Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

Two of her sons were obliged to dig the grave in the night, where they found a treasure; the next day they came to the priest paying him the fee, and also a sum for a number of masses, which the priest was to celebrate for the soul of the deceased, to be delivered from the pains of Purgatory. The priest asked them from whence they received the money; they revealed to him the fact of having found a treasure. The priest wishing to rob them of it, took the fresh hide of an ox, and covered himself with it, so as to appear as the devil, in order to frighten the poor boys. But when he returned with the treasure, and was about to undress himself, lo! the horns of the ox's hide remaided fixed upon his head, and that on the morrow night, the horned priest would be brought into the city, and placed in the prison of the Inquisition. So it was; a close carriage accompanied by gens d' arms in which the poor boy Patriarch was placed, and was brought into the prison of the Inquisition under the name of the horned priest, drove into the city. There he was tortured, in the presence of the students of the Propaganda, dispatriarchized and condemned to death; but Pope Leo XII. graciously commuted the sentence of death into imprisonment for life in the Fort of St. Leo.

If my Roman Catholic brethren could know all the intrigues and strategems, which are resorted to in the church of Rome, in order to be made prelates, they would blush to call them shepherds. It is a proverbial saying in Rome: "To become a prelate you must have one of the three devils to aid you. You must have a white devil, or a yellow devil, or a red devil. The white devil is the protection of a woman; the yellow is gold; and the red, the protection of a cardinal. The narrative of the above stated fact, needs no comment, no parallel even in heathen history is to be found. The council of the infernal recesses could not produce, nor invent a more execrable falsehood, to blindfold the eyes of men in order to destroy their souls.

INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE.

In the face of such inconsistencies of the Pope, blunders of the sacred college, corruptions of the priests, and intrigues of the monks, it was no wonder that I began to doubt the infallibility of the Pope, and to inquire upon what grounds the pretended infallibility is based. The Pope legit

imated the Arabian boy, and removed all the disabilities arising from his unfitness on account of his presumed ignoble birth, by a special dispensation, ordained the boy, who had not yet arrived at the canonical age, and invested him with the power to confer sacred orders on others. He dispenses the monastic orders from submission to the diocesan bishops, absolving faithful subjects from the obedience to their legitimate sovereign, children from all obligations towards their parents. These were the subjects which occupied my mind, and became a matter of close investigation. How can the Pope dispense children from submission to their parents without annulling the ten commandments of God? How can he dispense the servant from obedience to his master without subverting social order? How can he authorize subjects to break the sacred ties which bind them to their sovereign, with impunity? How can he withdraw the sheep from the flock, without exposing them to the danger of being destroyed by the wolf? How can he dispense the members of the monastic orders from their obedience to the diocesan bishops, with out destroying the order of the hierarchy? These and similar contradictory acts, which have been

г

the cause of so much blood-shed, gave rise in my mind to the inquiry of the assumed infallibility of the Pope.

I took the Bible, searched the whole New Testament, in order to support the papal power; I say support, because my intention was not to leave the church of Rome. The infallible power of the church through her head, the Pope, was the only link which chained me to it, and it is a very powerful one.

The passage: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it;" and that passage, "Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the world;" were not sufficient for me, upon which to base such an unlimited power; I could not see in them that the Lord spoke of Popes, because Peter had the privilege of being the first of the apostles, he was not thereby appointed a Pope, nor had he a successor. To satisfy my conscience by examining the direct line of apostolical succession was too delicate, and even superfluous for a Roman, who had been acquainted with the son of Pius VII. and read the letters which he had received from his father, written to his mother when cardinal Chiara Monte;

[ocr errors]

a Roman, who had a personal acquaintance with the Pope Leo XII. when a cardinal, knowing him to be a gambler, licentious, and even debauched. One who was acquainted with the scandalous history of immoral succession in the papal seat, was not much disposed, nor did not feel it so necessary to investigate that subject.

As my intention is not to reveal, but to give only the grounds of my doubts of the apostolical succession at that time, I will state that I examined the fathers of the church and viewed the matter in the light of sound reason.

In that conflict I sought for the opinions of enlightened authors as Origin, Eusebius, Hieronimus, Chrisostomus, Isidor, Baronius and Tertulian, which I carefully read and studied on that subject. I found that after the Holy Spirit had descended upon the apostles, they dispersed into all parts of the world, and preached the gospel to all nations. St. Peter preached in Judea, in Antioch, in Capadocia, in Bithanien, and according to the tradition of the papal church also in Rome. St. James, son of Zebedee, preached also in Judea and in Spain. St. John in Asia Minor. Andrew in Scythia, in Thracia and in Achaja.

St.

St. James, the brother of our Lord preached in

« EdellinenJatka »