Jose dragged himself wearily before the Supreme Pontiff and bent low.
"_Benedicite_, my erring son." The soft voice of His Holiness floated not unmusically through the tense silence of the room.
"Arise. The hand of the Lord already has been laid heavily upon you in wholesome chastening for your part in this deplorable affair. And the same omnipotent hand has been stretched forth to prevent the baneful effects of your thoughtless conduct. We do not condemn you, my son. It was the work of the Evil One, who has ever found through your weaknesses easy access to your soul."
Jose raised his blurred eyes and gazed at the Holy Father in perplexed astonishment. But the genial countenance of the patriarch seemed to confirm his mild words. A smile, tender and patronizing, in which Jose read forgiveness--and yet with it a certain undefined something which augured conditions upon which alone penalty for his culpability would be remitted--lighted up the pale features of the Holy Father and warmed the frozen life-currents of the shrinking priest.
"My son," the Pontiff continued tenderly, "our love for our wandering children is but stimulated by their need of our protecting care. Fear not; the guilty publisher of your notes has been awakened to his fault, and the book which he so thoughtlessly issued has been quite suppressed."
Jose bent his head and patiently awaited the conclusion.
"You have lain for weeks at death"s door, my son. The words which you uttered in your delirium corroborated our own thought of your innocence of intentional wrong. And now that you have regained your reason, you will confess to us that your reports, and especially your account of the recent conversation between the Cardinal-Secretary of State and the Cardinal-Bishop, were written under that depression of mind which has long afflicted you, producing a form of mental derangement, and giving rise to frequent hallucination. It is this which has caused us to extend to you our sympathy and protection. Long and intense study, family sorrow, and certain inherited traits of disposition, whose rapid development have tended to lack of normal mental balance, account to us for those deeds of eccentricity on your part which have plunged us into extreme embarra.s.sment and yourself into the illness which threatened your young life. Is it not so, my son?"
The priest stared up at the speaker in bewilderment. This unexpected turn of affairs had swept his defense from his mind.
"The Holy Father awaits your reply," the Papal Secretary spoke with severity. His own thought had been greatly ruffled that morning, and his patience severely taxed by a threatened mutiny among the Swiss guards, whose demands in regard to the quant.i.ty of wine allowed them and whose memorial recounting other alleged grievances he had just flatly rejected. The m.u.f.fled cries of "_Viva Garibaldi!_" as the pet.i.tioners left his presence were still echoing in the Secretary"s ears, and his anger had scarce begun to cool.
"We are patient, my Cardinal-Nephew," the Pontiff resumed mildly. "Our love for this erring son enfolds him." Then, turning again to Jose, "We have correctly summarized the causes of your recent conduct, have we not?"
The priest made as if to reply, but hesitated, with the words fluttering on his lips.
"My dear son"--the Holy Father bent toward the wondering priest in an att.i.tude of loving solicitation--"our blessed Saviour was ofttimes confronted with those possessed of demons. Did he reject them? No; and, despite the accusations against us in your writings, for which we know you were not morally responsible, we, Christ"s representative on earth, are still touched with his love and pity for one so unfortunate as you. With your help we shall stop the mouths of calumny, and set you right before the world. We shall use our great resources to save the Rincon honor which, through the working of Satan within you, is now unjustly besmirched. We shall labor to restore you to your right mind, and to the usefulness which your scholarly gifts make possible to you. We indeed rejoice that your piteous appeal has reached our ears. We rejoice to correct those erroneous views which you, in the temporary aberration of reason, were driven to commit to writing, and which so unfortunately fell into the hands of Satan"s alert emissaries. Your ravings during these weeks of delirium shed much light upon the obsessing thoughts which plunged you into mild insanity. And they have stirred the immeasurable depths of pity within us."
The Holy Father paused after this unwontedly long speech. A dumb sense of stupefaction seemed to possess the priest, and he pa.s.sed his shrunken hands before his eyes as if he would brush away a mist.
"That this unfortunate book is but the uttering of delirium, we have already announced to the world," His Holiness gently continued. "But out of our deep love for a family which has supplied so many ill.u.s.trious sons to our beloved Church we have suppressed mention of your name in connection therewith."
The priest started, as he vaguely sensed the impending issue. What was it that His Holiness was about to demand? That he denounce his journal, over his own signature, as the ravings of a man temporarily insane? He was well aware that the Vatican"s mere denial of the allegations therein contained, and its attributing of them to a mad priest, would scarcely carry conviction to the Courts of Spain and Austria, or to an astonished world. But, for him to declare them the garbled and unauthentic utterances of an aberrant mind, and to make public such statement in his own name, would save the situation, possibly the Rincon honor, even though it stultify his own.
His Holiness waited a few moments for the priest"s reply; but receiving none, he continued with deep significance:
"You will not make it necessary, we know, for us to announce that a mad priest, a son of the house of Rincon, now confined in an asylum, voiced these heretical and treasonable utterances."
The voice of His Holiness flowed like cadences of softest music, charming in its tenderness, winning in its appeal, but momentous in its certain implication.
"In our solicitude for your recovery we commanded our own physicians to attend you. To them you owe your life. To them, too, we owe our grat.i.tude for that report on your case which reveals the true nature of the malady afflicting you."
The low voice vibrated in rhythmic waves through the dead silence of the room.
"To them also you now owe this opportunity to abjure the writings which have caused us and yourself such great sorrow; to them you owe this privilege of confessing before us, who will receive your recantation, remit your unintentional sins, and restore you to honor and service in our beloved Church."
Jose suddenly came to himself. Recant! Confess! In G.o.d"s name, what?
Abjure his writings, the convictions of a lifetime!
"These writings, my son, are not your sane and rational convictions,"
the Pontiff suggested.
Jose still stood mute before him.
"You renounce them now, in the clear light of restored reason; and you swear future lealty to us and to Holy Church," the aged Father continued.
"Make answer!" commanded one of the Cardinal-Bishops, starting toward the wavering priest. "Down on your knees before the Holy Father, who waits to forgive your venial sin!"
Jose turned swiftly to the approaching Cardinal and held up a hand.
The man stopped short. The Pontiff and his a.s.sociates bent forward in eager antic.i.p.ation. The valet fell back, and Jose stood alone. In that tense mental atmosphere the shrinking priest seemed to be transformed into a Daniel.
"No, Holy Father, you mistake!" His voice rang through the room like a clarion. "I do not recant! My writings _do_ express my deepest and sanest convictions!"
The Pontiff"s pallid face went dark. The eyes of the other auditors bulged with astonishment. A dumb spell settled over the room.
"Father, my guilt lies not in having recorded my honest convictions, nor in the fact that these records fell into the hands of those who eagerly grasp every opportunity to attack their common enemy, the Church. It lies rather in my weak resistance to those influences which in early life combined to force upon me a career to which I was by temperament and instinct utterly disinclined. It lies in my having sacrificed myself to the selfish love of my mother and my own exaggerated sense of family pride. It lies in my still remaining outwardly a priest of the Catholic faith, when every fiber of my soul revolts against the hypocrisy!"
"You are a subject of the Church!" the Papal Secretary interrupted.
"You have sworn to her and to the Sovereign Pontiff as loyal and unquestioning obedience as to the will of G.o.d himself!"
Jose turned upon him. "Before my ordination," he cried, "I was a voluntary subject of the Sovereign of Spain. Did that ceremony render me an unwilling subject of the Holy Father? Does the ceremony of ordination const.i.tute the Romanizing of Spain? No, I am not a subject of Rome, but of my conscience!"
Another dead pause followed, in which for some moments nothing disturbed the oppressive silence. Jose looked eagerly into the delicate features of the living Head of the Church. Then, with decreased ardor, and in a voice tinged with pathos, he continued:
"Father, my mistakes have been only such as are natural to one of my peculiar character. I came to know, but too late, that my life-motives, though pure, found not in me the will for their direction. I became a tool in the hands of those stronger than myself. For what ultimate purpose, I know not. Of this only am I certain, that my mother"s ambitions, though selfish, were the only pure motives among those which united to force the order of priesthood upon me."
"Force!" burst in one of the Cardinal-Bishops. "Do you a.s.sume to make the Holy Father believe that the priesthood can be _forced_ upon a man? You a.s.sumed it willingly, gladly, as was your proper return for the benefits which the Mother Church had bestowed upon you!"
"In a state of utmost confusion, bordering a mental breakdown, I a.s.sumed it--outwardly," returned the priest sadly, "but my heart never ceased to reject it. Once ordained, however, I sought in my feeble way to study the needs of the Church, and prepare myself to a.s.sist in the inauguration of reforms which I felt she must some day undertake."
The Pontiff"s features twitched with ill-concealed irritation at this confession; but before he could speak Jose continued:
"Oh, Father, and Cardinal-Princes of the Church, does not the need of your people for truth wring your hearts? Turn from your zealous dreams of world-conquest and see them, steeped in ignorance and superst.i.tion, wretched with poverty, war, and crime, extending their hands to you as their spiritual leaders--to you, Holy Father, who should be their Moses, to smite the rock of error, that the living, saving truth may gush out!"
He paused, as if fearful of his own rushing thought. Then: "Is not the past fraught with lessons of deepest import to us? Is not the Church being rejected by the nations of Europe because of our intolerance, our oppression, our stubborn clinging to broken idols and effete forms of faith? We are now turning from the wreckage which the Church has wrought in the Old World, and our eyes are upon America. But can we deceive ourselves that free, liberty-loving America will bow her neck to the mediaeval yoke which the Church would impose upon her? Why, oh, why cannot we see the Church"s tremendous opportunities for good in this century, and yield to that inevitable mental and moral progression which must sweep her from her foundations, unless she conform to its requirements and join in the movement toward universal emanc.i.p.ation! Our people are taught from childhood to be led; they are willing followers--none more willing in the world! But why lead them into the pit? Why muzzle them with fear, oppress them with threats, fetter them with outworn dogma and dead creed? Why continue to dazzle them with pagan ceremonialism and oriental glamour, and then, our exactions wrung from them, leave them to consume with disease and decay with moral contagion?"
"The man is mad with heresy!" muttered the Pontiff, turning to the Cardinal-Bishops.
"No, it is not I who is mad with heresy, but the Holy Church, of which you are the spiritual Head!" cried the priest, his loud voice trembling with indignation and his frail body swaying under his rapidly growing excitement. "She is guilty of the d.a.m.nable heresy of concealing knowledge, of hiding truth, of stifling honest questionings! She is guilty of grossest intolerance, of deadliest hatred, of impurest motives--she, the self-const.i.tuted, self-endowed spiritual guide of mankind, arrogating to herself infallibility, superiority, supreme authority--yea, the very voice of G.o.d himself!"
The priest had now lost all sense of environment, and his voice waxed louder as he continued:
"The conduct of the Church throughout the centuries has made her the laughing-stock of history, an object of ridicule to every man of education and sense! She is filled with superst.i.tion--do you not know it? She is permeated with pagan idolatry, fetishism, and carnal-mindedness! She is pitiably ignorant of the real teachings of the Christ! Her dogmas have been formed by the subtle wits of Church theologians. They are in this century as childish as her political and social schemes are mischievous! Why have we formulated our doctrine of purgatory? Why so solicitous about souls in purgatorial torment, and yet so careless of them while still on earth? Where is our justification for the doctrine of infallibility? Is liberty to think the concession of G.o.d, or of the Holy Father? Where, oh, where is the divine Christ in our system of theology? Is he to be found in materialism, intolerance, the burning of Bibles, in hatred of so-called heretics, and in worldly practices? Are we not keeping the Christ in the sepulcher, refusing to permit him to arise?"
His speech soared into the impa.s.sioned energy of thundered denunciation.
"Yes, Holy Father, and Cardinal-Bishops, I _am_ justified in criticizing the Holy Catholic Church! And I am likewise justified in condemning the Protestant Church! All have fallen woefully short of the glory of G.o.d, and none obeys the simple commands of the Christ.
The Church throughout the world has become secularized, and worship is but hollow consistency in the strict performance of outward acts of devotion. Our religion is but a hypocritical show of conformity. Our asylums, our hospitals, our inst.i.tutions of charity? Alas! they but evidence our woeful shortcoming, and our persistent refusal to rise into the strength of the healing, saving Christ, which would render these obsolete inst.i.tutions unnecessary in the world of to-day! The Holy Catholic Church is but a human inst.i.tution. Its worldliness, its scheming, its political machinations, make me shudder--!"
"Stop, madman!" thundered one of the Cardinal-Bishops, rushing upon the frail Jose with such force as to fell him to the floor. The Pontiff had risen, and sunk again into his chair. The valet hurried to his a.s.sistance. The Papal Secretary, his face contorted with rage, and his throat choking with the press of words which he strove to utter, hastened to the door to summon help. "Remove this man!" he commanded, pointing out the prostrate form of Jose to the two Swiss guards who had responded to his call. "Confine him! He is violent--a raging maniac!"
A few days later, Padre Jose de Rincon, having been p.r.o.nounced by the Vatican physicians mentally deranged, as the result of acute cerebral anaemia, was quietly conveyed to a sequestered monastery at Palazzola.