Chapter III: The Confessional

As the mass is the aggregate of the Romish doctrine, the confessional is the chief of the papal system. By it the decrees of the "infallible Church" are applied and carried out with unequaled measure of minuteness and rigor.

That the New Testament requires the confession of sin is not denied; but such a thing as secret confession in the ear of a priest, to secure his absolution, was entirely unknown in the early churches. Even in Rome it was not till about the year 390 that there was a place appointed for the reception of penitents, when they stood mourning during the public service, from which they were excluded. They cast themselves upon the ground with groans and lamentations; the bishop who conducted the ceremony prostrated himself and wept; flooded with fears the people groaned aloud; then the bishop arose from his humble position and summoned up the people, and, after praying for the people, he dismissed them. This custom, with slight changes, was universal. For some sins men were required to do penance during the whole of their lives, and absolution was only granted them in death; but the common course of penance consigned men for ten, fifteen or twenty years to its various humiliating stages. After the long, distressing penance was completed, "the candidate for restoration knelt down between the knees of the bishop, or, in his absence, between those of the presbyter, who, laying his hand upon his head, solemnly blessed and absolved him. The people received him with transports of joy, as one escaped from the coils of the old serpent."

They were then received into communion with the imposition of hands, and the prayer of the whole church for them. The form of their prayer was:

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, that takest away the sin
of the world, remit, blot out and pardon their sins, both voluntary
and involuntary, whatever they have done by transgression and
disobedience. And whereinsoever thy servants have erred from thy
commandments, in word or deed, or whatever curse or peculiar anathema
they have fallen under, we pray and beseech thine ineffable goodness
to absolve them with thy word, and remit their curse and anathema,
according to thy mercy. O Lord and Master, hear our prayer for thy
servants and deliver them from eternal punishment.

Bingham informs us that the form, "I absolve you," was not known in the practice till the beginning of the thirteenth century. Thomas Aquinas was one of the first men to write in defense of it. In his day the expression excited much opposition. Pope Innocent III, ambitious to establish a number of superstitions, called the fourth Council of the Lateran, A. D. 1215, which declared that "the church has always understood that an entire confession of sins was always appointed by the Lord, and that it is of divine requirement necessary to all who have lapsed after baptism. Because our Lord Jesus Christ, when about to ascend from earth to heaven, left his priests, his vicars, to be, as it were, the presidents and judges, to whom all mortal sins into which Christ's faithful people should fall should be brought, in order that, by the power of the keys, they might pronounce sentence of remission or retention. For it is plain that the priest can not exercise this judgment without knowledge of the cause, nor can they observe equity in enjoining penalties if men declare their sins only generally, and not particularly and separately. From this it is inferred that it is right that the penitent should recount in confession all the deadly sins of which, upon examination, their conscience accuses them, even though they be the most secret, and only against the last two commandments, which not unfrequently grievously wounds the soul and are more dangerous than those which are openly practiced." This invests the priesthood with the prerogative of God himself, who is the searcher and discerner of "the thoughts and intents of the heart." To this demand all the members of the Catholic Church, whether old or young, are required to bow, as is shown by the twenty-first canon of the Lateran Council, which is as follows:

Every one of the faithful of both sexes, after he shall have reached
the years of discretion, shall, by himself alone, faithfully confess
all his sins, at least once a year, to his own priest, and strive to
perform according to his ability the penance imposed upon him,
reverently partaking of the sacrament of the eucharist, at least at
Easter; unless perhaps, by the advice of his priest, for some
reasonable cause, he should judge that for a time he should abstain
from partaking of it; otherwise, let the living be hindered from
entering the church, and let the dead be deprived of Christian burial.
On this account this salutary statute shall be frequently published in
the churches that no one may pretend as an excuse the blindness of
ignorance. But if any one should wish to confess his sins to a foreign
priest, for proper reasons, he must first ask and obtain a license
from his own priest, since otherwise he would not be able to bind or
loose him.

The confessional as it exists today is chiefly the work of the Council of Trent, and those who lived in the age immediately after. In order to strike terror to the hearts of all who might refuse to accede to the demands of the priesthood, the Council of Trent published a number of canons on penance, pronouncing the most awful curses on those who refused obedience. I have not space to give the canons, but they teach that the form of the sacrament of penance in which its force especially lies is placed in the words, "I absolve thee," and that this absolution is not in words merely, but that "the ministers of God truly absolve." The priest is declared to represent Christ in the confessional, and therefore is invested with divine attributes and powers. The language used is: "Moreover, in the priest who sits a legitimate judge over him, he should venerate the person and power of Christ the Lord; for in administering the sacrament of penance, as in the other sacraments, the priest discharges the office of Christ." They further teach that the confession of sins to a priest is necessary to salvation; and that every mortal sin, even the most secret and infamous, must be confessed to a priest, otherwise there can be no pardon from God. Thus we see that they make the priest the judge of the soul, and that in the confessional he sits instead of Jesus Christ and that he can keep the sins of any man bound upon him, or loose them, according to his discretion.

In the confessional the penitent kneels beside the priest, makes the sign of the cross, saying: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." Then with her lips near the cheek of the priest she asks the priest's blessing in these words: "Pray, father, give me your blessing. I have sinned," after which the penitent repeats:

I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to blessed
Michael, the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy
Apostles, Peter and Paul, and to you, father, that I have sinned
exceedingly, in thought, word and deed, through my fault, through my
fault, through my most grievous fault!

Many of the questions of the confessional are too horrible to quote. Were I to do so I would lay myself liable to prosecution by the Government authorities. But every question put by the priest must be answered by the penitent on the peril of damnation; he sits instead of Christ, the penitent is confessing to God, the voice of the priest is Immanuel's; it is the Almighty that is addressing the trembling penitent. And for this reason the priest hears everything, however shocking, shameful, frightful; everything in thoughts, feelings, words, looks and deeds. That the modesty of women should be placed on the rack in the confessional by a bachelor priest, full of curiosity as well as sanctity, and torn and lacerated, under the awful sanctions of the Almighty, is indeed a dreadful thought.

"The confessional is the most odious espionage ever invented by cunning despots. It is the most flagitious outrage upon the rights of husbands and wives, parents and children, the sinning and the sinned against, that ever shocked modesty or ground trembling hearts under its fatal heel. It is strongly believed to be the greatest incitement to vice that a holy God ever permitted; frightful examples of which are on record. It turns priests into odious receptacles for the accumulated stench and nastiness of all the foul corruptions of thousands, making them the sons of the Man of Sin, ready bearers of the iniquities of whole communities." Yes, it is a withering curse, a cruel tyranny, without one redeeming quality, "which the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming."