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LETTERS 
 
 TO 
 
 CARDINAL McCLOSKEY, 
 
 ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK. 
 
 REV. JAMES A. O'CONNOR, 
 
 FOR MANY YEARS A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST ; NOW PASTOR OF 
 THE REFORMED CATHOLIC CHURCH, NEW YORK. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 TENTH TfTOTTSA Nn. 
 
 Revised and Ewj 
 
 ;ifir;/(;£P£?'T. 
 
 LIBRARY^ 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 **THE CONVERTED CATHOLIC" Publishing Office, 
 
 60 Bible House. 
 
 1884. 
 
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 Tlie Letters contained in tliis volume have at- 
 tained a popularit}^ little dreamed of by theii 
 author when he began their publication in a 
 religious newspaper. TJie matter contained in 
 them was prepai ed from .week to week for sermons 
 and lectures in the line of his duty as pastor of the 
 Reformed Catholic Church ; and it was throvvu 
 together in this popular form for the purpose of 
 teaching those for whom they were chiefly de- 
 signed — the Roman Catholics, They have had a 
 wide circulation, and have done much good to 
 Protestants and Roman Catholics, in breaking 
 down the walls of prejudice, bigotry and super- 
 stition. Many Roman Catholics have been en- 
 lightened by them regarding the deceptions of the 
 Church of Rome, and have found the true way of 
 salvation by faith in Christ, as it is pointed out 
 in them in various places ; while many Protest- 
 ants have had their hearts warmed by the tone 
 of kindness and love for the poor victims of 
 Rome's delusions that runs through them. If 
 the questions at issue between the Word of God 
 and the Church of Rome can be discussed in a 
 friendly manner, and Protestants and Roman 
 Catholics can be induced to ''argue" them in 
 a neighborly and Christian way, the truth of 
 Ood will prevail and the downfall of Rome is 
 assured. As a help toward this desirable end 
 this volume has done its part in the past, and it 
 is hoped will do yet more in the future. May 
 Almighty Cod bless this and every eflbrt that 
 seeks only his glory and the salvation of souls, 
 through Jesus Clirist our Lord. Amen. 
 
 J. A. O'C. 
 
 ''Converted Catholic" Office, 
 
 No. 60 Bible House, New York, February, 1884. 
 
 By Transf Of 
 ' P.O. Dept. 
 
 Mar 9,3 o 
 
jfp^INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The letters of the Rev. James A. O'Connor to Cardinal 
 McCloskey, which are brought together in this volume, 
 appeared serially in the JVew York Weekly WiinesSy and 
 were, I have reason to believe, perused with deep interest 
 by a large class of its readers ; as also by many Roman 
 Catholic priests and laymen to wliom the papers were 
 lent or sent by a number of subscribers to the Witness. 
 
 I may add that I read with pleasure these instructive 
 letters, as they appeared, and hope that they will enlighten 
 many readers in the future as they have done in the past 
 on the questions at issue between the Church of Rome 
 and the Bibk^ 
 
 JOHN DOUGALL, 
 
 Editor *' New York Weekly Wltc ■•.*• 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 3 
 
 Letter 
 
 I. — Roman Catholic discontent 5 
 
 II. — Introduces the Author 8 
 
 III. — Power and Luxury of the Roman Church 12 
 
 IV. — Roman Catholic Schools. A Bishop's Oath. ... 17 
 V. — Celibacy of the Roman Catholic Priesthood. ... 21 
 
 VI. — Same subject continued 27 
 
 VII.— Life in Convents 33 
 
 VIII.— The Pope as a Banker 38 
 
 IX. — Romanism and Mormonism 44 
 
 X. — No Priest, no Sacrament; No Sacrament, no 
 
 Salvation 50 
 
 Xr. — Priests opposing Popery now as in the past. . . . 06 
 
 XII.— The Virgin Mary 64 
 
 XIII. — The Scriptural way of Salvation and the Ro- 
 man way 72 
 
 XIV. — Preparation for Confession by examination of 
 
 Conscience 79 
 
 XV. — How Confession is made to a Priest 8() 
 
 XVI. — The Secrets of the Confessional. *^ Moral 
 
 Theology" 95 
 
 XVIL — ^'Leaving^Father and Mother for My sake".. . . 100 
 XVIII. — The Mass wine, and dissipation among Priests. 107 
 
 XIX. — Zeal for the Conversion of Catholics Ill 
 
 XX. — The '^Sacrifice" of the Mass. Christ one only 
 
 Sacrifice , 118 
 
 XXI. — Tran substantiation. A mouse eats the Host. . . 12G 
 XXII. — Purgatory, a place like Hell, and also a Re- 
 frigerator 1 34 
 
 XXIII. — Heaven without Purgatory 146 
 
 XXIV.— St. Patrick and Ireland 150 
 
 XXV. — Infallibility of the Pope in the case of Henry 
 
 VIII 165 
 
 XXVI. — Salvation for Roman Catholics. Father Mc- 
 Guire's Soul in Purgatory. A Romish paper's 
 
 acknowledgment 173 
 
 XXVII. — Cardinal McCloskey's Golden Jubilee. Growth 
 of the Roman Church. The danger and 
 remedy. Statistics 180 
 
FATHER O'CONNOR'S 
 
 LETTERS TO 
 
 CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 
 
 Letter I. 
 
 Sir: — I address you in a reasonable and respeci- 
 ful manner, to call your attention to some matters 
 of tlie deepest importance to all who believe in 
 God and wish to serve him. You are the head in 
 this country of an organization that claims to be 
 the only true Church of Christ. There are other 
 •religious societies that make the same claim, but 
 you say they are heretical, and that yours is the 
 only genuine one containing the whole truth. 
 
 Until a few years ago I was an active worker in 
 that organization, and exercised to the full capa- 
 city the power that some of our population sup- 
 X:>ose a priest to possess. You must concede that 
 only a small jjroportion of the people of this 
 country believe in such power. Yet their numoer 
 is so considerable that you andG,()()() other priests 
 find it vei'y profitable to humor them in their de- 
 lusion. It is known of all nuMi that the class of 
 
 A 
 
FATnEK O CO>.^OK S LETTKllb 
 
 people that believe in j^ou and your system of re- 
 ligion are the least intelligent of the population. 
 Here and there throughout the country an educa- 
 ted and refined man or woman will be found who 
 believes in this system, but they are very few in- 
 deed, and they could well dispense with your min- 
 istrations. But the common people, the working 
 people of the country, need to be uplifted by 
 some means from the sinful lives that they are 
 leading. You say that you and your Church can 
 do it if they will come to you. They have been 
 coming to you and your predecessors for centu- 
 ries, and why do you not do it? If you possess 
 the power of reconciling poor sinners to their of- 
 fended Creator, why do you not make good your 
 claim by using it with effect ? 
 
 It is the belief among your followers that no 
 one can approach the i^.lmighty except through 
 the door of the Roman Catholic Church. You 
 claim that you and your priests are the divinely 
 appointed door-keepers of heaven. Why don't 
 you pass in the poor people that come to you ? 
 
 What would be said and done to a man who 
 had in his possession a secret remedy by which 
 the life of our late President Garfield would have 
 been prolonged for many years, and yet who 
 would not impart this secret ? The whole civil- 
 ized world would rise up as one man and denounce 
 such a creature as the most infamous of beings. 
 If he claimed to have such a remedy and found 
 
TO CAKDIKAL MCCLOSKEY. 
 
 many persons to believe in him, and had been 
 given an opportnnicy of testing it and yet failed 
 to restore our beloved President to health, what 
 a cry of indignation would go up from the whole 
 land that he was only a quack in medicine. 
 
 My dear Cardinal, so many people have tried 
 the remedy for their souls that you say you pos- 
 sess v/ithout any benefit to them, that their cry 
 that you are a quack in religion is rising very 
 high indeed. Your system has had a fair trial 
 for many centuries. Honest though sinful hearts 
 have come under its sway to be lifted up from the 
 wretchedness and misery that sin has brought 
 upon them. Young minds have been opened to 
 its influence that they may receive light ; men 
 and women in the prime of life have asked for 
 more strength and help to resist the evil that 
 presses around them, and old age, with its totter- 
 ing steps, has knocked at the door to obtn;ii rest 
 and peace. All have been disappointed, and 
 many are now examining your claim to possess a 
 remedy for the sins of their souls. I shall be 
 their mouth-piece in exposing those claims. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J^MEs A. O'Connor. 
 
FATHER O'CONNOn'S LETTEUS 
 
 Letter II. 
 
 Sir: — As we are strangers personally I beg to 
 introduce myself. I cannot do so in a more 
 concise manner than by submitting for your 
 perusal the substance of a lecture I delivered in 
 this city soon after I left your Church. It is a re- 
 port taken from a religious paper published in 
 this city: — 
 
 At a crowded service of the Independent 
 Catholic Church in this city, the pastor, the Rev. 
 James A. O'Connor, preached from Acts xxvi, 
 4, 5, 22, and 23. Applying the text to the sub- 
 ject of the discourse, which was, " My life as a 
 Roman Catholic priest and my present position," 
 he said that for the words Jerusalem and Jews he 
 would substitute Ireland and the Irish, and for 
 the word Pharisee in the fifth verse he would sub- 
 stitute Roman Catholic. These verses well ex- 
 pressed his position as a young Irishman and a 
 Roman Catholic priest. 
 
 His family and friends were of old Roman 
 Catholic stock, and even the strictest of the ad- 
 herents of that Church. From his twelfth year 
 he v\^as destined for the priesthood by his parents 
 as the most exalted position in life. A Roman 
 Catholic priest was, as it were, a mediator be- 
 tween God and man, and the treasury of heaven 
 

 TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 
 
 could be opened only by the priest for the laity. 
 No higher position in this world, therefore, could 
 be conceived than that of the priest who is the 
 only medium known in that Church for the 
 prayers of the people to reach the throne of grace. 
 In his family was a venerable priest, the speaker's 
 grand-uncle, Father Batt O'Connor, parish priest 
 of Milltovvn, County Kerry, The speaker's own 
 nephew was recently ordained a Roman Catholic 
 missionary priest, and other near relatives, male 
 and female, were priests and nuns. Trained up 
 amid such sarroiiadings, his manner of life from 
 his youth was after the strictest sect of the Ro- 
 man Catholic religion. Having made the prepar- 
 atory studies in the Diocesan Seminary in Killar- 
 ney, the delightful home of his early life, he pro- 
 ceeded to France and studied philosophy and 
 theology in the great Seminary of St. Sulpice, 
 Paris. As a young man he was filled with zeal 
 for the salvation of souls, and, as he considered 
 there was an abundance of priests in Ireland, he 
 resolved to make America the scene of his priest- 
 ly labors, as his countrymen were spreading over 
 this new land by thousands every j^ear. That he 
 might be more thoroughly prepared for his min- 
 istry, he spent some time in the seminary of St. 
 Francis, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then 
 entered St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, which 
 is conducted by the same society of priests 
 who have charge of the Sulpicinn SiMuinnry in 
 
10 FATUER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Paris. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon, 
 in the seminary cliapel in Baltimore, in 1871, and 
 six months afterwards was ordained priest in 
 Chicago, by the late Bishop Foley. He began his 
 priestly life in the city of Chicago, and for eiglit 
 years he labored in the ministry of the Roman 
 Catholic priesthood in that city and other parts 
 of Illinois. He faithfully tried to fulfil his duties 
 as a i:)riest, offering masses for the people, hear- 
 ing confession, attending their sick-calls, minis- 
 tering to all their spiritual wants, and taking 
 a kindly interest even in their temporal af- 
 fairs whenever he, as pastor, could help and bene- 
 fit them. Lest, while i)reaching to others, he 
 should be a castaway himself, he observed, in his 
 own person, all the duties required of a Catholic 
 and a priest ; he said his mass every morning, 
 went to confession every two weeks, paid daily 
 visits to tlie parochial schools, and in every way 
 was a live, active, zealous young priest. The ex- 
 ample of older priests around him, which was not 
 always good, had no effect upon him, and he con- 
 tinued for eight years, bravely working for the 
 Irish Roman Catholic people, until he found that, 
 as regards the moral elevation of his people and 
 the influence of Christianity in their lives, his 
 labors were in vain. Looking back from his pre- 
 sent position, he thanked God that he retained 
 his good character and reputation through all his 
 ministry. He had seen priests around him be- 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 11 
 
 come intemperate tlirougli sheer recklessness and 
 despair. Many of the priests of the Chicago dio- 
 cese, while he was among them, were hurried 
 into early graves from dissipation brought on by 
 the tyranny and despotism of this hideous eccle- 
 siastical system: — a system which makes them 
 slaves until their hearts are broken, and they 
 find what they consider a relief in sensual excess. 
 Like many other priests around him, Father 
 O'Connor began to see that the Roman Catholic 
 Church Avas not all she professed to be. His ob- 
 servation led him to see a lack of fruit in his min- 
 istry and in that of his brother priests. Tf, he 
 asked himself, the Roman Catholic Church was 
 the Church Christ established on earth, with 
 which he promised to abide forever, why did not 
 the people who had such great faith in that 
 Church show in their lives more evidence of their 
 Christian profession ? As a priest, he was con- 
 tinually handling sacred things, and giving them 
 to the people who had a full and perfect faith in 
 them and in him ; yet he never experienced con- 
 version of heart in his own person, nor did he see 
 any evidence of it in any one of the thousands to 
 whom lie ministered. He gradually lost faith in 
 the Sacraments which he was giving to the 
 people, the mass, the confession, the eucharist, 
 the extreme unction, and the other means of grace 
 that the Roman Catholics so liberally used. Re- 
 cognizing that he was in a false position, he re- 
 
12 PATHEK 0'C0>:N0K'S LETTERS 
 
 solved at all liazards to free himsell' from the de- 
 plorable state of hypocrisy in which he saw so 
 many other priests spend their lives. 
 
 Accordingly he went to Cincinnati in May, 1878, 
 where he obtained litei'ar}^ employment, and 
 thence to Boston. From there he came to New 
 York and, after his conversion to Christ, organ- 
 ized the Indej^endent Catholic Church, in conjunc- 
 tion with other priests who had also renounced 
 the teachings of the Church of Rome. 
 
 Thanks be to God, the people were coming in 
 vast numbers to hear the simple doctrine of salva- 
 tion through Christ alone preached by those 
 who had been priests of that Church which was 
 cheating the souls of her votaries and keeping 
 them in a state of degradation, superstition and 
 idolatry. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Connor. 
 
 Letter III, 
 
 Sir: — On Fifth Avenue in this city, covering 
 
 the square between Fiftieth and Fifty-first streets, 
 is a large white marble building known as ''The 
 Cathedral." That building cost more than 
 $5,000,000. A great part of this sum was made 
 up by the sale of whiskey, wine and beer in the 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. l^ 
 
 building at the great fair and bazaar held there a 
 few years ago. You and your priests dispensed 
 the liquor to the Irish people who freely drank it 
 and paid double price for it, as they were told 
 that the money was for the glory of God in build- 
 ing his house. The more they drank at that 
 Fair the more pleased their God was supposed to 
 be. A Christian man in your place would say, 
 ^' The more Satan was pleased." But with you 
 and your Church the end always and everywhere 
 justifies the means. I leave it to any honest man 
 to judge whether Christ or Satan reaped the fruit 
 of that Fair. In the day when the eternal books 
 are balanced we shall know how many young 
 maidens and young men were sent on the road to 
 destruction by that great '' Fair and Bazaar." If 
 I add that the City was cheated out of the land 
 on which your Cathedral is built, as Dexter A. 
 Hawkins, Esq., an eminent lawyer of this city, 
 proves in his pamphlet, it may well be asked, 
 how can you have the effrontery to call it the 
 House of God ? If the Saviour of the world were 
 to come on earth again, would he enter there and 
 set His seal upon the building as his temple ? 
 
 I passed by your Cathedral the other day and 
 observed that you are building a magnificent resi- 
 dence — a palace you call it, on the east side of 
 of the square fronting on Madison avenue. It is 
 not quite as tine a mansion as that of A. T. Stew- 
 art or William II. Vanderbilt, but it will be one 
 
14 FATHER O'cONNOr/S LETTEIIS 
 
 of the notable buildings in New York when com- 
 pleted in a style commensurate with the elegance 
 in wliich you live. Whatever may be said of the 
 pretensions of your Church to possess the 
 keys of the kingdom of Heaven, no one 
 will deny that you possess the keys of the treas- 
 ures of the earth and the enjoyment of the good 
 things of this world. When I was a youth in 
 Ireland I heard my esteemed parish priest and 
 relative, Rev. T. Enright of Causeway, County 
 Kerry, say that it was generally believed, though 
 it was not an article of faith, that Popes, Cardi- 
 nals, Bishops, and priests, would occupy higher 
 places in Heaven than the laity. The good, pious 
 man and his congregation tirmly believed it, as I 
 did also, nntil I had been a member of the priest- 
 hood some years ; but as I mingled with the 
 bishoi3S and clergy in this country, and observed 
 their manner of life, my faith in their claim to a 
 high place in Heaven was somewhat shaken. I 
 saw, however, that you were bound to have as 
 good a time on earth as grand palaces, costly fur- 
 niture, fine carriages and goodly raiment can 
 afford. 
 
 The people are told that all this is necessary to 
 upliold your state and to preserve the dignity of 
 your high calling as men of God and ministers of 
 Christ. You do not pretend that you derive any 
 authority for the use of these luxuries from the 
 sacred Scriptures, however strained, or that you 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 15 
 
 were taught how to enjoy them when you sat at 
 the feet of your teachers in the seminary. But 
 being in the wcrld you tell the people that you 
 have to be all things to all men that you may gain 
 as many followers as possible. This you learned 
 from your master in Rome, and your promotion 
 from priest to bishoj) and Cardinal has followed 
 your compliance with his teaching. Though the 
 people, the poor working-people of every land, 
 have to pay for these luxuric?^, it is not to please 
 them that you indulge in them. Apart from the 
 personal gratification you derive from them, you 
 use them as decoys to attract the worldly-minded 
 and the wealthy by displaying your power and 
 grandeur as princes and rulers of the people. 
 
 During a visit to Northfield, Mass., I met a 
 Christian man, an ex-Judge of the Circuit Court 
 of one of the districts in Illinois, who years ago 
 had been a very active politician and a leader in 
 the councils of the Democratic party. In con- 
 versation with him I learned many things con- 
 cerning the intimate relations of your Church 
 with political parties and the powers of this 
 world. He told me candidly that he was first at- 
 tracted to an alliance with the Roman Catholic 
 Church by the display of power and permanency 
 that she was everywhere making in America. 
 There was something solid in the line churches 
 and institutions that were springing up in every 
 city and town of the Union, which were owned by 
 
16 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 the bishops alone. Protestant churches were be- 
 ing planted, too, but they were owned by the 
 Christian citizens of each town, who could convert 
 them into any use they pleased. But the people 
 in the Roman Catholic Church had no control 
 over the property tliej^ paid for. If not obedient 
 to priest and bishop in all things, they could be 
 excluded from the buildings they had erected. 
 Where such power existed and was enforced, 
 there must be strength and stability. So this 
 politician and man of the world at that time 
 judged, and with this knowledge he went into the 
 councils of his party, and advised them, in all 
 cases where they sought an alliance with Roman 
 Catholic voters, to deal directly with the rulers 
 of that Church. For many years he was the 
 principal man in the secret committee appointed 
 to treat with the bishop and priests in the great 
 city where he dwells. The people were ignorant 
 of this wire-pulling, but they obeyed their bishop 
 and local pastors in what was commanded them, 
 because thev knew that thouo-h their votes would 
 benefit a certain political party, their Church 
 would be exalted and her power increased, and 
 that in some way or other they would be partak- 
 ers of its grandeur. 
 
 But those days are nearlv past. A new gener- 
 ation of Irishmen has sprung up in America — the 
 children of the emigrants of 1849 to 1852, who are 
 not bound by the traditions that kept their fathers 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKET. 17 
 
 obedient slaves to your Church. In the free in- 
 stitutions of the United States their minds have 
 been expanded, and in the practical life of the 
 Americans around them their native shrewdness 
 has been quickened to such a degree that they see 
 through your system, and are judging it on its 
 merits, without attaching any weight to your 
 claims of Divine right and infallible authority. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James A. O'Connor. 
 
 Lettek IV. 
 
 Sir: — You recently consecrated to the Episco- 
 pate Kev. Father O'Farrell, late pastor of St. 
 Peter's Roman Catholic Church in this city. 
 The most notable event in the life of this gentle- 
 man has been the erection of the parochial schools 
 attached to St. Peter's Church, where the chil- 
 dren of the Irish people would receive a sepa- 
 rate education. In his estimation the public 
 schools, which have been the nurseries of Presi- 
 dents, statesmen and men of note in America, 
 were not of the kind or quality to elevate the 
 Irish in this country. Virtually, Father O'Far- 
 rell said to the Irish people of his parish, ^'Do 
 not send your children to the public schools, 
 
18 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 lest they sliould grow up Americans. It matters 
 not that this republic is greatest among the 
 nations of the earth to-day, the children of Amer- 
 icans are not fit companions for your children ; 
 do not associate with them, therefore, but keep 
 separate and apart from them. In after years, 
 when your children take their place in the world, 
 to work out their destiny, it will be as servants 
 to these Americans who now go to the public 
 schools. But never mind that ; you are a suj^e- 
 rior race, and I will build school-houses for your 
 children, where they will learn how to fit them- 
 selves for their duties. You Pat, and Marv and 
 Bridget, who have come to America with honest 
 hearts, seeking to better your condition in life, 
 do not allow your numerous progeny to mingle 
 with these Americans ; there is danger in the 
 contact, and it will be a woful day for you when 
 your descendants become like them. Here are 
 my Roman Catholic parish schools, sanctioned 
 by the Pope, where the traditions of Old Ireland 
 are preserved, and where no Bible is taught. 
 Send your children to me, and I will instruct 
 them in their duties to the Pope and the 'Holy' 
 Church that Ireland loves so well." 
 
 For his success in establishing parochial 
 schools, and for this alone. Father O'Farrell has 
 been distinguished among his co-laborers in the 
 priesthood, and his reward has come from the 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 19 
 
 Pope's own hand in his elevation to the Bishop 
 rick of the new See of Trenton, N. J. 
 
 Father O'Farrell received a very liberal educa- 
 tion. He had been my predecessor as a student 
 in the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, France^ 
 and after his ordination he was a professor in 
 the Snlpitian Seminary of Montreal, before he 
 took charge of St. Peter's Church here. But all 
 his culture and learning have been placed at the 
 disposal of his sovereign Lord the Pope, as will 
 be seen by the following oath that he took as he 
 knelt before you in your Cathedral : 
 
 ''I shall be from this hour thenceforward obe- 
 dient to blessed Peter, the Apostle, and to the 
 Holy Roman Church, and to the most blessed 
 Father Pope Leo XIII, and to his successors can- 
 nonically chosen. I shall assist them to retain 
 and defend, against any man whatever, the 
 Roman Popedom, without prejudice to my rank. 
 I shall take care to preserve, defend and j)romote 
 the rights, honors and privileges of the Holy 
 Roman Church, of the Pope and of his successors 
 aforesaid. With my whole strength I shall 
 observe and cause to be observed by others the 
 rules of the Holy Fathers, the decrees, ordinances 
 or dispositions and mandates of the Apostolic 
 See," etc. 
 
 I am not one of those who see danger to the 
 Republic from your Church. The days are past 
 when Rome could influence the fate of nations. 
 
aO i;ATHEK O'CONNOR'S LETTER8 
 
 The old man in the Vatican has become a cipher 
 in the political affairs of Europe, because the 
 people are learning how to govern themselves. 
 Yet, when we find men like you, Mr. Cardinal, 
 and your bishops, vowing obedience to one who 
 calls himself the Sovereign Pontiff, there is dan- 
 ger that the ignorant among your followers may 
 become very good papists, but very bad citizens, 
 and very bad Christians; when they see loyalty 
 to the Pope made of more account than obedience 
 to the Almighty or fidelity to the Government of 
 the United States 
 
 In the above oath. Bishop O'Farrell did not 
 promise God any faithfulness or integrity in the 
 discharge of his duties, nor did he pledge himself 
 to obey the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 claims unswerving fidelity from every Christian. 
 To you and to every Roman Catholic bishop, 
 priest, and layman, the Pope takes precedence of 
 Christ, yet it is in the name of the Redeemer that 
 you all speak to the Irish people. May God 
 help them to get away from your influence and 
 that of Bishop O'Farrell and his fellows, who 
 seek to perpetuate the power of the Pope of 
 Rome over them by arrogating to themselves the 
 prerogatives of the Son of God. You, Mr. Car- 
 dinal, and the man you have laid your hands on 
 to consecrate as bishop, know as well as I do that 
 every human being who is conscious ot sin and 
 desires to turn from evil ways to the way of God 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 21 
 
 through the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. If 
 you and your Pope and bishops and priests were 
 swept off this globe to-day, every human being 
 who crieth to the Lord in mercy would never- 
 theless receive the blessing of forgiveness and 
 reconciliation. This I preach to my congre- 
 gation of Roman Catholics, converted Catholics 
 and Christians, every Sunday, and as I read this 
 letter to them we shall pray that you may be led 
 to ask of the Holy Ghost, what is the truth of 
 God regarding the salvation of sinners ? 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Coni^or. 
 
 Letter Y. 
 
 Sir : — A few months ago the New York papers 
 contained a long notice of the marriage of a 
 Roman Catholic priest, the pastor of a leading 
 Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn, On reading 
 it, I wrote a letter to the papers which, with the 
 original notice, caused some attention to be paid 
 to the celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood. 
 
 It seems that Rev. Father Michael Goodwin, a 
 Roman Catholic priest ofHciating in the city of 
 Brooklyn, had fallen in love with a woman and — 
 married her. What else would you have him do? 
 It is the usage of society when a man of mature 
 
22 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 years falls in love with a woman, and she recipro- 
 cates his affection, that they should get married 
 in an honorable Christian manner, and live de- 
 cently, as civilized nations have enjoined by their 
 laws. This is the general custom. In the Chris- 
 tian Church, from the earliest ages, no man could 
 be licitly ordained to the ministry who was not 
 legitimately born of honorable public marriage. 
 Dispensations may be, and have been, granted by 
 your Church to the illegitimate children of Popes, 
 Bishops and Princes, but that does not alter the 
 law. You know, as well as I do in my own case, 
 that you could not have been ordained a priest if 
 your honored parents in Brooklyn, where you 
 were born, had not been married according to 
 Christian custom. But the case of Father Michael 
 Goodwin was peculiar in many respects. He was 
 a Roman Catholic priest ministering to a large 
 congregation in Brooklyn ; that is, hearing the 
 confessions of all the people in his j^arish, offering 
 up the sacrifice of the mass for them and attend- 
 ing to their spiritual wants. It was a great shock 
 to the faith of the people in the Roman Church 
 that one of their priests should get married. But 
 there was something awful in the fact that he got 
 married to a nun — the superioress of the convent 
 in Brooklyn. It almost took aAvay my breath 
 when I learned this. Why, nothing of this kind 
 had ever before occurred in America ! To be sure 
 some hundreds of years ago one Rev. Father 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 23 
 
 Martin Luther got married to a pious nun named 
 Catharine Bora, and during the French Revolu- 
 tion priests and nuns got married. But it was as 
 if a new reformation of the Roman Catholic 
 Church was dawning that a priest and nun should 
 get married in the " City of Churches," as Brook- 
 lyn is called. 
 
 There is a stern reality about this case. To 
 make sure of it I sent one of our Independent 
 Catholic priests to Brooklyn to learn the details. 
 
 This gentleman. Father McF , was in St. Mary's 
 Seminary, Baltimore, with Father Goodwin, and 
 naturally took a deep interest in the case. He 
 saw the nun's sister, a married lady in Brooklyn, 
 and she confirmed the whole story. After their 
 marriage Father Goodwin and his nun- wife went 
 to Philadelphia, where they are now living, and 
 raising a family to the Lord. 
 
 A great uproar was created in Roman Catholic 
 circles by this marriage. In the estimation of 
 Roman Catholics this nun and priest had " broken 
 their vows." As to the nun, her "vow" was a 
 '' simple" one, from which she could be released 
 by the bishop ; but it is generally believed by 
 Roman Catholics that the " vow" of a priest like 
 Fatlier Goodwin could be annulled only by the 
 Pope himself. 
 
 Now, it is known to j^ou, Mr. Cardinal, and to 
 every Roman ecclesiastic, that jjriests, at their 
 ordination, or any time afterwards, do not make 
 
24 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LErTERS 
 
 a VOW of celibacy. At their ordination, priests 
 promise (''promitto'') to be ''chaste, temperate, 
 and of good behavior," as the Apostle enjoins, 
 and nothing more. 
 
 I well remember the time of my own ordination 
 to sub-deaconship and deaconship in the chapel 
 of St. Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, by Bishop 
 Becker, of Wilmington, Del , June 29, 1871, and 
 my ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Foley 
 in Chicago, Dec. 23, same year. And I here pub- 
 licly say that at no time did 1 make a vow of celi- 
 bacy, nor did the score of young men who were 
 ordained with me the same year from the same 
 seminary. I have inquired of many priests who 
 were ordained by different bishops in America 
 and Europe, if they had made any such vow when 
 they were ordained, and their answer was that 
 they had not. I have consulted the Pontificale 
 Romanum and manuals for the ordination of 
 priests, and there is not in all of them any such 
 vow exacted from those who present themselves 
 for ordination. 
 
 History tells us that priests were married, de- 
 spite fruitless attempts to enforce celibacy, made 
 by Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century, 
 and other Popes and councils at various times, 
 until Pope Gregory VII., called Hildebrand, in 
 the year 1074, enacted a law that henceforward no 
 pricai s should marry, and that those -vho then 
 had wives should put them away The clergy 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 25 
 
 rebelled, but Gregory had the civil power of all 
 the kings of Europe at his back, and the priests 
 were compelled to submit formally ; though, like 
 honest men, they were faithful to their poor wives 
 secretly. 
 
 From the enactment of that unnatural law can 
 be dated the corruption of morals in the Church, 
 The subject is too indelicate to pursue at length. 
 Suffice it to say that priests were like other men , 
 that the injunction of the Creator to the first man 
 and woman to ''increase and multiply" touched 
 them as it did Adam and Eve, and that if the law 
 of the Pope could prohibit honorable marriage in 
 priests and laymen it could not stifle the instinct 
 of love that God had implanted in human beings, 
 as well as in the animal kingdom generally. 
 
 I will close this letter by the statement that I 
 am convinced if marriage had not been prohibited 
 by one of your Popes in the eleventh century^ no 
 Reformation would be needed in the sixteenth 
 century. If the priests of your Church were per- 
 mitted by your laws to wed their mates in an 
 honorable manner and build up homes and raise 
 children to the Lord, the sweeping work that 
 Almighty God gave into the hands of Martin 
 Luther and his contemporaries to do would have 
 been unnecessary. But tlirough the centuries, 
 from Gregory's tyrannical decree against the mar- 
 riage of priests to the close of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, immorality among the clergy was prevalent 
 
26 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 iiTitil its climax was reached in the person of the 
 infamous Pope Alexander VI. 
 
 God bless the memory of Martin Luther, and 
 keep it fresh and green in our hearts. His heroic 
 fight against the corruptions of the Roman 
 Church, and his brave example and encourage- 
 ment to Catholic priests to hear the voice of the 
 Lord calling on them to ''come out of her, My 
 people, and be not partakers of her iniquities,'^ 
 will forever endear him to all Christian peoples. 
 
 The Apostle Paul writes to his son in the faith, 
 Timothy, counselling him in his ministry, and 
 prophesying as follows : "Now the Spirit speak- 
 eth expressly, that in the latter times some shall 
 depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing 
 spirits and doctrines of devils ; forbidding to 
 marry, and commanding to abstain from meat." 
 (I. Tim. iv.) If in this prophesy the Apostle had 
 not in view the doctrines of your Church that calls 
 itself Christian, I would like to know what other 
 organization has been established in the world 
 that answers to it. 
 
 Hopeful of your conversion ultimately, I am 
 Tours respectfully, 
 
 James A. O'Connor, 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET 27 
 
 Letter VI. 
 
 Sir?— The celibacy cf the Roman Catholic 
 clergy, to which I referred in my last letter, in 
 connection with the marriage of Father Michael 
 Goodwin to a nun in Brooklyn, is a subject of 
 great importance to Roman Catholics. In this 
 city and in all the cities and towns of the United 
 States, the question arises continually^ Why do 
 not Roman Catholic priests marry like other min- 
 isters ? In this letter I shall endeavor to throw 
 some more light on the subject. Taken in its 
 best aspects, it is a most unsavory topic, and as 
 such it has been discussed by Protestant and 
 Catholic writers at various times. I must confess 
 it is with a feeling of pity J have turned away 
 from the perusal of many books on this subject. 
 The writers of such works begin with the assump- 
 tion that all priests and nuns are immoral in their 
 lives. The old spelling-book used to have the 
 definitions : */ Masculine, priest ; feminine, nun.'' 
 So it is not to be wondered at that the average 
 human being should couple them together as in 
 some respects man and wife. 
 
 Now it may startle some jiersons to learn from 
 me that there is very little immorality between 
 j)riests and nuns in Ireland, France or America, 
 of which countries alone I can speak from expe- 
 
28 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 rience. Putting aside the motive of adherence to 
 their rules, one main reason why priests do not 
 make love to nuns is because the latter are most 
 frequently very undesirable beings. Another 
 reason is that the good-looking and pretty nuns 
 would be sure to tell. There was a notable case 
 in Bloomington, Illinois, just before I went there, 
 
 in 1872. Father D was appointed pastor of 
 
 the Roman Catholic church in that town by 
 Father Halligan, of Chicago, the Administrator 
 of the diocese during the interregnum between 
 the retirement of Bishop Duggan into the insane 
 asylum of the Sisters of Charity of St. Louis, 
 Mo., and the appointment of Dr Thomas Foley, 
 of Baltimore, as Bishop of Chicago. Scarcely 
 had Bishop Foley assumed the reins of govern- 
 ment when he began to bring ''order out of 
 chaos," as Bishop Becker, of Wilmington, 
 Del., said in his sermon at the consecration 
 of the former. One of his first acts was to 
 
 remove Father D from Bloomington and send 
 
 him out of the diocese. Bishop Foley kept his 
 own counsel, and all the priests were puzzled to 
 
 know ''what was the matter wdth D ." It 
 
 could not be learned at first, but like all such 
 things it came out in time. I had not been in 
 Bloomington three months when I learned that 
 Father D. had to leave the parish because he was 
 so indiscreet as to put his arm around the neck of 
 a pretty nun in the convent while hearing her con- 
 
'TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 2^ 
 
 fession. It was the summer season, and perhaps 
 the holy father wanted to brush away a fly from 
 the fair round neck, or perhaps he only wanted 
 to stretch his arm, which had become cramped 
 from the position of supporting his well 
 rounded and handsome chin. At all events the 
 nun — she was a young one, and did not know 
 any better — told her ''extraordinary" confessor 
 that Father D. had acted very queer at her last 
 confession, and she did not care to go near him 
 again. The ''extraordinary " confessor was com- 
 pelled to take action in the matter, and both 
 Father D. and the nun were sent away. 
 
 Another case of priests and nuns getting into 
 trouble in our day on account of "celibacy" was 
 
 that of Father D e, the pastor of a prominent 
 
 church in Chicago. He was a brilliant young 
 man, and was promoted to St. Patrick's because 
 of his shining qualities. While I was in the semi- 
 nary at Baltimore I was shocked, in common with 
 the other students from Chicago, to learn that 
 
 Father D e had been removed from his parish. 
 
 After I was ordained priest, I inquired about the 
 matter and the only thing I could learn was that 
 he had been mixed up in the affairs of the Lor- 
 retto convent that had been dissolved by Bishop 
 Foley. The nuns were sent away and the mother 
 6Uj)erior became crazy. It was learned that 
 regular orgies were held in the convent at night, 
 and a stop had to be put to them when the neiij:h- 
 
90 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTEBS 
 
 bors complained of the nuisjince. (It is worth 
 noting that the piiests and nuns above referred to 
 are still believers in tlie Roman Catholic faith). 
 
 There are many other cases of this kind, by no 
 means edifying, that my memory could call up, 
 but I will not refer to them. It is not an agree- 
 able topic to discuss, however interesting it may 
 be to you and your j^riests and nuns. 
 
 As a result of my discourse on this subject and 
 my last letter to you, I received a scurrilous let- 
 ter from a highly intelligent Roman Catholic in- 
 veighing against me for my assertion that the 
 corruption of morals in the Roman Church 
 had its origin at the time thai Pope Gregory 
 (Hildebrand) decreed, in 107-4, that henceforward 
 priests could not contract marriage. In that 
 letter I merely quoted Roman Catholic his- 
 tory. Any reader can find in the libraries 
 reference to this subject by Catholic and Protes- 
 tant writers. Common sense tells us that such a 
 decree as that of Gregory could no more make 
 men and woman chaste than could a law enacted 
 by any government in the world forbidding the 
 birds of the air to mate together, be effectual in 
 its results. 
 
 If you, Mr. Cardinal, would write your memoirs, 
 and tell the truth in them, we would tind therein 
 what I have often heard from the lips of priests : 
 *' If I were not a priest, I would like to marry 
 Miss So-and-So, for she is a very nice girl, and I 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY/ 81 
 
 tliink would make a good wife." And how often 
 have I heard ladies say of the good-looking 
 clergymen of the Roman Catholic Church: 
 ^' What a pity he is a priest." In like manner, 
 it is sometimes said of some one of the poor 
 women in convents : "What a pity she is a nun." 
 though I must confess this is not often the case, 
 for most nuns are very homely indeed. The 
 public can see the best of them in this city beg- 
 ging in the rum shops for the support of your 
 churches and schools, and they are enough to 
 make celibates of all men. No fact in history is 
 better established, even by the testimony of Ro- 
 man Catholic writers, than that gross immorality 
 has gone hand in hand with the so-called celibacy 
 of your Church. The number of ecclesiastics from 
 the Pope downwards who have set the "celibacy 
 decrees" of Gregory VII., at naught would make 
 a small army. But you will say we live in times 
 of purer morals now, and there is no corruption 
 among the clergy and monastic orders. C ertainly. 
 Protestantism has a restraining influence on the 
 morals of the Roman Catholic clergy, and there 
 is not;as much public scandal among the priests 
 and nuns as there used to be. But beneath the 
 calm surface there is a seething discontent among 
 them that will ultimately break down the un- 
 natural barriers that make them odious to them- 
 selves and out of sorts with mankind in general. 
 The wretched lives that some of these priests and 
 
82 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 nuns are now enduring cannot be borne much 
 longer. A combination of circumstances causes 
 them to remain in their present positions. The^ 
 shrink from wounding the hearts of their parents 
 and friends, and they fear the hounds of calumny 
 that your Church would send after them. Their 
 manhood and womanhood are undermined by 
 your unnatural system of repression until they 
 are like sheep when they come into the great 
 world. But chief est of all the reasons that keeps, 
 them slaves of your Church is that they do not 
 know any other door by which they can enter 
 heaven, rickety and soiled as the Roman door is. 
 But a new light is shining before the minds of 
 many of them, the light of the Gospel of Christ, 
 pure and undefiled. This you cannot extinguish, 
 for the flame is burning brightly in the lamp that 
 the Son of God holds in his hand to illumine the 
 way of every human being that desires to rise up 
 from sin and come to the Almighty Father. A 
 great company of priests and religious men and 
 women are directing their gaze toward that light, 
 and before the King shall come in his glory, many, 
 many thousands of them will be enrolled in tha 
 army of the Lord. 
 
 As a result of your perusal of these letters, Car- 
 dinal, the notion might enter your head to get 
 married to some good sensible woman. I beg you 
 to believe that I shall be only too proud and, 
 happy to perform the ceremony without a reward. 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 33 
 
 except the consciousness of making two hearts 
 happy. And we shall give you and your bride 
 such a glorious reception in Masonic Temple as 
 New York has never before witnessed. Stranger 
 things have happened, as we know from history. 
 The signs of the times are all favorable for a new 
 departure in the moral government of your 
 Church. You will render the name of McCloskey 
 immortal if you have the courage to be a leader 
 in these times. 
 
 Yery respectfully yours, 
 
 James A. O'Coititoe. 
 
 Letter YII. 
 
 Sir : — Many volumes have been written on the 
 subject of nuns and nunneries, yet much remains 
 to be told. Like all priests, I have been thrown 
 much in the society of nuns. Many of my rela- 
 tives are nuns in Ireland. I knew them as a boy 
 and I loved them as sweet angels of God. I was 
 acquainted only with their exterior life, such as 
 appeared when I visited them in the parlor of the 
 convent. I believed then, as I was taught, that 
 they were the "spouses of Christ," as the Roman 
 ritual and prayer books represent them. 
 
 But when I became a priest and had daily in- 
 ter/nourse with the inmates of convents, I learned 
 
34 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 to pity the sad fate of the young creatures who 
 were compelled to lead such lives as I observed 
 in them. It is a sad sight to look upon hundreds 
 of women living together, thinking they are 
 pleasing God by abstaining from marriage, as if 
 marriage was a sin ; and the Church of Rome — 
 the voice of God, as they deem it — telling them 
 that they are the spouses or wives of Christ, 
 and that to be obedient to the Church is the 
 surest passport to heaven. 
 
 In 1877 I was somewhat startled in my notions 
 about nuns, and their supposed ''happy" lives in 
 convents, when I learned that sister Rose, the 
 music teacher in St. Jarlath's Church, had got 
 married to a letter-carrier in Chicago. I thought 
 over this a good deal, for I had known Sister 
 Rose to be a most exemplary nun, and I puzzled 
 my brain to know how or why she had got mar- 
 ried. She was a little woman, young and not 
 over pretty, but what you would call attractive. 
 
 One morning she gave her lesson as usual, and 
 quietly slipped out to be married at the midday 
 hour. I would give a good deal to know how 
 she did her courting. In modern life young peo- 
 ple generally know each other for some time 
 before they enter into a marriage engagement, 
 and when they take upon themselves the solemn 
 obligations of matrimony their friends and ac- 
 quaintances are called to witness the ceremony. 
 But here was a poor nun running off in her con- 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 35 
 
 vent garb to marry the postman. Why did she 
 not consult her family and friends on this inter- 
 esting occasion ? Because she had no family or 
 friends after she had entered into convent life. 
 All outside the walls of the convent were dead to 
 her, except some kind Protestant friends who 
 might pity her if she told them about her condi- 
 tion. She told the postman and he had pity on 
 her. He must have been a good fellow. I will 
 try to find out his address to congratulate him. 
 
 In Chicago, during my ministry there, several 
 nuns left their convents and returned to the 
 ^' world," as your Church calls all social life and 
 duty that is not ''religious." Some time ago a 
 young lady called to see me; she told me that 
 she had just left the convent attached to the Re- 
 demptorist Church in Third street, this city. She 
 was an only child and her parents in Bay Ridge, 
 Long Island, readily took her home. She told 
 me why she left, but it would be improper for me 
 to repeat her story. Another lady, who recently 
 came to me, told me she had left the convent in 
 Columbus, Ohio, and when she came to her 
 mother's house in Brooklyn the door was 
 slammed in her face, and she was sent a wan- 
 derer in the world without a friend or acquain- 
 tance. I placed her in the way of getting friends 
 who would help her if she i)roved worthy. 
 
 From across the ocean comes the intelligence 
 that a young nun was brought to the police sta- 
 
86 FATHEIl O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 tion in Gratz, Germany, wet tlirongli and in a 
 state of unconsciousness. It appears that she 
 had been forced to enter a convent, and that she 
 had made an attempt to escape by jumping from 
 the convent into a mill-stream which flows under 
 the wall of the building. The superior of the 
 convent appeared at the police station to claim 
 the nun, but the authorities refused to surrender 
 her. Much indignation was expressed by the 
 populace. 
 
 From this it may seem as if nuns are forcibly 
 detained in convents in Europe, but are at liberty 
 to come out of them in the United States. It is 
 true that fear of the law and public opinion com- 
 pels your Church to open the convent doors to a 
 nun when she desires to come out, but there is a 
 power to keep her in more binding than bars and 
 bolts. It is the discipline in which she has been 
 trained. She knows that once she enters the 
 gates of the convent she ha^ placed on herself a 
 mark that time can never efface with her own 
 family and the Roman Catholic public. 
 
 If she leaves, where shall she go ? She dare not 
 live with her own people even if they were willing 
 to receive her, which not one family in a hundred 
 would do. IIow could she face the half averted 
 looks of the neighbors and companions of her 
 youth ? How could she bear the sneering 
 remarks of the coarser sort, that ' she must have 
 done something or she would not have left the 
 
r 
 
 TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 37 
 
 convent. Perhaps the '^ something" she had 
 done was to protect her virtue from the lust of 
 some wine-drinking priest of your church. It is 
 not an unusual thing for a priest to visit the con- 
 vent, which is always near them, after dinner, 
 especially if he has partaken freely of the liquid 
 refreshments that adorn every priest's table. 
 
 I have heard a great deal from other priests of 
 what transpires on these occasions, but I shall 
 speak only of what I know. Every nun takes a 
 vow of "''obedience," and generally keeps it 
 where her favorite priest is concerned. 
 
 I would not have it understood for one moment 
 that I consider all nuns immoral. By no means. 
 But so many of them are evidently destined by 
 nature for prolific mothers, that it is not to be 
 wondered at if some of them indulge in illicit 
 pleasures. They enter the convents while young, 
 so young that they do not know their own 
 minds, and when love comes to them they vainly 
 regret that they cannot honorably satisfy the 
 cravings of the heart in this respect. 
 
 If the nun departs from her convent, whatever 
 may be the ''something" that impels her to 
 leave, where shall she go ? She rarely knows 
 anything by which she can earn her bread in the 
 struggling world. She has no letters of recom- 
 mendation by which she can gain the confidence 
 of good people. The average Protestant Ithinks 
 that most nuns lead immoral lives, and, of course, 
 
88 TATnER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 they will not be received into respectable fam- 
 ilies. No door is open to them except the door 
 of perdition, and yet not a week passes but some 
 of them run this risk, for the hell they leave 
 behind them is worse than anything could be 
 outside. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'CoxxoE. 
 
 Letter YIII. 
 
 Sir : — When I was a Roman Catholic, I thought 
 the Pope was not only ther greatest man in all the 
 world, but also the holiest. I do not think so now 
 and with good reason. 
 
 Passing by the history of many bad Popes, as 
 well as the life and adventures of the infamous 
 scoundrel, Pope Alexander the Sixth, who in his 
 day committed every crime from murder to pick- 
 ing pockets, let us take a recent instance in the 
 career of the present '^ infallible" Pope, Leo 
 XIII. He has been accounted a learne^-'and 
 shrewd inan, altogether a different kind of person 
 from the good-natured old Pope Pius IX., who 
 preceded him. 
 
 Recently we learned that the gi'eat banking 
 concern called the Union Generale had failed. 
 The failure of a bank or even a commercial crisis 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 39 
 
 of great magnitude does not much affect religion. 
 But this particular failure has far-reaching con- 
 sequences, which, I am confident, will promote 
 the growth of the Christian religion in a nation 
 that has been called " the eldest daughter of the 
 Church." 
 
 The history of this bank, called the ''Union 
 Genera le," is as follows : A smart Frenchman, 
 named Bontoux, who had been speculating on the 
 Bourse during the presidency of Marshal Mc- 
 Mahon, thought he could make capital out of the 
 popularity the president had acquired with the 
 Bourbon and the Clerical or Jesuitical party in 
 France. When Marshal McMahon retired from 
 the Presidency of the Republic, M. Bontoux, 
 after consultation with some of the leading Ro- 
 man Catholics of France, lay and clerical, went 
 to Rome and laid before the General of the 
 Jesuits, or '' Black Pope," as he is called, a plan 
 which he said, if adopted, would surely restore to 
 the Roman Catholic Church her ancient glory, 
 and to France her legitimate rulers. This plan 
 was that the Church should get possession of all 
 the money in France by establishing a bank that 
 would be the most powerful in the world. France 
 has 37,000,000 people, of whom 35,000,000 :ire 
 Roman Catholics, or at least nominally so. That 
 means 7,000,000 families. Now if each family of 
 this number that puts money in banks could be 
 induced to make one general bank the depository 
 
40 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LErTERS 
 
 of their savings, what a formidable power such 
 an institution would become in a few years. M. 
 Bontoux explained further that he had the en- 
 dorsement of all the Catholic nobles, and men of 
 wealth in France, and, of course, of all the 
 Jesuits, bishops and priests. 
 
 "Go and see Pope Leo XIII., and ask his 
 blessing on the enterprise," said Father Berckx. 
 "Give me a note of introduction," said M. Bon- 
 toux. *' I'll go with you myself and introduce 
 you," responded the Jesuit. Admitted into the 
 august presence of his holiness, they devoutly 
 kissed his big toe and told him of the grand 
 scheme that was to restore him to his temporal 
 power and make him the supreme ruler of earth, 
 as were the Popes of past times. Pope Leo XIIL 
 has one idea in his head. Our poor Roman Cath- 
 olic brethren imagine that he is all the time 
 thinking how can he, as the vicar of Christ, 
 help poor sinners to become good Christians, as 
 our Saviour does. Not at all. The only idea in 
 the present Poj)e's head is how can he regain the 
 temporal power and sovereignty that Pope Pius 
 IX. lost through his stupidity. How the name 
 of Leo XIIL would go down famous in history if 
 he should regain what his blundering predecessor 
 had lost! 
 
 He took the bait and formally gave his blessing 
 to the new bank. He did not do this as you 
 would, Mr. Cardinal, if you were called upon in 
 
^m TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKY. 41 
 
 similar circumstances. Any common priest lias as 
 much ^^ power" as you in bestowing a blessing 
 on anything, from a big cathedral all the way 
 down to a sick cow. But the blessing of the 
 Pope carries tremendous weight, for it is in his 
 capacity as ''successor of St. Peter/' "supreme 
 pontiff," and ''infallible head of the Church," 
 that he gives it. 
 
 M. Bontoux, when he had secured the precious 
 blessing in writing, immediately left Rome and 
 returned to Paris. The first thing he did was to 
 strike ojff several thousand medals in commemo- 
 ration of the event. Next he spent 1,000,000 
 francs, or $250,000, in advertising this wonderful 
 blessing. Tlien he started his bank. The Jesuits 
 threw all their vast wealth into it, and counselled 
 their penitents in the confessional to do likewise. 
 The Count de Chambord gave 6,000,000 francs, 
 the Duke de Broglie 2,000,000 francs, and other 
 noble Frenchmen in proportion. The whole body 
 of Roman Catholics followed suit. They were 
 told from the altar and in the confessional that 
 the "blessing" of the Pope carried certain indul- 
 gences which could be gained by depositing their 
 savings in the great Roman Catholic bank. M. 
 Bontoux was in high feather. So much money 
 poured into his bank, he did not know what to do 
 with it. But he was a man of resources. Having 
 got the blessing of the Pope — the vicai' or agent 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth — what was 
 
42 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 there he could not do ? He established branches 
 of his bank in all parts of France, in Austria, 
 Hungary, Belgium, Bavaria, and was making ar- 
 rangements to have a branch in the United States. 
 
 But the Jesuits were expelled from France soon 
 after President Grevy came into office, and, on 
 leaving, of course withdrew their money from M. 
 Bontoux's bank. The blessing of the Pope, how- 
 ever, once given can never be recalled, and it re- 
 mained with the ingenious banker. He began to 
 ''water" his stock, and give false reports like 
 some bankers and railroad magnates that we 
 know of in this country. But the Jesuits bad 
 gone back on him and he could not survive the 
 shock. 
 
 His bank failed, and its doors were closed. 
 Thirty-one strong boxes in the Union Generale's 
 vaults were found empty, and an examination of 
 its books prove that when M. Bontoux stated 
 that its profits were 67,000,000 francs, there was 
 really a deficit of 96,000,000 francs. And the end 
 of all has come when M. Bontoux, president, and 
 M. Feder, manager, were arrested, and legal pro- 
 ceedings began against several of the directors. 
 
 Let me ask you. Cardinal, is the Government 
 of France strong enough to indict, for conspiracy 
 in this fraudulent transaction, Pope Leo XIIL, 
 as the principal beneficiary of this robbing 
 scheme ? I doubt it, for there was no power in 
 the Government of the United States to punish 
 
TO CARDINAL MC^^CLOSKKT 43 
 
 I Archbishop Purcell, when he closed on five million 
 dollars of the hard earnings of the poor Roman 
 Catholics of Cincinnati four years ago. They 
 never got a cent of their money ; it was all gone- 
 The millions of French families that have been 
 robbed by this bank that the ''infallible" Pope 
 of Rome blessed so heartily will never again see a 
 cent of their money. How much of it has found 
 its way into the treasury of the Pope ? The peo- 
 ple imagine that he is " infallible" when he tells 
 them that he knows more about Christianity and 
 the truth of God than does the Bible. Yet you 
 say, in the present case, he was not ''infallible" 
 when he gave his blessing to M. Bontoux's bank. 
 But ^'infallibility" can never be deceived. 
 
 The day is dawning when the people who now 
 blindly believe in that Pope will see that his 
 claims for holiness and infallibility are based on 
 false pretences, and that instead of being the 
 greatest" maa in the world, he is the most unmiti- 
 gated humbug. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James A. O'Connob. 
 
44 FATUER O'CONNOn'S LETTERS 
 
 Lettee IX. 
 
 Sir : — The brethren whom I left behind me in 
 your church feel great sympathy for the Pope, 
 because he is no longer a temporal sovereign able 
 to hold up his head with the best of crowned 
 monarchs. Since his own Italian countrymen 
 told him to step down from his throne he has 
 sulked in the Vatican. He cries out to all the 
 world that he is a j^risoner, and that he is spend- 
 ing his time in solitude on account of the evil 
 days that have come upon him. What kind of a 
 prison he is in, and what this solitude means, we 
 learn from the following facts about his house- 
 hold. 
 
 In Rome the Pope has declined compliance 
 with the law requiring the filling up of a census 
 paper. A bundle of papers was, however, for- 
 warded to a certain prelate of the household, who 
 made out the returns, from which it appears there 
 are over five hundred persons living in the Vatican, 
 nearly one-half of whom are females. 
 
 When I read this statement, I could scarcely 
 believe my senses. Five hundred persons in one 
 house, waiting on the Pope day and night, and 
 half of them females ! 
 
 Before I ask the question, what did he want 
 with two hundred and fifty women, or what busi- 
 
I 
 
 TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 45 
 
 ness they had to do with an eqnal number of 
 "celibate" cardinals, bishops and monsignori, 
 permit me to remark that the jjopnlar belief of 
 the American Roman Catholic of Irish importa- 
 tion, is that the Pope is a prisoner in the Vatican, 
 that he is in chains, and that a penny to buy a 
 loaf of bread, {" Peter's Pence ") would be very 
 acceptable to him. Father Gavazzi told me last 
 year that when the Pope first shut himself up in 
 the Vatican, the pries rs in the rural parishes in 
 Italy and France, represented to the people that 
 his dungeon was so vile he was compelled to sleep 
 on a straw bed and eat the scantiest fare. The 
 consequence was that the poor people made up 
 packages of bed-clothing, and boxes of provisions 
 to be sent to him. 
 
 There are eleven thousand rooms in the palace 
 of the Vatican. Its library, picture galleries, 
 mosaics, and museums of art are the finest in the 
 world. All the bonds of the United States gov- 
 ernment could not purchase them if they were 
 offered for sale. During the last six months the 
 Pope has made believe that he must leave Ivonie, 
 as his position there is becoming intolerable, but 
 he did not know where to go. France has ex- 
 pelled the Jesuits, and does not want them back. 
 Bismark has no asylum in Germany to offer him. 
 England would give him the island of Malta, and 
 he would be glad to accept it but for the fact that 
 liis faithful Irish subjects are at war with the 
 
46 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 ''hated Saxon," and they would turn against him 
 to a man. But if he could find a place outside of 
 Rome to make a new home for himself in these 
 declining days of the Papacy, how could he trans- 
 port his Vatican treasures thither ? And above 
 all, how or where could he find a mansion large 
 enough to lodge the two hundred and fifty female 
 members of his household, not to speak of the 
 two hundred and fifty males ? 
 
 America, ''the land of the free," is the only 
 country where the Pope could live in indepen- 
 dence of "European despots," and to this great 
 nation I doubt not you have invited him. But 
 where would you advise him to locate with his 
 household ? 
 
 The Mormon question is in the front rank for 
 discussion ; why does not some one suggest to the 
 Pope to go to Salt Lake City with his retinue of 
 five hundred followers, male and female. There 
 is not another city in America that would tolerate 
 the dwelling together of five hundred men and 
 women without marriage. But Utah is pre-emi- 
 nently " the land of the free" in this respect, and 
 there alone would the Pope be allowed to have 
 two hundred and fifty females under the same 
 roof with himself, and his cardinals and bishops. 
 
 Notwithstanding the advantages that Utah 
 holds out to him, I doubt, however, that he will 
 come to America with all his retinue. The lib- 
 erty enjoyed by all classes in this country would 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 47 
 
 not agree with him and his peculiar institutions. 
 And so many priests are now loudly protesting 
 against the infamies of his Church that I think 
 his household of five hundred could not long hold 
 together without getting married, as all priests 
 now are doing. 
 
 From Hartford information has been received 
 that the Rev. Father Edward Agudi, assistant 
 priest at St. Joseph's Church, in Winsted, Conn., 
 has finally dissolved himself from the church by 
 the unusual course of getting married. Father 
 Agudi left Winsted ostensibly to attend a con- 
 vention of priests in Boston, and was believed by 
 Father Leo, pastor of St. Joseph's, to have re- 
 mained in that city. The fact has now been 
 ascertained that Father Agudi went forth from 
 Winsted to New Haven, and was there married 
 to Bridget D. Welsh, a daughter of Patrick 
 Welsh, of that city. The girl had formerly been 
 employed in Winsted, and had attended St. 
 Joseph's Church. The marriage ceremony is 
 reported to have been performed by a Methodist 
 clergyman, for the reason that the bridegroom 
 would have been recognized by any one of the 
 Roman Catholic clergymen to whom he might 
 have applied. The couple have located in 
 Bridgeport, where the husband has opened a 
 restaurant or dining saloon as a means of winning 
 bread for the future. The intimacy between tho 
 couple was conducted so discreetly while in 
 
is FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Win? ted, and the correspondence so carefully 
 concealed after the young woman's return to 
 New Haven, that Father Agudi's parishioners had 
 no intimation of the affair. I had the pleasure of 
 meeting Father Agudi in Bridgejjort last sum- 
 mer. All classes of people speak well of him 
 (they call him Mr. Gody in that city), and even 
 the Roman Catholics patronize his restaurant, 
 and think it an honor to be served by a priest's 
 wife. He promised to come to New York and 
 work with me for the conversion of our Roman 
 Catholic brethren. He is very happy in his 
 marriage ; and though he is an Italian and his 
 wife Irish, they are now 
 
 *' Two S3uls witli but a single thonght. 
 Two hearts that beat as one.*' 
 
 And we have the Rev. Father Leeming, of Bos- 
 ton, throwing aside his priestly robes to go on the 
 stage. In his case it is merely a change from one 
 theatrical performance to another. Any person 
 seeing you and your priests performing mass 
 would say you were consummate actors, so that 
 the transition from Romish altar to the stage is 
 not so very great after all. From England we 
 learn that the Rev. Dr. Case, an Oxford liian, 
 who joined the Roman Church some years ago, 
 and was appointed to the charge of the mission of 
 Gloucester by the Bishop of Clifton, has returned 
 to the Anglican Church. -^ * * The Rev. 
 
TO CARDINAL MOCLOSKET. • 4S^ 
 
 Father Eoberts, a nephew of Cardinal Manning, 
 and a late member of the order of the Oblates of 
 St. Charles Borromeo, Bayswater, has returned 
 to the Anglican Chnrch, and has married. 
 
 These are only a few of the many priests who, 
 every week, are proving their honesty by leaving 
 their eminent positions in the Roman Catholic 
 Church, whether the cause be loss of faith in the 
 doctrines of Rome or the gain of a lady's love. 
 If all priests got married like those brethren they 
 would be better men, and would not be so dreaded 
 by every intelligent Roman Catholic mother who 
 has handsome daughters. 
 
 The Pope will not come to America you may be 
 sure. He and his cardinals and priests with their 
 female companions should change their ways 
 among us here, or they would be suspected of 
 Mormonism. In fact some shrewd observers 
 already see a marked similarity between Roman- 
 ism and Mormonism. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James A. O'Cottttob. 
 
50 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Letter X. 
 
 Sir : — If in the providence of God all the Pro« 
 testant ministers in the world were called by the 
 Master in one day to give an account of their 
 stewardships, the people of God — those who come 
 to him by faith in Jesus Christ — would still be 
 safe. The Bible would remain to instruct the 
 mind, and the love of Christ for repentant sinners 
 would continue forever. "He tasted death for 
 every man." "Wherefore, he is able to save 
 them to the uttermost that come unto God by 
 him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
 them." " For such a high priest became us, who 
 is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sin- 
 ners, and made higher than the heavens ; who 
 needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer 
 up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for 
 the people' s ; for this he did once, when he offered 
 himself." 
 
 But if the Almighty should sweep off the face 
 of the earth the Pope, cardinals, archbishops, 
 bishops, and priests, wJiat could the Roman Cath- 
 olic people do for salvation? They would not 
 know what to do. They may have Douay Bibles 
 in their homes, but they have never been taught 
 how to use them. They do no know how to ap- 
 proach the throne of grace except by using the 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 51 
 
 sacraments and ceremonies of your church as 
 step-ladders. And the common saying, ''No 
 priest, no sacrament," is continually impressed 
 upon their minds as an absolute truth. I have 
 had much experience as a Roman Catholic priest 
 in ministering to the souls of the people, and I 
 deliberately say that I never met Avith one Roman 
 Catholic, who believed that forgiveness of sin and 
 reconciliation wich God could be had by any 
 other means than the mediatorship of the priest. 
 He stands between them and their creator. He of- 
 fers up the sacrifice of the mass for them, they be- 
 lieving it is the same as the sacrifice of Calva- 
 ry. He speaks to them, by authority he says, on 
 the part of God, and in his name grants them par- 
 don and absolution, no matter how heinous their 
 transgressions may be. From the cradle to the 
 grave he has blessings and indulgences for them, 
 which only make them more hardened sinners, 
 seeing how easily they can be forgiven. God pity 
 tliem ! Many of them are in good faith, believing 
 that the priest can save their souls. They know 
 not that it has been written in the sacred volume, 
 ''There is but one mediator between God and 
 man, the man Christ Jesus ;" or if they know this 
 they practically thrust Jesus aside and put the 
 priest in his place. 
 
 After service a few Sundays ago, I noticed a 
 crowd gathered at the head of the stairs leading 
 to the street. I wished to go by quietly, but 
 
53 FATHEK O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 some one plucked me by tlie coat and said, "here 
 lie is." Drawn into the group I was compelled 
 to listen to the controversy that was going on. 
 The central figure was a stalwart Irishman who 
 was volubly discussing some points in the sermon 
 I had preached that evening. He summed up his 
 arguments against salvation by Christ alone by 
 the statement that he as a Roman Catholic " did 
 not know Christ, and did not see him ; but he 
 knew the priest and could see him any time, and 
 talk to him about his soul." As Sydney Smith 
 said that it w^ould require a surgical operation to 
 get a joke into some men's heads, so I thought 
 my brother Irishman would have to undergo a 
 similar process before he could receive the knowl- 
 edge that his soul could be saved if there were 
 never a Roman Catholic priest in the world. 
 
 Soon after I began to preach a Christianity dif- 
 ferent from and ''independent" of your system 
 of religion, a gentleman called on me and said he 
 was attracted to the Roman Catholic religion by 
 many things that he deemed commendable in it. 
 He was an American protestant, and the example 
 of Dr. O. A. Brownson, Father Hecker and other 
 perverts to Rome had much influence in determin- 
 ing his course. He wished to become a Roman 
 Catholic ; but before finally deciding he resolved 
 to go to Rome and there, at the fountain-head, 
 see what this religion was. He broke up his 
 home in this city and took his family with him 
 
TO CAnDINAL M<^'CLOSKEY. 53 
 
 for a long residence in Rome. When the heart 
 of Martin Luther was pained by the scandals and 
 impieties of the Roman Catholic Church in Ger- 
 many, he also went to Rome to strengthen his 
 faith by imbibing of the waters of life as they 
 iflowed from the lips of the Pope. My American 
 friend was as eager as Luther to drink of these 
 waters if they proved wholesome. Speaking of 
 the effect the Roman system of religion j)ro- 
 duces even on persons of the greatest intelligence, 
 he related the following anecdote : he had a very 
 dear friend, a Neapoliran nobleman, who was a 
 strict Roman Catholic. This nobleman vras taken 
 sick, and when the American went to see him it 
 was apparent the disease was deadly. Being ad- 
 vised to prepare for his last end, he said, " I have 
 made all the requisite preparations. I have called 
 in my physician and i)aid him a handsome fee to 
 use all his skill in my case — that is his business. I 
 have consulted my lawyer, and paid him liberally 
 to arrange my affairs — that is his business. And 
 finally I paid my priest all the money he Avanted 
 to attend to the salvation of my soul and grant 
 me absolution from all my sins — that is his busi- 
 ness. What more could I do?" I need scarcely 
 add that my American friend did not become a 
 Roman Catholic. 
 
 The same reliance on the priest is the most 
 marked characteristic in the spiritual life of every 
 Roman Catholic throughout the world. '*]No 
 
FATnER O CONNOR S LETTERS 
 
 priest, no sacrament," is literally true of that 
 religion, and by the same logic of facts, "no sacra- 
 ment, no salvation," is equally true. In the Ro- 
 man Catholic Church the newborn child is in a 
 state of original sin that can be washed out of the 
 soul only by the priest baptizing it. Though it 
 be only ten minutes old, it becomes a Christian as 
 soon as the priest puts salt in its mouth, annoints 
 it with oil, and sprinkles it with water. But, as 
 years go on, more sins come to take the place of 
 the original one, and the priest is again in request 
 to have them wiped out by giving absolution 
 after confession is made to him. This has to be 
 repeated all one's life. A new sin every day or 
 every week, or the old ones come back in a 
 new dress, must be forgiven, and the priest is 
 ever ready to i^erform the ceremony. The Church 
 will curse any one who is not married by the 
 priest. The priest is called into the chamber of 
 the sick to prepare the soul for eternity, even be- 
 fore the physician is summoned in many cases. 
 
 When the Roman Catholic dies the priest is 
 more necessary than ever, for he has the 
 power of drawing the soul out of purgatory, and 
 causing all the gates of heaven to fly open, pro- 
 vided the friends of the deceased have money 
 enough to pay for the job by getting masses said. 
 It is a safe estimate to say that three-fourths of 
 the Roman Catholic priests in America do not 
 believe in these things any more than they 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 65 
 
 believe they have the power to put horns on 
 a refractory parishioner, or to change the bread 
 and wine into the body and blood of Christ. But 
 it is their profession to minister these things to 
 the people who have been brought up in ignor- 
 ance and superstition. A lawyer will take a fee 
 from a client, though he knows the case will go 
 against him. A physician will take his fee from 
 a patient, though he knows that the pill or potion 
 given is perfectly harmless ; so the priest will 
 take money for masses for the living and the 
 dead, and grant absolutions and indulgences, 
 though he laughs in his sleeve at the credulity of 
 the peofjle who believe that his power to do these 
 things is from God. 
 
 Take away the priest and the whole fabric of 
 your church crumbles into pieces. Then the 
 people who desire to serve God will learn that 
 Christ is the great high priest who, "After he had 
 offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at 
 the right hand of God. . . . For by one offering he 
 hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." 
 The influence that a good man who occu^^ies the 
 position of a Roman Catholic priest may have 
 among his people, I would not seek to destroy. 
 But that he is deceiving them in the matter of 
 their eternal salvation is phiin to every one who 
 will read the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, 
 from which I have quoted above. There are very 
 few priests who are themselves deceived regard- 
 
56 FATHER O'CONXOR'S LETTERS 
 
 ing this subject. The performance of the mass 
 as a sacrifice for the living and the dead, the 
 granting of absolution from sin, and the various 
 benedictions they bestow so liberally, they re- 
 gard in the light of mere professional duties. 
 That is their business. But I am glad to say 
 many of them are becoming ashamed of such 
 professional work and are quitting the business. 
 May A-lmighty God give them grace and strength 
 to be true to the principles of honesty that every 
 upright man feels within himself, and may the 
 people Avho look upon them as their mediators with 
 God be brought to the knowledge of the only 
 mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 James A. O'Coni^or. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 Sir : — Time has corrected many mistakes of the 
 past, and righted many wrongs, as is proved by 
 the statue of Savonarola, the reformer, burned at 
 the stake by Alexander VI., placed lately in the 
 Hall of the Five Hundred at Florence. In the 
 square before the Palace of the Signoria Savona- 
 rola suffered martyrdom. Arnoldo da Brescia, 
 the religious and political reformer^ who was 
 burned at Rome, and whose ashes were thrown 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 57 
 
 into the Tiber, has received the honor of a statue 
 in his native city. 
 
 At the unveiling of the statue there was great 
 popular enthusiasm. The ministry was repre- 
 sented by Signors Zanardelli, Baccarini, Baccelli, 
 and Magliani. Deputations were present from 
 the Senate and many other public bodies. 
 
 Arnold of Brescia occupies a conspicuous plnce 
 in history. He contended against the corruptions 
 of your church in the early part of the twelfth 
 century. He was the pupil of Abelard, whose 
 romantic love for Heloise overshadows his strenu- 
 ous opposition to Rome's doctrinal innovations. 
 Arnold, in laying bare the corruptions of the 
 Church of Rome, excited the wrath of the Pope 
 and the doctors of theology. St. Bernard de- 
 nounced him as a violent enemy of the church, 
 yet the people gladly listened to him. His doc- 
 trines exerted a powerful influence in Rome. An 
 insurrection against the Papal power followed. 
 Arnold exhorted the people to establish a repub- 
 lican form of government. Pope Lucius II. 
 opposed the demands of the populace for a 
 reformation of the Church and State, and was 
 killed during an insurrection in 1145. His suc- 
 cessor, Pope Eugenius III., fled to France to 
 escape a similar fate. 
 
 The next Pope was Adrian IV., the Englishman 
 who, in 11 50, by a bull, gave Henry 11. , King of 
 England, authority over all Ireland and ordered 
 
58 FaTUER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 the inhabitants to obey him ; without a shadow of 
 claim upon that island, for Ireland did not at that 
 time acknowledge the Popes or bishops of Rome 
 as their spiritual heads. The Church in Ireland 
 had only one head, Jesus Christ. But this Eng- 
 lish Pojje, who was said to be the illegitimate son 
 of a priest, was resolved that he would rule with 
 an iron hand. He refused to crown the Emperor 
 Frederick I. unless Father Arnold, of Brescia, 
 would be brought to punishment for raising his 
 voice against the church, and the Emperor was 
 the obedient slave of the Pope. Arnold was 
 arrested tried, hanged, his body burned, and the 
 ashes thrown into the Tiber by order of the Pope. 
 Behold now how the Italian nation honors the 
 achievments of those priests. Savonarola, like 
 Arnold, sought to purify the church and 
 deliver her from the horrible corruptions he 
 saw in all ranks of the clergy from the Pope 
 downwards. Other priests and reformers strove 
 for the same result. 
 
 They met their death like heroes, and their 
 native land, rejoicing in its new-found freedom, 
 honors them. It has been said that the blood of 
 martyrs is the seed of the church. So the life 
 and work and death of those priests have borne 
 fruit in the religious and political freedom of 
 their native land. They had no foreign foe to 
 fight. They only sought to clean that which was 
 
TO CAF.DrXAL MCCLOSKEY. 50 
 
 foul in your church, and they were killed for 
 their endeavors to do so. 
 
 I jjresume you and all other Roman Catholic 
 priests would be glad to forget your historical 
 studies about that Pope Alexander VI. As you 
 know he was the father of six children by two 
 concubines, before he became Pope. His son, 
 Csesar Borgia, comes down to us in history as the 
 type of cruelty, next to his father and the Em- 
 peror Nero. Lucretia Borgia, the Pope's daugh- 
 ter, was said to be living with her father as his 
 wife. Alexander himself was poisoned by a cup 
 of wine that he had prepared for one of liis Car- 
 dinals. 
 
 All this immorality and crime in your church 
 occurred only a few years before Martin Luther 
 appeared on the scene of the world's history. If 
 he had remained in your church trying to "re- 
 form" it he would have met the same fate as 
 Savonarola and Arnold of Brescia. But the 
 word of God told him he could not find sal- 
 vation in your comm.union, and he came out of it- 
 It is a grand testimony to Christian heroism to 
 see those Italians whose fathers, years ago, 
 burned at the stake those martyrs, erecting a 
 monument to their memory, and glorifying the 
 achievements of the reformers of past ages. Day 
 by day Italy is becoming more free from Romish 
 superstition, and when her people turn to the 
 
fJO FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Gospel tliere will be no use for a pope in that 
 beautiful land. 
 
 Every American priest who has recently visited 
 Rome linds that there is no faith among the 
 priests. Everything that we were taught in our 
 youth to regard as holy and sacred is laughed at 
 by them. 
 
 They have no faith. Transubstantiation is a 
 meaningless word to them, so is the " Absolvo te " 
 (I absolve thee) of confession. One of those 
 Italian priests has been recently tried by an 
 ecclesiastical court for changing the words in the 
 administration of baptism. Instead of saying : 
 ^^ Baptizo te in nomine Patris et Fllii et Spiritus 
 sancti,^^ (I baptize thee in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost), 
 as he poured the water on the head of the child, 
 he used the words: ^^ Baptizo te in nomine 
 cliaboli,^^ (I baptize thee in the name of the 
 devil.) 
 
 One of the rules of your Church is that a priest 
 must not say mass unless he is fasting. jS'o Ro- 
 man Catholic would dare to take the communion 
 after he had broken his fast. Yet the priests in 
 Italy do not scruple to eat breakfast before they 
 perform the ceremony. One of the most dis- 
 tinguished young priests of Rhode Island called 
 to see me recently. He sa'd he had lost all faith 
 in the Catholic Church, after he had spent some 
 years in Rome. He was secretary to one of your 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 61 
 
 brother Cardinals, and one of his duties was to 
 bring a cup of coffee and an egg every morning to 
 his Eminence before he said mass. 
 
 At this present writing considerable excitement 
 exists in Milan, Italy, over the conduct of Fatlier 
 Albertario in going to a restaurant and taking a 
 cup of coffee before celebrating mass. Albertario 
 says he will continue to drink his coffee, and does 
 not propose to submit to any dictation about it. 
 Already the clergy and populace of Milan are 
 said to be divided into " Coffeeites" and '' Anti- 
 Coffeeites." Father Albertario ought to be 
 ashamed of himself ; he ought to take his coffee 
 in his own house. 
 
 Twenty years ago one who read the Bible in 
 public in Rome would be consigned to the tender 
 mercies of the Inquisition. At present there are 
 twenty Protestant churches and schools in that 
 city. In other large cities of Italy there are from 
 three to five churches, and in almost every town 
 the pure Gospel is preached. Every week we 
 read of the conversion of priests not in Italy 
 alone, but also in France, Germany, and even 
 Spain. 
 
 Here in America scores of priests have recently 
 left your church and are drawing the peo])le 
 after them by thousands and tens of thousands. 
 Nnns are leaving their convents in large numbers, 
 monks are quitting their monasteries, and many 
 students for the i)riesthood in your seminaries 
 
C8 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 are abandcning tliem t very year to enter the min- 
 istry of the Protestant churches. I have wel- 
 comed a goodly number of them and helped them 
 to learn to walk in the way of the Lord, as the 
 Word of God directs us. If they come to you in 
 their condition of doubt and helplessness, all you 
 could say to them (allowing that you are a gen- 
 tlemanly and good-natured man) is that they 
 should hrst of all make confession of all their 
 sins to you or to some other priest, and after re- 
 ceiving absolution something might be done for 
 them. But this is what they had been doing all 
 their lives without any benefit to their souls. It 
 is because your church had done nothing for 
 their spiritual life that they have left it. 
 
 This I have learned from all who have come to 
 me, and it is confirmed not only hj my experi- 
 ence but by testimony from all parts of the 
 world. Take the case of Count Campello. While 
 Canon of St. Peters Church in Rome, the most 
 renowned building in the world, he was for years 
 in communication with Rev. Dr. Leroy Vernon, 
 the distinguished missionary of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church in Italy, to learn the Bible side 
 of Christianity against the Roman view of it, 
 which he had thoroughly mastered. In our clas- 
 sical schools we learned the old Latin maxim, 
 ''Magna est Veritas et prevalebit " (great is the 
 truth and it shall prevail). It was my privilege 
 to meet Rev Dr. Vernon in my church last year, 
 
 I 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 63 
 
 when he was in this country visiting the scenes 
 of his youth, and I was not at all sarpiised that 
 his conference with Count Campello and other 
 priests in Rome should result in their conversion. 
 When true ministers of Christ, devoted and self- 
 sacrificing followers of the Saviour and his disci- 
 ples, come in contact with the followers of the 
 Pope, it must be expected that spiritually-minded 
 priests will embrace the ijure Gospel presented to 
 them. 
 
 We are living in times of great moment to all 
 thinking men. Cardinal, and as I respect your 
 quiet disposition, I take pleasure in laying be- 
 fore you some very plain facts regrading your 
 tottering church. 
 
 Father McFall, who has recf^ntly left your 
 church, tells me hundreds of priests during the 
 coming years will pluck up courage enough to 
 speak out boldly and join us, as he has done. 
 When he first thought of coming to me after 
 learning that I was terribly in earnest in my 
 efforts to rescue the priests and the people from 
 superstition, he was so frightened at his daring 
 attempt that he passed and repassed my humble 
 residence several times before he had couraire to 
 ring the bell. And after he had pulled it with a 
 despairing effort he ran away as if the Old Harry 
 was after him. 
 
 But next day he came back, and when I ojHMied 
 the door, he said, '' Are you Father O^Connor ? '' 
 
61 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 I said, ''Yes." " Well, I have come to see you 
 to know if yon can do anything for my poor soul 
 and body." I told him I could not, but I knew 
 one who could help him if he was an honest, sin- 
 cere man. " I am a priest," said he, "and I 
 called to see you because you were also a priesr." 
 The door of my heart and the door of my room 
 were immediately opened to him. More than a 
 dozen priests and students have come to me in a 
 similar manner during the last two years. They 
 all now give thanks to God for the tranquility of 
 soul they enjoy. They know they can com- 
 mune with their Saviour Jesus Christ without 
 asking permission of you or the Pope. The Bible 
 is their guide, and the love of Christ their 
 strength in all the trials that may come upon 
 them for his sake. Praying the same blessing 
 for you, I am, very truly yours, 
 
 James A. O'Coititor. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 Sir: — Next to Almighty God, the Virgin Mary, 
 in your church, is the most conspicuous and pow- 
 erful of all heavenly beings. By a strange freak 
 of superstition, she has been put in the place of 
 Jesus as the mediator between God and man. 
 Nearly every Roman Catholic wears the scapular 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 65 
 
 in her honor, and all devoutly pray to her when- 
 ever they are impelled to ask special favors from 
 heaven. 
 
 Now, the Bible tells us that Jesus is the only 
 mediator. All Protestants know this ; but Ro- 
 man Catholics do not know it, because they do 
 not read the Bible. In every Roman Catholic 
 church an altar is specially dedicated to her, and 
 over it is usually a statue representing a beautiful 
 woman. A gilded crown and a mantle of lace 
 embellish the cold marble features that the people 
 look upon with so much reverence. Intelligent 
 Roman Catholics feel very sore when taunted with 
 the worship of Mary. They deny it and say they 
 only ask her to intercede with God for them. 
 They imagine she has nothing else to do but to 
 present to the Almighty the prayers they so 
 glibly utter before her statue or picture. The 
 language of eulogy fails to describe the titles your 
 church has imposed upon the Virgin Mary. She 
 is the '^mother of God," the " queen of heaven," 
 the ''refuge of sinners," etc., etc. 
 
 But " Holy Mary, Mother of God," is her chief 
 title. I have often wondered why it is that as 
 your church gave Almighty God a mother yon 
 did not also give him a grandmother, cousins, 
 uncles and aunts. 
 
 How Romanism is permeated by the supersti- 
 tions and forms of paganism may be seen by com- 
 paring the teachings of Jesus in regard to i^rayer 
 
60 FATHER O'CONNOK'S I.ETTETIS 
 
 with the teachings of your church on the same 
 subject. One of Father Hecker's associates 
 preaching recently in his church in this city said, 
 as reported in all the Catholic papers : ''Of all 
 the devotions in use in the church, the rosary, or 
 beads, is perhaps the most salutary and indis- 
 pensable. Let such of you then, my brethren, as 
 have neglected it, make up for your neglect with- 
 out delay. Do not make the foolish excuse that 
 you can read. Our Holy Father, the Pope, can 
 read ; but he says his beads. So do your bishops 
 and priests. Follow, then, their example. Get 
 a set of beads at once for yourself, and have them 
 blessed for yourself, so that you may receive the 
 indulgences attached to them, which you will not 
 have by borrowing other people's. Then say 
 them every day, if you have time, or at least as 
 often as you can. You can do nothing in the way 
 of prayer more acceijtable to God, or more effica- 
 cious to obtain grace for yourself and others." 
 What a rogue that priest is. He knows he is de- 
 ceiving the poor Irish Catholics who believe such 
 nonsense. God forgive him for not telling them 
 to pray to Jesus. Saying the beads is a purely 
 mechanical operation of running the little beads 
 that make up the rosary through the fingers and 
 repeating '' one our Father and ten Hail Marys " 
 until all the decades are completed. Among the 
 happy memories of my seminary life at Baltimore 
 is the recitation of ''the beads" in the garden 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCI.OSKEY. CT 
 
 just before the spiritual exercises that preceded 
 supper. In winter, we said the beads in the 
 prayer hall, but when the pleasant spring-time 
 came, we adjourned to the garden, and, while 
 walking up and down the broad avenue, repeated 
 our beads mechanically, thinking very little 
 about the prayers we mumbled to the Virgin 
 Mary, but a great deal about the new life that we 
 saw coming into existence in tree and shrub and 
 cosy birds' nests. Still the Virgin Mary was the 
 central point of our devotions during those walks, 
 as she is at all times the pivot on which the 
 prayers of Roman Catholics everywhere turn. 
 
 Who is the Virgin Mary — this central ligure to 
 which all Roman Catholics direct their devotional 
 gaze ? In the first chapter of the gospel accord- 
 ing to St. Luke we have a history of the part that 
 Mary took in the incarnation of the Son of God. 
 She was the wife of a man named Joseph, a sim- 
 ple-minded, honest carpenter. While he was at 
 work one day the angel Gabriel called at his 
 house and said to his wife, "Hail, thou art highly 
 favored, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou 
 among women " (In the Roman Catholic prayer 
 it is, "Hail, Mary, full of grace," etc.) She 
 heard the salutation incredulously, and when she 
 was assured it was no dream, but a real message 
 from God, she gave utterance to that glorious 
 " magnificat : " " My soul doth magnify the 
 Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my 
 
68 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Saviour. He bath regarded the low estate of his 
 handmaiden ; for, behold, from henceforth all 
 generations shall call me blessed." When she 
 showed signs of child-bearing her husband, Jo- 
 seph, became jealous. But he was appeased and 
 the child was born in Bethlehem. Mary treasured 
 in her heart all the things that happened, and 
 took good care of the child. When he was tvvelve 
 years old Joseph and Mary took him to the tem- 
 ple in Jerusalem according to the custom of the 
 Jews, and when he tarried there after they had 
 set out for home they returned to look for him, 
 and found him in the temple teaching the doc- 
 tors. From the gospel record we know that 
 Jesus lived with Joseph and Mary in their hum- 
 ble home in Nazareth, ''growing in wisdom and 
 stature." Next we see Mary at the marriage in 
 Cana, seeking to direct him, and receiving this 
 remarkable answer: " Woman, what have I to do 
 with thee ?" Again, when it was told to him, 
 while preaching to the people, that his mother 
 and his brethren desired to speak with him, he 
 paid no attention to her, saying, ''Who is my 
 mother ?. . . . And he stretched forth his hand to- 
 ward his disciples, and said. Behold my mother 
 and my brethren ! For whosoever shall do the will 
 of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my 
 brother, and sister, and mother." (Matt, xii., 
 48-50.) Mary appears again at the foot of the 
 Cross, and for the last time her name is mention- 
 
TO CARDINAL McCLOSKET. 69 
 
 ed in tlie first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, 
 wherein she is represented to us as being engaged 
 in prayer with the other women and the disci- 
 ples. 
 
 This is the history of the Virgin Mary, a 
 woman beloved of God as many other women 
 have been, faithful and true in the discharge of 
 her duties, caring for her son as every mother does 
 for her child, serving the Lord in her humble 
 sphere, a model for all women. Yet what a 
 heroine your church makes of her. 
 
 You tell the Roman Catholic people that she 
 was taken up into heaven on a certain day, but 
 you do not specify in what year. There is no 
 other authority for the statement that she was 
 carried aloft by angels than the word of a Pope, 
 who, being 'infallible," of course knows more 
 about heaven and the way to get there than the 
 inspired writers of the sacred scriptures. It is 
 needless to add that the Bible tells us nothing 
 about the assumption of Mary into heaven. 
 
 Yet you call upon the people to observe the 
 day as a holiday of obligation the same as Sun- 
 day. They must go to mass, and refrain from 
 work of all kind, except rum-selling. Tliey must 
 pray to Mary with unusual devotion to gain the 
 indulgences that various Popes have attached to 
 her feast. Novenas, or nine days special jirayers, 
 are previously offered to her, particularly by 
 young maidens who seek her patronage. Some 
 
70 FATHER O'CONKOR'8 LETTERS 
 
 of them ask her for good husbands, and others 
 ask that they may be married soon to any kind 
 of a husband. All, young and old, men and 
 women, have some special favor to ask of Mary 
 on this day. I doubt not but some of the saloon- 
 keepers pray to her for an increase of business on 
 the glorious feast of her assumption. It is a day 
 of pic-nics with the various societies, sodalities 
 and confraternities of every Roman Catholic 
 church. The Redeemer is dragged in as a snbor^ 
 dinate figure in the celebration. The tragedy 
 of Calvary is supposed to be repeated in the mass 
 in order that the glories of Mary may appear 
 more conspicuous. Shame on your church, Cardi- 
 nal, thus to make a mockery of sacred things. 
 Mary had her place on earth as the mother of the 
 humanity of Jesus, and his faithful follower. 
 But the Lord Jesus is alone the being to whom 
 Christians ought to pray, and when you cause 
 sinners to turn aside from him and pray to some 
 other person or thing, you are no better than an 
 idolator. 
 
 Those who say they do not worship Mary, daily 
 repeat the prayer called ''Salve Regina." I 
 translate it out of my Latin breviary, though it is 
 to be found in all Catholic prayer-books, and 
 there are special indulgences for every one who 
 devoutly says it. When you read it, I presume 
 you will get one of those indulgences. If there 
 be any good in them it is a charitable act to pass 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 71 
 
 them around, and so I give all who care for snch 
 things an opportunity of gaining as much indul- 
 gence as they wish. 
 
 Our Saviour said, when men pray it should be 
 to ''Our Father,'' but your church says prayer 
 must be also offered in this wise : 
 
 ^'Hail, Holy Queen! Mother of Mercy, our 
 life, our sweetness and our hope ! To thee do 
 we cry, poor, banished children of Eve. To thee 
 do we send up our sighs, mournings and weepings 
 In this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious 
 advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and 
 after this our exile is ended, show unto us the 
 precious fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, 
 O pious, O sweet Virgin Mary ! Pray for us, 
 O holy mother of God, that we may be 
 made worthy of the promises of Christ." 
 
 That prayer needs no comment. If you can 
 find your way to heaven by such means, I have 
 no objection. But I ask the Roman Catholic 
 people to judge for themselves whether it is bet- 
 ter for them to pray to Mary or to Jesus. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Connob. 
 
72 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Letter Xin. 
 
 Sir: — The great majority of the members of 
 your churcli have very little respect for the Bible. 
 They consider it something dangerous to handle, 
 as if it were a spiritual torpedo. I have heard 
 old Father Damen, the Jesuit of Chicago, roar 
 out denunciations against it until the walls of the 
 great Jesuit Church in that city rang again and 
 again. Since the Reformation millions of copies 
 of it have been burned by the authorities of your 
 church, and if you had your wish to-day I doubt 
 not you would rejoice to see all the Bibles in the 
 world destroyed in the flames. It is a book full 
 of dangers to your church. The ignorant Irish 
 and German priests in America (and there are 
 many such) are affected by a sight of it in much 
 the same manner that a red rag affects a mad 
 bull. American priests are more liberal, and 
 some of them believe it to be the revealed word of 
 God. 
 
 Tradition has brought to our knowledge other 
 information concerning God that is not found in 
 the bible, and your church says we must believe 
 this also. Passing that by for the present, let us 
 open it at the first chapter of Isaiah and read the 
 eighteenth verse : " Come now, and let us reason 
 together, saith the Lord ; though your sins be as 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 73 
 
 iscarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though 
 they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
 You believe that this great prophet was in- 
 spired by Almighty God, and that what he says 
 so plainly is as clear to our understanding as if 
 God had spoken the words directly to you or me. 
 Then it is only a question of how this wonderful 
 cleansing of the soul can be accomplished. The 
 condition attached is, ''if ye be willing and 
 obedient." No one knows better than I do that 
 the great mass of Roman Catholics are willing 
 and anxious to have their sins forgiven. During 
 the years I officiated as a priest of your church, I 
 heard not less than 50,000 confessions of men, 
 women and children, and every one of those came 
 to me with a sincere desire to have their sins for- 
 given by me as the agent or instrument of God. 
 They did not know whether I pronounced the 
 words of absolution or not, because I spoke them 
 in Latin ; they had to rely on my good Avill. 
 Without egotism, I may say that I acted honestlj^ 
 and in good faith with all who came to me, 
 and pronounced the words of absolution and gave 
 the proper advice to each person in due form. 
 But I have known priests who did not do this, 
 because they had no faith in confession or absolu- 
 tion. One such priest told me in the presence of 
 many persons that for seven years he never pro- 
 nounced the words of consecration at the mass or 
 the words of absolution over the penitent at con- 
 
74 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 fession. So that of the thousands who knelt to 
 him in all these years, not one received the for- 
 giveness of their sins, even according to your 
 method of forgiving them. 
 
 But assuming that you and all your priests are 
 as zealous and conscientious as I tried to be, and 
 I know many priests who are, it is important for 
 all of us to know how the words of the Lord 
 quoted above can be applied as medicine to our 
 souls. How can our souls made scarlet by sin be- 
 come white as snow — how can the crimson stain 
 be washed out of them ? Surely no greater boon 
 could be conferred on man than this, that all the 
 evil he has done in the course of his life by 
 thought, word and deed should be blotted out 
 and forgiven as if he had never sinned. How the 
 soul of the Psalmist yearned for this great bless- 
 ing ! (Psalm li.) '' Have mercy upon me, O God, 
 according to thy loving kindness ; according to 
 the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my 
 transgressions. I acknowledge my transgressions, 
 and my sin is ever before me. Purge me with 
 hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash me, and I 
 shall be whiter than snow. Hide thy face from 
 my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create 
 in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit with- 
 in me. Cast me not aAvay from thy presence ; 
 and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore 
 unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me 
 
TO CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 75 
 
 with thy free Spirit A broken and con- 
 trite heart, God, thou wilt not despise." 
 
 You believe that this cry of David was heard 
 by the merciful God whom he addressed. Every 
 soul is precious in the sight of God, and if the 
 most hard-working Irishman, or the most bloated 
 rum-seller in New York, were to cry unto the 
 Lord and repent as sincerely as David did, the 
 same mercy would be extended to him. 
 
 While I admit that Roman Catholics are anx- 
 ious to obtain forgiveness of their sins, my 
 knowledge of the word of God and my experience 
 as a priest have taught me that they do not take 
 the right way to gain it. They know that God 
 can forgive them, and the expression, '' God for- 
 give me," is frequently used by them when tiiey 
 do or say what they think is sinful. It is a rev- 
 erent expression and is pregnant with meaning 
 to the true Christian. But to the average Roman 
 Catholic it implies no more than the hope that God 
 will wink at the trifling fault or "venial sin" 
 they ask pardon for in that way. Great big 
 sins must be forgiven in another way. The 
 ''scarlet sins" and the "sins red as crimson" 
 must be forgiven otherwise than by a direct ap- 
 peal to God alone. When a Protestant realizes 
 that he has violated the commandments of God, 
 and is thereby a sinner, he throws himself on his 
 heavenly Father's mercy and asks pardon through 
 the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, "whose 
 
7G FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 blood cleanseth from all sin." Our good God has 
 in this way made provision for receiving into his 
 favor the repentant sinner who comes to him by 
 faith in Christ and by ceasing to do evil. There 
 must be the consciousness of sin ; the Decalogue 
 tells him what sin is, and his own conscience 
 must cry out against him. There must be re- 
 pentance, true and sincere repentance, a sorrow 
 of the soul for having offended God, and a hatred 
 for the things that caused his indulgence in sin. 
 How forcibly Mr. Moody expresses this when he 
 says that repentance is turning around, ''right 
 about face," from sin to God. There must be an 
 abiding faith in Christ the Redeemer, that ''he 
 is able to save them to the uttermost that come 
 unto God by him, seeing he ever livetli to make 
 intercession for them." Temptations to sin will 
 present themselves to one with such faith, but he 
 believes with the Apostle Jude, who says, "God 
 our Saviour is able to keep you from falling, and 
 present you faultless before the presence of his 
 glory with exceeding joy." This is the case of 
 the Christian who is willing and obedient to 
 serve the Lord and not be the slave of sin. " Be- 
 ing justified by faith, he has peace with God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 When a Roman Catholic is conscious of sin he 
 feels dreadfully bad over it, so bad indeed 
 that he cannot keep the knowledge to him- 
 self, but must tell some one about it, God pity 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 77 
 
 him! lie does not know, unlike the Christian who 
 reads his bible, that he can tell his heavenly- 
 Father about his state, and relying on the merits 
 of Christ obtain his forgiveness. Though he has 
 faith in God and in the redeeming power of the 
 sacrifice on Calvary, he does not know that he 
 can, like the Prodigal, rise up and go to his 
 Father. Your church has never taught him that 
 he can go directly to God with his sin-laden soul 
 and be cleansed, and he does not know that tlie 
 Bible will teach him this as the only sure way of 
 getting forgiveness. He considers his way of life 
 and perceives that he is a sinner, perhaps not 
 so bad as others whom he knows, but still 
 ^' a pretty bad sinner," to use his own expression. 
 What is he to do? Your church has marked 
 out a way for him. He has no Bible, or if 
 he has one he never uses it. But he has several 
 books of devotion or prayer-books. In the 
 use of these books he is not unlike the sailor who 
 had the ten commandments, neatly printed and 
 framed, hung up on shipboard, and used to say 
 with great complacency, when turning in to 
 sleep, ''Lord, them's my sentiments." It is well 
 for the Roman Catholic that he has the devotion 
 and prayers somewhere, even bound up in a book, 
 if he has them not in his heart. 
 
 The idea of God instilled into his mind by the 
 teachings of your church is, that he is so tierce 
 and vindictive no one dare approach him in ti 
 
78 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 direct manner. In the prayer-books and in your 
 preaching he is often compared to a mighty mon- 
 arch who rules over a great kingdom. The com- 
 mon people cannot come near such a king ; they 
 must have recourse to some one near the throne 
 who has influence at court ; and even to reach this 
 latter person intercession must be made with the 
 humbler satellites. This is a fixed idea in the 
 mind of the Roman Catholic concerning God. 
 Accordingly the Virgin Mary, St. Patrick, St. 
 Bridget, and the thousand and one '' Saints" of 
 your Church are invoked by him to intercede with 
 the Almighty. Long and elaborate prayers to 
 these " Saints" are prescribed for him to use be- 
 fore he goes to confession, and even when he be- 
 gins his examination of conscience. This exam- 
 ination is long or short, according to the length of 
 time the person has been away from confession. 
 The way in which confession is made, and the 
 process of examination, I give from my experience 
 and from the authorized books of devotion that 
 all Roman Catholics use. My Christian readers 
 can verify what T say by borrowing a prayer- 
 book from any of their Catholic acquaintances. 
 You and my Roman Catholic brethren know well 
 that what I say is literally true. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'CoifNOR. 
 
TO CAllDINAL MCCLOSKET. 
 
 LETTER XIV 
 
 Sib -—In my last letter 1 poiuted out the Scrip- 
 tural way of salvation by faith in Christ and 
 how by repentance and regeneration that taitn 
 becomes practical in the daily life of every Chris- 
 
 ^^In this I will give the Roman Catholic way of 
 salvation. It is of a complex nature, but I shall 
 try to disentangle it for the edification of the 
 people The Roman Catholic who desires to be 
 saved from sin proceeds in this wise: He exam- 
 ines his conscience on the ten commandments ot 
 God and the six commandments or precepts ot 
 the Church. These are presented to him m the 
 catechism and prayer-books. He is told that he 
 sins against the first commandment by going to a 
 Protestant church or uniting in prayer with any 
 TDerson who is not a Roman Catholic ; by doubt- 
 fng any doctrine that the Church of Rome 
 teaches, even though the Bible should teach the 
 contrary ; by reading anything that may lead to 
 such doubt. These are called sins against taitn. 
 He sins against hope by not having confidence in 
 God's mercy, or by foolishly expecting salvation 
 by any other means than such as your church 
 holds out to him. He sins against charity by not 
 loving God above all things, and his neighbor as 
 
60 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 himself. Every priest knows how many of these 
 sins his penitents commit. They read things that 
 call into question the infallibility of your 
 church ; many of them occasionally go to Pro- 
 testant churches ; few of them love God with sin- 
 cerity of heart, and all of them, with you at their 
 head, hate me and my brethren who have left 
 their church, and every Protestant who raises 
 his voice against it, with a hatred that can be 
 paralleled only in the breasts of demons. 
 
 The second commandment of the Decalogue is 
 altogether omitted in the Roman Catholic manu- 
 als, thus mutilating the commandments of the 
 Lord that were given to the people amid the 
 thunderings and the lightnings of Mount Sinai, 
 because it says, " Thou shalt not make unto thee 
 any graven image, or any likeness of anything 
 that is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth 
 beneath ; thou shalt not bow down thyself to 
 them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am 
 a jealous God." The images and statues of the 
 Virgin Mary and the saints, with the crosses, 
 medals, and pictures that adorn the walls, would 
 quickly disappear if you dared to write this com- 
 mandment over the doors of your churches. But 
 rather than give up your idols, you set at nought 
 the word of God. Remember, however, that he 
 is a jealous God, who will punish those that bow 
 down and worship or pray to anything but him- 
 self. The penalty of mutilating or distorting the 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 81 
 
 word of God is a terrible one : ''If any man shall 
 take away from the words of the Book of this 
 prophecy, God shall take away his part out of 
 the book of life, and out of the holy city, and 
 from the things which are written in this Book.'' 
 (Rev. 22, 19;) As the Roman Catholics learn to 
 use the Bible and depend on it for the knowledge 
 of God and the way of salvation, they will not 
 incur this penalty, but leave your Church in 
 greater numbers than they are doing now. Your 
 church makes the third commandment the 
 second in your list. The Roman Catholic sins 
 against it by taking the name of God in vain, by 
 blasphemy, cursing and swearing. What a 
 memory he must have to recollect the hundreds 
 of curses and blasphemies he utters between con- 
 fessions ! There is not a rum-shop kept by the 
 members of your church that does not reek with 
 foulness of language of this nature. The next 
 commandment, to keep holy the Sabbath day, is 
 observed by them if they go to mass. That is all 
 that is required. In all large cities the custom 
 with many is to turn into the grog-shop immedi- 
 ately after leaving the church. Pic-nics, excur- 
 sions, and processions are the commonest fea- 
 tures of the observance of the day by them. 
 The principal sin against the next commandment 
 is not to obey the Pope and the priest. Parents 
 may be slighted, children neglected, the officers 
 and laws of the State contemned — these are 
 
82 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 trifling faults compared with the sin of disobey- 
 ing the priest. Quarrelling, fighting, anger, ha- 
 tred and getting drunk, are sins against the com- 
 mand not to kill. All the whiskey-shops in 
 Ireland and ninety-nine per cent, of those in this 
 country are owned by Catholics, and their patrons 
 are mostly of the same faith. Here are sins and 
 causes of sins without number that must trouble 
 the soul of him who makes a conscientious ex- 
 amination of conscience. 
 
 The thoughts, words and actions against chas- 
 tity that your church requires her followers to 
 confess I must not touch upon. The souls of 
 many priests and penitents, especially young 
 females, are ruined daily by the filthy language 
 that i:)asses between them. The young priest 
 feels the flush of shame mounting to his cheeks 
 as he hears some young female pouring into his 
 ear things that should not be mentioned, and that 
 she would never have thought of if they had not 
 been suggested to her by the foul imaginations of 
 the writers of your books. And the case is 
 worse, if possible, in the confession of married 
 persons. No one dares to translate into English 
 the language used by your church in the text-* 
 books on this subject. 
 
 It is a sin to steal. But in the case of Catholic 
 servant-girls who live in Protestant families, if 
 they get plenty of masses said, and are generous 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 
 
 to the priests and to all chnrcli purposes, that 
 commandment can be easily satisfied. 
 
 " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy 
 neighbor" would be a great stumbling block in 
 the way of your church and people if there were 
 not another commandment, of the Jesuits' mak- 
 ing, to take its place — ''The end justifies the 
 means." Last spring one of your priests, Father 
 Fitzimmons, of Dansville, N. Y., wrote a letter 
 to the local paper in which he said that I never 
 was a priest, that I was a very wicked man, bad 
 enough even to throttle his holiness the Pope, 
 etc. I replied telling priest Fitzimmons that I 
 had been a priest, that I was not so very wicked 
 as to choke the Pope, even if I had a chance to 
 do so, and calling on him to make reparation for 
 bearing false witness against the neighbor. He 
 has not done so; and no Roman Catholic ever 
 will retract a lie about an enemy. In the Cath- 
 olic catechism most generally used in France, and 
 approved by the bishops and priests, the follow- 
 ing questions and answers have a conspicuous 
 place : 
 
 ''Q. — Who was Luther? A. — Luther was an 
 Augustine monk in Germany, who apostatized, 
 married a nun, and set himself to declaim against 
 the Catholic Church. After leading a scandalous 
 life, he died on rising from a meal where he had, 
 as usual, gorged himself with wine and food. 
 
 "Q. — Who was Calviu ? A.— Calvin was a 
 
84 FATHER 0*C0NT70K*S LETTERS 
 
 priest of Noyon. He adopted Luther's errors, 
 added Ws own, went and settled at Geneva, where 
 he burnt Michael Servetus, who had ventured to 
 contradict him, and he himself died of a shameful 
 disease/' 
 
 Such shameless and shameful falsifications of 
 truth and history, it has been well said, would be 
 impossible except in schools under Romanist and 
 Jesuit control. 
 
 To make up for the omission of the second 
 commandment, the Roman Church divides the 
 tenth into two. The ninth commandment of that 
 church says, ''Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
 bor's wife," and the tenth, "Thou shalt not covet 
 thy neighbor's goods." Now the last command- 
 ment given by Almighty God to Moses reads^ 
 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, 
 thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his 
 man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, 
 nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." 
 
 Having examined his conscience regarding the 
 sins he committed against these commandments, 
 mutilated and distorted even as they are by your 
 church, the Roman Catholic next proceeds to 
 arraign himself on the commandments and pre- 
 cepts of the Church. They are six, and are of 
 equal force with the Decalogue, if not greater. 
 The first is to hear mass on Sundays and all holi- 
 days of "obligation." The Lord says, "Keep 
 the Sabbath day holy," and you add that the 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 85 
 
 obligation is best fulfilled by observing the priest 
 saying mass, nothing more. It is a fact that nine- 
 tenths of the Roman Catholics in this and other 
 large cities never hear a sermon during the year. 
 There are five or six masses in each of your 
 churches every Sunday morning, but the only one 
 at which there is any preaching is the last or 
 grand high mass. The workingmen and their 
 families and all the young people go to the early 
 masses, at which there is not a word spoken by 
 the priest except the Latin words of the liturgy. 
 No wonder that religion has no influence on their 
 lives. 
 
 The second precept of the church is ^^ To fast 
 and abstain on the days commanded." Rarely 
 will an Irishman break this commandment. He 
 may swear and blaspheme, and get drunk and 
 cheat without stint ; but he will not dare to eat 
 meat on Friday. 
 
 The third precept is *^to confess your sins at 
 least once a year." The fourth is '' to receive the 
 blessed Eucharist at Easter." The fifth, ''to con- 
 tribute to the support of the pastors ; and a very 
 potent influence is this commandment, in the 
 hands of every priest. Woe to theluckle:?^ wight 
 who does not pay the priest his regular dues for 
 marriages, baptisms, masses, etc. He may obtain 
 mercy from God for having oft'ended him, but can 
 expect no mercy from his reverence. 
 
 The sixth precept is ' ' Not to solemnize marriage 
 
86 FATHER O'CONNOR'3 LETPEIIS 
 
 at the forbidden times, nor within the forbidden 
 degrees of kindred." But if one can pay for a 
 ''dispensation" he can marry when he pleases, 
 and I verily believe if a man be very wealthy and 
 make a rich offering to the Pope he can obtain a 
 dispensation to marry his grandmother. In 
 March last a naval officer called on me to be mar- 
 ried. He and the lady were Catholics. He had 
 been to see you, and your secretary, Father Far- 
 ley, said he could not be married then as it was 
 Lent. The gentleman said he had to go to sea in 
 a few days, and as he could not wait he desired 
 to know if there was no provision made for such 
 a case in the rules of the Church. The answer 
 was that if he would pay $50 for a dispensation 
 he could be married. He considered this extor- 
 tion, and told Father Farley so. This is only one 
 of many similar cases that have come to me. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James A. O'Connob. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 Sib : — Our Roman Catholic friend, haring ex- 
 amined his conscience on the commandments and 
 precepts and on the seven deadly sins, is prepared 
 to go to the priest and confess them all. You 
 may be sure he is sorry for them and sorry for 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKET. 87 
 
 himself at the prospect of the ordeal he has to 
 UDdergo. The fear of the priest is much more 
 vividly before hi^ mind than the fear of God. 
 He thinks the Almighty is far away, but the 
 priest is right there in that dark confessional box 
 and the heart quakes at what the man with such 
 terrible power may say or do. He may scold 
 loud enough to be heard by the other waiting 
 penitents ; he may impose a hard penance, or he 
 may refuse absolution altogether. It is told of a 
 frontiersman who was about to get married that 
 he went to confession to a priest, and as he with- 
 drew he saw the lady entering the box at the 
 other side. Not knowing what the rules of the 
 confessional were, he turned back to the priest 
 and said, " See here, old chap, don't tell that girl 
 what I told you, or the coroner will have a job 
 round this way." All Catholics have not the 
 courage to say this to their priests. They ap- 
 proach him with fear and trembling. Great is 
 the power of God, but greater is the power of the 
 priest in the confessional. 
 
 One day, in Chicago, during my priestly life in 
 that city, I noticed a party of strangers looking 
 at the pictures and other articles of furniture in 
 the church. I offered my services as guide to 
 show them whatever was of interest in the build- 
 ing. After examining the vestments, missals and 
 other things, one lady asked for what purpose 
 were the black-looking sentry boxes arranged 
 
83 FATHZE O'CONNOR'S LETTEBS 
 
 along the sides of the church ? I replied that 
 they were the confessionals. 
 
 **0h," said she, "is that where confession is 
 made ?" I answered in the affirmative. 
 
 '* Could you please tell me," she inquired, 
 how it is done ?" 
 
 I said the best way to get the information she 
 sought would be for her to enter the confessional 
 at the penitent's side, and kneel down there, 
 while I would sit in the priest's place. 
 
 This we did, while her friends stood around 
 deeply interested. 
 
 The confessional in all churches is so arranged 
 that there is a grating with a slide between the 
 priest and penitent. It was very dark in there as 
 I sat down. The slide covered the gi^ating. I 
 drew it aside very gently, and as I did so, I could 
 hear the quick and nervous breathing of the lady 
 at the other side. For a few minutes there was 
 the stillness almost of death. Then I suddenly 
 whispered in the lady's ear — ''!N"ow tell me all 
 your sins." 
 
 ''No, no, no," she screamed, as she ran out, 
 *^not for all the world." 
 
 Her friends were alarmed, as they received her 
 with blanched face and trembling all over. I as- 
 sured them no harm had been done ; but she said 
 she was never more frightened in her life. 
 "During the few minutes I remained in that dis- 
 mal box," said she, " all I had ever heard about 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 89 
 
 the darkness of sin, and the horrors of the lower 
 regions came vividly to my mind ; I think I 
 V7ou]d have died if I was detained there another 
 minute." 
 
 She could not be induced to join in the laughter 
 that followed. '' It is no joke for a lady to kneel 
 down to a man in a place like that and be asked 
 to tell everything that one thinks a sin," she 
 said. I explained that a priest is in the confes- 
 sional as a representative of Grod, and telling her 
 sins to him was the same as if she told them to 
 God. '' That may be your view of it," said she, 
 *'but I did not look at it in that way. I saw you 
 going into the box and I knew you were a man. 
 Perhaps if you were an old man I would not so 
 much care, but to tell my sins to a young man is 
 what I never will do." 
 
 This lady was not a Roman Catholic, or she 
 would know that the duty of hearing confessions 
 falls chiefly on young priests. One reason is that 
 the hearing of confessions is the most arduous 
 and disagreeable duty a priest has to perform. Old 
 priests avoid it as much as possible. Another 
 reason is that Roman Catholic women, especially 
 the young ones, like best to go to young priests. 
 
 I have heard thousands upon thousands of con- 
 fessions during the years of my priesthood, and I 
 tell you, Cardinal, I want to hear no more of 
 them. They are all now in the tomb of memory, 
 and I do not care to recall them. Would to 
 
90 FATHER 0*C0NN0R'B LETTKB8 
 
 God that the people who knelt to me, with full 
 faith in my power of absolving them, had con- 
 fessed to their heavenly Father and repented : 
 they would be sure of his forgiveness, and would 
 be happy in the assurance that the blood of 
 Christ had washed away all their sins. 
 
 I have spoken of the laborious duty imposed 
 on a priest in hearing confessions. For many 
 years I had to sit in the confessional daily for 
 hours, and sometimes on Saturdays for as many 
 as twelve hours, hearing the sorrowful tales of 
 passion and crime that agitate the human heart. 
 It was weary work for body and mind, and many 
 times have I wished to be delivered from it. Yet 
 I can give thanks to my heavenly Father that ] 
 fulfilled my duty, such as I conceived it to be, as 
 faithfully as I knew how. No one ever knelt to 
 me in confession that I did not try to make better 
 with such counsel and direction as I thought best 
 suited to each case. 
 
 This I learned to do from my own confessor in 
 the seminary in Baltimore. Though he and I are 
 now separated by a great gulf, my heart goes out 
 to him in love and thankfulness for his efforts to 
 make me a good Christian and a good priest. I 
 tried to be both. You will say I failed in the 
 latter. I don't know about that ; but certainly I 
 failed in making myself a Christian. It was only 
 after many years, and not until I left your 
 church, that I gave up the attempt. 
 

 TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 01 
 
 It takes time for one who has been reared a Ro- 
 man Catholic and educated as a priest to learn 
 the way of salvation. How to become a Christian 
 may seem plain to those who have the word of 
 God in their hands from their yonth, and who 
 know they have free access to their God through 
 his Son, who "has reconciled the world unto 
 himself, not imputing their trespasses unto 
 them." 
 
 I did not give up my efforts to make myself 
 a Christian until I learned that my Redeemer 
 alone could do that for me, and had done it by 
 dying for me. I had but to believe this. That 
 may seem easy to do, but it was not so to me ; 
 the whole course of my life had to be changed. 
 There was to be for me no more sinning and re- 
 penting alternately. My Saviour held out to me 
 the promise of salvation if I would accept it by 
 faith in him. I know he will not break his 
 promise to forgive me my sins, to abide in me, 
 and to keep me in his love, and by his grace pre- 
 serve me while I trust in his mercy and faithfully 
 serve him. 
 
 But while I am giving this testimony our 
 Roman Catholic friend is beginning his confes- 
 sion to the priest. 
 
 Having knelt down in the dark box, he says : 
 ** Bless me. Father, for I have sinned." And 
 then he goes on to say the " Confiteor :^ " I con- 
 fess to Almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever 
 
93 FATHER O'COXNOR'8 LETTERS 
 
 Virgin, to blessed Michael, the Archangel, to 
 blessed John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, and all 
 the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in 
 thought, word and deed through my fault, through 
 my grievous, great fault." Here he hits his breast 
 three blows with his clenched hand, the harder 
 the better, and pauses for the priest to 
 ask him, "When w^ere you at confession last?" 
 The answer is given, and the priest says, ' ' Now, 
 what have you done since then ? " The old Irish 
 Catholic women will usually answer this question 
 by giving a little groan and saying, ''Musha, I 
 did many things, your reverence." 
 
 '' What are they ?" he asks a little impatiently. 
 
 "Well, I can't remember them all, for I know 
 I'm a great sinner, but I'll tell as many as I can re- 
 collect, and, dear knows, that's a list long enough. 
 Sure, your reverence, my old man is the principal 
 cause of all my sins, but for him I'd be all right. 
 Sometimes you know he takes a drop too much, 
 and then he is as bad as old Nick himself." 
 
 "But see here," the priest breaks in, "lam 
 not hearing your husband's confession, but 
 yours; tell me your own sins, and don't mind 
 those of your husband." 
 
 "Yes, your reverence, but sure he's the cause of 
 all my sins, and if you could get him to stop his 
 ways I would " 
 
 Again the priest must interrupt her, and en- 
 deavor to keep her to the recital of her own 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 9S 
 
 transgressions. Unless he is experienced in the 
 management of old ladies he has to submit to the 
 infliction until the sins of half the people in the 
 parish are poured into his ear. While willing to 
 iell all they remember, some penitents use a good 
 deal of ingenuity in their efforts to soften the 
 wrong-doing or to escape its penalty. Some in- 
 stances of this kind come to my mind now, but I 
 shall reserve them for your perusal until my next 
 letter. In all the doctrines of the Roman Church, 
 there is none of so great importance as that of 
 confession. It is the arch on which the whole 
 structure of Romanism is built. Take away 
 auricular confession and the priests' occupation 
 is gone. If they continue in the ministry they 
 will be like all other ministers, — preachers of the 
 word of God and exemplars of the teachings of 
 the gospel of Christ. 
 
 A young Irish - American, in Fort Madison, 
 Iowa, thinks that taking souls out of purgatory 
 IS the principal occupation of priests ; at least he 
 says it was so in Hartford, Conn., when he was a 
 Roman Catholic there a few years ago. 
 
 In proof of this he sent me a poem he composed 
 on the subject. I regret tliac on account of tlie 
 length of this letter I cannot give you more than 
 a few stanzas of it. In his letter to me he says 
 he recited the poem on thanksgiving day some 
 years ago and was mobl)ed by the crowd of Irisli 
 Catholics that gathered around him. '^I'lit for 
 
94 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERB 
 
 the timely interference of some Americans and 
 Englislimen present," lie says, '' it is probable I 
 would have been killed and thus unable to write 
 any more poetry." 
 
 When the Lord had built His high abode, 
 
 He called it Heaven — the dwelling place of God. 
 
 When the rebel angels fought and fell, 
 
 He doomed them to a second place called helL 
 
 These are recorded in Sacred Story, 
 But not one word of Purgatory — 
 A place that to the priest is known, 
 And to none else ; — 'tis all his own ; 
 
 For Peter gave to him the key, 
 That he may get the jailor's fee 
 And send the soul to hell or Heaven, 
 Just as the gold is kept or given. 
 
 You may also wish to encompass his death 
 when you read it, Cardinal, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Connoe. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKT. 95 
 
 LETTER XVL 
 
 Sib : The methods pursued by penitents in con- 
 fessing their sins differ according to the nature of 
 the offences and the age of the persons. Those 
 of mature years bluntly tell out whatever they 
 have done that they consider sinful, and if the 
 faults or crimes are old acquaintances that have 
 been repeatedly confessed and repented of, but 
 still maintain their ground, some extenuating 
 circumstance is sure to be thrown in. 
 
 There must be no false delicacy even in the case 
 of young girls who are ignorant in many things 
 that are referred to in the examination of con- 
 science. In the case of young females it has been 
 said that ignorance of those things is a great part 
 of innocence. Every priest knows that the prac- 
 tice of confession is injurious to the purity of 
 mind of the confessor and his fair penitent. 
 Those who think that there are safeguards in the 
 confessional that would prevent any thought of 
 love between them have no experience of the 
 dangers of such intimate intercourse. What a 
 young girl would shrink from telling even to a 
 companion of her own sex she must not hesitate 
 to disclose to the priest with all the attendant 
 circumstances. When priests meet for social en- 
 
00 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 joyment the conversation often turns on the 
 queer things that girls say in confession. If a 
 young lady thinks a, priest good looking and 
 would like to marry him, if it were possible, she 
 must tell him so, and if she be richly endowed 
 by nature and fortune his feelings at hearing 
 silch an avowal can be imagined. 
 
 It is one of the secrets of the priesthood that 
 when a mutual affection is developed between a 
 priest and one of his fair penitents she must be 
 induced by every means at the command of the 
 church to believe that she has a vocation for a 
 religious life, and enter a convent. Love is effect- 
 ually smothered in this way, though the vision 
 of forbidden fruit rises up too frequently before 
 the mind to disturb the quiet of heart that is 
 sought for in this manner. The secrets of the 
 confessional are subjects of conversation among 
 priests in their idle moments more frequently 
 than the ouside world could imagine, and such 
 topics are far from edifying, for it is usually the 
 vicious tendencies of human nature that are re- 
 ferred to. If the priest thinks that a full confes- 
 sion is not made, he must put such questions as 
 will bring out the whole story of one's life — every 
 thought, word and deed. The intelligent Roman 
 Catholics know how demoralizing the confessional 
 is, and there are many men, who, under any cir- 
 cumstances, will not allow their wives to confess 
 to priests. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCL08KET, 97 
 
 The questions a conscientious priest must put 
 to those who kneel to him are of such a nature 
 that the spirit of evil is aroused in both confessor 
 and penitent. The priest fares worse, if possible, 
 than the confessing sinner. 
 
 The Athenians of old used to make their slaves 
 drunk to inculcate lessons of temperance on their 
 children, that the ridiculousness and foulness of 
 intoxication might be impressed on their minds . 
 from their earliest years. During my theological 
 course in the seminary of St. Mary, Baltimore, 
 the students were compelled to read up all the 
 details of crime and immorality in our text-books, 
 in order, as we were told by our professors, that 
 we should be able to apply the iStting spiritual 
 remedy to cases of that kind that would come be- 
 fore us in the confessional. Any one who has 
 read the '* Moral Theology '' that is put into the 
 hands of students as their text-book, can easily 
 see what ideas they receive from such teaching. 
 But we were told that it was our bounden duty to 
 apply such teaching to the cases that came before 
 us in the confessional. Some persons think that 
 the Roman Catholic seminaries, where students 
 are prepared for the priesthood, are hot-beds of 
 vice. I have not found them so ; and I do not 
 hesitate to say that the Roman Catholic students 
 who are preparing for the priesthood in the vari- 
 ous seminaries of Ameiica compare favorablj^ 
 with other young men. Some western priest will 
 
^8 FATHER O'CONXOn's LETTERS 
 
 rise up and say I forget the cases in St. Francis' 
 Seminary, Milwaukee, Wis., in 1S69 when I was 
 there studying German theology. I do not by 
 any means forget how four German students, out 
 of two hundred, were solemnly arraigned by the 
 venerable Dr. Salzman, the President, for vei y 
 serious crimes against morality. Two of them 
 were the sacristans, or custodians of the altar 
 vestments, etc., and as such had the keys of the 
 chapel by which they could let themselves out 
 into the world at any time. They availed them- 
 selves of this opportunity by going courting every 
 night during the pleasant spring-time. The girls, 
 who were a necessary part of the courting busi- 
 ness, were the daughters of farmers in the 
 vicinity. 
 
 Tlie dear old doctor was very indignant at the 
 results of these young men's '' wildness.*' The 
 proofs were so overwhelming that no denial could 
 avail. In fact two babies presented for bap- 
 tism at the seminary chapel by the girls, who laid 
 the paternity at the door of the ^ay 3 oung stu- 
 dents, were very convincing arguments. Other 
 priests can relate similar escapades, to put it mild- 
 ly, among students in their seminary experince. 
 Of course such things are scandalous, but it is 
 only natural that some of those students should 
 become corrupt from the teaching they learn in 
 their moral theology books. 
 
 Wljen the young priest is launched into the 
 
TO CARDINAL McCLOSKKT. 99 
 
 world, fortified with Ms bundle of questions to be 
 put to all kinds of people, tie thinks that he is 
 doing the work of Christ in saving souls. And 
 the people bring their souls to him to be saved. 
 Some time ago a Roman Catholic ladj', distin- 
 guished as a lecturer, asked why it is that the 
 secrets of the confessional are never revealed by- 
 priests even after they leave your church. In 
 answering her I used the privilege of an Irishman 
 by replying to her with questions as to wliat were 
 the ''secrets" referred to, and where was the 
 Jiecessity of revealing what all intelligent people 
 IcTiew. The sins of the unregenerate, Cardinal, are 
 not hidden from the thinking man who watches 
 the emotions of his own heart. And sooth to say 
 they are not wiped away by merely confessing 
 them to a priest. If the penitent derives no bene- 
 fit from the confession, assuredly the priest does 
 not. In unloading himself of the questions on 
 moral acts, or rather, I should say immoral acts, 
 the priest himself does not come off unscathed- 
 We constantly see instances of this among priests. 
 Few can touch pitch and not be defiled. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James A. 0'Co:nnob. 
 
100 FATnaR O'CO^NOB'8 lettebs 
 
 Lettek XVII. 
 
 Sir : — It is a characteristic feature of all con- 
 troversy in tlie Roman Catholic church that it 
 has no other weapons but those of abuse and 
 vituperation for those who enter the lists against 
 it, especially if they have had the good luck of 
 leaving it. 
 
 When a Protestant minister becomes a Ro- 
 man Catholic (and thank G-od this is of rare 
 occurrence at the present day), he is a very good 
 man in your estimation, and is loaded with hon- 
 ors by your church. Protestants in general have 
 very little to say about him ; they concede his 
 right to choose that which his own intelligence, 
 be it great or small, tells him is the best way for 
 him. He is a free man and has a perfect right to 
 go to Rome and become a Papist, or to Turkey 
 and become a Mussulman, if his mind and heart 
 lead him in that direction. But when a Roman 
 Catholic priest renounces his allegiance to your 
 church what a hue and cry is raised ! He may 
 have been an angel of light while a priest, but 
 the moment he casts off his vestments all the 
 hounds of calumny in your church begin barking 
 at him, and the cry is set up, " Beware of him ! 
 he is a bad man , 2 bankrupt in character and 
 reputation ; possessed of the devil ; not to be 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 101 
 
 trusted; unworthy of belief," etc. Thas your 
 church speaks of him, and its influence is so great 
 in this world that many nominal Protestants be- 
 lieve this a necessary warning. 
 
 If there were any Protestants of this kind in the 
 days of Martin Luther I daresay the cultured 
 and refined among them would keep their skirts 
 clear of him and tell their acquaintances to be- 
 ware of him, because the Pope said he was a bad 
 man. But he was good enough to be a zealous 
 minister of the sacraments in your church until 
 he raised his voice in protest against its supersti- 
 tions. 
 
 The priests who flocked around the standard 
 of religious freedom that Luther raised, obeying 
 the voice of the Lord calling them to " Come out 
 of Babylon," were denounced in the same man- 
 ner that he was, and every Roman Catholic priest 
 who has followed their example has come under 
 the same condemnation. All through the cen- 
 turies the vials of the wrath of your church have 
 been poured out on them, and the vessel is 
 always filled for him who comes out last. I have 
 come in for my share. I do not comi)lain, for I 
 expected it. Neither am I going to defend my- 
 self. It is your business to villify me, because I 
 sought the salvation of my soul outside the lines 
 that you have drawn around your church. The 
 solitary ray of light that came to me while I was 
 a priest, though very dim and obscure, showed 
 
102 FATHER O'CONJJOR'S LETTERS 
 
 me that I was in a false position, and I followed 
 it until the full illumination of the Gospel of sal- 
 vation by Christ alone shone upon my soul. 
 "When I realized this I considered it a sacred 
 duty to make known the great truth to my 
 brethren of the Roman Catholic church whom I 
 had unconsciously led astray by false doctrine in 
 the past. And I resolved, God helping me, to 
 take my stand under the banner of Christ and 
 light the good fight of deliverance from supersti- 
 tion while life should last. If I had not done 
 this I would not be so bitterly denounced by 
 your chnrch. If I had merely withdrawn from 
 Rome and not raised my voice in protest against 
 her false system of religion I could escape 
 i:)ersecution and even retain the esteem of my 
 friends. Every j^ear many priests leave the 
 church of Rome and go into secular business 
 who are only too anxious to try to forget and 
 make the world forget that they ever had been 
 priests. I know many such men. There are 
 more than one hundred ministers of the Gospel 
 in America preaching in the churches of the 
 various Protestant denominations who had been 
 Roman Catholic priests, though many members 
 of the churches are ignorant of this interesting 
 episode in the lives of their pastors. Those 
 ministers do not think it their duty to draw 
 illustrations from their past lives or to say in 
 their preaching, '' When I was a Roman Catholic 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 
 
 priest/' Thus their experience in the iloman 
 church and their influence among their former co- 
 religionists are thrown away. 
 
 I have chosen another and what I think a bet- 
 ter part. I have not retired from the ministry to 
 go into secular business, nor have I become a 
 minister of any Protestant denomination. I never 
 open my mouth to preach but I announce that I 
 had been a Catholic priest. Many of my ac- 
 quaintances think this is not wise on my part. I 
 do not think so, though poverty is my portion, as 
 it is that of the brethren who are associated with 
 me in the Indei)endent Catholic Church. 
 
 All who have ever known us, know us no more. 
 To our parents, our kindred, our parishioners, 
 the companions of our youth, and the friends of 
 our mature manhood, we are strangers. We are 
 dead to them all. 
 
 For fifteen years I have not seen my beloved 
 parents or the happy home of my youth. It 
 seems a long time ago, for I had kind and indul- 
 gent parents. Now my name is banished from 
 their lips, and their loving greeting comes to me 
 no more. Yet I know the mother's heart yearns 
 for her son ; and if God spare her and me, I shall 
 yet return to her, and say to her what I preach 
 every Sunday, "I am not dead, though I am no 
 longer a Roman Catholic priest. I live in Christ 
 Jesus, and he lives in me. The faith in the 
 religion of Rome that you, my Irish mother, 
 
10<. FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 taught me has departed from me never to return, 
 and the Son of God, our loving Jesus, has come to 
 me with his blessed religion instead. That re- 
 ligion of Jesus we find in his word, and in the 
 Iloh^ Spirit whom he sends to enlighten, comfort 
 and strengthen every one who comes to him. 
 The Pope has erected a barrier between you and 
 your son, because of my renunciation of the super- 
 stitions of Rome, but Jesus Christ will break it 
 down, my mother ; and if you will come with me 
 to kneel to him in supplication, forgiveness, re- 
 conciliation and joy shall be with us as we 
 embrace, united in his love." 
 
 My mother's heart will turn to me when she 
 learns that I am a happier and better man than I 
 could be as a Roman Catholic priest, and that it 
 is the grace of God and the love of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ that has done this for me. She tatight me 
 in my youth the way of salvation by fairh in the 
 doctrines of Rome. I had no one to teach me 
 otherwise in my college days and the early years 
 of my priesthood. Now since God has blessed 
 me by the knowledge of the true way of salvation 
 by faith in the blood of Christ, I consider it 
 a great privilege to be able to teach not only my 
 own kindred but the Roman Catholic people 
 everywhere ; and you. Cardinal, and your priests 
 in particular. To every Roman Catholic priest in 
 the world I would say : My brother, you have 
 
 I 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 105 
 
 been religiously trained, according to Roman 
 ideas, but you have outgrown the fables and 
 superstitions of youth, as I have, and you desire 
 to be a true and honorable man. Will you not, 
 then, come out of the false position in which cir- 
 cumstances have placed you, and learn the way 
 of the Lord through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 
 in whom you believe ? The Lord will not make a 
 covenant with you while you are mocking him by 
 giving to the poor credulous people absolutions 
 for sins, when you cannot forgive your own. The 
 Lord will not have mercy on you while you are 
 cheating the souls of the people out of the redeem- 
 ing merits of Jesus Christ by offering for a price 
 idolatrous masses that they think take the place 
 of the sacrifice of Calvary. Your condition is that 
 of a hypocrite, and you know it. You are not 
 happy in your present position ; no man could be. 
 You now lly to stimulants to drown the sorrows 
 of your life, but if you renounce Popery and ask 
 Almighty God to help you the Saviour Jesus 
 will give you change of heart, a new and happy 
 life that shall not depart from you forevermore. 
 Confess Jesus before men, and he will confess you 
 before the Father who is in Heaven. Do not be afraid 
 of the Pope's curses, or of starvation ; the Lord will 
 provide all things necessary and good for you. 
 He will speak to his people, and they will open 
 their hearts at his command. The fatness of the 
 
106 FATIIEU O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 land is now yours in the Clinrcli of Rome, but it 
 does not give you contentment or rest ; rather do 
 you and I well loiow that it brings a curse, for the 
 holy name, and grace, and merits, of Jesus Christ 
 are prostituted for it. Oh, my brother, do not sell 
 your soul for such a price. All things shall pass 
 away, but the. love of Christ abideth forever. In 
 him we have ''everlasting life," and with him we 
 shall enter into the kingdom that he has pre- 
 l^ared for us. ''In my Father's house there are 
 many mansions — if it were not so I should have 
 told you." Yes, my brother; if it were not so 
 would not Jesus have told us when we asked him in 
 sincerity and truth ? " I go to prepare a place for 
 you." Come with me to Jesus, my brother priest, 
 and let us ask him to teach us how to bring with 
 us our brethren w^ho are still vainly seeking him 
 in the Church of Rome, and the place he has pre- 
 pared for us shall be our inheritance forever. 
 
 It is only a question of time with many priests 
 to drop the masks they are now wearing, and pro- 
 test against the infamies they see practised in the 
 name of religion by the wire-pullers of your 
 church. How often have we discussed in Chicago 
 the advisability of introducing an amendment to 
 the constitution of the United States making 
 priests free men, as was done some j^ears ago for 
 the slaves of the Southern States. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 107 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 Sir: 
 
 How many priests do we see every day with 
 rubicund clieeks and blooming noses, giving evi- 
 dence of the sensual lives they lead. All priests 
 use intoxicating liquors more freely than other 
 professional men, and thus become dissipated 
 even while they are preaching temperance to the 
 people. A young man usually begins his minis- 
 try in the Roman Catholic Church without any 
 vicious habits, even though as a student, in his 
 vacations, he may have been the recipient of a 
 flowing hospitality from some of the priests. But 
 from the day he begins his priestly life the habit 
 of using wine and liquor begins to grow. From 
 the custom of drinking wine every morning, be- 
 fore he takes any food, he is habituated to the con- 
 stant use of intoxicating liquors. Every morning 
 you say mass, that is, you offer up as a sacrilice 
 in your hands, what you try to make the people 
 believe is thw body and blood, sonl and divinity 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in doing so you 
 drink two glasses of good wine that you say you 
 have magically changed or transubstantiated into 
 the blood of Christ. Now listen, Cardinal! It 
 is the experience of all young priests that for 
 several months after their ordination, when they 
 say mass in the morning, and use the regular 
 quantity of wine at that ceremony, they usually 
 
103 FATIIEIl 0'CO:,^'OR'S LETTERS 
 
 find their heads a little bit intoxicated. What is 
 the cause of it? If you and the other priests 
 have the power to cliange the wine into the blood 
 of Christ, why does what is taken at the mass 
 make yon feel the same as any glass or two of 
 good wine would. 
 
 The " consecrated" wine produces the same re- 
 sults as the wine you use at the dinner table. 
 Should you doubt this, suppose yon order your 
 butler to bring up from the cellar a few bottles of 
 your good claret or catawba, and consecrate them. 
 By the teaching of your church, that wine be- 
 comes the blood of Christ, yet after you had in- 
 dulged in it T venture to say you would become 
 the subject of a temperance lecture, as an "awful 
 example." What a profanation this is, that you 
 so audaciously pretend to work a miracle when 
 God himself is the subject of it, and when our 
 reason tells us that you are imposing on the 
 ignorance of your followers. The love of Christ 
 fills the soul with joy, but the blood of Christ, 
 while it cleanseth from all sin, does not make a 
 man drunk. There are few priests' houses all the 
 world over where wine or beer is not used regu- 
 larly at table, and he is set down as a mean, 
 stingy priest who has not a black bottJe of real 
 old rye or bourbon whiskey for his friends when 
 they call to see him. Priests are continually 
 visiting ench other and w^here a man is not so- 
 cially inclined the saloon-keepers in every town 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 109 
 
 are the chief men in the parish, and, of conrse, 
 his special friends. There may be some excep- 
 tions to this rule, but they are few. 
 
 Now I am not surprised that so many priests 
 become dissipated, nor shonld Christian men 
 when considering what the d lily life of a priest 
 is. But it is a matter of surprise that people 
 should continue to believe that the divine favor 
 and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ can come 
 to them only by the hands of such priests. It is 
 a common sayino; among Roman Catholics that 
 a priest who is under a ban from dissipation or 
 any other cause, has more ''power" than one 
 whose deportment is quite correct. This is why 
 they are so unwilling to hear anything against 
 their priests. Let the priest be a good or bad 
 man, he has the bishop's faculties, or the Pope's 
 commission, to officiate and give the sacraments 
 of salvation to the people, and that is all they 
 want. In Ireland when a priest was " silenced" 
 for any cause, the people came to him from far 
 and near to have cures performed for every kind 
 of disease. Those who had not money to offer 
 him usually took a bottle of whiskey, and under 
 its influence the poor man had no scruple to work 
 as many '' miracles " as were desired. 
 
 Of course the Church of Rome says that it is 
 not responsible for all this, that it cannot make 
 saints of all its priests, and that bad men are 
 sometimes found in the Protestant churches. But 
 
110 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 the Protestant churches quickly dismiss a TYian 
 from the ministry if his conduct is reprehensible ; 
 whereas in the Roman Church ''once a priest, 
 always a priest," is strictly held as one of the 
 cardinal doctrines. The king can do no wrong, 
 was one of the i)rivileges of those monarchs who, 
 in times past, ruled by Divine right, as they said. 
 So with Roman Catholics ; it is the man and not 
 the priest who walks in evil ways. This doctrine 
 has led to the overthrow of dynasties by popular 
 revolutions. It has induced priests and Popes to 
 commit most flagrant crimes when they knew that 
 the people would submit. But as surely as the 
 right divine of kings has departed, never to return 
 so surely will the bogus powers of the priests sink 
 in uttermost darkness before the light of the Gos- 
 pel and the intelligence that is so gloriously shin- 
 ing all over the world. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY, 111 
 
 Letter XIX. 
 
 Sir : — In the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, St. Paul tells us that his heart's desire 
 and prayer to God was that his Jewish brethern 
 might be saved. He had known what it was to 
 be zealous in the faith of his fathers, but when he 
 received the fullness of salvation by faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, he earnestly prayed that his co- 
 religionists might be partakers of the same bless- 
 ing. My condition is not unlike that of Paul. I 
 was zealous in the cause of the Roman Catholic 
 faith until I found that it was not built upon the 
 rock of salvation, Jesus Christ, but upon men and 
 their doctrines. And when Jesus was made known 
 to me as the author and finisher of the faith, and 
 the loving Saviour who wanted my heart that he 
 might take up his dwelling there, I did not resist 
 him. I could not love him by my own natural 
 powers, but I could let him love me ; and the bless- 
 ing that has come upon me I want others to share, 
 including those whom I left behind me in your 
 church. They are precisely in the condition of 
 the Jews to whom Paul refers : " For I bear them 
 record that they have a zeal of God, but not ac- 
 cording to knowledge. For they being ignorant 
 of God's righteousness, and going about to estab- 
 lish their own righteousness, have not submitted 
 themselves unto the righteousness of God.'' 
 
112 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 Surely this is as applicable to the Roman Catho- 
 lics of the present day as it was to the people of 
 whom the Apostle speaks. The external life of 
 Roman Catholic faith is seen in the church build- 
 ings, schools, convents, and other institutions of 
 that church, and these, with the punctual attend- 
 ance of the people at mass on Sundays, show 
 that they they have a zeal of God. But it is not 
 according to knowledge, for they do these things 
 and go to you and other men like you, the heads 
 of their church, to establish their own righteous- 
 ness, not knowing that, as the apostle continues : 
 ''Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
 every one that believe th." He is the object to- 
 wards which the mind and heart of every one 
 must be directed, and those who look to him, and 
 to him alone, attain the righteousness of God. 
 This seemed hard for the Jews to understand ; it 
 is just as hard for the Roman Catholic. They 
 sought their own justification in fullfiling the let- 
 ter of the law, they could not understand how the 
 law was rolled up in the person of Christ. They 
 seemed to say, in despair of attaining this justifi- 
 cation, '' Oh ! if we could get some one to ascend 
 into Heaven and bring Christ down to us, or to de- 
 scend into the deep and bring him up, we might 
 believe. ' ' This wish was an impossibility for those 
 to whom the Apostle refers. He tells them to look 
 into the book of Deuteronomy and there find the 
 same wish expressed (x. 12-13). Paul would do 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. U8 
 
 anything that was within his power to bring his 
 own people to a knowledge of Christ. But he 
 could not do this. Christ had come and made 
 himself known to the people, and if they would 
 not accept his mediatorship in attaining the 
 righteousness of God they must be accountable 
 for their own blindness. It was not necessary for 
 them to look above or beneath, to search the heav- 
 ens or to cross the seas to find this means of justi- 
 fication that would make them righteous before 
 God. It was to be found in the faith that was 
 preached to them. What Paul could not do for 
 his Jewish brethem, your church does not hesitate 
 to do for the Roman Catholic people. The word 
 of salvation was nigli unto them, he said, even in 
 their mouths and their hearts, that is, in the faith 
 in Jesus Christ that he preached to them. But 
 your church says that is not sufiicient, the people 
 cannot understand the word, and Christ must be 
 brought down. And every priest of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, good and bad, holy and unholy, 
 says, "lean bring him down as often as I say 
 mass ; I can do what Paul could not, or what God 
 said was vain for any man even to wish to do." 
 And the Roman Catholic people believe this blas- 
 phemous boasting. 
 
 Before leaving the seminary in Baltimore, im- 
 mediately before my ordination, the Superior, Dr. 
 Dubreuil, told the class that the oflice of pro- 
 fessors in the seminary was a nigher and a holier 
 
114 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 one than that of the Apostles. The latter were 
 the teachers of the gospel to the people, but the 
 former were doing the work that Jesus did while 
 on earth, teaching the Apostles, as the professors 
 were teaching us, the successors of the Apostles. 
 In the Roman Catholic mind the priest is always 
 associated with Christ in the work of salvation. 
 The Lord could not do his work in saving souls 
 without the aid of the priest ; even more than that, 
 for he must obey the priest, come when he calls 
 him, take the form of a wafer and be subject to 
 him, as in the mass. 
 
 My heart's desire and prayer to God is that the 
 Roman Catholics might be saved, as it was with 
 Paul for the Jews. A representative Jew was 
 that Pharisee who thought the righteousness of 
 God became his when he observed the law and did 
 all the good works required by the law, such as 
 fasting and paying tithes. 
 
 The average Roman Catholic in like manner 
 thinks that by obeying your church and observ- 
 ing your laws, his salvation is secured. He fully 
 accepts what St. Paul preached : 
 
 ''That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the 
 Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that 
 God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt 
 be saved." 
 
 "For there is no difference between the Jew 
 and the Greek (or the Protestant and Roman Catho- 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 11 U 
 
 lie) for the same Lord over all is rich nnto all that 
 €all upon him." 
 
 ''For whosoever shall call upon the name of the 
 Lord shall be saved." 
 
 This is not sufficient for the Roman Catholic, 
 for your church tells him that he must believe in 
 many other things with the same faith that he be- 
 lieves in Christ, before he can be saved. He must 
 believe with the same firm faith which he has in tlie 
 Trinity and Incarnation that the Virgin Mary is 
 the mother of God, and that she partakes of the di- 
 vine attributes ; for millions of Roman Catholics 
 are praying to her and asking her for help at the 
 •same moment, and all believe that she hears and 
 grants their particular requests. 
 
 He must believe in the power of the saints as 
 only a little less than that of Mary, and that it is 
 a duty to pray to every dead person whom the 
 Pope declares to be a saint. 
 
 He must believe that the Pope is infallible when 
 he speaks or acts as the head of the church, though 
 he may be the greatest rascal at heart. 
 
 He must believe that you. Cardinal, and every 
 Roman Catholic bishop has the power to ordain 
 any man, good or bad, learned or unlearned, and 
 make him a priest. 
 
 He must believe that every priest has the pow- 
 ers of calling the Lord Jesus Christ down from 
 Heaven to assume the form of a wafer every time 
 that mass is said, and that the Lord God our Sav- 
 
116 PATRER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 iour must remain in that wafer until it decomposes. 
 
 He must believe that every priest has the 
 power of forgiving sins. 
 
 He must believe that it is as great a sin to deny 
 the authority of the Pope as to deny the existence of 
 God, or to eat meat on Friday as to blaspheme 
 the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or to say ''bad 
 luck to the Pope" as to curse God. 
 
 He must believe in holy water and the seven 
 sacraments and purgatory. I could fill many 
 pages with the doctrines that the Roman Catholic 
 must believe before he can hope to be in the right 
 way of salvation, even though he may have the 
 fullness of faith that the Apostle Paul preached. 
 But enough has been shown to give an idea of the 
 idolatry and superstitions that your church has 
 added to the plan of salvation brought from 
 heaven by the Son of God and handed down to us 
 by the Apostles. The pity of it is, that while the 
 Roman Catholics have the essentials of faith, 
 enough for their salvation, they are covered up 
 by the un-christain additions their church has 
 made to the truth, and are thus made void. 
 
 An old writer says that the Church of Christ 
 when first founded by the Apostles, resembled a 
 pillar of pure, spotless marble ; but by degrees 
 the Roman Church succeeded in driving a nail 
 into this marble, once so fair and undeflled, and 
 she used this nail to hang on it the vestments of 
 the priests. Then another and many more nails 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 117 
 
 were added, on wMcli were placed mass-books and 
 Tosaries, scapulars and images, just such things 
 as the Pagan Romans were accustomed to use in 
 their worship of gods and godesses. One big nail 
 was to support a throne for the Virgin Mary, 
 another to hold up the throne of the Pope and his 
 triple crown. In this way the whole pillar was 
 covered, and the people lost sight of it. They 
 saw only the hangings, and forgot the building 
 which they seemed to conceal. But God raised 
 up courageous reformers in the persons of Catho- 
 lic priests who saw how deceptive the Roman 
 religion was, and they pulled out the nails, and 
 tore down what was suspended to them — vest- 
 ments, Papal throne, and all — and thus the pillar 
 of the truth was once more made manifest to the 
 whole world, and the people in great numbers 
 turned away from Romanism to euibrace it. 
 
 You know what the Lord said to those who 
 gave more heed to the commandments and 
 traditions of men than to the commandments 
 of God: ^'This people honoreth me with their 
 lips, but their heart is far from me. How- 
 beit in vain do they worship me teaching for 
 doctrines the commandments of men. For laying 
 aside the commandments of God, ye hold the tra- 
 dition of men, ^ * * making the word of God of 
 none effect through your tradition.'' (Mark vii). 
 
 In my own exi:)erien('e as a Roman Catholic and 
 a i)riest, I know how true this is of the great mass 
 
118 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 of Roman Catholics ; and because their spiiitual 
 interests are dear to me I shall endeavor to show 
 the false and untenable position of your church, 
 built as it is on such commandments, traditions 
 and ceremonies, that the truth of God might have 
 full and free scope among them. They have made 
 great and heroic sacrifices for the faith that Rome 
 has given them, and they have received no return. 
 iN'either in this world, nor in the world beyond, if 
 the word of God be true, have the Roman Catho- 
 lics been benefited by the form of Christianity that 
 has been preached to them. The Protestant 
 nations of the earth have shown themselves super- 
 ior to the Catholic nations in all things that tend 
 to the civilization of the race ; and if intelligence, 
 virtue and christian lives be the characteristics of 
 the children of God, surely in this respect there 
 is no need of a comparison between the members 
 of Protostant churches and Roman Catholics. 
 Yours trulj^, 
 
 James A. 0'Con:n^or. 
 
 Letter XX. 
 
 Sir: — It is the proud boast of your church 
 that Roman Catholics in proportion to their num- 
 bers are more regular in their attendance at 
 church than Protestants. This is not true of 
 Protestants who are also church-members. 
 Of the other kind of Protestants, those who 
 
TO CARDINAL McCLOSKET. 119 
 
 never go to church or Sunday school, I know 
 little. I presume there are some to be found in 
 every community. But even if all the Roman 
 Catholics in the United States should go to church 
 every Sunday, which not one half of them do, 
 they would still be outnumbered by the Metho- 
 dists or Baptists ; and if we count the Presbyter- 
 ians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists and other 
 branches of the Church of Christ, the Roman 
 Catholics stand only as one to live. In this enum- 
 eration the infants and all the children of Roman 
 Catholics are counted, while the actual members 
 only of the churches referred to are included. 
 When a Protestant goes to church it is to unite 
 with his fellow christians in the worship of God. 
 The Roman Catholic goes in obedience to the 
 command of the church that tells him he commits 
 a mortal sin if he he does not hear mass But 
 does he not worship God in hearing mass ? i he 
 best answer I can give to this question is to de- 
 scribe what the mass is. 
 
 Your church teaches that the mass is ilie 
 sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ 
 which are really present under the appearance of 
 bread and wine ; and are offered to God by the 
 priest for the living and the dead." 
 
 To see this "sacrifice" the people go to their 
 churches every Sunday, and with earnestness fol- 
 low the priest in all that he does while performing 
 the ceremony. The people see the priest on the 
 
120 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 altar going through certain motions with his 
 hands, feet, head and body ; now the hands 
 stretched out, now the body bent, now the knees 
 and head bowed down. He is all the time mut- 
 tering words in a foreign language. No one, ex- 
 cept another priest or some learned man who is 
 near enough to distinguish the words, understands 
 what is said, for the language used is Latin. The 
 people do not know whether the priest pronoun- 
 ces the words that change the bread and wine into 
 God or not. They presume that he does, but there 
 have been many instances, even in recent years, 
 where priests have not used the words of consecra- 
 tion. Neither do the people know that the ele- 
 ments used in the sacrifice are really bread and 
 wine. I have now in memory a case of actual ex- 
 perience. A certain priest had two churches to 
 attend, and on leaving his residence on a Sunday 
 morning he told the housekeeper to put a bottle 
 of wine into his valise to be used at the distant 
 church. He said the first mass all right, and had 
 proceeded with the second, in which he used the 
 bottle prepared by the housekeeper, until he 
 came to the communion, and while drinking what 
 he thought had been wine he found it was old 
 lager beer. It need scarcely be said there was no 
 sacrifice in that mass, though the people bowed 
 down and worshiped the beer as earnestly as if it 
 had been wine changed into the blood of Christ. 
 The newspapers recently brought us the Intel- 
 
TO CARDINAL Mt-CLOSKEY. 121 
 
 ligence from France that a certain bishop re- 
 ceived a cask of wine from a dealer that was 
 pronounced excellent for mass purposes. He 
 recommended all his priests to get their wine from 
 that dealer. The latter could not supply the de- 
 mand at the moderate price the priests were 
 willing to pay, but he did not like to lose such a 
 good trade, and he sent them another wine of dif- 
 ferent quality. When the bishop's cask was 
 empty he sent to the dealer for another ; but 
 when this was tested it was found to be too large- 
 ly diluted with alcohol. He was a conscientious 
 bishop, and he immediately issued a pastoral 
 letter telling his priests that the wine they had 
 been using was not the genuine article, in fact 
 was more like brandy than wine, and that all the 
 masses that had been said with that adulterated 
 wine were null and void, and should be said over 
 again in all cases where money had been received 
 for them. The moral of this is that every Ro- 
 man Catholic who pays a priest for a mass should 
 stipulate that the wine must be genuine. 
 
 The mass is said by your church to be a sacri- 
 fice, a propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the 
 dead, and the people believe that it is offered for 
 their sins in the same manner that the Son of 
 God offered himself on Calvary for the sins of the 
 world. But St. Paul tells us in his Ejnstle to 
 the Hebrews that Jesus Christ in his own person 
 is the true i)ropitiatory sacrifice for our sins, and 
 
123 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 that in his death was this sacrifice made effectual 
 for us. He doss not die every time a priest says 
 mass. In the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans we read, ''Knowing that Christ, rising 
 again from the dead, dieth no more, death shall 
 no more have dominion over him. For in that he 
 died to sin, he died once." St. Peter says (1 
 Peter, iii., 18) "Christ also died once for our sins, 
 the just for the unjust, that he might offer us to 
 God." And recurring again to Hebrews we have 
 the word of God for it that our blessed Saviou^^ 
 offered himself as a sacrifice once and only once 
 for us: ''Nor yet that he should offer himself 
 often, as the high priest entereth into the holies 
 every year with the blood of others. For then 
 he ought to have suffered often from the begin- 
 ning of the world, but now once at the end of 
 ages, he hath appeared for the destruction of sin, 
 by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is ap- 
 pointed unto men once to die, and, after this, the 
 judgment : so also Christ was offered once to 
 bear the sins of many ; the second time he 
 shall appear without sin, to them that expect 
 him unto salvation." (Heb. ix). 
 
 I could go on showing from the word of God 
 that the priest could not, even if he were the 
 holiest being that ever lived, offer up a sacrifice 
 which the Son of God alone had offered once and 
 forever. But the people believe it, and go to 
 church for the purpose of witnessing the ceremony. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 123 
 
 After a number of excellent prayers (in Latin 
 of course) the priest proceeds to consecrate 
 the bread and wine. Your church teaches that 
 he does this by using the same words that 
 our Lord used when he sat with his disciples at 
 his last supper. The text from Matthew is as fol- 
 lows: (xxvi. 26 28). 
 
 "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, 
 and blessed and brake and gave to the dis- 
 ciples, and said, take, eat ; this is my body.'^ 
 ''And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and 
 gave to them, saying, drink ye all of it ; for 
 this is my blood of the new testament, which is 
 shed for many for the remission of sins.'' 
 
 With all reverence do 1 wish to write on this 
 subject, but let it be remarked here, that if the 
 bread and wine were then changed into the body 
 and blood of Christ, he held his body in his hand 
 and broke it as he gave it to the disciples ; and in 
 like manner he held his blood in the cup in his 
 hand as he gave it to them. Now that this did 
 not take place we can see by the next verse, 
 where he says ''I will not drink henceforth of 
 this fruit of the vine." It was still the wine even 
 after lie had changed it into his blood, as your 
 church says. It was the same with his body. 
 The bread could not be changed into it, for a 
 member of the body was at the moment speaking 
 of it, and another member was holding it, and the 
 real blood was flowing in the veins of the active 
 body and could not be in the cup 
 
124 FATHEB ^'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 The meaning of this saying of our Lord can be 
 found in the words he uttered at the end of the 
 last supper. Al St. Paul explains to us (1 Cor. 
 xi.), and I give the whole passage to show that 
 the Apostles did not believe that the bread and 
 wine were changed into the body and blood of 
 Christ. "For I have received of the Lord that 
 which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord 
 Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed 
 took bread : and wiien he had given thanks, he 
 broke it, and said, take, eat ; this is my body, 
 which is broken for you ; this do in remembrance 
 of me." 
 
 After the same manner also he took the cup, 
 when he had supped, saying, "This cup is the 
 new testament in my blood ; this do ye, as oft as 
 ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often 
 as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do 
 show the Lord's death till he come." 
 
 As I am not writing a treatise that would be 
 beyond the comprehension of even a Roman 
 Catholic child, I need not point out how the 
 words, " this is my body." does not mean, "this 
 is changed into my body," but "this represents 
 or signifies, my body, w^hich is to be broken for 
 you." The body of our Lord was not broken 
 then and there while he w^as speaking. In many 
 parts of the Bible the same figure of speech is 
 used, as in Genesis xli: "And Joseph said unto 
 Pharaoh, the seven good kine are seven years; 
 
[to cardinal mccloskey. 125 
 
 and the seven good ears are seven years ;'^ and in 
 Revelation!, 20: ''The seven candlesticks are 
 the seven churches;" and Christ says in the Gos- 
 pel of St. John (xv, 1.), "I am the true vine, 
 and my Father is the husbandman." In our or- 
 dinary speech the same mode of expression is 
 used. Go into any Roman Catholic church and 
 ask some old Irish woman, who is praying before 
 a statue or picture, what that is before which she 
 is kneeling, and the answer will be, " the Blessed 
 Virgin Mary," or ''St. Joseph," or some other 
 "saint." In many instances the poor creatures 
 imagine that the statues hear their prayers, but 
 intelligent people understand that the statues or 
 pictures merely represent the persons named. 
 
 The people bow down in adoration at that part 
 of mass where the priest pronounces the words 
 of consecration. They would not know the right 
 moment if the boys who attend the priest did 
 not vigorously ring the bell or strike the gong to 
 draw their attention to it. The pious Roman 
 Catholic is exhorted by the priest to imagine tliat 
 Jesus can be seen at that moment actually com- 
 ing down through the roof of the church to abide 
 in the wafer and the wine, The priest at the com- 
 munion consumes the wafer and drinks every 
 drop in the chalice, and if tliere be any peo])le 
 for communion he gives them tlie wafer only. If 
 the Apostles ever said mass, whicli tliey did nor, 
 the Blessed Virgin Mary must have taken tlu^ 
 
126 FATHER O'CO^JNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 communion with them, and must of necessity, if 
 she believed what the Church of Rome teaches, 
 have eaten her own son. But the Virgin Mary 
 was no Roman Catholic, and so was not guilty of 
 such cannibalism. 
 
 In this monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation 
 the people are made to believe that when they re- 
 ceive communion they swallow the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, his body and blood, soul and divinity, his 
 head, feet, finger-nails, hair, toe-nails, muscles, 
 bones, nerves, skin and intestines, Even if they 
 could eat and digest a whole body it is hard to see 
 how that could benefit the soul. And even you 
 will admit that it is as the food of the soul that 
 the Lord gives himself to us in the sacrament of 
 the last supper. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Cois^nor. 
 
 LETTER XXL 
 
 Sir : From the second chapter of Acts we know 
 how the Lord's Supper was commemorated by the 
 first Christians ; and the waiters of the succeeding 
 centuries, such as Justin Martyr, Origen, and Ter- 
 tullian, inform us that during the first three hun- 
 dred years the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
 was administered in the following manner : — After 
 the reading of the holy scriptures, the congrega- 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLUSKEY. 127 
 
 tion praised God in hymns and canticles, and then 
 united in prayer for divine mercy and thanksgiv- 
 ing for blessings. Prayer was offered over the 
 bread and wine, of which the communicants par- 
 took in commemoration of the love of Jesus. The 
 bread was broken and the wine poured out by the 
 minister, and handed round by the elders to the 
 people, who received it standing or sitting. 
 
 With very slight variations, the churches '^con- 
 tinued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrines 
 and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in 
 prayer." 
 
 One of the most singular delusions among Roman 
 Catholic people is that Christ said the first mass. 
 I have explained that the mass is accounted a sac- 
 rifice, and if Christ offered himself at the last 
 supper, and again on the cross, one of these two 
 sacrifices must have been superfluous. If Jesus 
 offered himself while sitting at supper with his 
 disciples, how can it be shown that it was necessary 
 to offer himself again on the cross ? The truth is 
 there was only one sacrifice by the Lord Jesus 
 Christ; ''and after he had offered one sacrifice for 
 sin forever, he sat down on the right hand of God : 
 for by one offering he has perfected forever them 
 that are sanctified." 
 
 I would like to tell how this plain teaching of 
 the Apostles grewinto such an unnatural doc trine as 
 that of transubstantiation ; how the word '* tkans- 
 substantiation" was never heard of until the year 
 
128 FATHER O'CONNOU'S LETTERS 
 
 1215, and was then Introduced by order of Pope 
 Innocent III., at the Fourth Lateran Council; how 
 individuals and whole nations acquiesced in what 
 the Pope said, because darkness of the understand- 
 ing was general, and whatever learning there was 
 in the world was almost exclusively confined to 
 the priests and monks. But it is not necessary to 
 follow strong delusions that for a time become lies ; 
 the truth will prevail over them. It has done so 
 in this case, and will more manifestly in the future 
 as the Roman Catholic people study the Scrip- 
 tures and think for themselves. 
 
 It may be asked, do the priests really believe 
 in this doctrine, and did I believe it when I 
 was a Roman Catholic? Certainly I did, and I 
 know many priests who believe it witli a sort 
 of general faith, the same as they believe that 
 death will come some time, but how or when 
 no one knows. But like many persons who act 
 during life as if they did not believe in death or 
 care about it, the majority of priests show by 
 their actions that they do not believe they have 
 the power of changing bread and wine into God. 
 They dare not say so while they are still officiat- 
 ing as priests, but as soon as they become cour- 
 ageous enough to escape from the Roman Cath- 
 olic priesthood it is a great relief to them to re- 
 nounce publicly the doctrine of transubstantiation. 
 
 During the week of my ordination to the priest- 
 hood in Chicago I had a long controversy with 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. I2[f 
 
 one of the Jesuits about the presence of Christ 
 Id the wafer. I brought before him the many 
 cases in history where it is recorded that priests 
 and even Popes were poisoned while saying mass. 
 One case was that of a French priest w^ho had 
 led astray a respectable girl in his parish. When 
 her condition could no longer be concealed she 
 besought him to marry her, and when he refused 
 to do this, saying the laws of France did not recog- 
 nize the validity of priests' marriages, she begged 
 him to give her sufficient money to take her away 
 from the home she had disgraced. This he also 
 refused to do, but he suggested to her to accuse 
 some of the young men of the neighborhood of 
 her ruin. Stung to madness by such baseness the 
 girl resolved to kill him. One morning she put 
 some poison in the wine that he was to use at 
 mass. The priest said the mass as usual, and was 
 taken sick immediately after the communion. A 
 physician was summoned, but before he arrived, 
 the girl, who had been present in the churchdu r- 
 ing mass, went to the priest and told him what 
 she had done. The priest did not know but he 
 might recover, and to avoid the scandal he told 
 the doctor that he had taken the poison by mis- 
 take. He died within a few hours. Many years 
 afterwards the girl made a confession of the crime 
 but no steps were taken to punish her for it. 
 
 I asked the Jesuit could the wine with the 
 poison added be changed into the blood of Christ. 
 
130 FATRER O'CONNORS LETTERS 
 
 He answered, that as the small quantity of water 
 that is always mixed with the wine in the chalice 
 is changed with the wine into the blood, he saw 
 no reason to doubt that a small quantity of poi- 
 son, even though it be strong enough to cause 
 death, could also be changed with the wine. I 
 was not satisfied with the answer, but I had to 
 believe it, though I knew then as well as now 
 that the blood of Christ could not poison any 
 one. 
 
 If we could not be Christians without believing 
 this doctrine, it would not be hard for us to obey 
 God when his will was made known in this respect 
 as in the other articles of faith. But the revealed 
 word of God and our own reason tell us that 
 there is no truth in the assertion of your Church 
 that a priest can change bread and wine into the 
 body and blood of Christ, and that it is not 
 necessary for salvation to receive him into our 
 bodies as we take food to give us strength. Jesus 
 Christ is the food of our souls, and we live in 
 grace by him and in him, according to his promise 
 to abide in us if we observe his commands. 
 
 One of the many factors in my conversion from 
 the Roman Catholic faith was the following inci- 
 dent which I found in an old periodical. It was 
 taken from the writings of Blanco White, a Roman 
 Catholic priest of Spain in the first years of the 
 present century. He left his native land and the 
 Roman Catholic Church in 1810, went to England, 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 131 
 
 Studied at Oxford, became an Episcopal minister, 
 and held most intimate relations with John Henry 
 Newman, now Cardinal Newman. Blanco White 
 relates that one day while saying mass in the 
 cathedral of Seville when he came to that part 
 of it where he broke the wafer, as he put one 
 particle of it aside a mouse came out of a crevice 
 in the altar and ran away with it. He made a grasp 
 for the animal, but it was too quick for him and 
 safely got into its hole with the precious wafer. 
 He finished the mass as speedily as possible and 
 told the other clergy what had happened. A de- 
 cree of death was at once pronounced against the 
 mouse, but it was not so easy to put it into execu- 
 tion. The sexton and his assistants commenced 
 a vigorous search for the sacrilegious thief, and 
 after a time they were successful. A mouse was 
 caught beneath the altar stone and brought to 
 the holy fathers. They ordered it to be dissected 
 to see if any trace of the stolen wafer could be 
 discovered. The poor mouse was cut open, but 
 not even a crumb was found. If this mouse were 
 the veritable thief, sufficient time had elapsed for 
 the purposes of digestion. Blanco White says 
 that he propounded the question to his brotlier 
 priests, whether the mouse had in reality eateu 
 the Lord Jesus Christ? And the answer of all was, 
 that as the doctrine of transubtantiation by which 
 the wafer was changed into Christ was true, it 
 must be equally true that what the mouse had 
 
132 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 eaten was not the wafer, but the body of Christ. 
 If the priest believed that he had really and truly 
 eaten the flesh of the Son of God, his soul and 
 divinity, in the form of a wafer, he must also be- 
 lieve that the mouse had done the same. 
 
 When I read this I well remember the blood 
 mounted to my face, and with indignation I cast 
 the book from me. I tried to put away the ideas 
 suggested by the incident, but I could not; and as 
 Blanco White said of himself, he could never get 
 over the disgust for the doctrine of transubstantia- 
 tion brought on by this event, neither could I 
 overcome the natural repugnance I felt for it. 
 The Pope, or any Roman Catholic, or a mouse can 
 consume that wafer ; it tastes like a very thin 
 pie crust ; a dozen of them would give a person 
 dyspepsia as surely as so many pies. I have 
 had some experience of this when consuming 
 the particles in the ciborium after they had been 
 consecrated a couple of weeks. Yet we must 
 believe against the evidence of all the senses as 
 well as of the stomach, that it is not wafers w^e 
 have been eating but the flesh and blood of the 
 God-man. When the ciborium has not been 
 cleaned for several weeks the priest is not re- 
 quired to eat the particles, for decomposition sets 
 in and the wafer is alive with worms, as any one 
 can see with a microscope. In such cases they 
 are thrown into a hole behind the altar, which 
 is also the receptacle of h\l the dirty water used 
 by the priest in washino^ his hands. 
 
TO CARDINAL M^CLOSKEY. 133 
 
 One of the things we were told to believe in the 
 seminary was, that a priest could go into a bakery 
 and by pronouncing the words of consecration 
 over the bread change every loaf into the flesh 
 and blood of Christ. Every intelligent person 
 will say this is nonsense, but it is the sober fact, 
 and every priest imagines he has the power to do it. 
 
 The greatest argument brought forward by those 
 in the Roman Catholic faith who seek to defend 
 or justify the doctrine of transubstantiation is, thai 
 in denying it we doubt or limit the power of God. 
 Why can he not be living in the form of a wafer 
 and be in heaven at the same time ? But in re- 
 jecting this doctrine of Rome, men do not deny 
 the omnipotenee of God. God can do all things 
 that do not involve a contradiction. He cannot 
 make two and two to be five. He cannot deny 
 himself, cannot lie, cannot cease to be in any 
 particular place. He can make a man out of clay, 
 or he can change a horse into a cow, but then the 
 cow thus formed would not be a horse. In the 
 fourth chapter of the book of Exodus the Lord 
 said unto Moses, ''Cast thy rod on the ground. 
 And he cast it on the ground, and it became a ser- 
 pent ; and Moses fled from before it." It was not 
 a rod and a serpent at the same time ; it was a 
 real live serpent that I doubt not hissed at Moses. 
 The wafer is a wafer all the time, a inece of bread 
 and nothing else. "And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, put forth thine hand and take it by the 
 
134 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 tail. And lie put forth his hand, and caught it, 
 and it became a rod in his hand." Here 
 was a rod and a serpent changed alternately by 
 the power of God. In making the wafer the 
 priest's housekeeper (or nuns, to whom that work 
 has been now almost exclusively confined), usually 
 moulds a figure of the crucifixion on it and 
 the poor people in their ignorance imagine that 
 figure to be the living Christ. When the Pope or 
 you or any priest- can change a piece of bread 
 into a man, much more into God, and let all the 
 world see it done, then, and not till then, will 
 intelligent people -believe in the doctrine of 
 transubstantiation. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 James A. O'Connor. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 Sir: — A most impressive ceremony was that 
 which was recently held over the remains of the 
 late Archbishop Hughes, when they were trans- 
 ferred from the old St. Patrick's church to the 
 vaults of the cathedral on Fifth avenue. A great 
 concourse of Roman Catholics assembled, the 
 sanctuary was filled with priests and bishops, a 
 large catafalque was erected in front of the altar, 
 on which the coflSn was laid. It was fitting that 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 185 
 
 the memory of the deceased should be honored in 
 such a place, for he was the founder of the cathe- 
 dral, and built up the diocese over which you now 
 preside to a commanding position in the Roman 
 Catholic Church. He was a distinguished prelate 
 of that church, and fought her battles in this 
 country as no other man did before his time or 
 since. He fulfilled all the duties required of a 
 devout Roman Catholic bishop, and he died with 
 all the rites of his church that are specially ap- 
 pointed to benefit the soul. The desire to pay 
 respect to his memory on this occasion was laud- 
 able, even though we condemn the methods pur- 
 sued. But there was one feature of the ceremony 
 over his remains that has a peculiar significance. 
 A solemn requiem mass was offered for the repose 
 of his soul. And now the question comes up, 
 where is his soul ? The consistent Christian be- 
 lieves that when death comes after a life of faith 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ, and union with him, the 
 soul goes U) the home prepared for it ' ' over there. ' ' 
 If there were any certainty of this on your part in 
 the case of Archbishop Hughes, you would not 
 have the sacrifice of the mass offered for him, as it 
 would be entirely unnecessary. Every Roman 
 Catholic would scout the idea that the soul of such 
 a champion of their faith should go to hell, ''a 
 place of eternal torment." Yet, by the teacliing 
 of your church, in offering the mass for his soul, 
 y )U assume that it has not gone to heaven, the 
 
136 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 home of the blessed. And if it be not in heaven 
 or in hell, it must be somewhere between them. 
 Such a place your church has conveniently pro- 
 vided. All Roman Catholic theologians agree in 
 saying that the masses and prayers for the dead 
 are offered on the supposition that the soul prayed 
 for is in purgatory. I take from the catechism 
 that every Roman Catholic child learns the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 " What is purgatory ? A place of punishment 
 in the other life, where some souls suffer for a time 
 before they can go to heaven. 
 
 *'Who goes to purgatory? They who die in 
 venial sin. 
 
 ^'What is venial sin? A small sin that hurts 
 the soul by lessening its love for God, and dispos- 
 ing it to mortal sin. 
 
 ^' What is mortal sin? A grievous offence or 
 transgression against the law of God. 
 
 ''Where shall they go who die in mortal sin ? 
 To hell for all eternity. 
 
 '' Can the souls in purgatory be relieved by our 
 prayers and other good works? Yes; being chil- 
 dren of God, and still members of the church, 
 they share in the communion of saints." 
 
 That is all the dogmatic teaching that your 
 church has in reference to purgatory. When I 
 open my text-book on theology, such as we used 
 in the seminary in Baltimore, of which Bishop 
 Bouvier is the author, a standard work in the 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 137 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, I find some explana- 
 tions of this dogma. First of all, he says your 
 church has decreed anathema against any one 
 who will not believe in purgatory. The words 
 of the decree of the Council of Trent are: "If 
 any one shall say that, after the reception of the 
 grace of justification, the guilt is so remitted to 
 the penitent sinner, and the penalty of eternal 
 punishment destroyed, that no penalty of tem- 
 poral punishment remaining to be paid, either in 
 this world or in the future in purgatory, before 
 access to the kingdom of Heaven can lie open, 
 let him be accursed." Some of the old doctors 
 and fathers thought there was an immense cavity 
 in the centre of the earth divided into various 
 compartments. One was hell, which was an im- 
 mense lake, not composed of water, but of molten 
 brimstone, the sulphuric exhalations of which 
 were lashed into a burning flame. The devil was 
 the ruler of this horrible place, and into it were 
 plunged all the souls that died in mortal sin. 
 Adjoining this was another compartment compos- 
 ed of the same material of fire and brimstone, but 
 not governed by Satan, and into this were cast 
 those who died in venial sin. This was purgatory. 
 The sufferings of the souls were the same in both 
 places — burning and torture without intermission 
 or rest. But those in the purgatory region knew 
 that some time or other, it might be centuries or 
 thousands of years, relief would come to them, 
 
188 FATHEB O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 while the inhabitants of hell had no hope of the 
 kind — ''out of hell there is no redemption. '* 
 Bishop Bouvier teaches this, and so do you, Car- 
 dinal, and so did I while I was a priest in your 
 church, for I did not know any better, reared and 
 educated as I had been, with only such mental 
 food as your books of theology to nourish my 
 intellect, and the love of Christ kept away from 
 my heart by your abominable superstitions. 
 Bouvier teaches that in purgatory there is a 
 material fire, "like the fire of hell"; and the 
 priest in praying for the souls of the faithful does 
 not ask merely for a place of light and peace, but 
 also for a refrigerator. Hefriyerium is the word 
 used by Bouvier and the Council of Trent. It 
 means a cooler or cooling-place, but such things 
 we now call refrigerators. Lest you should think 
 I am joking, 1 give you the whole passage out of 
 Bouvier : " In Purgatorio esse ignem materialem 
 similem igni infernali,et ideo Ecclesiam pro anima- 
 bus fidelium orantem, non petere tantum locum 
 lucis e t pacis, sed et ref rigerii, videlicet contra ignis 
 ardorem." There it is, "refrigerium," a cooler or 
 refrigerator. So you prayed for Archbishop 
 Hughes in the ceremony you performed over his 
 remains, "Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, 
 and let perpetual light shine upon him, and take 
 him in honor of our masses and prayers into a re- 
 frigerator." He did not deserve this at your hands. 
 Cardinal, for you are now profiting by his labors. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY, 139 
 
 He brought your cathedral almost to a state of 
 completion and made your Church respected by 
 all men in his day. And yet the most you do 
 for him now is to offer up a prayer that he might 
 get out of the fires of purgatory into a refrigera- 
 tor. And every Roman Catholic who believes in 
 your doctrines can hope for nothing better. 
 After getting the souls out of purgatory the 
 priests will keep them in the refrigerator as 
 long as their friends have a dollar to pay for 
 masses. Freezing must be as bad for the soul 
 of a Catholic as burning, yet the people seem to 
 prefer it. There is no accounting for taste. 
 
 What if the soul of the deceased Archbishop 
 be not in purgatory ? A recent case came before 
 the courts in which a priest claimed a legacy of 
 seven thousand dollars left him by a man for the 
 purpose of bringing his soul out of purgatory. 
 The judge asked the priest for a receipt, and the 
 latter was about to give him one when his honor 
 asked if the conditions of the legacy would be 
 fulfilled. The priest replied in the affirmative. 
 ^' Well'' said the judge, " give me a receipt say- 
 ing that for the sum of seven thousand dollars 
 left by the deceased, you guarantee to bring his 
 soul out of purgatory." The priest hesitated and 
 said, "lean not do that; I will say masses for 
 his soul, but cannot guarantee that thej^ will bring 
 him out of purgatory ; God only knows when he 
 will be let out " 
 
140 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 " Is there such a place as purgatory ? '• inquired 
 the judge. 
 
 '' There is," said the priest. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 *'I do not know; somewhere in the other 
 world." 
 
 ''But this money belongs to this world," said 
 the judge, ''and before it is paid to you the 
 court must know what will be done with it. 
 The deceased left it for the purpose of bringing 
 his soul out of purgatory. I ask you where pur- 
 gatory is, and you tell me you do not know. Let 
 me ask you, do you know whether the soul of 
 the deceased is in purgatory ? " The priest was 
 nonplussed. He wished he was out of the court, 
 but he had to answer. " I presume his soul is in 
 purgatory," said he. "Presumption or hearsay 
 is not evidence," said the judge sharply. "If 
 you do not know where purgatory is, or that the 
 soul of the deceased is now there, you are not 
 entitled to this legacy. I do not believe there is 
 any such place as purgatory." Here a lawyer in 
 court interrupted, and said there was such a 
 place, and the priest who was testifying was now 
 in it, as his honor could see by observing his piti- 
 ful condition ; and sure enough, the priest's face 
 was crimson with shame and mortification, as he 
 sat with bowed head, unable to prove that there 
 was such a place as purgatory, or that the soul 
 of the deceased was there The money is still un- 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 141 
 
 claimed in the court's possession, and there it 
 will remain, I venture to say, until the end of the 
 world. 
 
 Neither can you prove to me. Cardinal, that the 
 soul of your predecessor, Archbishop Hughes, is 
 now in Purgatory. 
 
 The arguments adduced by Roman Catholic 
 theologians to sustain the doctrine of purgatory 
 are of the ilimsiest character. The chief Script- 
 ural proof is taken from Matt, xii., 32. Now, 
 because the sin against the Holy Grhost cannot 
 be forgiven, either in this world or the world to 
 come, it does not by any means follow that there 
 are some sins which will be forgiven in the next 
 world. The meaning of the text evidently is that 
 this sin can never be forgiven either in this world 
 or in the next. 
 
 Reliance is also placed on the passage in St. 
 Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (iii., 11-15) : 
 " He shall be saved, yet so as by fire," " and the 
 fire shall try every man's work." This word 
 ''tire" is really what the people believe of pur- 
 gatory. The text does not at all imply that this 
 ''fire of tribulation" is reserved for the other 
 v/orld. Every faithful christian has to go through 
 it here on earth. That is the essential condition 
 of being a true christian. A man's work built 
 by faith in Jesus Christ shall be made manifest, 
 not built on him it shall perish ; yet, though the 
 work come to naught, there is time for repent- 
 
142 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 ance while life lasts. That time does not come 
 after death. God sees us all in sin, and he makes 
 it known to us that our condition is as dangerous 
 as that of a man in a burning house. His voice 
 calls us to come out or we shall perish. Jesus, 
 his own beloved Son, is the messenger he sends 
 to warn us of our danger. One who is de- 
 mented will not know whether he ought to go 
 out or stay where he is, but one who has faith will 
 hear the voice calling him and obey. 
 
 In St. Peter's First Epistle (iii., 18-20), it is 
 said that Christ went to the spirits in prison and 
 preached to them. This is supposed to mean 
 purgatory. But we are not told that any of 
 those prisoners who were disobedient in the days 
 of Noah were let cut. Your church teaches that 
 all the saints who died before Christ were in this 
 prison, and that he went there to tell them 
 they were now free. But this is mere guess 
 work, and the subject is too sacred to joke or 
 guess about it. I knew a man in Chicago who, 
 on All Souls' Day, when the priest was taking 
 down the names of those who wished the mass to 
 be offered for the souls of their departed friends, 
 said that he had no relatives dead that he knew 
 of. He held five dollars in his hand, and the 
 priest not wishing to lose that sum, said that the 
 mass could be offered for any dead person, 
 whether for a relative or not. ''Among all the 
 dead that I ever heard of," said the man, ''there 
 
TO CARDINAL MOCLOSKET. 143 
 
 is not one that I care about more than I do about 
 Eve." ^^Well," said the priest, '^you can get 
 mass said for Eve." ''Can I?" inquired he. 
 ''Yes," said the priest. "Did anyone ever get 
 a mass said for her soul ? " "Not that I am aware 
 of." "Then it is time that some one should remem- 
 ber her. She committed a big sin in her day, and 
 though I suppose God forgave her, she had to 
 suffer some temporal punishment after death. 
 Take this five dollars, father, and divide it be- 
 tween herself and Adam." 
 
 The priest took the money, and, as I happen 
 to know that he was an honest man, he said the 
 mass. 
 
 I quoted the theologian. Bishop Bouvier, who 
 says that the fire of purgatory is like the fire 
 of hell, and that in prayers for those who are 
 in purgatory, Almighty God is petitioned to give 
 them not merely a place of light and peace, but 
 a refrigerator against the heat of this fire. No 
 one has ever presumed to determine how long 
 the punishment of purgatory lasts, and, therefore, 
 it must be a matter of indifference whether the 
 soul is burning or freezing for an indefinite period. 
 
 From the cradle to the grave the Churcli of 
 Rome imposes on her followers by the assertion 
 of her authority to control and direct tliem ; and 
 the services of the priests in ministering to tlie 
 people mu8t be paid for in hard cash. There is 
 no credit for baptisms, marriages, dispensations 
 
144 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 and masses. But the refinement of cruelty seemn 
 to have been reached when the heaviest tax of 
 all is placed upon the biers of the loved ones 
 departed. More money comes to a priest from 
 masses for the dead than from any other source. 
 I know this by my own experience. When death 
 enters a family there must be solemn requiem 
 mass, which, costs from five to fifty dollars ac- 
 cording to the number of priests engaged in it 
 and the quality of the music. In manj'- of the 
 churches the masses are announced from the 
 altar on Sunday, so that the honor of having a 
 requiem mass might be some solace to the afflict- 
 ed friends of the deceased. The usual announce- 
 ment is, ''Your prayers are requested for the re- 
 pose of the soul of Teddy McAfferty, for whom 
 a grand high requiem mass will be offered up to- 
 morrow. All the friends of the deceased and all 
 who desire to pray for the poor suffering souls in 
 purgatory are invited. You know, my brethern, 
 what holy Job says, have pity on me, have pity 
 on me, at least you my friends, for the hand of 
 the Lord has touched me. So the souls of your 
 deceased friends are crying out to you to have 
 mercy on them, for the hand of God is heavy on 
 them. They cannot do anything for themselves 
 now, suffering as they are in the fires of purga- 
 tory, but you can help them by getting masses 
 said for them. Is there any one in this congre- 
 gation who does not feel the heart moved at the 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY.l 145 
 
 contemplation of the sufferings of your loved ones 
 departed. Most piteously are they crying out to 
 you from the depths of Purgatory, have pity on 
 lis, have pity on us. In a few years you wjll be 
 numbered among the dead, your bodies laid be- 
 side those whom you carried to the grave only a 
 short time ago. Then you will wish that friends 
 here on earth should have masses said for your 
 souls. Do you think they will do so if you do 
 not now set them the good example ? " 
 
 In Italy the priests exhibit large paintings in 
 which the souls in purgatory appear struggling 
 fiercely to get out. A priest is saying mass, with 
 another priest beside him holding a rope in his 
 hand as he stoops down peering into the place of 
 torture, and calling the names of those for whom 
 the mass is being said, announcing to them that 
 they are released. The poor ignorant people 
 imagine that in this way souls are hauled up out 
 of purgatory, and are thus cheated in the most 
 shameful manner under the cloak of religion. 
 The high requiem mass and incense and sprinkling 
 of holy water over the remains of Archbishop 
 Hughes, were not the less calculated to deceive 
 the Roman Catholics by showing that not even 
 such a man, great as he was in your churchy 
 could be exempt from the fires of purgatory. 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Connoi^. 
 
146 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 SlK : It may seem as if I was giving too miich 
 attention to the doctrine of Purgatory, to the ex- 
 clusion of more serious subjects. But you and I 
 know how important an article of faith it is with 
 every Roman Catholic, and what a mine of wealth 
 it is to the priests. No Roman Catholic expects 
 to go to heaven immediately after death. Even 
 though he should repent and receive the last sac- 
 raments of the priest, if he can get intw purgatory 
 he will consider himself fortunate, for he knows 
 that if he got his deserts, he might go farther and 
 fare w^orse. " The Lord will not send me to hell, 
 if I make a good confession, and be anointed be- 
 fore I die," is the firm conviction of every Roman 
 Catholic from the pope downwards. However 
 sinful the life might be, there is still the hope of 
 Heaven, away beyond purgatory. From this life 
 to the other, therefore, means not from earth to 
 heaven, or to the home of the blessed, but to the 
 fire of purgatory, at least for a time. That this 
 is not the teaching of Christ or his apostles, is 
 evident from every part of the Scriptures where 
 the promises of God are held out to those who 
 serve Him. ^'TJierefore, being justified by faith, 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 147 
 
 we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and rejoice in the hope of the glory of 
 God," says St. Paul. Tliere is neither peace nor 
 joy in purgatorj^, nothing but suffering and burn- 
 ing, "lilve the lire of hell." Every priest, how- 
 ever, has the power of affording relief to the poor 
 suffering souls, and he is ready to do it every day 
 if he be well paid for his trouble. More money is 
 received from masses for the dead than from any 
 other source of revenue in the Roman Catholic 
 Church. It is customary for many priests to put 
 the money offerings for masses into one fund, and 
 offer them indiscriminately at their own conve- 
 nience. There are few Roman Catholics who do 
 not sincerely repent when death is seen approach- 
 ing. They have faith in God, and have great confi- 
 dence in the mercy of Christ. The priest is called 
 in to hear the last confession and give the last abso- 
 lution. He represents Jesus Christ in the eyes of 
 the dying Ro?nanist. He holds the Redeemer of 
 all men in his hand as he gives the viaticum to 
 the sufferer; he anoints him with oil, and offers 
 the last prayer for the departing soul. That poor 
 soul desires most earnestly, even with the last 
 breath, to be united with its Creator through the 
 atonement that Jesus Christ had made for it. 
 There is no more siii or sorrow in this world, all 
 that is passing away. The blessed Saviour is call- 
 ing upon that soul to come to him : " Come unto 
 me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I 
 
148 FATIIKR O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 will give you rest." What an invitation this is t 
 How often have I directed the thoughts of the dying 
 as I sat by the bedside when attending sick calls, to 
 Jesus on the cross — his blood poured out to wash 
 away all stain of sin from the soul that believed in 
 him, his arms extended to welcome and bless all 
 who will come to him, and his prayer to God for all 
 whohave sinned : ''Father, forgive them, for they 
 knew not what they did." When the dying male- 
 factor said, ' 'Lord remember me when thou comest 
 into thy kingdom," Jesus said to him, "To-day 
 thou shalt be with me in paradise." Had I not 
 good reason to hold out words of encouragement 
 and hope to the dying Roman Catholics who 
 had faith in that Saviour? Yet I now look back 
 with a pang of the heart at my own insufHcient, 
 or rather, distorted faith at that time. Many a 
 dying person said to me, "Do you think, when 
 all is over that God will receive me into heaven ?" 
 I used to answer, " yes, by trusting in the merits 
 of Jesus Christ, and being sincerely sorry for 
 all your past sins." "I am truly sorry, and I 
 love my Saviour with all my heart ; why can I 
 not go to him directly ?" I could only reply that 
 the doctrine of the church was that the soul 
 could not go to heaven until the justice of God 
 should be satisfied in purgatory, until the "last 
 farthing" should be paid. The only consolation 
 I could offer was that by prayers, masses and 
 indulgences, the term of punishment in purgatory 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 149 
 
 could be lessened. The Lord in his great mercy 
 has since taught me differently. If any one lias 
 faith in Christ, with repentance and hearty sor- 
 row for sin, there is every hope of an eternal 
 union with God after this life is ended. The only 
 question each one has to ask himself is, " Am I a 
 christian — do I love my Saviour with all my heart?" 
 If there be a certainity of this, "and the Spirit wit- 
 nesseth with our spirit that we are the children of 
 God," then w^e can say with St. Paul, " There is 
 therefore no condemnation to them which are in 
 Christ Jesus," no condemnation to punishment 
 either in hell or in purgatory. We are persuaded 
 that " God hath not appointed us unto wrath, but 
 to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we 
 should live together with hhn." (1 Thess. v.) 
 The only thing that can separate the soul from 
 God is sin, and when sin is washed away by the 
 blood of Christ, nothing can separate us from 
 the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Your church. Cardinal, will never give up the 
 doctrine of purgatory while it is such a source of 
 revenue to the priesthood ; but the people will 
 search tlie scriptures, and not finding such a place 
 even so much as named therein, uiey will turn 
 away from you and serve the Lord their God, as 
 he directs them by his blessea word. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Conneh. 
 
150 .FATHER O'CONNOR^B LETTERS 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 Sir : St. Patrick' s day, March 17, is a great day 
 for Ireland in America, and according to custom, 
 the Roman Catholics march in procession with 
 green banners, and bands of music playing 
 " Garry owen" and ''Patrick's Day in the Morn- 
 ing" to honor him. 
 
 Of course the claim is put forth by your 
 church that St. Patrick was a Roman Catholic. 
 There lived in Dublin, some years ago, a learned 
 clergyman. Rev. Tresham Gregg, who made a great 
 stir by his writings, showing that St. Patrick was 
 not a Roman Catholic. I have not his book by me 
 at the moment, or I would give you some of the ar- 
 guments he adduced in support of his position. But 
 I have a work of great merit, ''The History of the 
 Irish Primitive Church," by Rev. Daniel DeVinne. 
 The author of this excellent book was an Irish 
 Roman Catholic, but was converted in early man- 
 hood and became a Methodist preacher. Until his 
 death he was one of the oldest Methodist ministers 
 in the Avorld. It was my privilege to receive a copy 
 of his book from his own hands, with many blessings 
 on my labors for the enlightenment of our Irish 
 Catholic brethren. His life ^^'as full and well- 
 rounded, and he departed rejoicing in the promises 
 of his Saviour, thai he had a home prex)ared for 
 iiim. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKY. 151 
 
 Witliin the space of a letter I can only summar- 
 ize the chief points in relation to St. Patrick. All 
 writers agree that he was born towards the end of 
 the fourth century, of Gallic parents. He was 
 captured and taken to Ireland in one of the peri- 
 odical excursions of the Irish to the shores of 
 Gaul. It is said he was brought by Melcho, a 
 chief tian who lived in the county Antrim. His 
 occupation was the herding of sheep and cattle 
 on the mountain-side. He was converted to God, 
 as he tells us in his ''Confessions," which are 
 accounted genuine by all historians. ''My con- 
 stant business," he says, "was to feed the flock. 
 There the Lord brought me to a sense of my un- 
 belief, that I might remember my sins, and that I 
 might be converted with all my heart unto the 
 Lord my God, I was earnest in prayer. The love 
 and fear of God more and more inflamed my heart. 
 My faith increased and my soul was strengthened, 
 so that I said a hundred prayers a day, and almost as 
 many by night. I was not weary, for the Spirit of 
 the Lord was warm in me." He fortunately made 
 his escape, and was joyfully received by his parents. 
 His father was a priest or deacon, and he placed the 
 youth in a school near Tours. It is said that St. 
 Martin, of Tours, was Patrick's uncle. Like St. 
 Paul, Patrick had a vision of a young man who 
 came to him with a letter, on whicli was written 
 "Vox Ilibernaecum," (the Irish call). While 
 holding it in his hand he heard a voice saying : ' 'We 
 
152 FATHER O'CONNOR'8 LETTERS 
 
 entreat thee, holy youth, to come and walk among 
 us." He obeyed the call, and carried the Gospel 
 to the Irish. In his ''Confessions" there is not the 
 slightest intimation that he was sent there by the 
 Pope : ''God directing me, I obeyed no one in com- 
 ing to Ireland." The people gladly listened to his 
 preaching, and many conversions followed. His 
 reaching was wholly evangelical, and he did not 
 hesitate to denounce the horrid sacrifices of- 
 fered by the Druidical priests. He established 
 churches and schools in all parts of the island. In 
 those churches there were none of the peculiarities 
 of popery, neither masses nor prayers to saints ; 
 and the Yu\gin Mary is not even mentioned in 
 Patrick's writings. He says ''There is no other 
 God except God the Father Almighty, who is with- 
 out beginning, and from whom is every beginning, 
 upholding all things ; and that we make known 
 his Son Jesus Christ, who was before the begin- 
 ning of the world, spiritually with the Father, 
 through whom every thing visible and invisible was 
 made ; and being made man and having died, was. 
 received into heaven with the Father, and to him is 
 given all power, above every name that is in heaven 
 or on earth, or that is beneath, that every tongue 
 may confess that Jesus is the Lord God, in whom 
 we believe and for whose coming we are waiting; 
 who will also make those who believe and are 
 obedient, to become the sons of God the Father, 
 and joint heirs with Christ, whom we confess 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKKY. 168 
 
 and adore, one God, in the Trinity of the sacred 
 name." Such is the creed of Patrick, and every 
 Christian, but a Roman Catholic must believe 
 more than that. The faith of Patrick is not suf- 
 ficient. Evidently Patrick was not a Roman 
 Cathotic. He died on March 17, 465. The fruits 
 of his preaching and evangelical labors were seen 
 in the churches established, and the number of 
 missionaries that were sent out from them in the 
 years after his death to carry the Gospel to the 
 barbarians of central Europe. The Irish Church 
 was among the purest of the churclies then in 
 Christendom. The Popes of Rome had no author- 
 ity over it in the days of St. Patrick, or for cen- 
 turies afterwards. 
 
 The learned Roman Catholic historian, O'Dris- 
 coll, in his ''Views of Ireland," says: — "The 
 Christian Church of that country, as founded 
 by St. Patrick, existed for many ages free and 
 unsliackled. For 700 years the cliurch main- 
 tained its independence. It had no connection 
 with England, and differed on points of import- 
 ance with Rome. The first worlc of Henry 11. 
 was to reduce the Church of Ireland into obedi- 
 ence to the Roman Pontiff. Accordingly, he 
 procured a council of Irish clergy to be held in 
 Casliel in 1172 ; and the combined intrigues of 
 Henry and the Pope prevailed This council put 
 an end to the ancient Church of Ireland, and sub- 
 mitted tQ the yoke of Rome. This ominous apos- 
 
154 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTEBB 
 
 tacy has been followed by a series of calamities 
 hardly to be equalled in the world. From the 
 days of Patrick to the council of Cashel was a 
 bright and glorious career for Ireland. From the 
 sitting of this council to our times the lot of 
 Ireland has been an unmixed evil, and all her 
 history a tale of woe." Ireland became subject to 
 England and Rome at the same time. An English- 
 man became Pope, and took the name of Adrian 
 IV. He knew how independent the Church of 
 Ireland was, and he resolved to bring it under 
 his authority. This he could do only by the aid 
 of the king of England. Accordingly he gave 
 Henry the following permission to subjugate the 
 island. This is the famous bull of Adrian IV.: 
 
 ^'Adkiak, Bishop, Servant of the servants of 
 God: To Ms most dear son in Christy the 
 Illustrious King of the English^ Greeting 
 and Apostolical henediction : 
 
 *'The design of your greatness is praiseworthy 
 and most useful to extend the glory of your name 
 on earth, and to increase the reward of your eter- 
 nal happiness in heaven ; for as becomes a Cath- 
 olic prince, you intend to extend the limits of the 
 Church, to announce the truth of the Christian 
 religion to an ignorant and barbarous people, and 
 to pluck up the seeds of vice from the fields of 
 the Lord, while, to accomplish your designs more 
 effectually, you implore the counsel and aid of 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 155 
 
 tlie Apostolic see. The more exalted your views, 
 and the greater your discretion in this matter, the 
 more confident are onr hopes that, with the help 
 of God, the result will be more favorable to you. 
 Whatever has origin in ardent faith and love of 
 religion, always has prosperous end and issue. 
 Certainly it is beyond a doubt (and the nobility 
 itself has recognized the truth of it), that Ireland, 
 and all the islands that Christ, the Son of Justice, 
 has shone upon, and which have embraced the 
 doctrines of the Christian faith, belong of right to 
 St. Peter and the holy Roman Church; we, 
 therefore, the more willingly plant them with a 
 faithful plantation, that a very rigorous account 
 must be rendered of them. Thou hast communi- 
 cated to us, our very dear son in Christ, that thou 
 wouldst enter the island of Ireland, to subject 
 its people to obedience of law, to eradicate the 
 seeds of vice, and, also, to make every house pay 
 the tribute of One Penny to the blessed Peter, 
 and preserve the rights of the C hurch of that land 
 whole and entire. Receiving your laudable and 
 pious desire with the favor it merits, and grant- 
 tng our kind consent to your petition, it is our 
 wish and desire that, for the extension of the 
 limits of the Church, the checking of the torrent 
 of vice, the correction of morals, the sowing of 
 the seeds of virtue, and the propagation of the 
 religion oi' Cliiist, thou shouldst enter that island, 
 and there execute what thou shalt think condu- 
 
156 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 cive to the honor of God and the salvation of that 
 land ; and let the people of that land receive thee 
 with honor, and venerate thee as their lord, sav- 
 ing the rights of the Church, which must remain 
 untouched and entire, and the annual payment 
 of One Penny from each home to St. Peter and 
 the holy Church of Rome. If thou wishest to carry 
 into execution that thou hast conceived in thy 
 mind, endeavor to win that people to good morals ; 
 and both by thyself and those men whom thou 
 hast proved duly qualified in faith, in words, and 
 in life let the church of that country be adorned, 
 let the religion of the faith of Clirist be planted 
 and increased, and all that concerns the glory of 
 God and the salvation of souls be so ordained by 
 thee that thou mayest deserve to obtain from God 
 an increase of thy everlasting reward, and a glo- 
 rious name on earth in all ages. 
 
 ''Given at Rome, A. D. 1154." 
 
 The bull of Pope Alexander III., who, twenty 
 years afterwards, ratified the bull of Adrian, is 
 of the same import. This document was ad- 
 dressed to the same Henry II. of England, in 
 1172, and runs thus : — 
 
 '' Alexander Bishop, servant of the servants of 
 God, to our well-beloved son in Christ, the illus- 
 trious King of the English, health and apostolic 
 benediction: Forasmuch as those grants of our pre- 
 decessors which are known to have been made on 
 reasonable grounds, are worthy to be confirmed 
 
TO CARDINAL McCLOSKEY. 157 
 
 by a permanent sanction. We, therefore, follow- 
 ing in the footsteps of the late venerable Pope 
 Adrian, and in expectation also of seeing the 
 fruits of our earnest wishes on this head, ratify 
 and confirm the permission of the said pope, 
 granted you in reference to the dominion of the 
 kingdom of Ireland — reserving to blessed Peter 
 and the holy Roman Church the annual payment 
 of One Penny for every house — to the end that 
 the filthy practices of that land may be abolished, 
 and the barbarous nation which is called by the 
 Christian name, may, through your clemency, at- 
 tain unto some decency of manners." 
 
 How the custom of paying ''Peter's Pence," 
 or taking up collections for the Pope, originated, 
 few Irishmen have any knowledge of. We see 
 in the above bulls, that it was a part of the 
 compact of Rome with England, that every Irish 
 family should x>ay the Pope a penny to be 
 Romanized — civilized the Popes call it ; and the 
 years from thar time to the present testify to the 
 ''civilization" that Ireland has received from her 
 connection with Rome. 
 
 From the above bulls it is evident that even the 
 Popes did not consider Ireland a Roman Catholic 
 country. They sold it to England for a penny for 
 every house. If the Irish to-day complain of the 
 union with England, they should remember that it 
 was Roman Popes who handed their country over 
 to the English ruler. The Fenians, Land Leaguers, 
 
158 FATHER O'CONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 and other revolutionary societies, are making war 
 on the government of England in our day, in 
 order to effect a separation between the two coun- 
 tries. But they should first direct their energies 
 towards accomplishing a separation from that sys- 
 tem of religion that is a caricature of that which 
 Patrick established in Ireland. The Irish, either 
 in their native land or in America, can never com- 
 prehend what true liberty or freedom is, until 
 their souls nre free from the debasing influence of 
 popery. When they return to the religion that 
 Patrick preached, founded on the Scriptures alone, 
 and w^hicli caused their country to be known 
 throughout Christendom as the ''Island of Saints," 
 they may expect to be respected and trusted by 
 the liberty-loving nations of the earth. But as 
 long as they are papists, they cannot be re- 
 ceived into the household of freedom any more 
 than into the household of the faith by Christian 
 nations. Let them renounce popery, with all its 
 superstitions, and turn to the religion of the Bible 
 that the Lord Jesus Christ established, and that 
 the apostles and Patrick preached, and all the 
 civilized nations of the world will rejoice. Con 
 trast the Protestants of Ireland with the Roman 
 Catholics, and it can readily be seen what a bene- 
 ficial effect the teaching of God's word would have 
 on that country. An Irish Protestant is not ac- 
 counted an Irishman at all, neither is a converted 
 Catholic. But the Roman Catholic is always held 
 
TO CAliDINAL McCLOBKET. 159 
 
 up as the typical Irishman, poor ignorant, riot- 
 ous, superstitious and priest-ridden. Such an 
 Irishman will curse the Bible and blaspheme the 
 name of the Most High; but if the Roman church 
 is assailed, or if he should hear the words ''bad 
 luck to the Pope" his anger is aroused, and he 
 shows himself in his true colors. 
 
 All the world can see that what Ireland needs 
 to-day is to be free from the unchristian system 
 of religion that Rome has imposed on her. Much 
 surprise has been expressed that the great Refor- 
 mation should have made so slight an advance in 
 Ireland. Under the superstitious doctrines of 
 Rome from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, 
 the Irish became so ignorant and debased that it 
 was not a reformation of Christianity they needed, 
 but the planting of the Gospel seed anew by an 
 apostle like Patrick. 
 
 And what a sad history is that of Ireland for 
 the last three hundred years. We see its out- 
 growth in the present generation in the disorder 
 that reigns throughout the unfortunate country. 
 If the Roman Catholics had the Gospel of Christ 
 preached to them instead of tlie doctrine of Rome, 
 they would be truly the " Children of God," and 
 by their piety and zeal for religion would be ex- 
 emplars of holiness to all Christians. They have 
 a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, 
 for their church purposely keeps them in igno- 
 rance of the truths of religion. My heart's desire 
 
160 FATHER O'cONNOR's LETTERS 
 
 and prayer to God is, that they might be saved 
 from the curse that tlie union with Rome has 
 brought upon their country — that they might 
 learn that salvation can be liad, without money 
 and without price, from the blessed Son of God 
 whom Patrick preached to them, and that they 
 might see the truth, be converted, and live in 
 Christ Jesus, and be received by him in the eternal 
 mansions he has prepared for those who love l|im 
 and serve him. '' I will receive you unto myself, 
 that where I am, there ye may be also," he says. 
 You and your priests tell our Irish brethren that 
 unless they believe in the Pope and his Churchy 
 the Lord will take back his words, that he will 
 exclude them and send them to the bottomless 
 pit. You place your signature on the Lord's 
 promise and say it is of no effect unless your en- 
 dorsement is accepted. Out upon your Roman 
 additions that make the w^ord of God of no effect! 
 May the good God in his mercy free the Irish 
 people in their native land from the yoke of 
 bondage that Rome has held them in, as he is 
 doing to-day in America. 
 
 Here common sense has obtained the mastery 
 over superstition and ignorance, and as enlight- 
 ened ideas have entered their minds they have 
 learned to estimate the true value of the observ- 
 ance of St. Patrick's day. It has long since 
 ceased to be a religious festiv^al, for your Church 
 is fast losing its hold on the people ; and this is 
 
TO CAEDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 161 
 
 especially true of the descendants of tlie Irish in 
 America. They have the advantage of education 
 in American public scliools, the influence of en- 
 lightened citizens around tliem, the stimulus of 
 social advancement and distinction in all the 
 the walks of life, and above all the knowledge 
 that they can become free children of God, and 
 fulfil the highest law of their being by serving 
 him on earth by noble Christian lives and being 
 united with liim in heaven when ''life's fitful 
 fever is o'er." Their parents were born in pov- 
 erty, cradled in ignorance, nurtured in supersti- 
 tion, and confirmed in the vices peculiar to the 
 lower nature of man, by your Church withholding 
 from them the light of Christianity. Thank God 
 for the open Bible and the public schools of 
 America that are giving light and freedom even 
 to the children of the slaves of Rome. 
 
 I can remember fifteen years ago when the 
 ''Feast of St. Patrick" was observed as the 
 greatest national holiday of the Irish race all 
 over the world. Tlie Roman Catholic churches 
 thronged with worshippers of the good Saint; 
 traffic in the streets of all the large cities sus- 
 pended for hours to allow the monster processions 
 of Irishmen, led by German bands of music, to 
 pass by; and th(i rum-shops dispensing the liery 
 liquor that Irishmen love so well, till late into 
 the night — all in honor of St. Patrick. Less than 
 ten years since there were 20,000 Irishmen in the 
 
1C2 FATHER O'cONNOIi's LETTERS 
 
 St. Patrick's day parade in this city, and in the 
 year 1874 I witnessed a procession of 10,000 in 
 Chicago. To-day I stood for lialf an hour in 
 Union Square to observe the usual parade. Alas! 
 how times have changed. Not more than 2,000 men 
 shambled along in tlieir shabby regalia, and there 
 was not a shadow of enthusiasm in the face of 
 one of them. It was like a funeral cortege. I no- 
 ticed in one of the banners the inscription: ''St. 
 Patrick cares for the living and buries the dead," 
 The crowd around me laughed heartily when a 
 bystander remarked, ''Begorra, that's not true, 
 for St. Patrick is so dead himself that he could 
 not get up a decent procession in his honor to- 
 day." And another said, ''Indeed, 'tis the truth 
 you say, for I saw more persons and a grander 
 turn-out at the funeral of Billy McGlory, the 
 saloon-keeper, who died last week." While yet 
 another volunteered the information that the rea- 
 son the procession was so small was because St. 
 Patrick was in trouble about the doings of the 
 Land League. I turned to the speaker and asked 
 liow was that? " Why you see, sir," he answered, 
 ^* since all the money we can earn now is going to 
 the Land League, instead of the ' Holy Father ' 
 and the Church, as it used to do some years ago, 
 St. Patrick is so mad that he would not stir them 
 up to-day," I confess this was new to me, and I 
 longed for further information. As pleasantly as 
 I could, I observed to the last speaker that surely 
 
TO CARDE^AL MCCLOSREY. 163 
 
 that could hardly be, for St. Patrick was one of 
 the greatest Irishmen that ever lived and must nat- 
 urally take a deep interest in the aifairs of that 
 country. ''He wasn't an Irishman at all," he 
 blurted out, ''but a foreigner, and there's where 
 we have been making fools of ourselves these last 
 hundreds of years — marching like clowns at a 
 show, getting drunk and breaking each other's 
 heads in his honor, because we thought he was 
 a genuine first-class Irishman." "How did you 
 come to believe that he w^as an Irishman?" I 
 asked. ''Why, "said he, "wern't weall taught 
 in the old song that — 
 
 * St. Patrick was a gentleman, 
 
 And came from decent people, 
 His father was the carpenter 
 
 That built the church and steeple; 
 No wonder that the Saint himself 
 
 Should understand distilling, 
 Since his mother kept a shebeen shop 
 
 In the town of Enniskillen.' " 
 
 I had quite forgotten this brief pedigree of St. 
 Patrick until I was reminded of it by this incident, 
 and as I walked away from the group of my be- 
 loved countrymen, it struck me that the statement 
 contained in the doggerel verses was as true as 
 that generally received by the great mass of Irish- 
 men regarding the person who introduced Christi- 
 anity into Ireland in th(^ iitlh century. It is only 
 within the past f(*w years they havi^ l(\*irn(Ml St. 
 Patrick was not an Irisliman, and lat('r still the 
 
164 FATHER o'cONNOr's LETTERS 
 
 Scriptural triitli that he was no more a Roman 
 Catholic than was the blessed Virgin Mary. If I 
 had made this statement to the group around me 
 in Union Square, it would liave involved me in 
 a tight with my rough countr3nnen, and as the 
 odds were against me I held my peace. If the 
 Irish element were taken out of the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church in America, seven-eighths of its num- 
 bers and all its enthusiastic devotion and slavish 
 obedience to yon and your priests would disap- 
 pear. The special emissar}^ whom the Pope sent 
 to this countr}^ this year to *' convert" wealthy 
 Protestants, Monsignor Capel, has said that out 
 of 150,000 Roman Catholics in London not more 
 than 10, 000 are English; they are all Irish. This 
 is also true of Roman Catholics in America — they 
 are nearly all Irish; and it is for them I write. 
 
 In closing this letter let me commend to my 
 Irish brethren the words of St. Paul: "But Ave 
 exhort you, brethren, that ye study to be quiet, 
 and to do your own business, and to work with 
 your hands; that ye may walk honestly toward 
 them that are without, and may have need of 
 nothing." (1 Thes. iv., 11, 12.) 
 Yours truly, 
 
 James A. O'Connor, 
 
lO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 165 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 Sir : I hope tlie preceding letter will be of 
 some interest and service to Irishmen ''at home 
 and abroad." At all events it will be a ready 
 weapon in the hands of their descendants to op- 
 pose one of the pretences of your Church, that 
 the Popes of Rome were always well-disposed 
 towards the people of Ireland. Here it is right 
 to say that' the bulls of Adrian IV. and Alex- 
 ander III. are anathematized by the Irish nation- 
 alists and revolutionists, Roman Catholics though 
 the}^ be, as heartily as the Popes tliemselves ever 
 cursed the Protestant heretics Avho thought it 
 better for rlieir souls' salvation to serve Gfod than 
 man. Yet their ill-will against Adrian and Alex- 
 ander does not deprive those characters of that 
 quality of infallibility that distinguishes a Pope 
 from the rest of mankind. If the present Pope 
 be infallible, as his predecessor, Pius IX., de- 
 clared himself to be, all former Popes and all 
 future ones must be likewise infallible. 
 
 The decree of the Vatican Council lu^ld in R-ome 
 in 1870, is clear on this point. I quoti^ the con- 
 cluding panigi-a])li of that decree: "Therefore, 
 faithfully adluMing to the tradition received from 
 the beginning of tlie Christian faith, for the glory 
 of God our Saviour, the exaltation of the Roman 
 ■Catholic rc^ligion, and tin* salvation of (Mirislian 
 I)eople, the Sacnnl ('ouncil approving, W(^ {riwh 
 
166 PATHEB 0'cX)KX0R'8 LETTERS 
 
 and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed : 
 that the Koman pontiff, when he speaks ' ex- 
 cathedra/ that is, when, in discharge of the office 
 of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue 
 of his supreme apostolic authority he defines a 
 doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by 
 the universal Church, by the divine assistance 
 promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of 
 that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer 
 willed that his Church should l>e endowed for 
 defining doctrine regarding faith and morals; and 
 that therefore such definitions of the Roman 
 Pontiff are irrevocable of themselves, and not 
 from the consent of the Church. 
 
 ''But if anyone presume to contradict this our 
 definition : 
 
 '•Let IIIM BE ACCURSED. 
 
 •" Given at Rome in public session, solemnly 
 held in the Vatican Basilica, in the year of our 
 Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy, on 
 the eighteenth day of July, in the twenty fifth 
 year of our Pontificate.** 
 
 Elsewhere in this decree it is said, **This gift 
 (infallibility ) was conferred by heaven upon Peter 
 and his successoi-s in this see of Rome." Ac- 
 cording to this definition every Pope of Rome 
 was, is, and will be infallible, I will put it in 
 syllogistic form: 
 
 The Vatican Council nas declared that the 
 Pope of Rome is infallible even without the con- 
 sent of the Church ; 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 167 
 
 Pius IX. was then Pope ; 
 
 Therefore Pius IX. was infallible, 
 
 Now as regards the present man in Rome : 
 
 The Pope is infallible ; 
 
 Leo XIII. is Pope ; 
 
 Therefore Leo XIIL is infallible. 
 
 Of course if one Pope is infallible as such, every 
 man who has been Pope must be likewise infalli- 
 ble. Hence the following syllogism is true: 
 
 Every Pope is infallible ; 
 
 Adrian IV. was Pope ; 
 
 Therefore Adrian IV., who sold Ireland to the 
 English King, whose successors have been ruling 
 Ireland for more than seven hundred years, was 
 infallible. 
 
 And Alexander III., who confirmed the sale to 
 Henry II. in 1172, was infallible, because he was 
 Pope. 
 
 Another illustration of this ''infallibility" of 
 Popes in courting the favor of the powers of tlio 
 earth, and one of some significance to all Eng- 
 lish-speaking peoples, is the bull conferring on 
 the rulers of England the title of "Defender 
 of the Faith." This bull was sent by Pope 
 Leo X. to Henry VIII. in the same year 
 that Martin Luther Avas battling with both 
 for the truth and purity of the Chiisliau 
 religion. History tells us wl;at a charact(U' 
 Henry VIII. was. yet W(^ see him blessed and 
 almost deilied by tlu^ Popi^ of Home. Tlu^ ques- 
 
1G8 FATHER o'cONNOk's I.KTTEHS 
 
 tion is pertinent, did Leo re-call the blessings 
 lie sent the King, or did he exchange them for 
 curses ? 
 
 Henry became the greatest foe of the Roman 
 Church a few years later, bnt he retained the 
 title of Defender of the Faith, and it has been 
 used by every ruler of England from his time. 
 On all English coins you can observe the words, 
 '•Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen, Defender 
 of the Faith." 
 
 Let Roman Catholics draw their own conclu- 
 sions from the perusal of this bull sent by Leo to 
 Henry, and let them ask some priest of Rome to 
 draw the line that separates infallibility from 
 stultification. The bull of Leo to Henry, taken 
 in connection with that of Adrian, will be of 
 special interest to our Irish brethren, and hence 
 1 have great pleasure in bringing it to light from 
 the dusty pages of history: 
 
 ''Leo, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, 
 to our very dear son in Christ, Henry, king of 
 England, Defender of the Faith, health and 
 Apostolic benediction. 
 
 ''By the will of the Most High, though our 
 deserts are unworthy of it, we are governor of the 
 universal Church, and to the end that the Catho- 
 lic faith, without which none can he saved, may 
 receive continual increase, we send abroad far and 
 wide the thoughts of our heart; and that the 
 things wliich have been set in order by the sound 
 learning of Christ's faithful ones, specially those 
 invested with royal rank, to j^ut down the efforts 
 
■ TO CARDINAL MCJLOSKEY. 169 
 
 of such as essay to depress this faith, or, 
 by wicked and lying inventions, to pervert and 
 blacken it, may advance with continued increase, 
 we devote the office and service of our ministry. 
 
 ''Furthermore, even as other Roman Pontiffs, 
 our predecessors, have been used to bestow special 
 favors on Catholic Princes, as times and circum- 
 stances required, specially on such as in stormy 
 times and amid the mad raging of perfidious 
 schismatics and heretics, have not only stood firm 
 in the faith, and in whole-hearted devotion to the 
 holy Church of Rome, but who have also, like 
 true sons of the Church, and valiant champions, 
 both spiritually and temporall}^ opposed the mad 
 rage of schismatics and heretics; in like manner, 
 we too desire to exalt your Majesty with meet and 
 immortal praises for your grand services towards 
 us and this sacred seat, in which, by divine per- 
 mission, we sit; and, further, to make you such 
 grant as sliall bind you to keep away, with all 
 watchfulness, wolves from the Lord's fiock, and 
 to cut off by the civil sword rotten members, 
 which defile the mystical body of Christ, and to 
 firmly strengthen in faith the hearts of wavering 
 believers. 
 
 ''Indeed, when lately our beloved son, John 
 Clerk, your majesty's ambassador to us, in our 
 consistory, in ])resence of our worshipful breth- 
 ren, the Cardinals of the holy Roman Church, 
 and sundry otluu* ])r<.*lat(^s of th(^ Roman Curia, 
 handed to us for our examination niid a]>])r()val, 
 th(i book composed by your ALaji^sly out of a 
 chaiity vvliich doetli its b(*st in (everything, and 
 notiiing l)a(lly, ami intlamed with Z(^al lor the 
 Catholi(^ faith, and warm devotion towards us and 
 this holy See, as a lanu)us and salutary' antidote 
 
170 FATHER oViONNOR's LETTKRS 
 
 against tlie errors of divers heretics, often con- 
 demned by tliis holy See, and lately revived and 
 renewed by Martin Luther; and when he further, 
 in a speech of great clearness, gave us to know 
 that, as your Majesty had refuted the notorious 
 errors of the aforesaid Martin by true and un- 
 answerable arguments from Holy Scripture and 
 the authority of holy Fathers, so you were 
 ready and disposed to follow up with arms, 
 and the whole force of your kingdom, all 
 who should presume to follow and uphold 
 those errors; and when we had examined care- 
 fully and closely the book, with its excellent doc- 
 trine, sprinkled with the dew of heavenly^ grace — 
 we gave hearty thanks to Almighty God, from 
 whom Cometh every good and perfect gift, for 
 giving you a spirit inclined to all good, and 
 vouchsafing to pour upon you from above grace, 
 enabling you to defend, by your writing, his holy 
 faith against the reviver of such damnable errors. 
 ''Moreover, deeming it only right to bestow all 
 praise and honor on such as have piously labored 
 in Buch defence of the faith of Christ, and wishing 
 not only to exalt and magnify with due praise, 
 and to confirm and sanction by our authority 
 3^our Majesty's writings against the aforesaid 
 Luther — writings perfect in doctrine and in style 
 — but also to decorate your Majesty with an 
 honor and title, which shall tell all Christ's faith- 
 ful people in our own times and all time to come 
 how we have prized j'our Majesty's gift, espe- 
 cially considering its timel}^ appeai'ance, we have 
 resolved to confer on your Majesty the title of 
 Defender of the Faith, even as we decorate 
 you with such title by -these presents, and we 
 hereby charge all Christ's faithful people to speak 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 171 
 
 of your Majesty by this title, and in writing to 
 you, to add to the style of King that of 'Defendei 
 •of the Faith.' 
 
 "And in truth, after carefully weighing and con- 
 sidering the pre-eminence and dignity of this title, 
 and also your unique services, we could not have 
 devised a name either more worthy or more appro- 
 priate. For whenever you hear or read it, you 
 will be reminded of your own worth and your ex- 
 cellent service; nor will you let this title puff 3^ou 
 up or exalt you to pride, but with your wonted 
 wisdom you will become yet more humble, and 
 yet stronger and firmer in the faith of Christ and 
 in your devotion to this holy See, the fountain of 
 your exaltation. 
 
 "Furthermore, 3^ou will rejoice in the Lord, the 
 Giver of all good, to leave this as an everlasting 
 memorial of your glory to your posterity, and lead 
 them, in case they too desire to be graced with 
 the like title, to desire to perform like deeds, 
 to follow in the famous footsteps of your Maj- 
 esty. 
 
 "According to your admirable service to us 
 and the See aforesaid, we bless you, with your 
 wife and sons, and all who shall hei'eafter be born 
 from you and tliem, in the name of him who 
 hath given us power to bless, with bountiful and 
 liberal hand; and we beseech the Most High who 
 hath said, 'By me kings reign and princ^es rule, 
 in whose hand are the lieaits of kings,' to con- 
 firm you in your holy i-c^solution, and increase 
 your d(n'otion, and by your nobh^ doings for the 
 holy faith, make you so famous in tluM^yes of the 
 world that nonc^ shall be abh^ to chalUMigt^ tln^ 
 judgment which W(* liaA'c* (^x])ress(Hl of you in in- 
 vesting you with this (Muinent title; and lastl}', 
 
172 FATHER o'cONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 when your mortal course is over, to make you a 
 partaker of the everlasting glory. 
 
 ''Done at Home, in St. Peters, October lltli, in 
 the year of our Lord, 1521, and ninth 
 year of our Pontificate. 
 
 ''LeoX." 
 
 An infallible Pope should have as much wis- 
 dom at least as a weather prophet. Prom the 
 Irish point of view the Popes I have referred to 
 did not prove themselves more infallible in 
 earthly affairs than the rest of mankind. What 
 evidence have we that they were infallible in 
 spiritual things? None at all. The Pope is as 
 liable to commit a mistake as you or any other 
 man, and the greatest mistake he or you can 
 commit is to imagine that intelligent people can 
 be always deceived by your false teaching. They 
 will search the Scriptures, and by the grace of 
 God find the way of salvation through the Lord 
 Jesus Christ without you or the Pope. 
 Very truly 3^ ours, 
 
 James A. O'Coistnor. 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCL0SK3T. 173 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 Sir: In these letters I cannot too often recur 
 to the scriptural way of salvation by faith in 
 Christ, and the Roman Catholic way by depend- 
 ence on the sacraments of the Church, which the 
 priest alone can manufacture. The Lord Jesus 
 Christ invites everyone to come to him for this 
 salvation. Let each person consider his own way 
 of life, and tell him all about it. To be sure, he 
 knows it already, but it is necessary that each 
 one of us should commune with him, if we desire 
 that the Spirit of God should witness with our 
 spirit that we are the cliildren of God. If any 
 one is in sin, tell him of it. What will he say on 
 hearing this confession? " Repent, repent ye, and 
 turn to the way of the Lord." AVhat did he say 
 of tlie publican who cried out from the depths of 
 his soul, ''Lord be merciful to me a sinner"? 
 '* He went away justified ;" he believed in God's 
 power and love to forgive him when he repented. 
 When this is done with sincerity of heart, then 
 trust him that all else will be given. The light 
 that sbineth from him into the soul will show liow 
 a new life can be built up that will have no room 
 for sin to enter. He is the builder of this new 
 life, and his work will be made perfect, if the ma- 
 terial be sound. True repentance, sorrow for the 
 past sinful life, and a desii'e for the life that is 
 united with Christ in faith, in hope, and in love, 
 
174 FATHER o'cONNOR's LETTERS 
 
 and then perfect trust in liis promises, that he 
 will give rest to the soul — if one who really 
 desires to he saved will do this, there need be no 
 fear. The Lord Jesus will do his part. The love 
 of God will take the place of the love of sin in the 
 soul. This is the Gospel, the " good tidings" 
 of salvation with which I wish to reach my 
 Roman Catholic brethren. Christians have their 
 Bibles to teach them, and only need to be told 
 how to use them. Indeed, the Bible is a '' Letter 
 from God" to every one who reads it, and it 
 requires a prompt answer. Christians answer it 
 by asking, " Lord, what shall we do?" And he 
 teaches them, and they become his children and 
 faithful followers. 
 
 Roman Catholics have another way, altogether 
 different from this. They are not taught or en- 
 couraged to read the Bible; they only know that 
 they must go to the priest to learn the way of sal- 
 vation, and they must depend on him for the 
 means of obtaining it. The Protestant looks to 
 Christ alone as the Mediator and loving Redeemer, 
 and depends on him, to the exclusion of all other 
 means. " Neither is there salvation in any other: 
 for there is none other name under Heaven given 
 among men, whereby w^e must be saved." The 
 New Testament tells us what he was, what he did 
 and what he said. There is none other like him, 
 never was, and never will be. It is through him 
 and by him that the door of Heaven is opened to 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 175 
 
 US. My Roman Catholic brethren depend on the 
 priests to do this for them. God help them! If 
 they really knew what the priests are they would 
 not rely much on them to gain them admission to 
 Heaven. Your Church teaches the people that 
 it does not matter whether priests be good or bad 
 men so long as they perform their duty ; the sac- 
 raments of the Church are self- working {ex opere 
 operato), the theologians say. But who knows 
 that the priests perform their functions accord- 
 ing to the stated formula ? 
 
 Do all the priests in America pronounce the 
 words of absolution over the penitent at confes- 
 sion, or say the wx)rds of consecration at the mass 
 on Sundays? No one knows. The people do 
 not understand the Latin they mumble at these 
 ceremonies. ''But all priests are honorable men, 
 and gentlemen who would be incapable of decep- 
 tion," my Roman Catholic friends who read this 
 will say. Are they? I have known l.OOvO priest'^ in 
 my time, hundreds of them intimately, and not a 
 few bishops, and I must say that I did not find 
 them all "honorable men." But reserving my 
 experience of priests in general for another occa- 
 sion, let me call your attention to some of the 
 priests who have recently iigured in ])ublic in our 
 neighboring city of Brooklyn, and if straws show 
 how tiie wind blows, we can i'orm an estimate of 
 the material of which ])riests are ma(h\ 
 
 Last week, May 4th, 1883, Father Philip Kenny 
 
176 FATHER o'cONXOR's LETTERS 
 
 came into court and sued against the estate of the 
 late Father Robert Maguire, claiming $12,000 for 
 masses that he had said for the soul of the de- I 
 ceased. Father Maguire has been dead only two 
 years, and it is a mystery liow Father Kenny 
 could say $12,000 worth of masses in that period, 
 unless, indeed, he charged §100 for every mass. 
 The court refused to grant the amount asked for, 
 and Father Kenny threatens that if he is not paid 
 he will recall every one of those masses and leave 
 poor Father Maguire' s soul in purgatory until 
 it is burned to a cinder. The relatives of the de- 
 ceased want the money, and will not give one 
 cent of it for helping him out of purgatory. We 
 learn that great scandal is the result, and that the 
 members of Father Kenny's church are in danger 
 of losing their faith. Purgatory is a rock on 
 which the faith of many Roman Catholics will 
 be shattered. How can it be otherwise ? The 
 falsehood and deception practiced by means of 
 this infamous traffic in souls will cause the peo- 
 ple to turn away in disgust from the Church built 
 upon it. 
 
 I write as one vrho had been a priest of your 
 Church until a few years since, and every Roman 
 Catholic priest in America knows that what I say 
 is sure to come to pass. If any confirmation be 
 needed to strengthen my assertion, that the peo- 
 ple are losing faith in your Popish doctrines, I 
 refer you to the Catholic Remew of this city, one 
 
TO CAEDTNAL MCCLOSKET. 177 
 
 of the leading papers of your Church, and spe- 
 cially commended by you. Indeed so far as you 
 have an official organ, the Review may be ac- 
 counted one. In its issue for the week ending 
 November 10th, 1884 it h^s the following lead- 
 ing editorial article: 
 
 ''Great complaint is made that the duty of 
 remembering the souls in j)urgatory by masses 
 and prayers is so generally neglected or so im- 
 perfectly performed. We used to believe in 
 purgatory, theoretically, but, somehow, our faith 
 now is comparatively dead. jSTo doubt this is, in 
 a measure, owing to the fact that we live and 
 move in an atmosphere of Protestant hostility to 
 the Roman Catholic faith. It is extremely diffi- 
 cult not to be influenced more or less by the 
 prevalent views and feelings of the community in 
 whicli we live. There is something in the very 
 name, purgatory, that is obnoxious to our Prot- 
 estant friends. They have been accustomed to 
 look upon the doctrine of purgatory as not only 
 superstitious, but also as connected with a system 
 of abuses which are considered its direct and 
 leo:itimate result. The consequence is that 
 Roman Catholics too often feel ashamed to ac- 
 knowledge that they believe in purgatory at all, 
 or it they are, at any time, called upon to profess 
 their faith in it, they do so with bated breath and 
 shame-faced reluctance. Theoretically we be- 
 lieve that our friends who have gone before us to 
 the world of spirits may be suffering the ])urga- 
 torial ])r )cess nec^essary to flt them for tlu^ beatitic 
 vision of God, and that they maybe beneliltul by 
 our prayers and sutterings ; but do we realize it } 
 Do we brin;^ it home to our hearts and to our 
 
178 FATHER O'CONNOU'S LETTERS 
 
 every day experience i Some of us, no doubt, 
 say a ' Hail Mary ' for the sufferino- souls in 
 purgatory, and perhaps end some of our otlier 
 prayers with the common ejaculation, ^And may 
 the souls of the faithful departed, through the 
 mercy of God, rest in peace I' Tluit certainly is 
 better than nothing ; but it is not enough. 
 What we want is to have purgatory 'opened' 
 so that we can look into it, and not merely take 
 a hasty glance, as so many are now doing and 
 then passing it by." 
 
 As one reads this, Cardinal, it may seem as if 
 your editor meant it for a joke, but he is in down- 
 right earnest. I have given his article so much 
 space in order that Protestants as well as Roman 
 Catholics might know in what a pitiful condition 
 the souls in purgatory are, without anyone at all 
 praying for them now, as was the custom formerly. 
 If this state of things continues, the poor souls 
 will have to begin to pray for themselves. Sadly 
 will they realize that they would never have got 
 into purgatory if they had done their own pray- 
 ing while in the flesh. But alas ! it is now too 
 late. The only consolation they can get from 
 this editor is the exhortation in his concluding 
 paragraph: 
 
 ''Let us for one month in the year, at least, be 
 willing to sacrifice a portion of the time devoted 
 to our favorite newspaper that we may employ 
 it in the delightful work of praying for the souls ' 
 in purgatory." 
 
 Thus by the testimony of your own faithful fol- 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 179 
 
 lowers we see that purgatory is dead and all but 
 forgotten. Soon all the other cherished institu- 
 tions of your Church will follow the fate of 
 purgatory, and be laughed out of the existence 
 they now have in the imaginations of the people. 
 Can intelligent people with the Word of God in 
 their hands believe that the only way to heaven 
 lies through the Roman door ? We read in the 
 Gospel of St. John, iiL, 16, 17: ''For God so 
 loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent 
 not his Son into the world to condemn the world; 
 but that the world through him might be saved." 
 Do you imagine. Cardinal, that as the people 
 whom j^our Church now controls become capable 
 of thinking on these religious subjects for them- 
 selves, thej^ will believe you or any man rather 
 than God ? They are learning, and it is time they 
 should, that the promises of God are true for each 
 one of them, and that your purgatory, masses and 
 confessions are of no use to them here or here- 
 after. My prayer is tliat they might turn to the 
 great High Priest who offered himself as a sacri- 
 fice for the sins of the world, " Avhose blood 
 cleanseth from all sin," and who will receive 
 into heaven whosoever will sincerely reperit and 
 believe in him. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Jamks a. O'Connor. 
 
180 FATHER o'cONNOR's LETTERS 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 New York, January 12th, 1884. 
 
 Sir: As I write this concluding letter to the 
 Fourth Edition of this collection you are sitting 
 on your throne in the cathedral on Fifth Avenue 
 surrounded by a dozen Roman Catholic bishops 
 and three hundred priests, in presence of an 
 audience of four thousand persons, who have 
 assembled to do you reverence on this occasion, 
 the golden jubilee of your ordination to the Ro- 
 man priesthood. 
 
 A sketch of your life will be of interest to the 
 readers of this volume, for you are the first 
 American Cardinal, and your career as the chief 
 representative of the Pope in this country has 
 been one of marked success. 
 
 Your parents were poor Irish folks who came 
 to this country, like hundreds of thousands of 
 their countrymen, to better their condition. You 
 were born in Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1810, and, so 
 far as known, your condition in early life was in 
 nowise diiferent from that of the average Roman 
 Catholic boy who is to be seen on the streets of 
 all our cities. Whether your father kept a rum- 
 shop, like Archbishop Corrigan's worthy sire, I 
 know not. Archbishop Corrigan is now your 
 associate, and will be your successor, and perhaps 
 a greater power in the Roman Church than you 
 
I 
 
 TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 181 
 
 have been. He has had the advantage of you in 
 the fact that his father made much money by 
 selling "Jersey liglitning," as the vile whisky 
 he dispensed for fifty years in Newark, N.J., was 
 called, and thus was enabled to send his son to 
 Kome ''to make a priest of him." That is the 
 crowning joy of Roman Catholic saloond^eepers. 
 If they can have a son a priest or a daughter a nun 
 they verily believe the Lord will wink at their 
 own lives spent in ministering to the damnation 
 of the souls and bodies of their fellow creatures. 
 Old Corrigan had this ambition for his son, 
 though he did not live to see him an Archbishop; 
 for, it is said, he dropped dead in his miserable 
 rum-hole in Newark while measuring out a drink 
 of whisky to a poor Irishwoman. Many a mass 
 the son will have to offer up to bring his father's 
 soul out of purgatory, if there be sucli a place, 
 and if the unfoi'tunate man did not go farther and 
 fare worse. 
 
 You were ordained a priest in 1834, and served 
 various churches in this city until you were 
 appointed coadjutor to tlie late Archbishop 
 Hughes in 1844. In 1847 you became Bisliop 
 of Albany, and in 1864, on the decease of Arch- 
 bishop Hughes, you succeeded him as Archbishop 
 of New York. Since then you liave lived in this 
 city, enei-getically woi-king to build u]) your 
 Church by th(^ acquisition of valuabk^ })roi)(Mty 
 and the en.^ctiou of churches, convents and mon- 
 
182 FATHER o'cONNOR'S LETTERS 
 
 asteries. You were promoted to the Cardinalate 
 in 187i), and tlius became a *' Prince of the 
 Church." Your official designation is, ''His 
 Eminence, Cardinal John McCloskey, Arch- 
 bishop of Xew York.- ' The Pope has rewarded 
 you with no stinted hand in the bestowal of titles 
 and honors, and you have proved yourself his 
 faithful servant. Not the least of your labors has 
 been the collection of five million dollars for him 
 and his predecessors, Avhich you sent to Rome 
 during the last iifty years. Ail this was gathered 
 in small sums from the scanty wages of the poor 
 Irish Romanists, who believed they could not go 
 to heaven unless they paid you and the Pope for 
 the grace of God and the merits of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, which they imagined could come only 
 through your hands. 
 
 But what have you done for your country and 
 your God during all those years? In all the ful- 
 some eulogy addressed to you by bishops, priests 
 and laymen on this occasion there is no commend- 
 ation of your life and duty as a citizen or a 
 Christian. Whatever you have done has been 
 for the material growth and glorj^ of the " holy 
 Church of Rome." Your Vicar General, Mon- 
 signor Quinn, in the address of the clergy sounds 
 your praises in the following remarkable state- 
 ment: 
 
 '' It can be but a matter of consolation to j^our 
 Eminence to recall the great and singular progress 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKET. 183 
 
 of the holy Roman Church, which, during this 
 period, your eyes have witnessed in tliis country. 
 No more remarkable and rapid extension of the 
 Roman Catholic faith has been recorded in any 
 region of the world since the apostolic age. 
 
 '' Fifty years ago there were in this city but 
 six churches; now there are sixty. There were 
 but twenty priests in the diocese; now there are 
 three hundred and eighty. At that time there 
 were in the whole United States only nine bishops; 
 now there are sixty-three. Then there Avas but one 
 Archbishop; now there are fifteen, one of whom 
 has been elevated to the senate of the universal 
 Church. 
 
 ''There is, perhaps, no city in the whole world 
 more Roman Catholic, when measured by the 
 standard of the number of its Easter communions, 
 than the metropolis over which j^ou preside as 
 Archbishop. 
 
 *'It must be a matter of personal congratula- 
 tion, in which your Eminence cannot fail to be 
 partaker witli us, to know that your elevation to 
 the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal dignity and to 
 the higher dignity of the Cardinalate, was due 
 to the free choice of the Pope, the supreme pastor 
 of God's holy Cliurch. 
 
 '' Our prayer is that you may be spannl to see 
 th(^ b(^giii!iiiig, at U^ast, of that triuini)li forest^en 
 by the late? pontiff Pius IX., of lu)ly memory, and 
 so earnestly sought by his holiness Leo XIII., 
 
184 FATHER o'CONNOK's LETTERS 
 
 now happily reigning — the triumph of the Holy 
 Church over the whole earth/ ' 
 
 The address from the laity further illustrates 
 the material gi-owth and development of the Ro- 
 man Church during the past fift}^ years: 
 
 ''Fifty years, your Eminence, a priest of the 
 liol}^ Roman Catholic Church — this is truly a 
 crowning anniversary, a golden jubilee. The coad- 
 jutor Archbishop, fresh from the inspiring pres- 
 ence of the 'Holy Father' — prelates from all the 
 land — the large assemblage of surpliced priests 
 and the laity in crowded mass fillino; the sacred 
 and spacious edifice, brought to its present state 
 of completeness b}^ your unceasing efforts and 
 untiring energy, all meet and are gathered to- 
 gether here to-day to offer up praises and thanks- 
 giving for the long j)eriod vouchsafed you in 
 the ministry, to pra}^ its extension during many 
 years to come — to manifest their gratitude for 
 your labors in behalf of the holy Church. 
 
 " Fifty years ago the city which is now the 
 third in magnitude in the Union, was the rising 
 village, set upon a hill, in which your Eminence 
 first breathed the vital air, while her greater and 
 elder sister lying on the other sliore of the river 
 was proud and boastful of a population of two 
 hundred and liftj^ thousand souls. To day the 
 two just now united by hooks and cables of steel 
 dominate the nation in w^ealth andintluence. and in 
 population outnumber all the other great cities of 
 
 V 
 
TO CARDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 185 
 
 our country on the two oceans, on the mighty river 
 and gulf combined. What development, what 
 growth, what expansion, since the day your Em- 
 inence entered upon the sacred duties of the 
 priesthood ! Side by side with this unexampled 
 advance have increased also the cause and mem- 
 bership of the Roman Catholic community. 
 
 ''When a priest first visited this island of New- 
 York — even then a busy mart — the number of the 
 laity was only two. Fifty years ago the churches 
 were less than six, the clergy were few and there 
 was one religious institution; colleges were not 
 and Roman Catholic schools were well nigh un- 
 known. Now churches and chapels are counted 
 by scores — priests by the hundred and the laity 
 by hundreds of thousands. Roman Catholic 
 institutions of every kind and degree have arisen 
 everywhere throughout the city. Thus the devel- 
 opment of all that could confer power and influ- 
 ence and efiiciency has more than kept pace with 
 the material growth of the metropolis. Recog- 
 nizing these impressive facts. Pope Pius IX., of 
 blessed memory, placed the Church here on a 
 plane with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the 
 most favored parts of Christendom and accorded 
 it a representation in the Sacred College. The 
 selection of x^our EmiiKMKu^ for the (\\al((Ml honor 
 was but a fitting tributes to your life-long (hnotioii 
 to the interests of the Church ainl lilhul with joy 
 erery Roman Catiiolic iieart. For th(*s(> accmn:i- 
 
18G FATHER o'cONNOR's LETTERS 
 
 lated blessings of churches, clergy, colleges and 
 other institutions of learning the laity feel them- 
 selves in the iirst and highest degree indebted to 
 two illustrious chieftains of the Church — your 
 immediate predecessor, the first Archbishop of 
 New York, and your Eminence. How thor- 
 oughly, how profoundly and how vividly they 
 appreciate this fact is attested by their generous 
 response to every appeal, by their pious remem- 
 brance of the deceased prelate manifested on each 
 occurring occasion, and by their tender and affec- 
 tionate regard for yourself. In commemoration 
 of this joyful event, on behalf of the laity, I tender 
 your Eminence their warmest congratulations, 
 and, bowing down in profound reverence, I lay 
 at your feet this tribute of their homage and the 
 assurance of their loyal attachment and devotion 
 to your person." 
 
 Your reply to these addresses was characterized 
 by your Avonted modesty. You said you had 
 sought no other glory than that of '' the Church," 
 and that the secret of j^our success was devotion 
 to the See of Rome and the contidence and co- 
 operation of your faithful Irish followers. 
 
 The growth of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 this city and in the United States is a startling 
 fact. A few years ago the late Rev. Marinus 
 Willett, an honored Presbyterian clergyman, 
 whose grandfatlier, General Willett, was Wash- 
 ington's most trusted aid-de-camp, told me that 
 
TO CAKDINAL MCCLOSKEY. 187 
 
 lie remembered when St. Peter's Roman Catholic 
 Church in Barclay Street was opened for service, 
 and as his father' s house was directly opposite he 
 noticed that the great multitude which flocked 
 into the building was composed mainly of the 
 working classes, laborers and servants. He 
 thought then that the Roman Catholic Church 
 was destined to do good among such a class, as 
 they were all illiterate and only half- civilized. 
 But he did not anticipate the numerical growth 
 of those ''illiterate and half-civilized" Irish in 
 the city of his birth; and it was with ever -increas- 
 ing astonishment he and other Americans sa\r 
 them each year developing those qualities that 
 have made them a power in the whole country 
 and a menace to its free institutions. Mr. Willett 
 saw the home of his grandfather purchased for 
 St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church, and a con- 
 siderable portion of the large estate left by him 
 used in paying taxes to support the Roman 
 Catholic institutions in the city; he saw the ad- 
 ministration of tlie municipal affairs of New 
 York wholly in tlie hands of Roman Catholics; 
 he saw the Bible turned out of the public schools; 
 he saw tlu^ marvellous growth that has been pic- 
 tured in such glowing colors in the addresses 
 presented to you at your golden Jubilee; and he 
 felt chagrined and mortiiied that tlu^ gn^at mass 
 of the American ])e()pl(^ were so indiflenMit to the 
 danger that hiy at their doors IVoni this foreign 
 
188 FATHER O'Connor's letters 
 
 power. Others have felt like him, though little 
 has been done to counteract the evil tendencies 
 of the Romish system. Political agitation 
 against it has ceased, as it is a principle of liberty 
 that the Irishman ought to be permitted to wor- 
 ship his Popish idols with as much freedom as is 
 conceded to the pagans from other countries who 
 come to America. 
 
 The true remedy for the evils that threaten 
 America from the great power of the Roman 
 Catholic Church is in the conversion of the peo- 
 ple. We who have been Roman Catholics and 
 priests of that Church are doing our part in this 
 direction. (This is not the place to say with 
 w^hat success, though we can give thanks to God 
 that our labors have not been in vain, for many 
 have accepted the Bible way of salvation and our 
 numbers are continuall}^ increasing. I must refer 
 you to the pages of our monthly magazine, The 
 Converted Catholic, for details regarding this 
 Reformed Catholic movement.) And many Prot- 
 estants are taking the same view of the situation. 
 The Rev. Dr. S. Van Dyke in his valuable work, 
 '' Popery the Foe of the Church, and of the Re- 
 public," says, ''There are man)^ and cogent rea- 
 sons why Protestants should put forth their most 
 strenuous efforts to defeat the wily machinations 
 of their arch-enemy, and to give the masses the 
 only true antidote to Popery, the simple, unadul- 
 terated Gospel. This call to redoubled exertion is 
 
TO CAEDINAL MCCLOSK2Y. 189 
 
 found not simply in the fact that the Papacy is 
 by necessity hostile to the true Church and to 
 Republicanism, but especially in its recent energy 
 and growth. Earnest effort and unwearied vigi- 
 lance are duties we owe alike to ourselves and to 
 God. If activity is essential to healthful piety; 
 if the truth as taught by Christ is in its very 
 nature aggressive; if the true Church of God can 
 fulfil its mission in the world only by conscien- 
 tiously endeavoring to obey the commands of its 
 ascended Lord ; if, as every well instructed Prot- 
 estant firmly believes, Popery is the uncomprom- 
 ising enemy of genuine Christianity, and of 
 Republican forms of government, then most as- 
 suredly Protestants should exert themselves to 
 counteract the unparalleled efforts now made in 
 this New World to extend Rome's baneful system 
 of spiritual despotism over a country dedicated 
 to Protestantism and civil liberty," 
 
 The Roman Catholic Directory for this year 
 (1884) gives the statistics of your Church in the 
 United States, Canada, England, Ireland and 
 Scotland. Taken in connection with its day of 
 small things and weak beginning in the United 
 States, as outlined in the preceding addresses, a 
 summary of the present strength of the Roman 
 Catholic Church will be of interest: 
 
 Leo Xril. (Vincent Joachim Pecci), the present 
 Pope, claims to be the two hundred and fifty- 
 eighth successor of St. Peter, and is nn'ogiiiziHl by 
 
190 FATHER O'cONNOr's LETTERS 
 
 all Roman Catholics as the head of their Churclt 
 Under his jurisdiction are : 
 
 59 Cardinals, including yourself. 
 
 12 Patriarchs of the Latin and Oriental Rite. 
 
 176 Archbishops. 
 
 716 Bishops. 
 
 In the United States there are: 
 
 1 Cardinal. 
 
 15 Archbishops. 
 
 63 Bishops. 
 
 6,833 Priests. 
 
 And a Roman Catholic population of 6,482,396. 
 Tn this latter estimate are included all the mem- 
 bers of each family, and even the children of what 
 are called ''mixed marriages/' that is, where 
 only one of the parents is a Roman Catholic. 
 
 A well organized corps of monks and friars, 
 and 30.000 nuns, or '' sisters,*' as they are called, 
 the best disciplined army in all the world, must 
 be added to the working force of the Church. 
 
 Here is a great foreign power in America, gov- 
 erned from Rome, that is hostile to true religion, 
 the religion of the Bible, and to the institutions 
 of the country that it cannot control. What are 
 the safeguards against it ( The best is, to en- 
 lighten the people, who, when they are converted, 
 will make good citizens and good Christians. 
 Adieu, Cardinal I May you be converted is the 
 prayer of Yours very truly, 
 
 James A. O'Coxxor. 
 
^;he irf^onrerteil ^atholk^ 
 
 NOVEMBER, 188S. 
 
 PEOSPECTUS. 
 
 The title-page of this publication indicates its pur- 
 pose. Its aim is the conversion of Eoman Catholics. 
 There are many forces at work at the present day 
 that contribute to their enlightenment and ad- 
 vancement. The free public institutions of tlie 
 country, contact with the American x)eople, the posi- 
 tive and aggressive i)reaching in Christian x^ulpits, 
 the general diffusion of knowledge that compels men 
 to think for themselves, — these and other like agen- 
 *cies are doing a work that is bearing abundant fruit. 
 The "Catholic World" recently said that if all the 
 children of the Irish and German Catholic immi 
 grants continued faithful followers of Rome, there 
 would be now in America 20,000,000 Eoman Catho- 
 lics, instead of 6,000,000. It frankly avowed that a 
 great number of them had been led into Protestant 
 churches. For once, at least, this Romish organ 
 spoke tlie truth. A glance at the list of members 
 of any Protestant Church in America will show how 
 many of them bear unmistakable evidence of their 
 Eoman Catholic origin. At this i)resent writing, 
 Oct. 2, 1883, a cable despatch from Ireland says that 
 at a meeting in Galway, the Eoman Catholic J>ishoi) 
 delivered a speech in whicli he dwelt at great length 
 upon the fact that millions of Eoman Catholics have 
 been lost to the Catholic faith in America. The 
 present generation has witnessed a falling away 
 
11 TKOSPECTUS. 
 
 from the Eoman Catholic Church that can be 
 paralleled only by the Keformatiou of the six- 
 teenth century. The temporal power of the 
 Pope utterly destroyed, all Germauy arrayed 
 against Popery, France freed from Jesuitism, the 
 word of God having free course in Italy, Spain, 
 Mexico, and other countries where the people were 
 enslaved and blinded by superstition. In Eome 
 itself, the very cit^^ of the Popes, the Gospel is 
 l)reached and taught by a score of missionaries. 
 Here at home i^riests and people are leaving in vast 
 numbers, and still there are more to follow. 
 
 As a positive and timely co-worker in this movement 
 the CoxYERTED CATHOLIC comes before the public.^ 
 It shall be the voice, not only of the Eeformed Catho- 
 lic movement, but of every evangelical work that has 
 for its object the enlightenment and conversion of 
 those whom Eome has oppressed and deceived. 
 Writers of signal ability, and distinguished ministers 
 of various denominations, who were once Eoman 
 Catholics, have promised to contribute articles on 
 their own experience of that delusive system of re- 
 ligion, and the best means to be adopted for the con- 
 version of Eoman Catholics. With the aid of such 
 eminent preachers and writers the Converted 
 Catholic enters upon its career of usefulness 
 nnder the most favorable auspices. Trusting 
 in the Divine guidance for wisdom to direct it, and 
 relying on the patronage of God's people every- 
 where to support it, it asks the good wishes of all 
 for its success. 6 8 3 '^ 
 
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