves to every kind of iniquity and l.u.s.t. The celebrated Chrysostom was only giving the sanction of his authority to what his predecessor had done when, thundering against the newly born monster, he said to the Christians of his time, "We do not ask you to go and confess your iniquities to a sinful man for pardon--but only to G.o.d." (Homily on 50th Psalm.)

Auricular confession originated with the early heretics, especially with Marcion. Bellarmin speaks of it as something to be practiced. But let us hear what the contemporary writers have to say on the question:

"Certain women were in the habit of going to the heretic Marcion to confess their sins to him. But, as he was smitten with their beauty, and they loved him also, they abandoned themselves to sin with him."

Listen now to what St. Basil, in his commentary on Ps. x.x.xvii, says of confession:

"I have not to come before the world to make a confession with my lips. But I close my eyes, and confess my sins in the secret of my heart. Before thee, O G.o.d, I pour out my sighs, and thou alone art the witness. My groans are within my soul. There is no need of many words to confess: sorrow and regret are the best confession. Yes, the lamentations of the soul, which thou art pleased to hear, are the best confession."

Chrysostom, in his homily: De paenitentia, vol. IV., col. 901, has the following: "You need no witnesses of your confession. Secretly acknowledge your sins, and let G.o.d alone hear you."

In his homily V., De incomprehensibili Dei natura, vol. I, he says: "Therefore, I beseech you, always confess your sins to G.o.d! I in no way ask you to confess them to me. To G.o.d alone should you expose the wounds of your souls, and from him alone expect the cure. Go to him, then; and you shall not be cast off, but healed. For, before you utter a single word, G.o.d knows your prayer."

In his commentary on Heb. xii., hom. x.x.xi., vol. xii., p. 289, he further says: "Let us not be content with calling ourselves sinners. But let us examine and number our sins. And then, I do not tell you to go and confess them, according to the caprice of some; but I will say to you, with the prophet: "Confess your sins before G.o.d, acknowledge your iniquities at the feet of your Judge; pray in your heart and your mind, if not with your tongue, and you shall be pardoned."

In his homily on Ps. I., vol. V., p. 589, the same Chrysostom says: "Confess you sins every day in prayer. Why should you hesitate to do so? I do not tell you to go and confess to a man, sinner as you are, and who might despise you if he knew your faults. But confess them to G.o.d, who can forgive them to you."

In his admirable homily IV., De Lazaro, vol. I., p. 757, he explains: "Why, tell me, should you be ashamed to confess your sins? Do we compel you to reveal them to a man, who might, one day, throw them into your face? Are you commanded to confess them to one of your equals, who could publish them and ruin you? What we ask of you, is simply to show the sores of your soul to your Lord and Master, who is also your friend, your guardian and physician."

In a small work of Chrysostom's, int.i.tled: "Catechesis ad illuminandos,"

vol. II., p. 210, we read these remarkable words: "What we should most admire, is not that G.o.d forgives our sins, but that he does not disclose them to any one, nor wishes us to do so. What he demands of us, is to confess our transgressions to him alone to obtain pardon."

St. Augustine, in his beautiful homily on the 31st Ps., says: "I shall confess my sins to G.o.d, and he will pardon all my iniquities. And such confession is made not with the lips, but with the heart only. I had hardly opened my mouth to confess my sins, when they were pardoned; for G.o.d had already heard the voice of my heart."

In the edition of the Fathers by Migne, vol. 67, p. 614, 615, we read: "About the year 390, the office of penitentiary was abolished in the church, in consequence of a great scandal given by a woman who publicly accused herself of having committed a crime against chast.i.ty with a deacon."

The office of penitentiary was this: in every large city, a priest or minister was specially appointed to preside over the church meetings where the members who had committed public sins were obliged to confess them publicly before the a.s.sembly, in order to be reinstated in the privileges of their members.h.i.+p; and that minister had the charge of reading or p.r.o.nouncing the sentence of pardon granted by the church to the guilty ones, before they could be admitted again to communion. This was perfectly in accordance with what St. Paul had done with regard to the incestuous one of Corinth, that scandalous sinner, who had cast obloquy on the Christian name; but who, after confessing and weeping over his sins, before the church, obtained his pardon--not from a priest in whose ears he had whispered all the shocking details of his incestuous intercourse, but from the whole church a.s.sembled. St. Paul gladly approves the Church of Corinth in thus receiving again in their midst a wandering but repenting brother.

There is as much difference between such public confessions and auricular confessions, as there is between heaven and h.e.l.l, between G.o.d and his great enemy, Satan.

Public confession, then, dates from the time of the apostles, and is still practised in protestant churches of our day. But auricular confession was unknown by the disciples of Christ; as it is rejected, to-day, with horror by all the true followers of the Son of G.o.d.

Erasmus, one of the most learned Roman Catholics which opposed the Reformation in the 16th century, so admirably begun by Luther and Calvin, fearlessly and honestly makes the following declaration in his treaty: De Paenitantia, Dis 5. "This inst.i.tution of penance began rather of some tradition of the Old or New Testament. But our divines, not advisedly considering what the old doctors do say, are deceived: that which they say of general and open confession, they wrest by and by to this secret and privy kind of confession.

It is a public fact, which no learned Roman Catholic has ever denied, that auricular confession became a dogma and obligatory practice of the church only at the council of Lateran in the year 1215, under the Pope Innocent III. Not a single trace of auricular confession, as a dogma, can be found before that year.