Auricular Confession: "The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional" Chiniquy

[Peter]

Charles Chiniquy was in the Roman Catholic Church for 50 years and served as a priest for 25 years. Author:
"The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional" by Charles Chiniquy
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/priest.htm

Auricular confession is a 13th century dogma from the Council of Trent made canonically binding in the Roman Catholic Church in the year 1215.

Husbands, if your wife or particularly daughter attends confession it behooves you to inquire of them as to what kind of questions their priest may be pressing them with. Far from being a benign listener, the church policy a hundred years ago, and as in a latter post 50 years ago, was to ask particularly seemly and detailed questions of wives, young girls and young boys, but not men. Though they claimed that this is because women are more reluctant to confess than men, on further investigation, I believe you will be able to conclude for yourself the real reasons for it.
Auricular confession is also used as a tool to pry into your family's personal affairs.

Questions that may be asked are stunning: http://brotherpete.com/index.php?topic=425.msg1716#msg1716

Before you consider the below to be obsolete, because it is late 19th century, here is another priest's account from 1949.
http://brotherpete.com/index.php?topic=425.msg1717#msg1717
The below text is simply a more complete, and certainly heart wrenching, version.

"The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional" by Charles Chiniquy
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/priest.htm

Exerpt:

"In the beginning of my priesthood, I was not a little surprised and embarrassed to see a very accomplished and beautiful young lady, whom I used to meet almost every week at her father's house, entering the box of my confessional. She had been used to confess to another young priest of my acquaintance, and she was always looked upon as one of the most pious girls of the city. Though she had disguised herself as much as possible, in order that I might not know her, I felt sure that I was not mistaken—she was the amiable Mary * *

Not being absolutely certain of the correctness of my impressions, I left her entirely under the hope that she was a perfect stranger to me. At the beginning she could hardly speak; her voice was suffocated by her sobs; and through the little apertures of the thin partition between her and me, I saw two streams of big tears trickling down her cheeks.

After much effort, she said: "Dear Father, I hope you do not know me, and that you will never try to know me. I am a desperately great sinner. Oh! I fear that I am lost! But if there is still a hope for me to be saved, for God's sake, do not rebuke me! Before I begin my confession, allow me to ask you not to pollute my ears by questions which our confessors are in the habit of putting to their female penitents; I have already been destroyed by those questions. Before I was seventeen years old, God knows that His angels are not more pure than I was; but the chaplain of the Nunnery where my parents had sent me for my education, though approaching old age, put to me, in the confessional, a question which at first I did not understand, but, unfortunately, he had put the same questions to one of my young class-mates, who made fun of them in my presence, and explained them to me; for she understood them too well. This first unchaste conversation of my life plunged my thoughts into a sea of iniquity, till then absolutely unknown to me; temptations of the most humiliating character assailed me for a week, day and night; after which, sins which I would blot out with my blood, if it were possible, overwhelmed my soul as with a deluge. But the joys of the sinner are short. Struck with terror at the thought of the judgments of God, after a few weeks of the most deplorable life, I determined to give up my sins and reconcile myself to God. Covered with shame, and trembling from head to foot, I went to confess to my old confessor, whom I respected as a saint and cherished as a father. It seems to me that, with sincere tears of repentance, I confessed to him the greatest part of my sins, though I concealed one of them, through shame, and respect for my spiritual guide. But I did not conceal from him that the strange questions he had put to me at my last confession, were, with the natural corruption of my heart, the principal cause of my destruction.
http://brotherpete.com/index.php?topic=425.msg1716#msg1716

He spoke to me very kindly, encouraged me to fight against my bad inclinations, and, at first, gave me very kind and good advice. But when I thought he had finished speaking, and as I was preparing to leave the confessional-box, he put to me two new questions of such a polluting character that, I fear neither the blood of Christ, nor all the fires of hell will ever be able to blot them out from my memory. Those questions have achieved my ruin; they have stuck to my mind like two deadly arrows; they are day and night before my imagination; they fill my very arteries and veins with a deadly poison.

"It is true that, at first, they filled me with horror and disgust; but alas! I soon got so accustomed to them that they seemed to be incorporated with me, and as if becoming a second nature. Those thoughts have become a new source of innumerable criminal thoughts, desires and actions.

"A month later, we were obliged by the rules of our convent to go and confess; but by this time, I was so completely lost, that I no longer blushed at the idea of confessing my shameful sins to a man; it was the very contrary. I had a real, diabolical pleasure in the thought that I should have a long conversation with my confessor on those matters, and that he would ask me more of his strange questions.

"In fact, when I had told him everything without a blush, he began to interrogate me, and God knows what corrupting things fell from his lips into my poor criminal heart! Every one of his questions was thrilling my nerves, and filling me with the most shameful sensations. After an hour of this criminal tete-a-tete with my old confessor (for it was nothing else but a criminal tete-a-tete), I perceived that he was as depraved as I was myself. With some half-covered words, he made a criminal proposition, which I accepted with covered words also; and during more than a year, we have lived together on the most sinful intimacy. Though he was much older than I, I loved him in the most foolish way. When the course of my convent instruction was finished, my parents called me back to their home. I was really glad of that change of residence, for I was beginning to be tired of my criminal life. My hope was that, under the direction of a better confessor, I should reconcile myself to God and begin a Christian life.

"Unfortunately for me, my new confessor, who was very young, began also his interrogations. He soon fell in love with me, and I loved him in a most criminal way. I have done with him things which I hope you will never request me to reveal to you, for they are too monstrous to be repeated, even in the confessional, by a woman to a man.

"I do not say these things to take away the responsibility of my iniquities with this young confessor, from my shoulders, for I think I have been more criminal than he was. It is my firm conviction that he was a good and holy priest before he knew me; but the questions he put to me, and the answers I had to give him, melted his heart—I know it—just as boiling lead would melt the ice on which it flows.

"I know this is not such a detailed confession as our holy Church requires me to make, but I have thought it necessary for me to give you this short history of the life of the greatest and most miserable sinner who ever asked you to help her to come out from the tomb of her iniquities. This is the way I have lived these last few years. But last Sabbath, God, in His infinite mercy, looked down upon me. He inspired you to give us the Prodigal Son as a model of true conversion, and as the most marvellous proof of the infinite compassion of the dear Saviour for the sinner. I have wept day and night since that happy day, when I threw myself into the arms of my loving merciful Father. Even now, I can hardly speak, because my regret for my past iniquities, and my joy that I am allowed to bathe the feet of the Saviour with tears, are so great that my voice is as choked.

"You understand that I have forever given up my last confessor. I come to ask you to do me the favor to receive me among your penitents. Oh! do not reject nor rebuke me, for the dear Saviour's sake! Be not afraid to have at your side such a monster of iniquity! But before going further, I have two favors to ask from you. The first is, that you will never do anything to ascertain my name; the second is, that you will never put to me any of those questions by which so many penitents are lost and so many priests forever destroyed. Twice I have been lost by those questions. We come to our confessors that they may throw upon our guilty souls the pure waters which flow from heaven to purify us; but instead of that, with their unmentionable questions, they pour oil on the burning fires which are already raging in our poor sinful hearts. Oh! dear father, let me become your penitent, that you may help me to go and weep with Magdalene at the Saviour's feet! Do respect me, as He respected that true model of all the sinful, but repenting women! Did our Saviour put to her any question? did He extort from her the history of things which a sinful woman cannot say without forgetting the respect she owes to herself and to God! No! you told us not long ago, that the only thing our Saviour did, was to look at her tears and her love. Well, please do that, and you will save me!"

I was then a very young priest, and never had any words so sublime come to my ears in the confessional-box. Her tears and her sobs, mingled with the frank declaration of the most humiliating actions, had made such a profound impression upon me that I was, for some time, unable to speak. It had come to my mind also that I might be mistaken about her identify, and that perhaps she was not the young lady that I had imagined. I could, then, easily grant her first request, which was to do nothing by which I could know her. The second part of her prayer was more embarrassing; for the theologians are very positive in ordering the confessors to question their penitents, particularly those of the female sex, in many circumstances.

I encouraged her in the best way I could, to persevere in her good resolutions, by invoking the blessed Virgin Mary and St. Philomene, who was, then, the Sainte a la mode, just as Marie Alacoque is to-day, among the blind slaves of Rome. I told her that I would pray and think over the subject of her second request; and I asked her to come back in a week for my answer.

The very same day, I went to my own confessor, the Rev. Mr. Baillargeon, then curate of Quebec, and afterwards Archbishop of Canada. I told him the singular and unusual request she had made, that I should never put to her any of those questions suggested by the theologians, to insure the integrity of the confession. I did not conceal from him that I was much inclined to grant her that favor; for I repeated what I had already several times told him, that I was supremely disgusted with the infamous and polluting questions which the theologians forced us to put to our female penitents. I told him frankly that several old and young priests had already come to confess to me; and that, with the exception of two, they had told me that they could not put those questions and hear the answers they elicited, without falling into the most damnable sins.
http://brotherpete.com/index.php?topic=425.msg1716#msg1716

My confessor seemed to be much perplexed about what he should answer. "He asked me to come the next day, that he might review some of his theological books, in the interval. The next day, I took down in writing his answer, which I find in my old manuscripts, and I give it here in all its sad crudity:— "Such cases of the destruction of female virtue by the questions of the confessors is an unavoidable evil. It cannot be helped; for such questions are absolutely necessary in the greater part of the cases with which we have to deal. Men generally confess their sins with so much sincerity that there is seldom any need for questioning them, except when they are very ignorant. But St. Liguori, as well as our personal observation, tells us that the greatest part of girls and women, through a false and criminal shame, very seldom confess the sins they commit against purity. It requires the utmost charity in the confessors to prevent those unfortunate slaves of their secret passions from making sacrilegious confessions and communions. With the greatest prudence and zeal he must question them on those matters, beginning with the smallest sins, and going, little by little, as much as possible by imperceptible degrees, to the most criminal actions. As it seems evident that the penitent referred to in your questions of yesterday, is unwilling to make a full and detailed confession of all her iniquities, you cannot promise to absolve her without assuring yourself by wise and prudent questions, that she has confessed everything.

"You must not be discouraged when, through the confessional or any other way, you learn the fall of priests into the common frailties of human nature with their penitents. Our Saviour knew very well that the occasions and the temptations we have to encounter, in the confessions of girls and women, are so numerous, and sometimes so irresistible, that many would fall. But He has given them the Holy Virgin Mary, who constantly asks and obtains their pardon; He has given them the sacrament of penance, where they can receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. The vow of perfect chastity is a great honor and privilege; but we cannot conceal from ourselves that it puts on our shoulders a burden which many cannot carry forever. St. Liguori says that we must not rebuke the penitent priest who falls only once a month; and some other trustworthy theologians are still more charitable."

This answer was far from satisfying me. It seemed to me composed of soft soap principles. I went back with a heavy heart and an anxious mind; and God knows that I made many fervent prayers that this girl should never come again to give me her sad history. I was hardly twenty-six years old, full of youth and life. It seemed to me that the stings of a thousand wasps to my ears would not do me so much harm as the words of that dear, beautiful, accomplished, but lost girl.

I do not mean to say that the revelations which she made, had, in any way, diminished my esteem and my respect for her. It was just the contrary. Her tears and her sobs, at my feet her agonizing expressions of shame and regret her noble words of protest against the disgusting and polluting interrogations of the confessors, had raised her very high in my mind. My sincere hope was that she would have a place in the kingdom of Christ with the Samaritan women, Mary Magdalene, and all the sinners who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.

At the appointed day, I was in my confessional, listening to the confession of a young man, when I saw Miss Mary entering the vestry, and coming directly to my confessional-box, where she knelt by me. Though she had, still more than at the first time, disguised herself behind a long, thick, black veil, I could not be mistaken; she was the very same amiable young lady in whose father's house I used to pass such pleasant and happy hours. I had often listened, with breathless attention, to her melodious voice, when she was giving us, accompanied by her piano, some of our beautiful Church hymns. Who could then see and hear her without almost worshipping her? The dignity of her steps, and her whole mien, when she advanced towards my confessional, entirely betrayed her and destroyed her incognito.

Oh! I would have given every drop of my blood in that solemn hour, that I might have been free to deal with her just as she had so eloquently requested me to do—to let her weep and cry at the feet of Jesus to her heart's content; Oh! if I had been free to take her by the hand, and silently show her the dying Saviour, that she might have bathed His feet with her tears, and spread the oil of her love on His head, without my saying anything else but "Go in peace: thy sins are forgiven. "

But, there, in that confessional-box, I was not the servant of Christ, to follow His divine, saving words, and obey the dictates of my honest conscience. I was the slave of the Pope! I had to stifle the cry of my conscience, to ignore the inspirations of my God! There, my conscience had no right to speak; my intelligence was a dead thing! The theologians of the Pope, alone, had a right to be heard and obeyed! I was not there to save, but to destroy; for, under the pretext of purifying, the real mission of the confessor, often, if not always, in spite of himself, is to scandalise and damn the souls.

As soon as the young man who was making his confession at my left hand, had finished, I, without noise, turned myself towards her, and said, through the little aperture, "Are you ready to begin your confession?"

But she did not answer me. All that I could hear was: "Oh, my Jesus, have mercy upon me! I come to wash my soul in Thy blood; wilt thou rebuke me?"

(Continued)

[Peter]

(continuation)

During several minutes she raised her hands and her eyes to heaven, and wept and prayed. It was evident that she had not the least idea that I was observing her; she thought the door of the little partition between her and me was shut. But my eyes were fixed upon her; my tears were flowing with her tears, and my ardent prayers were going to the feet of Jesus with her prayers. I would not have interrupted her for any consideration, in this, her sublime communion with her merciful Saviour.

But after a pretty long time, I made a little noise with my hand, and putting my lips near the opening of the partition which was between us, I said in a low voice, "Dear sister, are you ready to begin your confession?"

She turned her face a little towards me, and said with trembling voice, "Yes, dear father, I am ready."

But she then stopped again to weep and pray, though I could not hear what she said.

After some time of silent prayer, I said, "My dear sister, if you are ready, please begin your confession." She then said, "My dear father, do you remember the prayers which I made to you, the other day? Can you allow me to confess my sins without forcing me to forget the respect that I owe to myself, to you, and to God, who hears us? And can you promise that you will not put to me any of those questions which have already done me such irreparable injury? I frankly declare to you that there are sins in me that I cannot reveal to anyone, except to Christ, because He is my God, and that He already knows them all. Let me weep and cry at His feet: can you not forgive me without adding to my iniquities by forcing me to say things that the tongue of a Christian woman cannot reveal to a man?"

"My dear sister," I answered, were I free to follow the voice of my own feelings I would be only too happy to grant your request; but I am here only as the minister of our holy Church, and bound to obey her laws. Through her most holy Popes and theologians she tells me that I cannot forgive your sins if you do not confess them all, just as you have committed them. The Church tells me also that you must give the details which may add to the malice or change the nature of your sins. I am also sorry to tell you that our most holy theologians make it a duty of the confessor to question the penitent on the sins which he has good reason to suspect have been voluntarily or involuntarily omitted."

With a piercing cry, she exclaimed, Then, O my God, I am lost —forever lost!"

This cry fell upon me like a thunderbolt; but I was still more terror-stricken when, looking through the aperture, I saw she was fainting; I heard the noise of her body falling upon the floor, and of her head striking against the sides of the confessional-box.

Quick as lightning I ran to help her, took her in my arms, and called a couple of men who were at a little distance, to assist me in laying her on a bench. I washed her face with some cold water and vinegar. She was, as pale as death, but her lips were moving, and she was saying something which nobody but I could understand—

"I am lost—lost forever!"

We took her home to her disconsolate family, where, during a month, she lingered between life and death. Her two first confessors came to visit her; but having asked every one to go out of the room, she politely, but absolutely, requested them to go away, and never come again. She asked me to visit her every day., "for," she said, "I have only a few more days to live. Help me to prepare myself for the solemn hour which will open to me the gates of eternity!"

Every day I visited her, and I prayed and I wept with her.

Many times, when alone, with tears I requested her to finish her confession; but, with a firmness which, then, seemed to be mysterious and inexplicable, she politely rebuked me.

One day, when alone with her, I was kneeling by the side of her bed to pray, I was unable to articulate a single word, because of the inexpressible anguish of my soul on her account, she asked me, "Dear father, why do you weep?"

I answered, "How can you put such a question to your murderer! I weep because I have killed you, dear friend."

This answer seemed to trouble her exceedingly. She was very weak that day. After she had wept and prayed in silence, she said, "do not weep for me, but weep for so many priests who destroy their penitents in the confessional. I believe in the holiness of the sacrament of penance, since our holy Church has established it. But there is, somewhere, something exceedingly wrong in the confessional. Twice I have been destroyed, and I know many girls who have also been destroyed by the confessional. This is a secret, but will that secret be kept forever? I pity the poor priests the day that our fathers will know what becomes of the purity of their daughters in the hands of their confessors. Father would surely kill my two last confessors, if he could know how they have destroyed his poor child."

I could not answer except by weeping.

We remained silent for a long time; then she said, "It is true that I was not prepared for the rebuke you have given me, the other day, in the confessional; but you acted conscientiously as a good and honest priest. I know you must be bound by certain laws."

She then pressed my hand with her cold hand and said, "Weep not, dear father, because that sudden storm has wrecked my too fragile bark. This storm was to take me out from the bottomless sea of my iniquities to the shore where Jesus was waiting to receive and pardon me. The night after you brought me, half dead, here, to father's house, I had a dream. Oh, no! it was not a dream, it was a reality. My Jesus came to me; He was bleeding; His crown of thorns was on His head, the heavy cross was bruising his shoulders. He said to me, with a voice so sweet that no human tongue can imitate it, "I have seen thy tears, I have heard thy cries, and I know thy love for Me: thy sins are forgiven; take courage; in a few days thou shalt be with me!"

She had hardly finished her last word, when she fainted; and I feared lest she should die just then, when I was alone with her.

I called the family, who rushed into the room. The doctor was sent for. He found her so weak that he thought proper to allow only one or two persons to remain in the room with me. He requested us not to speak at all: "For," said he, the least emotion may kill her instantly; her disease is, in all probability, an aneurism of the aorta, the big vein which brings the blood to the heart: when it breaks, she will go as quick as lightning."

It was nearly ten at night when I left the house, to go and take some rest. But it is not necessary to say that I passed a sleepless night. My dear Mary was there, pale, dying from the deadly blow which I had given her in the confessional. She was there, on her bed of death, her heart pierced with the dagger which my Church had put into my hands! and instead of rebuking, and cursing me for my savage, merciless fanaticism, she was blessing me! She was dying from a broken heart, and I was not allowed by my Church to give her a single word of consolation and hope, for she had not made her confession! I had mercilessly bruised that tender plant, and there was nothing in my hands to heal the wounds I had made!

It was very probable that she would die the next day, and I was forbidden to show her the crown of glory which Jesus has prepared in His kingdom for the repenting sinner!

My desolation was really unspeakable, and I think I would have been suffocated and have died that night, if the stream of tears which constantly flowed from my eyes had not been as a balm to my distressed heart.

How dark and long the hours of that night seemed to me!

Before the dawn of day, I arose to read my theologians again, and see if I could not find some one who would allow me to forgive the sins of that dear child, without forcing her to tell me everything she had done. But they seemed to me, more than ever, unanimously inexorable, and I put them back on the shelves of my library with a broken heart.

At nine A.M. the next day, I was by the bed of our dear sick Mary. I cannot sufficiently tell the joy I felt, when the doctor and the whole family said to me, "She is much better; the rest of last night has wrought a marvellous change indeed."

With a really angelic smile she extended her hand towards me, that I might press it in mine; and she said, "I thought, last evening, that the dear Saviour would take me to Him, but He wants me, dear father, to give you a little more trouble; however, be patient, it cannot be long before the solemn hour of the appeal will ring. Will you please read me the history of the suffering and death of the beloved Saviour, which you read me the other day? It does me so much good to see how He has loved me, such a miserable sinner."

There was a calm and a solemnity in her words which struck me singularly, as well as all those who were there.

After I had finished reading, she exclaimed, "He has loved me so much that He died for my sins!" And she shut her eyes as if to meditate in silence, but there was a stream of big tears rolling down her checks.

I knelt down by her bed, with her family, to pray; but I could not utter a single word. The idea that this dear child was there, dying from the cruel fanaticism of my theologians and my own cowardice in obeying them, was as a mill-stone to my neck. It was killing me.

Oh! if by dying a thousand times, I could have added a single day to her life, with what pleasure I would have accepted those thousand deaths!

After we had silently prayed and wept by her bedside, she requested her mother to leave her alone with me.

When I saw myself alone, under the irresistible impression that this was her last day, I fell on my knees again, and with tears of the most sincere compassion for her soul, I requested her to shake off her shame and to obey our holy Church, which requires every one to confess their sins if they want to be forgiven.

She calmly, but with an air of dignity which no human words can express, said, "Is it true that, after the sin of Adam and Eve, God Himself made coats and skins; and clothed them, that they might not see each other's nakedness?"

"Yes," I said, this is what the Holy Scriptures tell us."

"Well, then, how is it possible that our confessors dare to take away from as that holy, divine coat of modesty and self respect? Has not Almighty God Himself made, with His own hands, that coat of womanly modesty and self-respect, that we might not be to you and to ourselves, a cause of shame and sin?"

I was really stunned by the beauty, simplicity, and sublimity of that comparison. I remained absolutely mute and confounded. Though it was demolishing all the traditions and doctrines of my Church, and pulverizing all my holy doctors and theologians, that noble answer found such an echo in my soul, that it seemed to me a sacrilege to try to touch it with my finger.

After a short time of silence, she continued, "Twice I have been destroyed by priests in the confessional. They took away from me that divine coat of modesty and self-respect which God gives to every human being who comes into this world, and twice, I have become for those very priests a deep pit of perdition, into which they have fallen, and where, I fear, they are forever lost! My merciful heavenly Father has given me back that coat of skins, that nuptial robe of modesty, self-respect, and holiness, which had been taken away from me. He cannot allow you or any other man, to tear again and spoil that vestment which is the work of His hands."

These words had exhausted her; it was evident to me that she wanted some rest. I left her alone, but I was absolutely beside myself. Filled with admiration for the sublime lessons which I had received from the lips of that regenerated daughter of Eve, who, it was evident, was soon to fly away from us, I felt a supreme disgust for myself, my theologians, and—shall I say it? yes, I felt in that solemn hour a supreme disgust for my Church, which was so cruelly defiling me, and all her priests in the confessional-box. I felt, in that hour, a supreme horror for that auricular confession, which is so often a pit of perdition and supreme misery for the confessor and penitent. I went out and walked two hours on the Plains of Abraham, to breathe the pure and refreshing air of the mountain. There, alone, I sat on a stone, on the very spot where Wolfe and Montcalm had fought and died; and I wept to my heart's content, on my irreparable degradation, and the degradation of so many priests through the confessional.

At four o'clock in the afternoon I went back again to the house of my dear dying Mary. The mother took me apart, and very politely said, "My dear Mr. Chiniquy, do you not think it is time that our dear child should receive the last sacraments? She seemed to be much better this morning, and we were full of hope; but she is now rapidly sinking. Please lose no time in giving her the holy viaticum and the extreme unction."

I said, "Yes, madam: let me pass a few minutes alone with our poor dear child, that I may prepare her for the last sacraments."

When alone with her, I again fell on my knees, and, amidst torrents of tears, I said, ' Dear sister, it is my desire to give you the holy viaticum and the extreme unction; but tell me, how can I dare to do a thing so solemn against all the prohibitions of our Holy Church? How can I give you the holy communion without first giving you absolution? and how can I give you absolution when you earnestly persist in telling me that you have many sins which you will never declare either to me or any other confessor?

" You know that I cherish and respect you as if you were an angel sent to me from heaven. You told me the other day, that you blessed the day that you first saw and knew me. I say the same thing. I bless the day that I have known you; I bless every hour that I have spent by your bed of suffering; I bless every tear which I have shed with you on your sins and on my own; I bless every hour we have passed together in looking to the wounds of our beloved, dying Saviour; I bless you for having forgiven me your death! for I know it, and I confess it in the presence of God, I have killed you, dear sister. But now I prefer a thousand times to die than to say to you a word which would pain you in any way, or trouble the peace of your soul. Please, my dear sister, tell me what I can and must do for you in this solemn hour."

Calmly, and with a smile of joy such as I had never seen before, nor seen since, she said, "I thank and bless you, dear father, for the parable of the Prodigal Son, on which you preached a month ago. You have brought me to the feet of the dear Saviour; there I have found a peace and a joy surpassing anything the human heart can feel; I have thrown myself into the arms of my Heavenly Father, and I know He has mercifully accepted and forgiven His poor prodigal child! Oh, I see the angels with their golden harps around the throne of the Lamb! Do you not hear the celestial harmony of their songs? I go—I go to join them in my Father's house. I SHALL NOT BE LOST!"

While she was thus speaking to me, my eyes were really turned into two fountains of tears; I was unable, as well as unwilling, to see anything, so entirely overcome was I by the sublime words which were flowing from the dying lips of that dear child, who was no more a sinner, but a real angel of Heaven to me. I was listening to her words; there was a celestial music in every one of them. But she had raised her voice in such a strange way, when she had begun to say, "I go to my Father's house," and she had made such a cry of joy when she had let the last words, "not be lost," escape her lips, that I raised my head and opened my eyes to look at her. I suspected that something strange had occurred.

I got upon my feet, passed my handkerchief over my face to wipe away the tears which were preventing me from seeing with accuracy, and looked at her.

Her hands were crossed on her breast, and there was on her face the expression of a really superhuman joy; her beautiful eyes were fixed as if they were looking on some grand and sublime spectacle; it seemed to me, at first, that she was praying.

In that very instant the mother rushed into the room, crying, My God! my God! what does that cry 'lost' mean?"—For her last words, "not to be lost," particularly the last one, had been pronounced with such a powerful voice, that they had been heard almost everywhere in the house.

I made a sign with my hand to prevent the distressed mother from making any noise and troubling her dying child in her prayer, for I really thought that she had stopped speaking, as she used so often to do, when alone with me, in order to pray. But I was mistaken. That redeemed soul had gone, on the golden wings of love, to join the multitude of those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, to sing the eternal Alleluia.

[Peter]

(if you don't know Latin (and I pray that you don't) please scroll to the bottom - Forum/Peter)
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/priest.htm#c12
Regarding those questions:


CHAPTER XII.

A Chapter for the Consideration of Legislators, Husbands, and Fathers.— Some of the Matters on which the Priest of Rome must Question His Penitents

DENS wants the confessors to interrogate on the following matters:

1 "Peccant uxores, quae susceptum viri semen ejiciunt, vel ejicere conantur." (Dens, tom. vii., p. 147.)

2. "Peccant conjuges mortaliter, Si, copula ancesta, cohibeant seminationem."

3. "Si vir jam seminaverit, dubium. fit an femina lethaliter peccat, Si se retrahat a seminando ; aut peccat lethaliter vir non expectando seminationem. uxoris." (P. 153.)

4. "Peccant conjuges inter se circa actum conjugalein. Debet servari modus, sive situs ; imo ut non servetur debitum vas, sed copula habeatur in vase praepostero, aliquoque non naturali. Si fiat accedendo a postero, a latere, stando, sedendo, vel Si vir sit succumbus." (P. 166.)

5. "Impotentia est incapacitas perficiendi, copulum carnalem perfectam cum. seminatione viri in vase debito seu, de se, aptam generationi. Vel, ut Si mulier sit nimis arcta respectu unius viri, non respectu alterius. " (Vol. vii., p. 273.)

6. " Notatur quod pollutio in mulieribus possit perfici, ita ut semen earum nou effluat extra membrum. genitale.

"Indicium. istius allegat Billuart, Si scilicet mulier sensiat serninis resolutionem. cum magno voluptatis sensu, qua completa, passio satiatur." (Vol. iv., p. 168.)

7. "Uxor se accusans, in confessione, quod negaverit debitum, interrogetur an ex pleno rigore juris sui id petiverit." (Vol. vii., p. 168.)

8. "Confessor poenitentem, qui confitetur se pecasse cum Sacerdote, vel sollicitatam. ab eo ad turpia, potest interrogare utrum ille sacerdos sit ejus confessarius, an in confessione sollitaverit." (Vol. vi., p. 294.)

There are a great many other unmentionable things on which Dens, in his fourth, fifth and seventh volumes, requires the confessor to ask his penitent, which I omit.

Now let us come to Liguori. That so-called Saint, Liguori, is not less diabolically impure than Dens, in his questions to the women. But I will cite only two of the things on which the spiritual physician of the Pope must not fail to examine his spiritual patient:—

1. "Quaerat an sit semper mortale, Si vir immitat pudenda in os uxoris?

"Verius affirmo quia, in hoc actu ob calorem Cris, adest proximum periculum pollutionis, et videtur nova species luxuriae contra naturam, dicta irruminatio. "

2. "Eodem modo, Sanchez damnat virum de mortali, qui, in actu copulae, immiteret dignitum in vas praeposterum nxoris; quia, ut ait, in hoc actu adest affectus ad Sodomiam. " (Liguori, tom. vi.) p. 935.)

The celebrated Burchard, Bishop of Worms, has made a book of the questions which had to be put by the confessors to their penitents of both sexes. During several centuries it was the standard book of the priests of Rome. Though that work to-day is very scarce, Dens, Liguori, Debreyne, &-c., &c., have ransacked its polluting pages, and given them to study to the modern confessors, in order to question their penitents. I will select only a few questions of the Roman Catholic Bishop to the young men.

1. "Fecisti solus tecum fornicationem ut quidam facere solent; ita dico ut ipse tuum membrum. virile in manum taum acciperes, et sic duceres praeputium tuum, et manu propria commoveres, ut sic, per illam delectationem semen projiceres ? "

2. "Fornicationem fecisti cum masculo intra coxes ; ita dicto ut tuum virile membrum intra coxas alterius mitteres, et sic agitando semen funderes ?"

3. "Fecisti fornicationem, ut quidem facere Solent, ut tuum virile membrum in lignum perforatum, aut in aliquod hujus modi mitteres, et, sic, per illam commotionem et delectationem semen projiceres? "

4. "Fecisti fornicationem contra naturam, id est, cum masculis vel animalibus coire, id est cum equo, cum vacca, vel asina, vel aliquo, animali? (Vol. i., p. 136.)

Among the questions we find in the compendium of the Right Rev. Burchard, Bishop of Worms, which must be put to women, are the following (p. 115):—

1. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres Solent, quoddam molimem, aut machinamentum in modum virilis membri ad mensbram Woe voluptatis, et illud lodo verendorurn tuorum aut alterius cum aliquibus ligaturis, ut fornacationem facereres cum aliis mulieribus, vel alia eodem instrumento, sive alio tecum?"

2. "Fecisti quod quaedem mulieres facere Solent ut jam supra dicto molimine, vel alio aliquo machinamento, tu ipsa. in te solam faceres fornicationem?

3. "Fecisti quod quaseam mulieres facere Solent, quando libidinem se vexantem exinguere volunt, quae se conjungunt quasi coire debeant ut possint, et conjungunt invicem puerperia sua, et sic, fricando pruritum illarum extinguere, desiderant? "

4. "Fecisti quod quaedam mulieres facere solent, ut succumberes aliquo jumento et illiud jumentum ad coitum quolicumque, posses ingenio, ut sic coiret tecum ? "

The celebrated Debreyne has written a whole book, composed of the most incredible details of impurities, to instruct the young confessors in the art of questioning their penitents. The name of the book is "Moechialogy," or "Treaty on all the sins against the sixth (seventh) and the ninth commandments, as well as on all the questions of the married life which refer to them."

That work is much approved and studied in the Church of Rome. I do not know that the world has ever seen anything comparable to the filthy and infamous details of that book. I will cite only two of the questions which Debreyne wants the confessor to put to his penitent:—

Of the young men (page 95) the confessor will ask:—

"Ad cognoscendum an usque ad pollutionem se tetigerent, quando tempore et quo fine se teti gerint an tune quosdam motus in corpore experti fuerint, et per quantum temporis spatium; an cessantibus tactibus, nihil insolitum et turpe accideret; an nou longe majorem in compore voluptatem perceperint in fine tactuum quam in eorum principio; an tum in fine quando magnam delectationem carnalem sensuerunt, omnes motus corporis cessaverint; an non madefacti fuerint? " &c., &c.

Of the girl the confessor will ask:—

"Quae sese tetegisse fatentur, an non aliquem puritum extinguere entaverint, et utrum pruritus ille cessaverit cam magnum senserint voluptatem; an tune, ipsimet tactus cessaverint ? " &c., &c.

The Right Rev. Kenrick, late Bishop of Boston, United States, in his book for the teaching of confessors on what matters they must question their penitents, has the following, which I select among thousands as impure and damnable to the soul and body:

"Uxor quae, in usu matrimonii, se vertit, ut lion recipiat Semen, vel statim post illud acceptum surgit 'it expellatur, lethalitur peccat; sed opus non est ut din. resupina jaceat, quum matrix, brevi, semen attrahat, et mox, arctissime claudatur. (Vol. iii., p. 317.)

"Pollae patienti licet se vertere, et conari ut nou recipiat semen, quod injuria ei iminittitur; sed, exceptum, non licet expellere, quia jam possessionein pacificam habet et baud absque injuria natura, ejiceretur." (Tom. iii., p. 317.)

" Conjuges senes plerumque coeunt absque culpa, licet contingat semen extra vas effundi; id enim per accidens fit ex imfirmitate naturae. Quod Si veres adeo sint fractae 'Lit nullo sit seminandi intra vas spes, jam nequeunt jure conjugii uti." (Tom. iii., p. 317.) priest.htm
_____________________

Husbands and fathers, I am loathe to post the following link, but the spiritual well being of your wives and particularly daughters, and young sons, is at stake:

http://www.iconbusters.com/iconbusters/htm/sex_crimes/lechery/current-lechery2.htm

This site details the English translations of the absolutely reprobate questions Priests are to ask in confession that Chiniquy detailed in the Latin above. You only need to read even a little part of a single question to be defiled by the Roman church.
I strongly advise that you not proceed further as you may be haunted by the disturbing images just as Chiniquy describes of the young girls.

GET YOUR WIVES, DAUGHTERS AND SONS OUT OF THE BONDAGE OF THE ROMAN CHURCH NOW!!!:

No decent person should EVER be exposed to, let alone repeat this, whether Christian or atheist, which is likely why the Roman church has been able to escape exposure for so many centuries, without having to answer to this 13th century dogma. But if nobody ever speaks of it, how could it ever be exposed?

Priests likely know that if they asked the same questions of men, that they do of women, a man would walk out - or perhaps even punch their lights out. There is little question that if men learned of the questions asked of their wives, daughters and sons, some priests would rightfully be subjected to being tarred and feathered, and paraded around the village square in an ox cart.

Any copy and pasting into this forum, of the English versions of these questions asked at auricular confession, will be removed at the first moment they are spotted.

[Peter]

Articles:

http://www.cuttingedge.org/articles/RC123.htm
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2402764/The-Auricular-Confession
http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=auricular

Excerpt from "I was a Priest"
http://www.cuttingedge.org/NEWS/IWasaPriest.htm

(a) CONFESSION OF A CHILD

That child might only be seven years old. He has been told that he must tell all his sins to the priest. If he does not, he will commit a sacrilege and should he die, he cannot go to heaven. He is naturally very confused as to what really constitutes a sin. He believes that many of his actions are serious sins. Some children think that some of the necessities of the body are grave sins to be confessed. However, a child is naturally shy and reluctant to tell what he has done or thought. The result is that he omits to declare certain things that are really not sinful but he thinks they are. His conscience will reproach him for having hidden a sin in confession and he will experience uneasiness of conscience and will probably end in believing that he cannot make peace with his God. Confession has ruined this child's soul. He has been misled and one more Roman Catholic starts a life of mental torture and misconception of the mercy of Christ. Romanism with its system of confession cannot very well be identified with the kindness of the Lord who said: "SUFFER [ALLOW] THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME."

(b) CONFESSION OF A YOUNG GIRL

We now have a shy Roman Catholic young girl, : passing through the stage of childhood to puberty, who is about to enter the confessional. She is naturally embarrassed and her state of mind is just what a sordid confessor wishes explore. The priest will now hear from a young woman the most secret thoughts and desires of her soul. Her mind and soul are crucified on the altar of Romanism and of its curious and sinful priests.

If the young girl is reluctant to speak, the confessor will ask the following questions:

1. "Was it with a man? Was he married? Was he related to you? Was he a priest?

2. Did you give full consent of your will to these thoughts, desires, etc? Was it a complete action? Was it against some laws of nature? How often did you consent to these thoughts, desires, actions, etc. ?"

Many other embarrassing questions are asked according to the sins accused. Many of these questions are left to the discretion and indiscretion of the confessor. Some questions asked are sometimes stupid and criminal. We know a rather young pastor of a Manitoba Cathedral, who "hailed from the East" as a specialist in the confessions of young women, who asked his young female penitents if they wore "panties" or some other variety of feminine underclothing. These shameful details of a confession are mentioned here to illustrate what is meant by the tortures of confession. Roman Catholics know very well that what we disclose is the crude truth.

We are fully acquainted with the practice of certain abnormal priests in the confessional. We have investigated some cases where the confessor learns of the weaknesses of a prospective victim in the confessional.

She becomes an easy prey to his passions and vice.

The practice of soliciting women penitents to sin in the confessional is, in fact, so common, that the Roman theologians have inserted in their theology manuals a long thesis which regulates the conduct to be followed by priests and penitents who have sinned in this manner. This is called in Latin "De solicitatione in confessionali."

The confessional, far from being a place of forgiveness of sins, is very often the scene of the most disgusting sex crimes.

(c) CONFESSION OF A MARRIED WOMAN

A married woman enters the confessional. She will tell a strange man secrets which she probably would not dare to reveal to her own husband. She is even bound to reveal certain secrets of her husband. This especially happens when a sin is committed with the consent of both husband and wife. In the Roman Church, birth control of all variety is a sin and must be confessed with all its circumstances. The husband might be of Protestant Faith and his Roman Catholic wife will have to disclose to the priest the most intimate relations of their marital life. The priest will know more about the wife than the husband. There are no more family secrets because Rome has required that hearts and souls should be fully explored by priests. In this manner, Romanism controls the whole intimate lives of married couples.

A married woman, who has any amount of natural discretion and honesty, will enter the confessional with apprehension and often despair. She fears that terrible and infallible questionnaire. It is impossible to describe the mental inconvenience she now experiences by the spectre of compulsory confession. One married woman who had not much to confess anyway, told us one day that this obligation of telling everything to the priest was "diabolical" and we could not admit to her at that time that she was absolutely right.

The questionnaire in the case of a married woman goes somewhat like this:

"How often do you perform your conjugal duties?

Do you refuse to perform them sometimes? Why ?

How many times ?

Are your marital actions complete?

Could conception take place?

Do you use contraceptives?

How many times?

Any thoughts, desires, actions for other men but your husband, etc., etc. ?"

Poor Roman Catholic women! We know so well that your kind souls are tortured to death by this terrible Roman obligation of telling, not only your sins, but also the most intimate secrets of your married life. You are free, of course, to practice the prescriptions of your Church. As an ex-priest, we will never even suggest that you be unfaithful to your convictions, but as an ex-priest we can also tell you that these mental tortures imposed upon your souls are not a prescription of the Saviour of mankind to obtain forgiveness of your sins, but are pure inventions of men to keep your minds and hearts under the control of a system, the torturous Roman religious organization.

Your secrets that you have confided to us in confession will be forever kept and never divulged, you may have no fear of that. Ex-priests who have had the courage to shake the shackles of Rome are naturally too honest to divulge secrets confided to them. But we must admit, that as a priest we had no power to forgive your sins.

No priest has such power. Christ is the ONLY Mediator between God and men. He alone can give grace and salvation. This is not my opinion only but it is the teaching of Christ Himself. "I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE; NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME." (John 14:6).

If my dear Roman Catholic friends open their Gospel according to St. Luke, Chapter 5, Verse 21, they will read this:

"WHO CAN FORGIVE SINS, BUT GOD ALONE."

How strange that St. Luke did not say that the Roman Catholic priests can forgive sins through the mental tortures of auricular confession.

(pages 59-67)

[Peter]

If the confessional has changed in the last 50 years I don't imagine it's because the questions that are recommended to be asked of young girls and women/wives, in the writings of Saint Liguori, Dens, Burchard, Debreyne, and Kenrick, have been repudiated by the Roman Catholic Church over the last 50 years.
Perhaps today, whether or not to ask certain questions is left up to the discretion of the individual priest, but that was certainly not the case a hundred years ago as they were compelled to ask them.

The following is an excerpt from "50 Years in the Church of Rome", by Charles Chiniquy, who was in the Roman Catholic Church for 50 years, and became a widely renowned and greatly respected Roman Catholic priest for 25 years. He was highly regarded and recognized as the head of the Canadian temperance movement, that he also carried into the U.S. Midwest.
http://www.biblebelievers.com/chiniquy/cc50_ch34.html

On auricular confession:

"For I do not exaggerate when I say, that for many noble-hearted, welleducated, high-minded women, to be forced to unveil their hearts before the eyes of a man, to open to him all the most secret recesses of their souls, all the most sacred mysteries of their single or married life, to allow him to put to them questions which the most depraved woman would never consent to hear from her vilest seducer, is often more horrible and intolerable than to be tied on burning coals.

More than once I have seen women fainting in the confessional-box, who told me afterwards that the necessity of speaking to an unmarried man on certain things, on which the most common laws of decency ought to have for ever sealed their lips, had almost killed them! Not hundreds, but thousands of times, I have heard from the lips of dying girls, as well as married women, the awful words: "I am for ever lost! All my past confessions and communions have been so many sacrileges! I have never dared to answer correctly the questions of my confessors! Shame has sealed my lips an damned my soul!"

How many times I remained as one petrified, by the side of a corpse, when these last words having hardly escaped the lips of one of my female penitents, who had been snatched out of my reach by the merciless hand of death, before I could give her pardon through the deceitful sacramental absolution? I then believed, as the dead sinner herself had believed, that she should not be forgiven except by that absolution.

For there are not only thousands, but millions of Roman Catholic girls and women, whose keen sense of modest and womanly dignity, are above all the sophisms and diabolical machinations of their priests. They can never be persuaded to answer "Yes" to certain questions of their confessors. They would prefer to be thrown into the flames, and burnt to ashes with the Brahmin widows, rather than allow the eyes of a man to pry into the sacred sanctuary of their souls. Though sometimes guilty before God, and under the impression that their sins will never be forgiven if not confessed, the laws of decency are stronger in their hearts than the laws of their perfidious Church. No consideration not even the fear of eternal damnation, can persuade them to declare to a sinful man, sins which God alone has the right to know, for He alone can blot them out with the blood of His Son, shed on the cross."

To continue hit the link and scroll down 5 paragraphs:
http://www.biblebelievers.com/chiniquy/cc50_ch54.html

[PATRIOT]

Goodness, Pete, amazing the research you do!!

Here is a disturbing video regarding confession:

CONFESSION TO A CATHOLIC PRIEST by random311
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H66gaF_KhLo

Mack has another worthwhile channel:   
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMackQuigleyReport

God bless you!!

Helga

[Peter]

CONFESSION TO A CATHOLIC PRIEST by random311
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H66gaF_KhLo

Good video! Thanks. I'm afraid there will be too few folks willing to admit to what a priests asked them, even among those folks that have overcome the Roman Church, if the fellow in the video, Chiniquy and a few select individuals on the internet are any indication. It likely varies by priest in this day and age, but that was anything but the case in Chiniquy's case a hundred years ago.