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I'!

THE CHURCH OF ROME.

REV. ME. CHOIQUY

YICAR-GEN. BRUYERE.

LONDON, ONT. :
FREE PRESS STEAM PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, NORTH STREET.

1870.

FATHER CHINIQUY'S LECTURE.

fl, Jntf v'"'\"' *" ■■<'"^-^*' °f tl>« Daily Free Press of
the nth November, on the lecture delivered in this city on the
previous evening by Eev. Hr. Chiniquy : ^

'' Papal bonLGExcEs, "

deWedl'thrCitvm,.f r^'-'r "^""'^"-^'^ ^^»»^ ^-t"^.
audion e : nySn i if '"' ''i*'^ «^^^'"^^' ^^ *^
London m.t L, ^rTd^'iXe^ Td^btlrelf

^luyere m tlie Feee Press last summer, tended ou-te »» r„„.h
excite this interest as the character o he reve fna Ce

"t tLTon! T^'^'r ^'^'-'''-^'"-yecoTertic^lt::
test, that one million (or less) readers would desire to hear the

2-s of the matter entertained by a converted priest Th'hal
was consequently crammed in everv nart tL 1.1* \ ,1

Komish Church in regai-d to Indulgences, from the stand-point
of one who is professedly an opponent of that form of religion

LETTER FROM VICAR-GEN. BEUYEEE.

On the 12th November the following letter from Vicar-Gen
Bruyere appeared in the Free Press : 'ear-Gen.

AsSEr.TION AXD CONTRADICTION.
To the Editor of the Free Prm.

tn!^!f \?"'T^ '**■ °''-^'"" '""''O"' '"'* *« «S'^ Of your columns

the means employed for the construction of said palace, are an
unqualified falsehood, and I have no hesitation in saying that
all his other assertions hostile to our Church are of the same
character.

I make this statement for the information of the Protestant
citizens of London, who love justice and fair play ; otherwise I
would scorn to notice the utterances of a degraded priest, whom
the Church, for the best of reasons, suspended thrice, and finaUy
expelled from her bosom, and who was afterwards ignominiously
ejected from their communion by the Presbyterian Synod of
Chicago.

I leave to the dignitaries of the Anglican Church of this city
the disgraceful occupation of giving aid and comfort to an
apostle of lies and discord, who, as a Presbyterian, repudiates the
validity of their orders. Let them hug him to their bosom as
long as they like, but an intelligent public wiU judge whether
thelnterest of religion, morality and truth are promoted by such
means.

I have the honor to be, dear sir, your obedient servant,

J. M. Beuyere, V. G.

REPLY.

St. Anne, Kankakee Co., III., )
21sfc December, 1869. }

To the Rev. M. Bmyhc, V. G. :—

Eev, Sir,— I publicly thank you for your letter in the Feee
Press of the 12th November, which a friend has sent me.

To have attracted tlie attention of such a logician, and a holy
dignitary of the Infallible Church of Eome, is surely more than
could be expected by such a wretch as you assure the public
I am! Though you know that I deserve only your scorn, you
are so kind as to pay some attention to me— the so manv times
suspended and excommunicated Chiniquy! Eeally, laany in
London wiU be jealous of my good luck; and when' they will
praise your modesty, your Christian language, your prifourfd
science in the art of denying, and your matchless logic they
will congratulate me for the incomparable honor you confer
upon me.

It was my hope that I had given a pretty good brushing to
Eome, but your spicy remarks give me the assurance that 1 have
succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations.

Your impotent i^^ath, my dear Grand Vicar, is the best reward
of my humble efforts in unmasking the greatest mystery of
iniquity the world has ever seen. If you had denied only some
things of what I said, perhaps your friends would have suspected
that you were right, and I was ^vrong, in those particulars; but
your denial "in toto" is such an evident act of weakness, that
every one wiU understand that I have pierced Eome to the
quick.

As you deny everything that I have said, it gives nie the
choice of the matters which I will present again to the intelligent
people of London. It would be too long to go over the whole
ground of my address. I will take only one of the errors of
your infallible Church — Indulgences.

Among the numberless absurdities taught by the Church of
Kome, there is one wliicli seems to be above all the others. It
is that the Pope does grant to certain Altars or Priests the
glorious privilege of gaining -partial and plenary indulgences, even
when they say their masses in a state of mortal sin, and with their
souls covered with iniquities and unrepenting hearts. That
doctrine is so evidently anti-christian, that you have no alterna-
tive between denying it bravely or condemning your Church ;
and though you know very well the guilt of your Church, your
love for her is so great, that you are determined, at any cost, to
conceal it — at least from the eyes of her enemies.

Perhaps your bold denials might do, if you had to meet to day
some of those good honest Protestants who have no idea of the
extent to which the art of deceiving is carried under the teach-
ings of your Church. But to-day, my dear j\Ir. Bruyere, do not
forget that you have to deal with one wlio knows all your big
and small tricks — all your reticence of mind, shrewd distinctions
and explanations ! I have been 23 years a priest of Rome. It
\^as enough to examine all its dark corners and its mysterious
ways. No living man, perhaps, has studied the canons, the laws
and the theologians of Rome with more earnestness than I have
done. My library was composed of nearly 1200 volumes of
your choicest works ; and, be sure of it, my dear Grand Vicar,
I will not be fool enough to say a single word against Rome
which I cannot prove. An error of fact or principle in me, ^^•hen
speaking of your superstitions and your mummeries, would be
such a good rope in your hands to drag me by the neck ! Then,
please, be on your guard, and do not be too prompt and too free
in your wholesale denials. For you may be sure of it, when you
will deny a thing that I have said, I will produce the authorities
of your own best theologians.

When you and the greatest part of the priests of Canada and
the United States say witli all your eloquence, tlwt " no plenary

'^f

and
lary

" indulgence ca^^ be gained except by a man who is sincerely
" repenting, who has gone to confess and been reconciled to God,"
your Infallible Church, through her best theologians, tells you
that you say an unciualitied falsehood.

The best theologian on Indulgences is called Bouvier, who
was a Bishop of ■Mans. His " Traite des Indii'igences " was put
into my hands by the Archbishop of Quebec, as the most learned
and reliable guide on that matter. Well, that Prince of the
Church of Eome, wlio died only lately, and who, during his life,
was one of the personal friends of the Pope — that learned pre-
late of Ptome says, page 78 : " L'etat de grace n'est pas n^ces-
''' sair^ pour faire I'application valid^ de I'ludulgence d'un autel
" privil^gio."

" The state of grace is not necessary for the valid application
" of the indulgence of a privileged altar."

And at page 79 we read : " Mais s'il sagit d'indulgences par-
" tielles ou plenieres pour lesquelles la confession ou la com-
" munion ne sont pas prescrite, pent on les gagner validement,
" a I'intention des morts, etant soi meme hors d'etat d'en profiter."
" Plusieurs Theologiens le nient, mais le sentiment le plus com-
" mun est que l'etat de gi-ace, n'est pas requis dans ce cas."

" Can we gain the partial or plenary indulgence, for which
" confession and communion are not prescribed, for the dead,
" when we are ourselves in such a state that we cannot be bene-
" fitted by them ?"

" Some theologians deny it : but the most common opinion is
" that the state of grace is not required in that circumstance."

" Ce sentiment est soutenu par Navarre, Suarex, Silvius,
" Gobat, Lacroix, Bonicina, Billuart and une infinite d'autres."

" And that doctrine is supported by Navarre, Suarez, Silvius
" Gobel, Lacroix, Bonacina, Billuart and an infinite number of
" others."

You, jVIr. Bruyere, have the gift of bravely denying that what
I have said is true. But I intend to put a little difficulty in
your way, by sending my volume of Bouvier to the Rev, J.
Scott, of London ; and I invite all the Protestants and Roman
Catholics to go aad see, with their own eyes, who has said an

• 5

7 5

xinqualificd fahchood — the scorned, interdicted, suspended Cliin-
iquy, or my good old confrere Bruyere, Grand Vicar of London ?
I hope that, when you will have seen, with your eyes, that
your Church, through her best theoh^gians, says positively Avhat
the excommunicated priest Chiniquy has said, namely : " That
" a priest, in a state of mortal sin, can gain plenary indulgences,
" when he says his mass at a privileged altar " — you will surely
then cease from overwhelming me with your scoiii. For it is
evident that, if I ha' a said " an unqualified falsehood," in giving
that doctrine as the doctrine of Eome, it is the Church of Rome
herself who has taught it before you or I were born.

Now% my dear Vicar General, let us come to your favorite
subject: "The suspensions, interdicts, excommunications, for
good reasons, of that infamous Chiniquy ! " I cannot sufficiently
thank you for having brought that interesting (juestion before
our common friends of London and Canada. With j)leasure 1
meet you on that ground ; and when you assure th.e public that
you have nothing but scorn for me, it is a pleasure for me to assure
you that I have very different sentiments in my lieart for you.
I would give every drop of my blood to take away the terrible
darkness by which you are surrounded. I have been a blind
man just as you are to-day. I understand your misfortune. I
pity you. But I love you as our common Saviour wants us to
love each other. May that great and merciful Saviour open
your eyes, as He has opened mine !

Before I go any farther, I must confess before God and men,
with a blush on my face and regret in my heart, that I have been.
like you, and with you, plunged twenty-three years in that bot-
tomless sea of inifj^uity, through which the poor blind priests of
Rome have to swim, day and night.

I had to learn by heart, like you, the infamous questions
which the Church of Rome forces every priest to learn. I had
t( put those impure, immoral questions to the old and young
females who were confessing their sins to me. Those questions,
you know it, are of such a nature, that no prostitute would dare
to put them to another ! Those questions, and the answers they
elicit, are so debasing, that no man in London — you know it —

except a priest of Rome, is sufficiently lost to every sense of
shame as to put tliem to any woman.

I was liound in conscience, as you are bound to-day, to put
into the ears, tlie mind, the imagination, the heart and the soul
of females, questions of such a nature, the immediate and direct
tendency of •wliich — you know it — is to fill tlie mind, the
memory and the hearts of both priests and females with
thoughts, phantoms and temptations of such a degrading nature,
that I do not know any words adequate to express them. Pagan
antiquity has never seen any institution so polluting to bothsoul
and body as the confessional. I know nothing more corrupting
tlian the law which/orccs a female to tell all her tlioughts, desires
and most secret feelings and actions to an unmarried priest. The
confessional is a school of perdition. You may deny that before
the Protestants, but you cannot deny it before me.

My dear Mr. Bruyere, if you call me a degraded man, a
degraded priest, because I have lived twenty-three years in the
atmosphere of the confessional, you are right. I was a degraded
man, just as you are yourself, in spite of your denials. If you
call me a degTaded priest, because my lieart, my soul, my mind,
as your own is to-day, were plunged into those deep w?^ers of
iniquity which flow from the confessional, I confess " Guilty ! "
I was degraded and polluted by the confessional just as you and
all the priests of Rome are.

It has required the whole blood of the great victim who died
on Calvary for sinners, to purify me, and I pray that, through
the same blood, you may be purified also.

But now that, by the great mercy of God, I have been taken
away from the ways of perdition in which you were walk''Tig
with me, I have no fear to be confronted with you, or with any
of those whom you call your best and most respectable priests ;
and I publicly challenge you to show that I have been found
guilty of anything wdiicli can make an honest man blush before
men. Yes, if you can prove that an inquest has been made
against me — that I have been confronted with my accusers and
heard in my own defence, found guilty, and then suspended or
interdicted, I consent to be dragged by you before the public
wdth a rope to my neck. But if you find that the suspensions

and interdicts of which yon speak have been only the work of
ecclesiastical tyranny and oppression — if you see that in no
instance the laws of the most common equity and justice have
been followed, perhaps you will be honest enough to express
your regret for having put yourself amongst my slanderers.

No priest of Canada has ever been so constantly honored,
cherished and respected by the bishops, the priests and the
people as I was, with only three or four days of exception. It
is a public fact, that I was brought in triumph from one place
to the other, from the remotest parts of Lower Canada to the
shores of Lake Huron in Upper Canada,

There is not a great city nor a small town — not a cathedral in
these two Provinces — to which I have not been invited by the
bishops, to address the people, and when I spoke, the churches
— even the immense church of Montreal — were not large enough
to contain those eager to hear .me ! I do not say those things
in boasting, and as if I had deserved those honors, but only to
show you how kind were my dear countrymen — people, priests
and bishops — towards me. Tlie 'powers given to me by the
bishop, to preach everywhere and hear confessions, were more
extensive than those of any other priest, and particularly during
the last years of my ministry in your Church. In 1850 after I
had been a priest seventeen years — fourteen of them passed in
the diocese of Quebec — when the present Archbishop of Quebpc,
the Very Eev. ISI. Baillargeon, went to Eome for the first time,
he desired to have a letter from me to the Pope, that he might
preseuo it himself, with a little book on Temperance which I
had WTitten ; and on the 18th August, 1850, that same Arch-
bishop, who is stiU living, wrote me from Home : " I have pre-
" sented your letter to the Sovereign Pontiff. He has received
"it — I do not say with that exquisite kindness which is his
" character — but more than that ; he has received it with special
" marks of satisfaction and pleasure. He has reqiiested me to
" teU you that he gives you his apostolical benediction, for
" yourself and the holy cause of Temperance which you preach.
" I feel happy to have offered from you, to the Vicar of Jesus
*' Christ, a book which has brought from hi^ august lips such

" solemn words of approbation, and my heart is filled with joy
" for having to transmit them to you."

As you may be tempted to deny a document which is such a
good testimony of the high character I had in the estimation of
my superiors, from the day of my ordination in 1833, to the
year 1850, I send it to the Rev. Mr. Scott, where friends and
foes may see it. And to show to you, and to all those who take
an interest in those matters, that the present Archbishop of
Canada, who is your Archbishop, my dear Mr. Bruyere, had not
yet lost his good opinion of me up to the very year that I left
the Church of Rome, (1856) I send also another letter of his to
a lady that came from Canada to take charge of my female
school. In that letter he says that he sends me a chalice to say
mass, and other churcli ornaments, for my chapels.

But perhaps you will ask me, " Have you not been interdicted
in 1851 by the Bishop of Montreal, a few days before you left
Canada for the United States ? "

I will tell you, yes, sir; the Bishop of jNIontreal pretended to
have suspended me then. But I will give it to you to judge if
that fact is not one of the most glorious of my life, and one for
which I must bless God forever. For my inti^.^' v has never
been more clearly showri than in that circumst

That sham interdict, which was a nullity b_y nbolf — for its
want of form, of justice, and of foundation, had been kept by
the Bishop, and for good reasons, a secret in Canada as well as
in tlio United States. By his immediate and subsequent acts
the Bishop hud given me evidences that he was regretting his
error, and was tr}'ing to repair it and make me forget it. But
not long after I had left the Church, to my surprise, the Bishop
of Montreal said that lie had interdicted me, and that he was
inviting me to publish the reasons of my interdict. It was the
l)est opportunity that the Providence of God had offered me to
prove my innocence and the incredible excess of folly and t} ranny
of this Bishop of Rome. Witliout delay I accepted the chal-
lenge, and published through the French Canadian press the
following letfjr, which forever confounded the poor Bishop. He

has never been able to reply, thoiigli it was so important for liis
honor, and the interests of his Church, that he should have
replied to it :

"To MONSEIGNOR BOUEGET.

"St. Anne, April 18th, 1857.

Lord, — In your letter of the 19th March you assure the
public that you have interdicted me, a few days before my
leaving Canada for the United States, and you invite me to
give the reasons of that sentence. I will satisfy you. On the
28th September, 1851, I found a letter on my table from you,
telling me tliat you had suspended me from my ecclesiastical
offices, on account of a great crime that I had committed, and
of which I was accused. But the name of the accuser was
not given, nor the nature of the crime. I immediately went
to see you, and protesting my innocence, I requested you to
give me the name of my accusers, and to allow me to be
confronted to them, promising that I would prove my innocence.
You refused to grant my request.

" Then I fell on my knees, and with tears, in the name of God,
I requested you again to grant me to meet my accusers and
prove my innocence. You remrdned deaf to my prayer and
unmoved by my tears ; you repulsed me with malice and
airs of tyranny which I had thought impossible in you.

" During the twenty-four hours after this, sentiments of an
inexpressible wrath crossed my mind. I tell it to you frankly,
in that terrible hour, I would have preferred to be at the feet
of a heathen priest, whose knife would have slaughtered me on
his altars to appease his infernal Gods, rather than to be at the
feet of a man who, in the name of Jesus Christ, and under the
mask of the Gospel, should dare to commit such a cruel act.
You had taken away my honor — you had destroyed me with
the most infamous calumny — and you had refused me every
means of justification ! You had taken under your protection

he cowards who were stabbing me in the dark i

" Though it is hard to repeat it, I must tell it here publicly :
I cursed you in that horrible day !

DT llis

liave

" With a broken heart I went to the Jesuit College, and I
showed the wounds of my bleeding soul to the noble friend
who was generally my confessor, the Eev. Father Shnieder, the
Director of the College.

" After three days, having providentially got some reasons to
suspect who was the author of my destruction, I sent some one
to ask her to come to the College without mentioning my
name.

" When she was in the parlor, I said to Father Shnieder :
' You know the horrible iniquity of the Bishop against me —
wtih the lying words of a prostitute he has destroyed me ; but
please come and be the witness of my innocence.'

" When in the presence of that unfortunate female, I told her:
' You are in the presence of God Almighty and two of his
priests. They will be the witnesses of what you say ! Speak
the truth. Say in the presence of God and of this venerable
priest, if I have ever been guilty of what you have accused me
to the Bishop. '

" At these words, the unfortunate female burst into tears ; she
concealed her face in her hands, and with a voice half suffo-
cated with her sobs, she answered : ' N"o, sir, you are not
guilty of that sin ! '

" ' Confess here another truth,' I said to her, ' Is it not true
that you had come to confess to me more with the desire to
tempt me than to reconcile yourself to God ? '

" She said, ' Yes, sir, that is the truth.' Then I said again,
' Continue to say the truth, and I will forgive you, and God
also will forgive your iniquity. Is it not through revenge for
having failed in your criminal design, that you have tried to
destroy me by that accusation to the. Bishop ? '

" ' Yes, sir, it is the only reason which has induced me to
accuse you falsely.'

" And all what I say here, at least in substance, has been
heard, written and signed by the Eight Rev. Father Shneider,
one of your priests, and the director of the Jesuit College.
That venerable priest is stiU living in Montreal ; let the people
of Canada go and interrogate liim. Let the people of Canada

also go to the Eev. M. Brassard, who has also in his hands an
authenticated copy of that declaration.

" Your Lordship gives to understand that I was disgraced by
that sentence, some days after when I left Canada for Illinois.
Allow me to give my reasons for differing from you in this
matter.

" There is a canon law of the Church which says : ' If a
censure is unjust and unfounded, let the man againsi: whom
the sentence has been passed pay no attention to it. For,
before God and his Church, no unjust sentence can ])ring any
injury to any one. Let the one against whom such unfounded
and unjust judgment has been pronounced even take no step
to annul it, for it is a nullity by itself.

"You know very well that the sentence you have passed
against me was null and void for many good reasons ; that it
wts founded on a false testimony. Father Shneider is there
ready to prove it to you, if you have any doubts.

" The second reason I have to believe that you had yourself
considered your sentence a nullity, and that I was not sus-
pended by it from my ecclesiastical dignity and honors, is
founded on a good testimony, I hope : The testimony of your
Lordship himself. ■

" A few hours before my leaving Canada for the United States
I went to ask your benediction, which you gave me with every
mark of kindness. I then asked your Lordship to tell me
frankly if I had to leave with the impression that I was dis-
graced in his mind ? You gave me the assurance of the con-
trary.

" Then I told you that I wanted to have a public and irrefut-
able testimony of your esteem.

" You answered that you would be happy to give me one, and
you said, ' What do you want ?' ' I wish,' I said, ' to have a
chalice from your hands to offer the holy sacrifice of the mass
the rest of my life.' You answered, ' I will do that w^ith plea-
sure," and you gave order to one of your priests to bring you a
chalice that you might give it to me. But that priest had not
the key of the box containing the sacred vases ; that key was
in the hands of another priest, who was absent for a few hours.

;!l

" I had not the time to wait, the hour of the departure of the
trains had come ; I told you : Please, my lord, send that chalice
to the Eev. Mr. Brassard, of Longueil, who wiil forward it to
me in a few days to Chicago. And the next day, one of your
Secretaries went to the Eev. Mr. Brassard, gave him the chal-
ice you had promised me, which is still in my hands. And
the Eev. Mr. Brassard is there still living, to be the witness of
what I say — and to bring that fact to your memory if you have
forgotten it.

"Well, my Lord, I do believe that a Bishop will never give a
chalice to a priest to say mass, when he knows that that priest
is interdicted. And the best proof that you know very well
that I w^as not interdicted by your rash and unjust sentence,is
that you gave me that chalice as a token of your esteem, and
of my honesty. &c.

" Eespectfully,

"C. Chiniquy.

Ten thousand copies of this terrible exposure of the depravity
of the Bishop were published in Montreal ! I had asked the
whole people of Canada to go to the Eev. Mr. Shneider, and to
the Eev. Mr. Brassard to know the trutli, Ihe Bishop remained
confounded. It was proved that he had committed against me
a most outrageous act of tyranny and perfidy. ; and that I was
perfectly innocent and honest, and that he knew it, in the very
hour that he tried to destroy my character. Probably the Bishop
of Montreal had destroyed the copy of the declaration of the
poor girl he had employed ; and thinking that this was the only
copy which had been taken of her declaration of my innocence
and honesty, he thought he could speak of the so-called inter-
dict, after I was a Protestant. But in that he was cruelly
mistaken.

By the great mercy of God three other authenticated copies
had been kept; one by the Ee^'. 3fr. Shneider himself, another
by the Eev. Mr. Brassard, and another by another one whom it
is not necessary to mention — and then lie had no suspicion that
the revelation of his unchristian conduct, and of his determina-
tion to destroy me with the false oath of a prostitute, were in

:.xS«m.%i

IBI

the hands of too many people to be denied. The Bishop of
Chicago, whom I met a few days after, told me what I was well
aware of before : " that such a sentence was a perfect nullity in
" every way, and that it was a disgrace only for those who were
" blind enough to trample under their feet the laws of God and
" men to satisfy their bad passions." And no doubt you will be
of the same mind.

But to show to you that even the Archbishop of Quebec, who
is the Superior of the Bishop of Montreal as well as your own
Superior, did not pay attention to that sentence of interdict, and
that he knew its nullity, I must give another important fact.
You know that one of the laws of the Society of St. Michel, to
which I belonged from the 2nd day a^ter my ordination in 1833,
to the year 1856, is that a priest, who is suspended, loses his
position in that society, and that he cannot any more enjoy its
privileges. But my name always remained among the members
of that useful society of mutual protection ; and in 1853 the
Archbishop of Quebec hnnself, who is the President of that so-
ciety, sent me 251. from the treasury of St. Michel Society, to
help me in a long sickness which I had contracted, and the Eev.
Mr. Cazault, the present Administrator of the Arch Diocese of
Quebec, acknowledges in a letter dated 30th Jan., 1855, my
yearly contributions to the society. I send these two documents
also to the Eev, J. Scott, that you may see with your own
eyes that I had not lost my good name nor my honourable posi-
tion, and that I had not been really attainted by the unjust and
criminal sentence of the Bishop of Montreal.

But to show that the Bishop of Montreal himself never
thought that his unjust sentence had any effect, and that he
himself never lost his good opinion of me, I also send to the
Rev. Mr. Scott, for your perusal, the letter he gave me the day
that I left Canada. These are his words :

" October 13th, 1851.

" I cannot but thank you for what you have done in our
" midst, and in my gratitude towards you I wish you the most
" abundant benedictions of heaven. Every day of my life I will
" remember you. You will always be in my heart, and I hop©

" that in some future day tht Providence of God will give me
" some opportunity of showing to you all the gratitude I feel
" for you."

I ask you, will ever a Bishop say to a priest, in a written
document, signed with his own hands : " I cannot but thank you
for what you have done in our midst " — if that priest has been
an immoral, a bad priest ?

Does not the Bishop who ^vrites such words acknowledge that
he was wrong in his previous hasty and unfavorable judgment ?

Will the intelligent Rev. Mr. Bruyere, when he will be the
Bishop of London, write to a priest, " I cannot but thank you
"for what you have done in our midst. In my gratitude
" towards you I pray God to pour his most abundant blessings
" upon you," if he knows that that priest is an immoral and
wicked man ? No, never ; nor will you give a chalice to an
interdicted priest to say mass the rest of his life. Is it so that
as long as a priest is in your midst he may be the most depraved
man, a public scandal, a murderer of souls, yet the Bishop will
like him, honour him, and overload him with every kind of
public and private mark of respect. But when he leaves them
to become a Protestant then they pour out on him their scorn
and abuse ? By their own confession have they not done this
to me ? If I was an immoral man when a priest of Rome, how
is it that the Bishops have known it only after I had left their
Church ? And if I were an immoral man when in their midst,
why is it that the Bishops from the beginning to the end of my
career gave me so many public and private marks of esteem and
respect ? If they have done so are they not confessedly vrorse
than what they call me ?

In 1838 the Bishop of Quebec gave me the important
parish of Beauport. In 1842 he placed me at the head of a still
more important parish, Kamouraska.

In 1849 the Bishop of Montreal, in a public document which
I send also to the Rev. !^1j. Scott, puts me in the most exalted
position that a priest has e\8r got — he calls me "the Apostle of
Temperance of Canada," and one of his best priests. The same
year he induces the Pope to send me a magnificent crucifix*
which is still in my hands. In 1850 he invites the people of

i I

■ i

Montreal, from his piilpit, in his cathedral, to come with the
Hon. Judge Mondelet, to present me a golden medal, as a public
token of his respect and gratitude for me. In 1851 — the day
that I left Canada — he wTites me that M'hat I have done in his
diocese, when working under his eyes, has filled him with grati-
tude ! And the same man, after T have left the Church of
Eome, says that I was an immoral priest — an interdicted and a
suspended priest ! — and that on the testimony of a prostitute,
who afterwards declared that slie had made a false oath to
revenge herself, because she had not been able to persuade me
to commit a crime with her *

I ask it from you, my dear Mr. Bruyere, which of us deserves
your scorn ? Is it the bishop who interdicts an innocent priest,
on the lying declaration of a prostitute ? or the priest to whom
every access to justice and self-defence had been refused, and
who afterwards proved his integrity ?

If what I declared of the infamous conduct of the Bishop had
not been correct, and if the recantation of that unfortunate
female, in the presence of the Eev. Father Slinieder, had not
been correct also, how easy it would have been for the bishop
to confound me forever, by bringing that superior of the Jesuit
College as a witness of my imposture ! And how it would have
been an imperious duty in Father Shneider, wlien he saw his
name publicly and on the papers committed with a fact so
degrading to the bishop, to come forward and publish that what
I had said was a forgery ! Then Cliiniquy would have been
forever and so easily confounded. But such has not been the
case. The poor bishop had to pay publicly for his infamous
conduct towards me, and he was left without any means of
escape ; and if you are honest, it is not on Chiniquy that you
will turn your scorn ; it is on the man who, forgetting all the
laws of justice, of God and men, had united his efforts to those
of a perjured prostitute, to destroy his innocent victim. And if
you are not honest enough to see and understand this, what
have I to care about your scorn ?

Now let us say another word about the other interdict by
Bishop O'Regan. And I tell you boldly, that if anything can
be considered an honor by any man, it is to have deserved the

wrath of so publicly depraved a man. Though he never inter-
dictecv me, (he only threatened to do it) he found fit to publish
that he had done it. But in his letter of the 20th November,
185G, where he publicly gives the reasons of that so-called sen-
tence, he somewhat deranges the plan you liave, my dear Mr.
Bruyere, to make my friends of Canada believe that it was on
account of immorality. In tliat letter, wliich I send also to the
Rev. Mr. Scott for the perusal of those ^^-]lo like to see it with
their own eyes, the Bishop says : " His obstinate want of sub-
" mission — his excessively violent language and conduct —
" obliges me to suspend him ! "

I thank and bless my God who gave me the strength to say
some great truths to tlmt most immoral and tyrannical Bishop.
He was such a wicked man, that several priests, among whom I
was one, wrote to the Pope about his bad conduct ; and the
Archbishop of St. Louis, and many other Bishops, having
brought also serious complaints against that man, his diocese
was taken away from his hands, and he got a bishopric in
partibus infidelium, which, you know very well, means a bish-
opric in the moon — and the place was just fit for the man.

The sentence was never served on me in any way. The
Church allowed me to pay no attention to it ; and the subse-
quent excommunication having been brought by three priests,
who at the time were beastly drunk, and not being signed by
the Bishop nor any of his Grand Vicars or known deputies, I
was bound by the laws of the Church not to pay any attention
to it. The Rev. Mr. Desaulnier and Moses Brassard having
come, some time later from Canada, to inquire about those rcat-
ters and reconcile us to the Bishop, declared before more than
500 people that we " could not be blamed for having paid no
" attention to that sentence, which was evidently and publicly
" against all the known laws of the Church."

But I have no bad feelings against that unfortunate man, who
is dead five years ago. It is the contrary. His abominable life,
his vices, his complete want of principles, which forced the
Bishops of the United States to denounce him to the Pope —
who condemned him at the end — have helped me much, by the
mercy of God, to know what the Church of Rome has been,

i i

V ;

flO

what she is, and what she will be till the great day that God
wiU open the eyes of her poor slaves, and bring them to the feet
of Jesus, who will make them free with his words and pure with
his blood.

Again, when you brought against me a sentence passed, not
by the Synod of Chicago, but by part of a Presbytery of only
seven men, you did not know, I suppose, that that sentence was
for contumacy, because I had withdrawn from its connection.
You were also ignorant of the fact that I submitted that sen-
tence to the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church, which
venerable body, having duly inquired into all the circumstances
of the case, did, before the whole world, receive me into full
standing, and consider me worthy to be one of the ministers of
Christ, which position, by God's grace, I now occupy.

This is not the first time that a man condemned by one tri-
bunal has been absolved and found innocent by another. In
these circumstances no man of honor, much less a Christian,
would say what you have said : " that he has nothing but scorn
for that condemned."

Now, my dear Mr. Bruj ere, before taking leave of you, allow
me a few friendly advices.

When you argue v/ith a Protestant, even one whom you call an
aposta 3, as your old friend Chiniquy, never make a personal
question of a question of principle, if you wish to make the
people think that you have the right side, and that the irrefut-
able arguments are in your favor. For the very moment you
give up the arguments on the question, to drag your adversary
on the ungentlemanly and unchristian ground of personal
injuries and slanders, you lose your cause in the mind of an
intelligent people. A man who has good reasons to support his
cause, and strong arguments, has never recourse to those per-
sonalities and hard names which you have used.

The question between you and me is not to know who has
committed most sins against the decalogue, but whether it is
true or not that the Church of Eome " has established privileged
" altars where priests, covered with sins, without repentance, can
" say their masses, and gain plenary and partial ind\Llgences>"

'^y

it God
he feet
e with

A, not
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at sen-
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personal
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lose per-

who has
sther it is
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tance, can
ences"

Your only business was to prove the contrary, and to show
that I have not given good authorities and logical arguments.
For if you cannot destroy nor weaken in any way my statement,
the conclusion will be that your church has gone out of the way
of the gospel.

Though you could prove that when I was a priest of Rome I
was as criminal as David, and as weak as Samson ; a perjurer as
Peter, or a blind persecutor as Paul, this will not at all prove
that I have not done well tc leave the Pope in order to follow
Christ. It is just the contrary. The more wicked I was in the
Church of Rome, surrounded as I was, and as you are to day,
by the most pestilential atmosphere, and having before my eyes
the exaiaple of a concealed, though most horrible corruption in
high quarters as well as among my equals, the more imperative
was the duty for me and is it for you, to go out of those ways
of perdition.

Do you know, my dear Mr. Bruyere, to what I have been tempted
when writing this letter ? The thought has come to my mind
to publish, not aU (for it would be too horrible), but a part of
what I know of the inside, and almost incredible corruption of
Rome ! To give, for instance, a part of the history of that
Grand Vicar who was guUty of an unmentionable crime, and
was never interdicted ; of thai other dignitary whose conquests
were so numerous in Montreal that the ground became too hot
for him, and who was not interdicted but kindly invited to go to
another place. The history of that good Bishop also who, for
five years, kept a fine yoimg man in his house as his confidential
friend, and who had to send that faithful servant, with 500/., to
the United Statss, when a very interesting circumstance proved
that the fine young man was a fine young giil ! " Honi soit qui
mal y pense." I was also tempted to give to the public some
Very interesting details from the memoirs, not of poor Father
Chiniquy (though he has some memoirs a!so), but from the
memoirs of one of the most respectable Bishops of Rome,
Bishop de Riccy, where it is so often said and proved " that the
tiuns in Italy are the wives of priests." Happy celibataires
indeed I I had some very interesting things also which yon
have known, no doubt> of those three good priests in a Diocese

lihiUiW

^i!

I i'p

;iji:|

not many miles from London, who made a very interesting
voyage with young ladies, and were so kindly treated by the
Holy Churcli of Rome, that one of them is now hearing the

confessions of the good nuns of the City of , and the

two others are in a very exalted position in the Diocese of-

My intention, after having given you the correct history of
those respectable and venerable priests of Rome, was to ask you,
in a friendly way, without bitterness, why the Bishops should
have been so hard against me, when they were so kind to others ?
I have also been tempted to say why the Venerable Superior of

the Seminary of became a Trappist, and why he left the

Trappists to be the Chaplain of the good nuns of . It has

also come to my mind to say to the world why the Bishop of
Montreal was so eager and prompt to accept the accusation of a
perjured prostitute to destroy m.e and seal my lips. I have been
strong enough to resist that temptation, but please do not drag
me any more on the burning ground of the morality of the
Roman Catholic clergy ! / knoiv too miich on that question to
allow you to attack me again without punishing you severely.

No living man knows better than I do the Clergy. I have
been fifteen years traveling among them. I have seen the imide
as well as the outside of your walls. For many years I have
been a serious observer of men and things ; and every day I
liave put down in my book notes, which would make many knees
shake in the midst of the Priests of Rome. I do not say that
they are all wicked and depraved. Thanks be to God, I have
found among them men who would have been almost as pure as
Angels, if the confessional had not been there as a snare to pol-
lute their noble hearts. But I have known enough to startle
the world, if I had not more charity for my old friends of Rome
than many of them have shown to me, since God in His infinite
mercy has given me the Lght and the truth as it is in Jesus.
If you honor me with an answer, I will be proud and happy to
meet you as a gentleman on some of those high grounds of
historical or theological truths and errors about which we differ.
But give up that unmanly and unchristian way (which is too
much the use of Roman Catholic Priests) of speaking of the
real or supposed personal sins of an opponent. We are all more

interesting
,ted by the
earing the
— , and the
3se of .

history of
to ask you,
ops should
1 to others ?
Superior of
tie left the
-. It has

Bishop of
sation of a
[ have been

not drag
lity of the
[question to
severely.

y. I have
a the inside
ars I have
'ery day I
naiiy knees
lOt say that
xod, I have
b as pure as
lare to pol-
L to startle
is of Rome
His infinite
s in Jesus.

1 happy to
grounds of
h we differ,
hich is too
ting of the
ire all more

or less great sinners, and are far tw apt to see the straw in the
eyes of our poor neighbor, while we do not see the beam which
is in our own.

Though you have l»een a little hard on your old friend, in say-
ing that you have no other sentiments but those of scorn for
him, I feel gratified to you for having given me the opportunity
of explaining many things wliich, I hope, it wiU be good to my
friends to hear, as it has been pleasant for me to reveil. .

Now, farewell— au revoir. Allow me to call myself your
feUow-sinner and your devoted

Brother in Christ,

C. CHINIQUY.