Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk (the rosie project txt) 📖

requirements. The term “Nuns’ Island,” is thus used to express the nunneries in Canada, and probably some similar institutions in the United States, where they are not too difficult of access. At all events, girls just entering upon the character of women, after proper training, are finally gratified with a visit to the “Nuns’ Island.” They are taken to Montreal, and in the nunneries there are at once taught “the mystery of iniquity;” in all the living reality which Maria Monk describes. Those girls from the United States, who are represented as novices; in Maria Monk’s “Awful Disclosures,” were young ladies from the United States, who had been decoyed to visit the “Nuns’ Island,” and who, not being Papists, often were found very intractable; but posterior circumstances enforce the belief, that having found resistance vain, they had not returned to their school where they were duly qualified to continue the course into which they had been coerced, so as fully to elude all possibility of discovery and exposure. That mother who intrusts her daughter to a nunnery school, is chargeable with the high crime of openly conducting her into the chambers of pollution, and the path to irreligion, and the bottomless pit.

These combined circumstances satisfactorily prove that, the narrative of Maria Monk should be believed by all impartial persons; at least, until other evidence can be adduced, and the offer of exploring the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, by the New York Protestant Association, has been accepted and decided.

3. Additional evidence of the truth of Maria Monk’s narrative is deduced from the exact conformity of the facts which she states concerning the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, when compared with the authoritative principles of the Jesuit Priesthood as recorded in their own duly sanctioned volumes. It is essential to remark, that of those books she knows nothing; that she has never seen one of them, and if she could grasp them, that they would impart no illumination to her mind, being in Latin; and yet in many momentous particulars, neither Lartigue nor any one of the Jesuit Priests now in Montreal, who was educated in France, could more minutely and accurately furnish an exposition or practical illustration of the atrocious themes, than Maria Monk has unconsciously done.

Maria Monk’s “Awful Disclosures,” are reducible to three classes: intolerable sensuality; diversified murder; and most scandalous mendacity: comprehending flagrant, and obdurate, and unceasing violations of the sixth, seventh, and ninth commandments.

The ninth commandment: FALSEHOOD. Of this baseness, five specimens only shall suffice.

Sanchez, a very renowned author, in his work on “Morality and the Precepts of the Decalogue,” part 2, book 3, chap. 6, no. 13, thus decides: “A person may take an oath that he has not done any certain thing, though in fact he has. This is extremely convenient, and is also very just, when necessary to your health, honour, and prosperity!” Charli, in his Propositions, no. 6, affirms that, “He who is not bound to state the truth before swearing, is not bound by his oath.” Taberna in his vol. 2, part 2, tract 2, chap. 31, p.

288, asks: “Is a witness bound to declare the truth before a lawful judge?” To which he replies: “No, if his deposition will injure himself or his posterity.” Laymann, in his works, book 4, tract 2, chap.

2, p. 73, proclaims: “It is not sufficient for an oath, that we use the formal words, if we had not the intention and will to swear, and do not sincerely invoke God as a witness.” All those principles are sanctioned by Suarez in his “Precepts of Law,” book 3, chap. 9, assertion 2, p. 473, where he says, “If any one has promised or contracted without intention to promise, and is called upon oath to answer, may simply answer, NO; and may swear to that denial.”

The idea of obtaining truth, therefore, from a thorough-going Papist, upon any subject in which his “honour” is concerned—and every Papist’s honour is indissolubly conjoined with “the Church”—is an absurdity so great, that it cannot be listened to with patience, while the above decisions are the authorised dogmas which the Roman Priests inculcate among their followers. How well the nuns of Montreal have imbibed those Jesuitical instructions, Maria Monk’s “Awful Disclosures”

amply reveal.

The Sixth Commandment: MURDER. The following miscellaneous decisions are extracted from the works of the regularly sanctioned Roman authors, of the very highest character and rank in that community.

In his famous volume called “Aphorisms,” p. 178, Emmanuel Sa

writes—“You may kill any person who may be able to put you to death—

judge and witnesses—because it is self-defence.”

Henriquez, in his “Sum of Moral Theology,” vol. 1, book 14, chap.

10, p. 859, decides that “a Priest is not criminal, if he kill the husband of a woman with whom he is caught in adultery.”

Airault published a number of propositions. One of them says, that “a person may secretly kill another who attempts to destroy his reputation, although the facts are true which he published.” The following must be cited in Latin. “An lieitium sit mulieri procurare abortum? Posset ilium excutere, ne honorem suum amittat, qui illi multo pretiosior est ipsa vita.” “An liceat mulieri conjugat� sumere pharmacum sterilitatis? Ita satius est ut hoc faciat, quam ut marito debitium conjugale recuset.” Censures 319, 322, 327.

In his Moral Theology, vol. 4, book 32, sec. 2, problem 5, Escobar determines, that “it is lawful to kill an accuser whose testimony may jeopard your life and honour.”

Guimenius promulged his seventh Proposition in these words: “You may charge your opponent with false crimes to destroy his credit; and you may also kill him.”

Marin wrote a book called “Speculative and Moral Theology.” In vol. 3, tract 23, disputation 8, sec. 5, no. 63, p. 448, are found the following sentences: “Licet procurare abortum, ne puella infametur.”

That doctrine is admitted, “to evade personal disgrace, and to conceal the infamy of Monks and Nuns.” no. 67, p. 429. In no. 75, p.

430, of the same work, Marin writes: “Navarrus, Arragon, Bannez, Henriquez,, Sa, Sanchez, Palao, and others, all say, that a woman may use not only missione sanguinis, sed aliis medicamentis, etsi inde pereat foetus.” With that doctrine also agrees Egidius, in his “Explication of the Decalogue,” vol. 5, book 5, chap. 1, doubt 4; and Diana in his work upon Morality, part 6, tract 8, resolution 27, fully ratifies his sanction.

Gobatus published a work which he entitled, “Morality,” and in vol. 2, part 2, tract 5, chap. 9, sec. 8, p. 318, is the following edifying specimen of Popish morals: “Persons may innocently desire to be drunk, if any great good will arise from it. A son who inherits wealth by his father’s death, may rejoice that when he is intoxicated, he murdered his father.” According to which combined propositions, a man may make himself drunk expressly to kill his parent, and yet be guiltless.

Busenbaum wrote a work denominated “Moral Theology.” which was enlarged and explained by Lacroix. In vol. 1, p. 295, is the following position: “In all the cases where a man has a right to kill any person, another may do it for him.” But we have already heard by Escobar that any “Roman Priest has a right to kill Maria Monk; and therefore any Papist may murder her for them.”

Alagona, in his “Compend of the Sum of Theology,” by Thomas Aquinas, question 94, p. 230, “Sums” up all the Romish system in this comprehensively blasphemous oracular adage. “By the command of God, it is lawful to murder the innocent, to rob, and to commit lewdness; and thus to fulfil his mandate, is our duty.”

The seventh commandment.—In his Aphorisms, p. 80, and p. 259, Sa thus decides—“Copulari ante benedictionem, aut nullam aut leve peceatum est; quin etiam expedit, si multum isla differatur.”—

“Potest et femina quaeque et mas, pro turpi corporis usu, pretium, accipere et petere.”

Hurtado issued a volume of “Disputations and Difficulties.” At p.

476 is the following genuine Popish rule of life—“Carnal intercourse before marriage is not unlawful.” So teaches that Jesuit oracle.

Dicastillo, in his work upon “Righteousness and other cardinal Virtues,” p. 87, thus asks—“An puella, quae per vin opprimitur teneatur clamare et opem implorare ne violetur?” The answer is this—“Non videtur teneri impedire peccatum alterius—sed mere passive se habere.”

Escobar, in his “Moral Theology,” p. 326, 327, 328, of vol. 4, determines that “a man who abducts a woman from affection expressly to marry her, is guilty of mortal sin, but a Priest who forcibly violates her through lust, incurs no censure.”

Tamburin unfolds the character of Romanism in his “Moral Theology,” p. 186, in a lengthened discussion of the following characteristic inquiry—“Quantum pro usu corporis sui juste exigat mulier?”—The reply is, “de meretrice et de femina honesta sive conjugata, ant non.”

Fegeli wrote a book of “Practical Questions;” and on p. 397, is the following—“Under what obligation is he who defiles a virgin?”—The answer is this—“Besides the obligation of penance, he incurs none; quia puella habet jus usum sui corporis concedendi.”

Trachala published a volume which he facetiously entitled the “Laver of Conscience;” and at p. 96, he presents us with this astounding recipe to purify the conscience—“An Concubinarius sit absolvendus antequam concubinam dimittat?” To which he replies—“Si ilia concubina sit valde bona et utilis economa, et sic nullam aliam possit habere, esset absolvendus.”

From the prior decisions, combined with numberless others which might be extracted from the works of the Romish authors, it is obvious, that the violations of the seventh commandment, are scarcely enumerated by the Papal priesthood among venial sins. Especially if we consider the definition of a prostitute by the highest Popish authority: for in the Decretals, Distinction 34, in the Gloss, is found this savory adage—

“Meretrix est quae, admiserit plures quam viginti tria hominum millia!”

That is the infallible attestation to the truth of Maria Monk’s “Awful Disclosures.”

4. The antecedent narrative of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, is confirmed by the universal and constant practice of Roman Priests in all Convents.

Among the works of William Huntington, is a correspondence between himself and a young lady who was converted by his ministry. The seventh letter from Miss M. contains the following passage:—

“It is a shame for women to approach those confessionals. If they were never wise in scenes of iniquity before, the priest will instruct them, by asking the most filthy questions. I was confined to my bed three days from my first confession; and thought I would never go again, being so abashed by the abominations he had put in my head. I would just as soon recommend scalding water to cure Anthony’s-fire, or a wet bed in an ice-house to cure an ague, as recommend a sinner to those accursed lies, Roman penance, and Auricular Confession.”—The mental purity of Nuns consists in a life totally “contrary to the laws of God, of modesty, of decency. They are constantly exposed to the obscene interrogations, and the lewd actions of the Priests. Notwithstanding God has fixed a bar on every female mind, it is broken through by the Priests putting questions to them upon those subjects, as the scripture declares, which ought not to be named? The uncommon attractions of the young women in Convents generally indicate the greatest unchastity among them. I have known girls, sent for education to the Convent where I was, who regularly stripped themselves of every thing they could obtain from their friends; which, by the artful insinuations of the Nuns, was given to them and the Priests. The Roman priesthood may well be called a sorceress, and their doctrine ‘the wine of fornication,’ for nothing but the powers of darkness could