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Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les c .tes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film^s d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich), il est filmd A partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessalie. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 $ i 6 I'! r 1 THE CHURCH OF ROME. REPLY OF REV. ME. CHOIQUY TO YICAR-GEN. BRUYERE. LONDON, ONT. : FREE PRESS STEAM PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, NORTH STREET. 1870. ^ f FATHER CHINIQUY'S LECTURE. fl, Jntf v'"'\"' *" ■■<'"^-^*' °f tl>« Daily Free Press of the nth November, on the lecture delivered in this city on the previous evening by Eev. Hr. Chiniquy : ^ '' Papal bonLGExcEs, " deWedl'thrCitvm,.f r^'-'r "^""'^"-^'^ ^^»»^ ^-t"^. audion e : nySn i if '"' ''i*'^ «^^^'"^^' ^^ *^ London m.t L, ^rTd^'iXe^ Td^btlrelf ^luyere m tlie Feee Press last summer, tended ou-te »» r„„.h excite this interest as the character o he reve fna Ce "t tLTon! T^'^'r ^'^'-'''-^'"-yecoTertic^lt:: test, that one million (or less) readers would desire to hear the 2-s of the matter entertained by a converted priest Th'hal was consequently crammed in everv nart tL 1.1* \ ,1 Komish Church in regai-d to Indulgences, from the stand-point of one who is professedly an opponent of that form of religion LETTER FROM VICAR-GEN. BEUYEEE. On the 12th November the following letter from Vicar-Gen Bruyere appeared in the Free Press : 'ear-Gen. AsSEr.TION AXD CONTRADICTION. To the Editor of the Free Prm. tn!^!f \?"'T^ '**■ °''-^'"" '""''O"' '"'* *« «S'^ Of your columns ^ the means employed for the construction of said palace, are an unqualified falsehood, and I have no hesitation in saying that all his other assertions hostile to our Church are of the same character. I make this statement for the information of the Protestant citizens of London, who love justice and fair play ; otherwise I would scorn to notice the utterances of a degraded priest, whom the Church, for the best of reasons, suspended thrice, and finaUy expelled from her bosom, and who was afterwards ignominiously ejected from their communion by the Presbyterian Synod of Chicago. I leave to the dignitaries of the Anglican Church of this city the disgraceful occupation of giving aid and comfort to an apostle of lies and discord, who, as a Presbyterian, repudiates the validity of their orders. Let them hug him to their bosom as long as they like, but an intelligent public wiU judge whether thelnterest of religion, morality and truth are promoted by such means. I have the honor to be, dear sir, your obedient servant, J. M. Beuyere, V. G. REPLY. St. Anne, Kankakee Co., III., ) 21sfc December, 1869. } To the Rev. M. Bmyhc, V. G. :— Eev, Sir,— I publicly thank you for your letter in the Feee Press of the 12th November, which a friend has sent me. To have attracted tlie attention of such a logician, and a holy dignitary of the Infallible Church of Eome, is surely more than could be expected by such a wretch as you assure the public I am! Though you know that I deserve only your scorn, you are so kind as to pay some attention to me— the so manv times suspended and excommunicated Chiniquy! Eeally, laany in London wiU be jealous of my good luck; and when' they will praise your modesty, your Christian language, your prifourfd science in the art of denying, and your matchless logic they will congratulate me for the incomparable honor you confer upon me. It was my hope that I had given a pretty good brushing to Eome, but your spicy remarks give me the assurance that 1 have succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectations. Your impotent i^^ath, my dear Grand Vicar, is the best reward of my humble efforts in unmasking the greatest mystery of iniquity the world has ever seen. If you had denied only some things of what I said, perhaps your friends would have suspected that you were right, and I was ^vrong, in those particulars; but your denial "in toto" is such an evident act of weakness, that every one wiU understand that I have pierced Eome to the quick. T 6 As you deny everything that I have said, it gives nie the choice of the matters which I will present again to the intelligent people of London. It would be too long to go over the whole ground of my address. I will take only one of the errors of your infallible Church — Indulgences. Among the numberless absurdities taught by the Church of Kome, there is one wliicli seems to be above all the others. It is that the Pope does grant to certain Altars or Priests the glorious privilege of gaining -partial and plenary indulgences, even when they say their masses in a state of mortal sin, and with their souls covered with iniquities and unrepenting hearts. That doctrine is so evidently anti-christian, that you have no alterna- tive between denying it bravely or condemning your Church ; and though you know very well the guilt of your Church, your love for her is so great, that you are determined, at any cost, to conceal it — at least from the eyes of her enemies. Perhaps your bold denials might do, if you had to meet to day some of those good honest Protestants who have no idea of the extent to which the art of deceiving is carried under the teach- ings of your Church. But to-day, my dear j\Ir. Bruyere, do not forget that you have to deal with one wlio knows all your big and small tricks — all your reticence of mind, shrewd distinctions and explanations ! I have been 23 years a priest of Rome. It \^as enough to examine all its dark corners and its mysterious ways. No living man, perhaps, has studied the canons, the laws and the theologians of Rome with more earnestness than I have done. My library was composed of nearly 1200 volumes of your choicest works ; and, be sure of it, my dear Grand Vicar, I will not be fool enough to say a single word against Rome which I cannot prove. An error of fact or principle in me, ^^•hen speaking of your superstitions and your mummeries, would be such a good rope in your hands to drag me by the neck ! Then, please, be on your guard, and do not be too prompt and too free in your wholesale denials. For you may be sure of it, when you will deny a thing that I have said, I will produce the authorities of your own best theologians. When you and the greatest part of the priests of Canada and the United States say witli all your eloquence, tlwt " no plenary '^f and lary " indulgence ca^^ be gained except by a man who is sincerely " repenting, who has gone to confess and been reconciled to God," your Infallible Church, through her best theologians, tells you that you say an unciualitied falsehood. The best theologian on Indulgences is called Bouvier, who was a Bishop of ■Mans. His " Traite des Indii'igences " was put into my hands by the Archbishop of Quebec, as the most learned and reliable guide on that matter. Well, that Prince of the Church of Eome, wlio died only lately, and who, during his life, was one of the personal friends of the Pope — that learned pre- late of Ptome says, page 78 : " L'etat de grace n'est pas n^ces- ''' sair^ pour faire I'application valid^ de I'ludulgence d'un autel " privil^gio." " The state of grace is not necessary for the valid application " of the indulgence of a privileged altar." And at page 79 we read : " Mais s'il sagit d'indulgences par- " tielles ou plenieres pour lesquelles la confession ou la com- " munion ne sont pas prescrite, pent on les gagner validement, " a I'intention des morts, etant soi meme hors d'etat d'en profiter." " Plusieurs Theologiens le nient, mais le sentiment le plus com- " mun est que l'etat de gi-ace, n'est pas requis dans ce cas." " Can we gain the partial or plenary indulgence, for which " confession and communion are not prescribed, for the dead, " when we are ourselves in such a state that we cannot be bene- " fitted by them ?" " Some theologians deny it : but the most common opinion is " that the state of grace is not required in that circumstance." " Ce sentiment est soutenu par Navarre, Suarex, Silvius, " Gobat, Lacroix, Bonicina, Billuart and une infinite d'autres." " And that doctrine is supported by Navarre, Suarez, Silvius " Gobel, Lacroix, Bonacina, Billuart and an infinite number of " others." You, jVIr. Bruyere, have the gift of bravely denying that what I have said is true. But I intend to put a little difficulty in your way, by sending my volume of Bouvier to the Rev, J. Scott, of London ; and I invite all the Protestants and Roman Catholics to go aad see, with their own eyes, who has said an • 5 7 5 8 xinqualificd fahchood — the scorned, interdicted, suspended Cliin- iquy, or my good old confrere Bruyere, Grand Vicar of London ? I hope that, when you will have seen, with your eyes, that your Church, through her best theoh^gians, says positively Avhat the excommunicated priest Chiniquy has said, namely : " That " a priest, in a state of mortal sin, can gain plenary indulgences, " when he says his mass at a privileged altar " — you will surely then cease from overwhelming me with your scoiii. For it is evident that, if I ha' a said " an unqualified falsehood," in giving that doctrine as the doctrine of Eome, it is the Church of Rome herself who has taught it before you or I were born. Now% my dear Vicar General, let us come to your favorite subject: "The suspensions, interdicts, excommunications, for good reasons, of that infamous Chiniquy ! " I cannot sufficiently thank you for having brought that interesting (juestion before our common friends of London and Canada. With j)leasure 1 meet you on that ground ; and when you assure th.e public that you have nothing but scorn for me, it is a pleasure for me to assure you that I have very different sentiments in my lieart for you. I would give every drop of my blood to take away the terrible darkness by which you are surrounded. I have been a blind man just as you are to-day. I understand your misfortune. I pity you. But I love you as our common Saviour wants us to love each other. May that great and merciful Saviour open your eyes, as He has opened mine ! Before I go any farther, I must confess before God and men, with a blush on my face and regret in my heart, that I have been. like you, and with you, plunged twenty-three years in that bot- tomless sea of inifj^uity, through which the poor blind priests of Rome have to swim, day and night. I had to learn by heart, like you, the infamous questions which the Church of Rome forces every priest to learn. I had t( put those impure, immoral questions to the old and young females who were confessing their sins to me. Those questions, you know it, are of such a nature, that no prostitute would dare to put them to another ! Those questions, and the answers they elicit, are so debasing, that no man in London — you know it — except a priest of Rome, is sufficiently lost to every sense of shame as to put tliem to any woman. I was liound in conscience, as you are bound to-day, to put into the ears, tlie mind, the imagination, the heart and the soul of females, questions of such a nature, the immediate and direct tendency of •wliich — you know it — is to fill tlie mind, the memory and the hearts of both priests and females with thoughts, phantoms and temptations of such a degrading nature, that I do not know any words adequate to express them. Pagan antiquity has never seen any institution so polluting to bothsoul and body as the confessional. I know nothing more corrupting tlian the law which/orccs a female to tell all her tlioughts, desires and most secret feelings and actions to an unmarried priest. The confessional is a school of perdition. You may deny that before the Protestants, but you cannot deny it before me. My dear Mr. Bruyere, if you call me a degraded man, a degraded priest, because I have lived twenty-three years in the atmosphere of the confessional, you are right. I was a degraded man, just as you are yourself, in spite of your denials. If you call me a degTaded priest, because my lieart, my soul, my mind, as your own is to-day, were plunged into those deep w?^ers of iniquity which flow from the confessional, I confess " Guilty ! " I was degraded and polluted by the confessional just as you and all the priests of Rome are. It has required the whole blood of the great victim who died on Calvary for sinners, to purify me, and I pray that, through the same blood, you may be purified also. But now that, by the great mercy of God, I have been taken away from the ways of perdition in which you were walk''Tig with me, I have no fear to be confronted with you, or with any of those whom you call your best and most respectable priests ; and I publicly challenge you to show that I have been found guilty of anything wdiicli can make an honest man blush before men. Yes, if you can prove that an inquest has been made against me — that I have been confronted with my accusers and heard in my own defence, found guilty, and then suspended or interdicted, I consent to be dragged by you before the public wdth a rope to my neck. But if you find that the suspensions 10 and interdicts of which yon speak have been only the work of ecclesiastical tyranny and oppression — if you see that in no instance the laws of the most common equity and justice have been followed, perhaps you will be honest enough to express your regret for having put yourself amongst my slanderers. No priest of Canada has ever been so constantly honored, cherished and respected by the bishops, the priests and the people as I was, with only three or four days of exception. It is a public fact, that I was brought in triumph from one place to the other, from the remotest parts of Lower Canada to the shores of Lake Huron in Upper Canada, There is not a great city nor a small town — not a cathedral in these two Provinces — to which I have not been invited by the bishops, to address the people, and when I spoke, the churches — even the immense church of Montreal — were not large enough to contain those eager to hear .me ! I do not say those things in boasting, and as if I had deserved those honors, but only to show you how kind were my dear countrymen — people, priests and bishops — towards me. Tlie 'powers given to me by the bishop, to preach everywhere and hear confessions, were more extensive than those of any other priest, and particularly during the last years of my ministry in your Church. In 1850 after I had been a priest seventeen years — fourteen of them passed in the diocese of Quebec — when the present Archbishop of Quebpc, the Very Eev. ISI. Baillargeon, went to Eome for the first time, he desired to have a letter from me to the Pope, that he might preseuo it himself, with a little book on Temperance which I had WTitten ; and on the 18th August, 1850, that same Arch- bishop, who is stiU living, wrote me from Home : " I have pre- " sented your letter to the Sovereign Pontiff. He has received "it — I do not say with that exquisite kindness which is his " character — but more than that ; he has received it with special " marks of satisfaction and pleasure. He has reqiiested me to " teU you that he gives you his apostolical benediction, for " yourself and the holy cause of Temperance which you preach. " I feel happy to have offered from you, to the Vicar of Jesus *' Christ, a book which has brought from hi^ august lips such 11 " solemn words of approbation, and my heart is filled with joy " for having to transmit them to you." As you may be tempted to deny a document which is such a good testimony of the high character I had in the estimation of my superiors, from the day of my ordination in 1833, to the year 1850, I send it to the Rev. Mr. Scott, where friends and foes may see it. And to show to you, and to all those who take an interest in those matters, that the present Archbishop of Canada, who is your Archbishop, my dear Mr. Bruyere, had not yet lost his good opinion of me up to the very year that I left the Church of Rome, (1856) I send also another letter of his to a lady that came from Canada to take charge of my female school. In that letter he says that he sends me a chalice to say mass, and other churcli ornaments, for my chapels. But perhaps you will ask me, " Have you not been interdicted in 1851 by the Bishop of Montreal, a few days before you left Canada for the United States ? " I will tell you, yes, sir; the Bishop of jNIontreal pretended to have suspended me then. But I will give it to you to judge if that fact is not one of the most glorious of my life, and one for which I must bless God forever. For my inti^.^' v has never been more clearly showri than in that circumst That sham interdict, which was a nullity b_y nbolf — for its want of form, of justice, and of foundation, had been kept by the Bishop, and for good reasons, a secret in Canada as well as in tlio United States. By his immediate and subsequent acts the Bishop hud given me evidences that he was regretting his error, and was tr}'ing to repair it and make me forget it. But not long after I had left the Church, to my surprise, the Bishop of Montreal said that lie had interdicted me, and that he was inviting me to publish the reasons of my interdict. It was the l)est opportunity that the Providence of God had offered me to prove my innocence and the incredible excess of folly and t} ranny of this Bishop of Rome. Witliout delay I accepted the chal- lenge, and published through the French Canadian press the following letfjr, which forever confounded the poor Bishop. He 12 has never been able to reply, thoiigli it was so important for liis honor, and the interests of his Church, that he should have replied to it : "To MONSEIGNOR BOUEGET. "St. Anne, April 18th, 1857. Lord, — In your letter of the 19th March you assure the public that you have interdicted me, a few days before my leaving Canada for the United States, and you invite me to give the reasons of that sentence. I will satisfy you. On the 28th September, 1851, I found a letter on my table from you, telling me tliat you had suspended me from my ecclesiastical offices, on account of a great crime that I had committed, and of which I was accused. But the name of the accuser was not given, nor the nature of the crime. I immediately went to see you, and protesting my innocence, I requested you to give me the name of my accusers, and to allow me to be confronted to them, promising that I would prove my innocence. You refused to grant my request. " Then I fell on my knees, and with tears, in the name of God, I requested you again to grant me to meet my accusers and prove my innocence. You remrdned deaf to my prayer and unmoved by my tears ; you repulsed me with malice and airs of tyranny which I had thought impossible in you. " During the twenty-four hours after this, sentiments of an inexpressible wrath crossed my mind. I tell it to you frankly, in that terrible hour, I would have preferred to be at the feet of a heathen priest, whose knife would have slaughtered me on his altars to appease his infernal Gods, rather than to be at the feet of a man who, in the name of Jesus Christ, and under the mask of the Gospel, should dare to commit such a cruel act. You had taken away my honor — you had destroyed me with the most infamous calumny — and you had refused me every means of justification ! You had taken under your protection he cowards who were stabbing me in the dark i " Though it is hard to repeat it, I must tell it here publicly : I cursed you in that horrible day ! 13 DT llis liave " With a broken heart I went to the Jesuit College, and I showed the wounds of my bleeding soul to the noble friend who was generally my confessor, the Eev. Father Shnieder, the Director of the College. " After three days, having providentially got some reasons to suspect who was the author of my destruction, I sent some one to ask her to come to the College without mentioning my name. " When she was in the parlor, I said to Father Shnieder : ' You know the horrible iniquity of the Bishop against me — wtih the lying words of a prostitute he has destroyed me ; but please come and be the witness of my innocence.' " When in the presence of that unfortunate female, I told her: ' You are in the presence of God Almighty and two of his priests. They will be the witnesses of what you say ! Speak the truth. Say in the presence of God and of this venerable priest, if I have ever been guilty of what you have accused me to the Bishop. ' " At these words, the unfortunate female burst into tears ; she concealed her face in her hands, and with a voice half suffo- cated with her sobs, she answered : ' N"o, sir, you are not guilty of that sin ! ' " ' Confess here another truth,' I said to her, ' Is it not true that you had come to confess to me more with the desire to tempt me than to reconcile yourself to God ? ' " She said, ' Yes, sir, that is the truth.' Then I said again, ' Continue to say the truth, and I will forgive you, and God also will forgive your iniquity. Is it not through revenge for having failed in your criminal design, that you have tried to destroy me by that accusation to the. Bishop ? ' " ' Yes, sir, it is the only reason which has induced me to accuse you falsely.' " And all what I say here, at least in substance, has been heard, written and signed by the Eight Rev. Father Shneider, one of your priests, and the director of the Jesuit College. That venerable priest is stiU living in Montreal ; let the people of Canada go and interrogate liim. Let the people of Canada IW 14 also go to the Eev. M. Brassard, who has also in his hands an authenticated copy of that declaration. " Your Lordship gives to understand that I was disgraced by that sentence, some days after when I left Canada for Illinois. Allow me to give my reasons for differing from you in this matter. " There is a canon law of the Church which says : ' If a censure is unjust and unfounded, let the man againsi: whom the sentence has been passed pay no attention to it. For, before God and his Church, no unjust sentence can ])ring any injury to any one. Let the one against whom such unfounded and unjust judgment has been pronounced even take no step to annul it, for it is a nullity by itself. "You know very well that the sentence you have passed against me was null and void for many good reasons ; that it wts founded on a false testimony. Father Shneider is there ready to prove it to you, if you have any doubts. " The second reason I have to believe that you had yourself considered your sentence a nullity, and that I was not sus- pended by it from my ecclesiastical dignity and honors, is founded on a good testimony, I hope : The testimony of your Lordship himself. ■ " A few hours before my leaving Canada for the United States I went to ask your benediction, which you gave me with every mark of kindness. I then asked your Lordship to tell me frankly if I had to leave with the impression that I was dis- graced in his mind ? You gave me the assurance of the con- trary. " Then I told you that I wanted to have a public and irrefut- able testimony of your esteem. " You answered that you would be happy to give me one, and you said, ' What do you want ?' ' I wish,' I said, ' to have a chalice from your hands to offer the holy sacrifice of the mass the rest of my life.' You answered, ' I will do that w^ith plea- sure," and you gave order to one of your priests to bring you a chalice that you might give it to me. But that priest had not the key of the box containing the sacred vases ; that key was in the hands of another priest, who was absent for a few hours. ;!l 15 " I had not the time to wait, the hour of the departure of the trains had come ; I told you : Please, my lord, send that chalice to the Eev. Mr. Brassard, of Longueil, who wiil forward it to me in a few days to Chicago. And the next day, one of your Secretaries went to the Eev. Mr. Brassard, gave him the chal- ice you had promised me, which is still in my hands. And the Eev. Mr. Brassard is there still living, to be the witness of what I say — and to bring that fact to your memory if you have forgotten it. "Well, my Lord, I do believe that a Bishop will never give a chalice to a priest to say mass, when he knows that that priest is interdicted. And the best proof that you know very well that I w^as not interdicted by your rash and unjust sentence,is that you gave me that chalice as a token of your esteem, and of my honesty. &c. " Eespectfully, "C. Chiniquy. Ten thousand copies of this terrible exposure of the depravity of the Bishop were published in Montreal ! I had asked the whole people of Canada to go to the Eev. Mr. Shneider, and to the Eev. Mr. Brassard to know the trutli, Ihe Bishop remained confounded. It was proved that he had committed against me a most outrageous act of tyranny and perfidy. ; and that I was perfectly innocent and honest, and that he knew it, in the very hour that he tried to destroy my character. Probably the Bishop of Montreal had destroyed the copy of the declaration of the poor girl he had employed ; and thinking that this was the only copy which had been taken of her declaration of my innocence and honesty, he thought he could speak of the so-called inter- dict, after I was a Protestant. But in that he was cruelly mistaken. By the great mercy of God three other authenticated copies had been kept; one by the Ee^'. 3fr. Shneider himself, another by the Eev. Mr. Brassard, and another by another one whom it is not necessary to mention — and then lie had no suspicion that the revelation of his unchristian conduct, and of his determina- tion to destroy me with the false oath of a prostitute, were in :.xS«m.%i IBI the hands of too many people to be denied. The Bishop of Chicago, whom I met a few days after, told me what I was well aware of before : " that such a sentence was a perfect nullity in " every way, and that it was a disgrace only for those who were " blind enough to trample under their feet the laws of God and " men to satisfy their bad passions." And no doubt you will be of the same mind. But to show to you that even the Archbishop of Quebec, who is the Superior of the Bishop of Montreal as well as your own Superior, did not pay attention to that sentence of interdict, and that he knew its nullity, I must give another important fact. You know that one of the laws of the Society of St. Michel, to which I belonged from the 2nd day a^ter my ordination in 1833, to the year 1856, is that a priest, who is suspended, loses his position in that society, and that he cannot any more enjoy its privileges. But my name always remained among the members of that useful society of mutual protection ; and in 1853 the Archbishop of Quebec hnnself, who is the President of that so- ciety, sent me 251. from the treasury of St. Michel Society, to help me in a long sickness which I had contracted, and the Eev. Mr. Cazault, the present Administrator of the Arch Diocese of Quebec, acknowledges in a letter dated 30th Jan., 1855, my yearly contributions to the society. I send these two documents also to the Eev, J. Scott, that you may see with your own eyes that I had not lost my good name nor my honourable posi- tion, and that I had not been really attainted by the unjust and criminal sentence of the Bishop of Montreal. But to show that the Bishop of Montreal himself never thought that his unjust sentence had any effect, and that he himself never lost his good opinion of me, I also send to the Rev. Mr. Scott, for your perusal, the letter he gave me the day that I left Canada. These are his words : " October 13th, 1851. " I cannot but thank you for what you have done in our " midst, and in my gratitude towards you I wish you the most " abundant benedictions of heaven. Every day of my life I will " remember you. You will always be in my heart, and I hop© i IV 11 " that in some future day tht Providence of God will give me " some opportunity of showing to you all the gratitude I feel " for you." I ask you, will ever a Bishop say to a priest, in a written document, signed with his own hands : " I cannot but thank you for what you have done in our midst " — if that priest has been an immoral, a bad priest ? Does not the Bishop who ^vrites such words acknowledge that he was wrong in his previous hasty and unfavorable judgment ? Will the intelligent Rev. Mr. Bruyere, when he will be the Bishop of London, write to a priest, " I cannot but thank you "for what you have done in our midst. In my gratitude " towards you I pray God to pour his most abundant blessings " upon you," if he knows that that priest is an immoral and wicked man ? No, never ; nor will you give a chalice to an interdicted priest to say mass the rest of his life. Is it so that as long as a priest is in your midst he may be the most depraved man, a public scandal, a murderer of souls, yet the Bishop will like him, honour him, and overload him with every kind of public and private mark of respect. But when he leaves them to become a Protestant then they pour out on him their scorn and abuse ? By their own confession have they not done this to me ? If I was an immoral man when a priest of Rome, how is it that the Bishops have known it only after I had left their Church ? And if I were an immoral man when in their midst, why is it that the Bishops from the beginning to the end of my career gave me so many public and private marks of esteem and respect ? If they have done so are they not confessedly vrorse than what they call me ? In 1838 the Bishop of Quebec gave me the important parish of Beauport. In 1842 he placed me at the head of a still more important parish, Kamouraska. In 1849 the Bishop of Montreal, in a public document which I send also to the Rev. !^1j. Scott, puts me in the most exalted position that a priest has e\8r got — he calls me "the Apostle of Temperance of Canada," and one of his best priests. The same year he induces the Pope to send me a magnificent crucifix* which is still in my hands. In 1850 he invites the people of 18 i I ■ i Montreal, from his piilpit, in his cathedral, to come with the Hon. Judge Mondelet, to present me a golden medal, as a public token of his respect and gratitude for me. In 1851 — the day that I left Canada — he wTites me that M'hat I have done in his diocese, when working under his eyes, has filled him with grati- tude ! And the same man, after T have left the Church of Eome, says that I was an immoral priest — an interdicted and a suspended priest ! — and that on the testimony of a prostitute, who afterwards declared that slie had made a false oath to revenge herself, because she had not been able to persuade me to commit a crime with her * I ask it from you, my dear Mr. Bruyere, which of us deserves your scorn ? Is it the bishop who interdicts an innocent priest, on the lying declaration of a prostitute ? or the priest to whom every access to justice and self-defence had been refused, and who afterwards proved his integrity ? If what I declared of the infamous conduct of the Bishop had not been correct, and if the recantation of that unfortunate female, in the presence of the Eev. Father Slinieder, had not been correct also, how easy it would have been for the bishop to confound me forever, by bringing that superior of the Jesuit College as a witness of my imposture ! And how it would have been an imperious duty in Father Shneider, wlien he saw his name publicly and on the papers committed with a fact so degrading to the bishop, to come forward and publish that what I had said was a forgery ! Then Cliiniquy would have been forever and so easily confounded. But such has not been the case. The poor bishop had to pay publicly for his infamous conduct towards me, and he was left without any means of escape ; and if you are honest, it is not on Chiniquy that you will turn your scorn ; it is on the man who, forgetting all the laws of justice, of God and men, had united his efforts to those of a perjured prostitute, to destroy his innocent victim. And if you are not honest enough to see and understand this, what have I to care about your scorn ? Now let us say another word about the other interdict by Bishop O'Regan. And I tell you boldly, that if anything can be considered an honor by any man, it is to have deserved the I 19 wrath of so publicly depraved a man. Though he never inter- dictecv me, (he only threatened to do it) he found fit to publish that he had done it. But in his letter of the 20th November, 185G, where he publicly gives the reasons of that so-called sen- tence, he somewhat deranges the plan you liave, my dear Mr. Bruyere, to make my friends of Canada believe that it was on account of immorality. In tliat letter, wliich I send also to the Rev. Mr. Scott for the perusal of those ^^-]lo like to see it with their own eyes, the Bishop says : " His obstinate want of sub- " mission — his excessively violent language and conduct — " obliges me to suspend him ! " I thank and bless my God who gave me the strength to say some great truths to tlmt most immoral and tyrannical Bishop. He was such a wicked man, that several priests, among whom I was one, wrote to the Pope about his bad conduct ; and the Archbishop of St. Louis, and many other Bishops, having brought also serious complaints against that man, his diocese was taken away from his hands, and he got a bishopric in partibus infidelium, which, you know very well, means a bish- opric in the moon — and the place was just fit for the man. The sentence was never served on me in any way. The Church allowed me to pay no attention to it ; and the subse- quent excommunication having been brought by three priests, who at the time were beastly drunk, and not being signed by the Bishop nor any of his Grand Vicars or known deputies, I was bound by the laws of the Church not to pay any attention to it. The Rev. Mr. Desaulnier and Moses Brassard having come, some time later from Canada, to inquire about those rcat- ters and reconcile us to the Bishop, declared before more than 500 people that we " could not be blamed for having paid no " attention to that sentence, which was evidently and publicly " against all the known laws of the Church." But I have no bad feelings against that unfortunate man, who is dead five years ago. It is the contrary. His abominable life, his vices, his complete want of principles, which forced the Bishops of the United States to denounce him to the Pope — who condemned him at the end — have helped me much, by the mercy of God, to know what the Church of Rome has been, i i i V ; im flO what she is, and what she will be till the great day that God wiU open the eyes of her poor slaves, and bring them to the feet of Jesus, who will make them free with his words and pure with his blood. Again, when you brought against me a sentence passed, not by the Synod of Chicago, but by part of a Presbytery of only seven men, you did not know, I suppose, that that sentence was for contumacy, because I had withdrawn from its connection. You were also ignorant of the fact that I submitted that sen- tence to the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church, which venerable body, having duly inquired into all the circumstances of the case, did, before the whole world, receive me into full standing, and consider me worthy to be one of the ministers of Christ, which position, by God's grace, I now occupy. This is not the first time that a man condemned by one tri- bunal has been absolved and found innocent by another. In these circumstances no man of honor, much less a Christian, would say what you have said : " that he has nothing but scorn for that condemned." Now, my dear Mr. Bruj ere, before taking leave of you, allow me a few friendly advices. When you argue v/ith a Protestant, even one whom you call an aposta 3, as your old friend Chiniquy, never make a personal question of a question of principle, if you wish to make the people think that you have the right side, and that the irrefut- able arguments are in your favor. For the very moment you give up the arguments on the question, to drag your adversary on the ungentlemanly and unchristian ground of personal injuries and slanders, you lose your cause in the mind of an intelligent people. A man who has good reasons to support his cause, and strong arguments, has never recourse to those per- sonalities and hard names which you have used. The question between you and me is not to know who has committed most sins against the decalogue, but whether it is true or not that the Church of Eome " has established privileged " altars where priests, covered with sins, without repentance, can " say their masses, and gain plenary and partial ind\Llgences>" '^y it God he feet e with A, not )f only- ice was lection. at sen- which istances ato full .sters of one tri- her. In ihristian, lut scorn )u, allow )U cdM an personal lake tlie e irrefnt- aent you idversary personal nd of an pport his lose per- who has sther it is )rivileged tance, can ences" SI Your only business was to prove the contrary, and to show that I have not given good authorities and logical arguments. For if you cannot destroy nor weaken in any way my statement, the conclusion will be that your church has gone out of the way of the gospel. Though you could prove that when I was a priest of Rome I was as criminal as David, and as weak as Samson ; a perjurer as Peter, or a blind persecutor as Paul, this will not at all prove that I have not done well tc leave the Pope in order to follow Christ. It is just the contrary. The more wicked I was in the Church of Rome, surrounded as I was, and as you are to day, by the most pestilential atmosphere, and having before my eyes the exaiaple of a concealed, though most horrible corruption in high quarters as well as among my equals, the more imperative was the duty for me and is it for you, to go out of those ways of perdition. Do you know, my dear Mr. Bruyere, to what I have been tempted when writing this letter ? The thought has come to my mind to publish, not aU (for it would be too horrible), but a part of what I know of the inside, and almost incredible corruption of Rome ! To give, for instance, a part of the history of that Grand Vicar who was guUty of an unmentionable crime, and was never interdicted ; of thai other dignitary whose conquests were so numerous in Montreal that the ground became too hot for him, and who was not interdicted but kindly invited to go to another place. The history of that good Bishop also who, for five years, kept a fine yoimg man in his house as his confidential friend, and who had to send that faithful servant, with 500/., to the United Statss, when a very interesting circumstance proved that the fine young man was a fine young giil ! " Honi soit qui mal y pense." I was also tempted to give to the public some Very interesting details from the memoirs, not of poor Father Chiniquy (though he has some memoirs a!so), but from the memoirs of one of the most respectable Bishops of Rome, Bishop de Riccy, where it is so often said and proved " that the tiuns in Italy are the wives of priests." Happy celibataires indeed I I had some very interesting things also which yon have known, no doubt> of those three good priests in a Diocese lihiUiW ^i! I i'p ;iji:| not many miles from London, who made a very interesting voyage with young ladies, and were so kindly treated by the Holy Churcli of Rome, that one of them is now hearing the confessions of the good nuns of the City of , and the two others are in a very exalted position in the Diocese of- My intention, after having given you the correct history of those respectable and venerable priests of Rome, was to ask you, in a friendly way, without bitterness, why the Bishops should have been so hard against me, when they were so kind to others ? I have also been tempted to say why the Venerable Superior of the Seminary of became a Trappist, and why he left the Trappists to be the Chaplain of the good nuns of . It has also come to my mind to say to the world why the Bishop of Montreal was so eager and prompt to accept the accusation of a perjured prostitute to destroy m.e and seal my lips. I have been strong enough to resist that temptation, but please do not drag me any more on the burning ground of the morality of the Roman Catholic clergy ! / knoiv too miich on that question to allow you to attack me again without punishing you severely. No living man knows better than I do the Clergy. I have been fifteen years traveling among them. I have seen the imide as well as the outside of your walls. For many years I have been a serious observer of men and things ; and every day I liave put down in my book notes, which would make many knees shake in the midst of the Priests of Rome. I do not say that they are all wicked and depraved. Thanks be to God, I have found among them men who would have been almost as pure as Angels, if the confessional had not been there as a snare to pol- lute their noble hearts. But I have known enough to startle the world, if I had not more charity for my old friends of Rome than many of them have shown to me, since God in His infinite mercy has given me the Lght and the truth as it is in Jesus. If you honor me with an answer, I will be proud and happy to meet you as a gentleman on some of those high grounds of historical or theological truths and errors about which we differ. But give up that unmanly and unchristian way (which is too much the use of Roman Catholic Priests) of speaking of the real or supposed personal sins of an opponent. We are all more interesting ,ted by the earing the — , and the 3se of . history of to ask you, ops should 1 to others ? Superior of tie left the -. It has Bishop of sation of a [ have been not drag lity of the [question to severely. y. I have a the inside ars I have 'ery day I naiiy knees lOt say that xod, I have b as pure as lare to pol- L to startle is of Rome His infinite s in Jesus. 1 happy to grounds of h we differ, hich is too ting of the ire all more S3 or less great sinners, and are far tw apt to see the straw in the eyes of our poor neighbor, while we do not see the beam which is in our own. Though you have l»een a little hard on your old friend, in say- ing that you have no other sentiments but those of scorn for him, I feel gratified to you for having given me the opportunity of explaining many things wliich, I hope, it wiU be good to my friends to hear, as it has been pleasant for me to reveil. . Now, farewell— au revoir. Allow me to call myself your feUow-sinner and your devoted Brother in Christ, C. CHINIQUY.