Although, on every day in the year, the suffrages of all cla.s.ses may be offered in favour of souls in purgatory, there are some days especially privileged and set apart in the calendar for the purpose, with this note affixed to them, _dia de anima_ (Soul-day), and on which the effect of the suffrage is supposed to be infallible; that is to say, that each devout person draws out as many souls from purgatory as pieces of money which he draws out of his purse to pay for the like number of ma.s.ses, or other acts of devotion to be performed. On those days, a large placard is erected at the church-doors, and bearing this inscription, "_Hoy se saca anima_," (To-day souls are drawn out). The churches are full of people, and the contributions of money are numerous and abundant.
The prayer especially consecrated to the drawing souls out of purgatory, and which forms an essential part of the office for the dead, is called in Spanish _responso_. It is composed of three anthems taken from the book of Job, a paternoster, and a collect, and ends with the formula, _Requiem eternam dona eis_, _Domine_. When the prayer is in favour of all souls, the _eis_ remains in the plural; but if it is in favour of one particular soul, then the singular _ei_ is used. On the day of All Souls, when an innumerable crowd of people a.s.sembles in the cemeteries, the priests also attend in great numbers to say _responsos_, at so much a-piece, for those who desire them. In a certain Spanish city, which we forbear to name, we have seen these priests rival each other in lowering the prices current of these precious performances. One was crying out, "I say a _responso_ for tenpence;" {148a} and another, "I say it for fivepence." {148b} This may appear incredible, but it is an undeniable fact.
In all Roman Catholic churches there is a _cepillo_ (alms-box), nailed to the wall, and having this inscription upon it, "_Para las benditas almas del purgatorio_," (For the blessed souls in purgatory), for the reception of contributions: and the circ.u.mstance has given rise to an operation of mercantile character which is certainly very ingenious, and to which some Spaniards attribute the origin of bills of exchange. The priest of a parish of Andalusia, for example, has occasion for a certificate of the baptism or of the burial of some person in a parish of Arragon or in Navarre. The fee for this doc.u.ment is usually two pesetas. As it is almost impossible to send so small a sum from one extremity of the Peninsula to the other, the priest of Arragon or of Navarre draws two pesetas from the _cepillo_, or alms-box of his parish, and the Andalusian priest puts the same sum into the _cepillo_ of his parish, _or he says two ma.s.ses as an equivalent_. In this way purgatory is converted into a kind of clearing-house, which wonderfully facilitates the transaction of business in the funds of the ecclesiastical market.
A circ.u.mstance peculiar to the worship celebrated in favour of souls in purgatory is the prodigality of lighted candles which are consumed on those occasions. There is no doubt that the object of this practice is to expose to the view of the faithful a lively image of the flames by which these souls are tormented in their probationary state. A traveller, worthy of credit, a.s.sures us that the wax consumed with this object in the city of Granada alone (in which there are about forty churches), on the day of All Souls, amounted, a few years ago, to the incredible sum of 10,000.
The cenotaphs placed in the churches when the funeral rites of some rich man are celebrated, are, in truth, nothing but perfect pyramids of burning flames produced by wax candles. It is a common belief, maintained in the pulpit and in the confessional, that the brighter these candles burn the more efficacious will be the suffrages. The royal family of Spain has had the good taste to avoid this error. In the magnificent monastery of the Escurial, where the remains of deceased members of the royal family are deposited, all show is reduced to a sumptuous carpet of black velvet, worked with gold, and spread out upon the floor, on the centre of which is a cushion of the same materials, and upon that a royal crown of gold. At the extremities are placed four immense candelabra of solid silver, called _blandones_, with their corresponding wax candles of various diameters and sizes.
From what has been said in this chapter the reader may form some idea of the immense sums of money which the clergy absorb by virtue of this belief in the dogma of purgatory. When he reflects that those contributions are upon a more liberal scale than any others which the Spanish nation pays, and that the product is sunk by the most unproductive of all the cla.s.ses in society, he will then be able to arrive at some conjecture as to who and what are the Roman Catholic clergy of Spain. These contributions, be it remembered, are paid, on every day in the year, in all parts of the Peninsula, and by persons of every category in the nation, from the very meanest to the most elevated in rank. The means employed to wring these sums from the contributors are infallible in their effects. The attack is made, indiscriminately, by appeals to charity, family affection, and reciprocal duties of parents, children, brothers, and sisters. The act of liberating a Christian soul from the dreadful torments which purgatory is supposed to inflict, however opposed to reason may be the idea of operating by material fire upon the incorporeal essence of the soul, is considered superior, in the estimation of every sensible and Christian heart, to any succour which can be given to hunger, misery, nakedness, or other numerous corporal afflictions. In this way the money which might be spent in wiping the tears from the cheek of the widow and the orphan, and be applied to the erection of useful human inst.i.tutions, is prodigally spent in a mysterious and incomprehensible operation, which, after all, is a purely human invention, and which, by its practical results, and the great amount of wealth it draws to the Roman Catholic Church, bears a greater affinity to a financial operation than to any religious duty.
It would be almost impossible to calculate the advantages which would have resulted to the Spanish nation from those great resources, if the product had been applied in the construction of roads, ca.n.a.ls, or other useful labours. But this immense capital being thus spread about in small fractions, the inevitable consequence has been a continual draining of the public wealth, the perpetuating of a theological error (contradicted by Holy Scripture, and by the true doctrine of the church of Christ), and that pomp and splendour which the clergy are enabled to a.s.sume by such abundant means, in addition to the funds received by them from other sources.
CHAPTER VIII.
Auricular Confession, a sacrament inseparable from that of communion-Obligatory on all once a-year-Plan of discovering defaulters-How punished-Evils of confession-Power of the priest-Four evils pointed out-Discoveries in the Inquisition in 1820-Facility of obtaining absolution-Louis XIV.-Robbers and a.s.sa.s.sins-The confessional-Practice, how conducted-Expiatory acts-Refusal of absolution-A husband disguised as his wife"s confessor-The injunction of secrecy on part of confessor-Advantages of the knowledge he gains-Jesuits advocate the confessional-No fees for confession, but gratuities are generally given.
Confession is one of the sacraments of the Church of Rome. Roman Catholicism, at least in Spain, requires that all believers shall celebrate that sacrament, as well as the sacrament of the Lord"s Supper, at least once a-year. Confessors amplify this obligation, and require their penitents to observe both these sacraments frequently. Devout persons who aspire to greater spiritual perfection practise these observances once a week. Still, however, the church is satisfied with an annual celebration of them by each of its members, and fixes the period for that performance at Easter. The infraction of this rule is considered a mortal sin, and the clergy use every possible means to enforce the precept. The two sacraments are inseparable, and to obey the injunction of confession and communion is called "to comply with the church," (_c.u.mplir con la Iglesia_).
The method employed by the clergy to discover delinquents with reference to these obligations, is as rigid and severe as any that can be devised by the most despotic civil authority. About the middle of Lent the priest and one of his a.s.sistants form a general census of all their parishioners. In the acts of confession and communion, the penitent receives two tickets, which certify his obedience to the paschal precept, and when the a.s.signed period is over for these observances, the priest goes from house to house to gather the tickets; so that it is impossible to conceal any infraction of the rule. Until within the last few years, it was the custom to write the names of all defaulters upon a board, exposed to public view in the churches, by way of punishment of the delinquents; and, consequently, those who were the subjects of this punishment were badly looked upon by the towns-people, and considered as atheists and heretics. The result of this absurd penal code was, that men preferred sacrilege to dishonour, and complied externally with the precept, making an imperfect confession, receiving the eucharist in a state of culpability, and committing, consequently, in the eyes of a Roman Catholic, one of the blackest crimes. Whether it was on account of a grave inconvenience resulting from this mode of punishment, or by virtue of that decay in the ecclesiastical influence in Spain, so notable in recent years, we cannot determine, but that practice has now been completely abolished; and even in Madrid and the princ.i.p.al cities of the kingdom, the "complying with the church" has lost its compulsory character, and been reduced to those who truly believe in its efficacy.
It is true that the clergy still give tickets, as testimonials, to those who perform acts of confession and communion, but they have not the temerity to go from house to house to collect them as formerly, and the clergy who would venture to demand them would be exposed to mortification and rebuke. Still, however, in some families, the children are bound in duty to prove before the paternal tribunal their compliance with those obligations, by means of those official doc.u.ments; but even this test is easily evaded by the purchase of the tickets, which are publicly sold in the churches by the sacristans and other inferior agents of the priesthood, for the moderate sum of a _peseta_, (ten-pence.)
The practice of confession, however, is not quite extinct, particularly among the inferior cla.s.ses of society, and it is natural that the clergy should represent it as absolutely necessary to the salvation of souls, looking to the great advantages which they themselves derive from it. By means of the sacrament of confession, the confessor makes himself the absolute master of the conscience of his penitent,-not merely of his own secrets, but of those of his whole family; he directs all their operations, and superintends all their domestic concerns, as well as their social and even their political affairs. The confessor has constantly suspended over the head of his penitent the terrible menace of eternal punishment. It is not the pure and genuine law of G.o.d which the devotee observes,-it is the law of G.o.d explained, augmented, or diminished, and often distorted, by the voice of a fallible man, only his equal, and perhaps vastly inferior to him in point of erudition and purity of morals. The devotee has no right to obey G.o.d in the way he understands the precepts imposed upon him by G.o.d and G.o.d"s church. In his view, G.o.d and the church are a sort of concrete centred in the confessor. The confessor not only directs him, but punishes him with the severest penances that a confessor can enjoin, for the penal code of the confessional not only embraces the religious practices of fasting, alms, scourging, and other inflictions, which are entirely at the disposal of that terrible judge, but he has, or a.s.sumes to have, the power of denying absolution; that is to say, of condemning the soul to the terrible state of mortal sin, of interposing himself between the sinner and the divine mercy, and of annulling the consoling hopes of Him who in compa.s.sion to human weakness has said, "I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live." The confessor is just as frail, as mortal, as subject to human weakness, as susceptible of human pa.s.sions and vices, as the penitent himself. The character he a.s.sumes to perform, by the imposition of his hands, does not allay in him either the violence of appet.i.te, or the claims of self-interest. How is it possible to believe that, in the exercise of his ministry, he can entirely rid himself of sentiments of hatred, sympathy, rancour, and envy, with respect to the man or woman who kneels at his feet, imploring through him the pardon of sin?
People greatly deceive themselves who imagine that the confessional, at least in Spain, bears the least a.n.a.logy to the case of a man who, burthened with sorrow and repentance, comes in confidence to deposit the weight of the burden which oppresses him on the bosom of his friend. No; do not believe that the penitent hopes to find in the confessor a kind consoling guide to wipe away his tears, pour into his bosom the balm of hope, and present to him an endearing hand which may lead him in the way of holiness. The confessor is an implacable judge, who speaks with gentle smiles or bland insinuations, but who tears out, with an imperious tone and formidable menaces, the secrets of the heart, and not only those which may be connected with crime worthy of deep contrition and sincere repentance, but even others which pertain to an order of things exempt from the sinfulness attaching to human actions. The confessor has an absolute right to know every thing without exception. The most insignificant actions, and even the most innocent ones, must come to his knowledge. He is not content with the spontaneous declaration that the penitent feels disposed to make of all infractions of duty; but he insists on examining the case with the most scrupulous minuteness, and takes as much pains as would a clever, cunning lawyer to extract every particle of evidence from the witnesses for or against a culprit on his trial. Under this last point of view, auricular confession may be considered as the most tyrannical, odious, and unmoral inst.i.tution, which superst.i.tion, leagued with sordid interests, could ever have invented.
Innumerable are the abuses made of this wicked instrument by the Spanish clergy, and which have resulted in the abandonment of the confessional by every educated, discreet, and intelligent man. Of those abuses we shall only point out four of the most important, and which have most efficaciously contributed to bring auricular confession into disrepute.
_First_. The great interest of the clergy being to consolidate the papal power, the confession serves to ascertain the extent of hostilities raised against that power by philosophy, impiety, the tendency to religious reform, and the general spirit of the age. The confessor asks every penitent whether he has any prohibited or simply profane books; if he, or his parents, or his friends, listen to the conversation or discourse of heretics, or murmur against the ecclesiastical power, or satirise the conduct of the clergy, or even attend b.a.l.l.s, theatres, or other profane amus.e.m.e.nts. Many confessors give to these things infinitely greater importance than to the infraction of the Decalogue.
If the answer to these questions is in the affirmative, then the confessor requires, under pain of refusing absolution, that such books be given up,-that all further communication with the enemies of the church be discontinued,-and that such carnal entertainments as b.a.l.l.s and theatres, and the like, be renounced for ever.
_Secondly_. As the exorbitant ecclesiastical power of the Church of Rome is bound up intimately, and by a well-known a.n.a.logy, with absolute power and civil despotism, the confessional is converted into a political engine by a true espionage, by means of which is discovered every liberal tendency, every germ of conspiracy or rebellion, and every thing that can offend the supreme authority.
In the epoch of the restoration of Ferdinand VII. to Spain, after his captivity in France, when the persecution of the liberal party became the essence of that monarch"s policy, the confessors were actively occupied, by command of the bishops, in these odious examinations and inquiries.
Thus, the wife was made to denounce the husband, the son the father, and the friend the friend. Peace, thus disturbed, flew from the abodes of families; the clergy acquired new rights to the hatred of the nation,-for many were the persecutions to which the accusations, thus dragged from the weakness of penitents, gave rise. Freemasonry was considered then not only as a political crime, but as a challenge to pontifical bulls, which were fulminated against the mystery with violent anathemas. The penitent saw himself obligated to accuse, before the tribunal of the Inquisition, any persons whom he knew to be members of a lodge, although bound to such persons by the ties of kindred or friendship.
_Thirdly_. The most dangerous use of the power of examination, which the confessor exercises, is that of interrogating persons of the weaker s.e.x.
A woman who once kneels before a confessor renounces from that moment the most n.o.ble, the most pure, and the most amiable of the sentiments which can animate the bosom of her s.e.x. The searching voice and tone of her judge breaks down with violence, at once, all those barriers which modesty and self-respect by turns have raised up in her heart and conscience. Not only is she compelled to reveal the positive acts, gestures, and words, containing the least element of culpability or blame against the chast.i.ty and purity of her habits, but even the most vague and inevitable thoughts,-those against which woman recoils with indignation, and which she would even blush and refuse to give an account of to herself,-have all to be expressed and uttered by her lips without the least palliation or disguise. It is a fact generally admitted in Spain, and one spoken of without reserve in all cla.s.ses of society, that the most uncontaminated and pure maiden rises from the confessional as well instructed in things of which before she was absolutely ignorant, as though she had come from a house of the vilest character. It is enough to indicate the nature of this abuse, in order to form some idea of its pernicious consequences. Women worthy of credit have declared over and over again that their first visit to the confessional opened the way to their perdition, by inflaming the imagination with ideas of a most voluptuous and obscene nature, and exciting their curiosity on subjects which had never before even entered into the mind or conception. Should any person doubt these statements, let him turn to any book of Roman Catholic devotion, which contains what is called, in ecclesiastical language, "examination of the conscience." The famous treatise, "_De Matrimonio_," cited in our introduction, by the Jesuit Sanchez, for the use of confessors of married women, contains particulars so filthy, and pictures, descriptive of certain sins, so utterly disgusting and obscene, that even the Court of Rome has been obliged to order all copies of the work to be bought up and suppressed.
_Fourthly and finally_. Another of the great dangers of the indefinite authority of the confessor, with respect to penitents of the weaker s.e.x, is the facility it offers for seduction.
Consider the situation of a single man in the presence of a young and beautiful woman, alone with her, and master of her conscience and all the secrets of her heart. How much denial, how much virtue must he not possess to resist the temptation which such circ.u.mstances bring before him! That great crimes do very commonly result from such circ.u.mstances in Roman Catholic countries, is proved by the existence of the penalties which the canon law imposes on the authors of such crimes, in the book which goes by the t.i.tle of "_De Solicitante in Confessione_." In almost all the cities of Spain are recounted scandalous examples of this cla.s.s of abuses, and it is generally believed that in the greater number of the cases, criminal relations between the clergy and women of all cla.s.ses had their origin in the confessional. When the people in Spain rose against the Inquisition in 1820, and sacked the archives of that tribunal, they found numerous informations by modest women against their confessors, who had a.s.sailed their virtue in the confessional. The interests of the clergy required that a veil should be thrown over those excesses, and thus we find but very few instances in which the Inquisition awarded punishment to the culprits.
With such efficacious instruments of power and of influence, it is not surprising that the clergy and friars should wield an authority, without limit, over all the affairs of families. Spaniards, who are old enough to remember the moral state of their country towards the end of the last century, are well aware that there was scarcely a family of any importance in Spain which was not blindly subjected to the advice and even orders of some individual member of the priesthood. Nothing could be done without such advice and sanction. The clergy had great influence in the marriages, domestic disputes, business, studies, and even diversions, of all who recognised their superiority. They prohibited the reading of the most innocent books,-even those respected by "the Index."
They exacted acts of devotion, such as ma.s.ses, romerias, novenas, and others, from which there resulted constant droppings of money into the coffers of the church. In short, it may be taken as a fact, that, until the period of the French invasion, the true government of the Spanish nation had been a theocracy in the hands of forty or fifty thousand individuals, freed from all responsibility with respect to the civil power, united among themselves by the bonds of a common interest, and forming a privileged caste, considered generally as the depositaries of divine power. All this rested upon the basis of confession.
But the most deplorable inconvenience of these practices, and that which makes it incompatible with the public morals, is the facility of pardon offered for those criminal excesses and to the most abandoned depravity.
He who can be a.s.sured of the efficacy of a remedy which is at his disposition every moment does not fear exposing himself to temptation.
The most obstinate sinner, the perpetrator of the most atrocious crimes, knows that he has in his hand, already, absolution for all his excesses,-that he is free from all responsibility and all consequences,-and, in a word, that he can transform himself into a saint or an angel by the mere performance of the rite which his church prescribes. If, after this purification, he returns to his old habits, and gives himself up to his wicked inclinations, the same process of absolution is at hand, and can be repeated as often as he pleases; and as the administration of this sacrament, on the part of the priest, becomes, through force of repet.i.tion, a mere matter of routine, it can hardly be supposed that the words he utters can carry along with them any efficacy, as they might be expected to do if they were those of a truly devoted minister of Jesus Christ. To a.s.sure oneself of these truths, let any one attend a Spanish church on one of those days on which it is necessary "_to comply with the church_," and draw near to those confessional-boxes which are there erected for the use of the penitents. He will there see people successively throw themselves down on their knees before a priest, p.r.o.nounce a few words, hear a slight admonition, and then rise up to make way for another person who in his turn does the like, and so on during the day. Can any one believe that this almost insignificant ceremony is sufficient to impress on any mind that profound feeling, that intense grief for past sins, and that firm resolve to sin no more, which are the true signs of contrition and repentance? Can it be believed that the treasures of divine mercy and forgiveness are open to all comers, who, persisting in their sinful course, think fit to come, and, as a matter of right, demand them as they would pa.s.sports at the office of the police?
It is well known that even Louis XIV., notorious for his open and profligate as well as habitual adulteries, had a confessor, and complied with the duties of confession and communion in the presence of his whole court. In Spain, robbers, a.s.sa.s.sins, and the most corrupt of the people, pursued by justice for their crimes, and who are the terror of society, always confess and receive the eucharist at Easter, but without ever amending their lives or even intending to do so.
The priest, before saying ma.s.s, in which rite he is about to identify himself with what he supposes to be the very body of our Saviour, is bound to purify himself previously, so that in that awful ceremony the holy elements may not enter a temple wherein dwelleth sin. The greater number of those priests say ma.s.s every day, but seldom are they seen, before a.s.suming the sacred vestments to officiate at the altar, to prepare themselves by means of confession, as the rules of their religion most strictly enjoin. There are innumerable towns in Spain in which there are no other clergymen than the parish priest. In what state then must _his_ soul be when he approaches the altar to eat and drink, as he professes to believe, the body and blood of Jesus Christ?
These considerations are so obviously natural and simple, that it has required six centuries of civil and religious oppression to hide them under the weight of ignorance and the fear of punishment. Nevertheless, the invasion of the French, the political revolutions which have followed, intercourse with foreign nations, and other causes which have co-operated with these, have at last begun to open the eyes of Spaniards, and confession is daily falling into disuse, particularly among the educated cla.s.ses of society. Even in these same cla.s.ses, however, there are many persons who, although persuaded of the truth of all that their clergy teach them, refuse to confess, and declare that they will do so only at the hour of death. Confession is, in the present day, more common in the inferior ranks; for these move in a sphere without the pale of civilization, and consequently are yet under the clerical power.
Still, there are villages in Spain in which the bad example of the priest, and the enmity which is manifested towards him by the inhabitants, prevent the compliance with those sacraments, so that for years together the great majority of the people never think of purifying their consciences in the way prescribed by their church. In the eyes of a true Roman Catholic, these people are therefore living in a state of complete reprobation, and are destined to perdition. And yet, how can a human being throw himself at the feet of a man whom he despises? How can he ask absolution of a man who he knows requires it more, perhaps, than himself? And, above all, how can he confide the consciences and souls of his daughters to a man who carries seduction in his eyes and pollution on his lips?
The act of confession is practised after the following manner:-First of all, the penitent makes, whilst alone, a private examination of the heart and conscience, according to the instructions of books written with this special object in view, some of which have justly merited the censures pa.s.sed upon them by the English press, in citing them by way of argument against Parliamentary grants in favour of the college of Maynooth. The hour of confession arrived, the penitent kneels before the priest, who is seated in a kind of sentry-box, called the confessional, open in front, and having the two sides of trellis-work, by which the priest is separated from actual contact with the woman who comes to confess. This confessional is placed in the church. Those who have visited the churches and cathedrals on the continent of Europe may have seen several of them in almost every one of these. Thus the confession may be said to be made in public, for the rite is most frequently performed when there is a crowd a.s.sembled, so that persons nearest to the confessional can often distinctly hear much of what pa.s.ses between the confessor and his penitent. Now, only consider the situation of a woman observed, at least, by so many witnesses, who, even though they do not hear her words, can, by the alteration of her features and visage, understand what emotions of mind she is enduring whilst undergoing the painful process.
The parties thus placed, the ceremony then begins with an act of contrition, which the penitent p.r.o.nounces.
Then follows the self-accusation of sins, in the order of the ten commandments, or the Decalogue, and the other five of the Roman Catholic Church. The priest frequently interrupts this self-accusation with leading questions concerning the most minute particulars of the act which is the subject of accusation. For example, suppose the accusation to be this: "I accuse myself, holy father, of having uttered a falsehood." The priest interrupts: "On a light matter, or on a serious one? was it for personal interest? was it in order to stain the reputation of another?
and if so, was the person calumniated a man or a woman? and was that person married or single? a member of the civil authority, or one of the clergy?" This introductory part being ended, the priest begins a fresh tack, and interrogates the penitent upon infractions not specified in any of the commandments. For example: If the penitent is accustomed to pray the rosary; if she frequents churches; if she contributes her money towards the support of divine worship; if she knows, and omits to denounce, impious persons, heretics, and enemies of the church; if she prefers the society of worldly men to that of the clergy and friars; if her parents, brothers, husband, sons, relatives, or friends, read prohibited or dangerous books; if she orders ma.s.ses to be said for the souls of the dead; and other things of a similar kind. Then follows an exhortation to show the turpitude of the sins confessed and the necessity of repentance, and the priest concludes this peroration by the imposition of penance or other expiatory act. Here the confessor has an open field before him, in which he shows the fecundity of his imagination,-prayers, paying for ma.s.ses, fasting, alms, corporal mortification, pilgrimages to sanctuaries, privation from theatres, b.a.l.l.s, and parties, and other penalties of a similar nature, which form the criminal code of the confessional tribunal; and here it is easy to imagine what a lat.i.tude this faculty offers to gratify hatred, show revenge, flatter the powerful, and make things pleasant to those who have the power of conferring favours. The act concludes with the words of absolution, which is a formula consisting of a few Latin phrases.
The priest has the power of refusing absolution, but which however he seldom ventures to exercise, for there is no penitent, be she who she may, that would not sooner make the most terrible sacrifices of her self-respect, than expose herself to such an affront. There have been instances in which refusal of absolution has provoked the penitent to personal vengeance against an inexorable confessor.
There is a fact well known in Spain, which proves the abuses to which the practice of confession may lead. A husband who suspected the fidelity of his wife, knowing that she was accustomed always to go to the same church and the same confessional to confess, dressed himself up as a friar, and taking care to conceal his face with the capucha, entered the church and sat down in the confessional. The unlucky woman fell into the snare, and confided to her husband the particulars of her faithless conduct. The result was, as the reader may readily suppose, a great outcry among the clergy against such profanation and sacrilege; but the man who was guilty of this delinquency being high and powerful, escaped punishment.
The canon law imposes on the confessor the most inviolable secrecy, and provides severe penalties for the least infraction. This injunction, it must be admitted, is most scrupulously obeyed; but then it must be considered, that, if the prohibition favour the penitent by preventing the disclosure of her frailties, it equally favours the clergy themselves, by making them the masters of all consciences, and lifts up to their own eyes the veil which is supposed to conceal the infirmities of their fellow-creatures.
It is not difficult to calculate the advantages the clergy are able to draw from this intimate knowledge of the interests, and the ambition, hatred, and other pa.s.sions of the mind most dangerous to the quietude of families. One would think it impossible that there could exist a human society in which a privileged body of men were to be found, invested with the faculty of penetrating into those mysteries which are generally supposed to be open only to the Almighty. But it was for the possession of this very faculty, that the Jesuits, so clever in discovering and practising the means of their greatness and influence, abandoning their vulgar ambition, their mitres, and other ecclesiastical insignia, fixed all their hopes and attention on the confessional. Before the extinction of that order, confessors of the popes, kings of Europe, and the chief persons of their courts, pertained to it. Leo X., Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Catherine de Medicis, may be looked upon as regulators who qualified that temperament of Christian morals which domineered over the world under the imperium of those reverend fathers.
The administration of the sacrament of absolution does not figure in the tariff of regular parochial dues, payable for baptism, marriage, and burial. That act, according to the canons of the church, must be gratuitous. But in Spain, since the abolition of the t.i.thes, which brought with it that state of poverty under which the clergy now groan, there has been introduced a custom of slipping a few pieces of money into the hand of the confessor at parting. This gratuity varies according to the means of the penitents; but the average may be taken at a dollar and a half. May not the probability of a larger or a smaller fee on these occasions, as pourtrayed in the aspect of the giver, have an influence, more or less, in proportioning the amount of severity in the penance imposed?
CHAPTER IX.
FASTS AND PENANCES-How observed-Indulgences-Spain is privileged by the Bull of the Holy Crusade-Description of that bull-Prices of copies-Commissary-General of Crusades-His Revenues-Their shameful application-Copy of that bull-Other acts of penance-The _Disciplina_ or whipping-_Cilicios_.
The Roman Catholic Church prescribes two kinds of mortification with respect to food, viz., fasting and abstinence from meat. Fasting is obligatory during the whole period of Lent, and on the eve of each princ.i.p.al feast-day in the year. To comply with this obligation, it is enough to eat a mere formal meal on these days, consisting of some light vegetable diet in the morning, and again in the evening. This observance, however, admits of some indulgence, and confessors are wont to absolve many of their penitents from its severity, under pretext of their having to do hard work, or to contend with physical infirmity. The clergy, besides the fasting common to all the devout, are bound also, during the holy week, to abstain from eggs, milk, and all sorts of food which come under the denomination of _lacticinio_, or any thing of which milk or eggs form a component part. Friars and nuns fast, also, during the whole of the period called advent; and when those obligations are truly performed, there is no doubt that they have a considerable influence on the physical const.i.tution. Medical men are authorised to consent to its infraction by their patients. In some religious communities of both s.e.xes, but especially in those of the Capuchines, the fast-days are multiplied to such an extent, that they compose the greater number of days in the year.
Abstinence from meat varies in the different bishoprics, according to the established custom or the bishop"s will. In France, for example, in some dioceses they never eat animal food on Fridays or Sat.u.r.days; in others, Friday only is a fast-day, but in all of them abstinence from meat is obligatory during the whole of Lent, Sundays excepted.
Spain is a country privileged in this respect. By virtue of a contribution paid to the government, and which the latter divides with the Pope, Spaniards are absolved from the greater part of all those duties. The origin of this privilege dates from the time of the crusades, when the popes, in order to meet the expenses of those expeditions, imposed this tribute on Spaniards, in exchange for the dispensation. In course of time, however, this usage was abolished; but Charles III. solicited of the Pope its renovation, with a view of depriving the English of the vast sums of money which they received in Spain from the produce of the stockfish (_bacalao_) of Terranova. This singular inst.i.tution, called the Holy Crusade, occupies a great number of public officials, and had produced immense sums previous to the general change of ideas brought about in Spain by the war of invasion by the French. In every year, at the beginning of January, the Commissary of the Holy Crusade, who is generally a high personage among the clergy, and his attendants, set out in carriages, with a procession consisting of his subalterns and the munic.i.p.al body-guard of the city. In one of the carriages is unfurled and exposed to view the standard of the Holy Crusade. From that day the sale of the bull is opened, and several thousands of copies of this bull are printed. The price of each copy is about sevenpence. The printing is executed in a very inferior manner, and the paper used for the occasion is of the most inferior quality. The bull in substance states that the contributor, having paid the money required for it, is authorised for a year to enjoy all the prerogatives which it concedes to him. By its influence, the days of abstinence from meat are reduced to Ash-Wednesday and the Fridays in Lent, the last three days of the holy week, and the eve of the great festivals.
The Commissary-General of Crusades, the absolute master of this enormous public revenue, is bound to deliver a part of the profits to the treasury, and to lay out the rest in works of benevolence in such manner as he, in the exercise of his charity, may think fit. This important office is usually conferred on some one of the clergy who may happen to be a favourite of the court; and almost every person who has attained this distinction has been notorious for his luxuriousness and prodigality. It is related of some of them in the time of Ferdinand VII., that having exhausted all inventions in the culinary art, in the splendid banquets given by them frequently to the chief persons of the court, they have even placed upon their tables live sardines, brought from a distance of three hundred miles through a country in which there were no regular roads, swimming in sea water, in large gla.s.s bowls, and after gratifying the guests with the amus.e.m.e.nt which such a spectacle afforded, the little finned creatures were then sent to the kitchen, and served up as a dish of the greatest delicacy.
It is a public thing in Madrid, and one which is spoken of without the least disguise, that a large portion of those funds is set apart as pensions of considerable amounts to the mistresses of grandees, and persons in high offices of the state, and also in order to political and other purposes, far alien to the objects of the inst.i.tution. The Roman Catholics of other countries are scarcely able to credit that so monstrous an abuse of the pontifical authority really exists, it not being possible to conceive that, for a paltry sum of money, Christians can remain exempt from an obligation considered sacred by Catholicism.
We have alluded to the small sum paid to obtain that exemption; but the tariff of the Holy Crusade exacts a larger sum from the n.o.bility and persons of high dignity. To those a bull is sold, which is called _Bula de il.u.s.tres_, which costs from eight to twelve shillings; and in order to leave the door open for the augmentation of those revenues, there is a clause which says that every person purchasing them is bound, as a matter of conscience, to contribute according to his ability.