The Demands of Rome. Elizabeth Schoffen
repeats."
Therefore, I wish to give to the world my experience of thirty-one years in a convent, that I may help hasten the time when these institutions will be open, and the captive set free; that I may help, if I can, the real true, red-blooded American citizens from returning to sleepy indifference.
I cannot write this story in the language of an educated person, for as you will learn in the succeeding chapters, my education was sadly neglected. There will, no doubt, be many grammatical errors, which I ask my readers to overlook, as it is not intended as a work of rhetoric, but a message from the heart. I will write it in my own language, that which I had to learn mostly by myself, and it took a great many years of hard work and a great deal of deception on my part to be able to tell it even as well as I will. And, if I can convey to my American brothers and sisters any new light on the workings of these damnable institutions, or, if I may be the means of influencing a few more to be real, true, honest Protestants, then this effort will not be in vain.
I have no tale of immorality to tell, as the order of which I was a member was what may be classed as one of the "open orders," and the institutions in which I worked most of my so-called "religious" career, were among the most modern operated by the Roman Catholic system in this country. I have heard and read a great deal about the nameless infamies and the degradation of the "cloistered" orders, but that story I must leave for some other to tell. I will tell the unvarnished, plain truth of my experience in the "modern" institutions, and let the reader draw his or her own conclusion as to the life the sisters in the closed orders have to live.
CHAPTER II.
My Early Life and Schooling
I was born in 1861, in Minnesota, of German parents, who had come from Germany in quest of greater liberty and a home in a free land.
My mother was a most devout Roman Catholic, absolutely under priest guidance, and by his instructions to her the children were reared and schooled. My father was a broad-minded Roman Catholic, not very strong in the faith. I have heard him speak of the teachings and superstitious practices, as "priest foolishness." But, that there might be peace in the family, he would leave matters regarding the children to mother, and leaving these things with her was leaving them with the priest.
When I was five years old, we migrated to the State of Washington near Walla Walla (then called Fort Walla Walla).
I was the eighth child of a large family, and as my parents could not afford to send all of us to the convent or parochial school, it was my lot to go to the public school a few weeks occasionally for three years. This was when I was at the age of eight, nine and ten years. But, for fear of imbibing the "Protestant godless spirit," as my mother called it, I was given only a reader and speller. Nearly every day my mother would question me as to what the Protestant children would say to me at school. She cautioned me many, many times not to talk to them, as they were the children of bad Protestants, that they would grow up bad and wicked the same as their parents were, without belief in God and church, as Protestants were people who fell away from God by leaving the true church and following a very wicked man, named Luther, who became proud and disobedient to the Pope.
These Protestant godless (public) schools were greatly deplored in my home by my mother, and yet my father was a teacher and director in these public schools for a great many years. Because the Roman Catholic people had to pay taxes to keep these schools running, there was much murmuring against that unjust government of an infidel people, as it was called. With these contentions continually wrangling in my home, it did not require serious excuses for my being kept out of school. I have heard my mother make the statement many times that it would be better to have no education than to have this Protestant godless public school education.
When I was eleven years old, my mother and the priest decided that it was time for me to go to the convent school to learn my catechism, confession, my first communion, the rosary—my religion. In fact, during the three years I attended this school, that was about all I learned. True, there were classes of reading, spelling and arithmetic, but the books I used in these studies were of a lesser grade than those I used during the short time I went to the public school. By the order of the sister who taught arithmetic, I had to teach smaller children what little arithmetic I learned from blackboard study in the public school, having my class in the back of the room we occupied. The sister who taught reading (Sister Agnes) told us that before she came to that school to teach, she had been a cook in an Indian Mission. Well qualified, wasn't she? The catechism teacher (Sister Mary Rosary) taught sewing and catechism alternately, in that part of the building known as the wash-house.
Three years of my life were wasted in this manner, learning practically nothing but Roman Catholic catechism and pagan religion. Three years of just that time of a child's life which should be spent laying the foundation for something nobler and grander.
And now, after all is said and done, I was prepared to take my first communion. This was administered to me on May 23d, 1875, by "Father" Duffy, in the parish church of Walla Walla. I was confirmed the same day, in the same church, by Bishop Blanchet, of Vancouver, Washington.
I thought that I now had religion, and as I thought that was the one objective of the convent schooling, I took my few books home and told my mother that I would not go to that school any longer. I wanted to return to the public school, but mother said we were Catholics, and as such, we had to go to the Catholic school. Finally, after a great deal of persistence, I was permitted to go to the public school, but it was only for a very short time again. Mother took sick, and regardless of the fact that there were two sisters and a brother younger than I, and a sister and brother older, at home, this was a very good excuse to get me out of school.
From this time till I was twenty years old, six years, I did nothing but idle away the most precious time of one's existence. Oh, what stupid, lonely, sorrowful girlhood years they were. I knew in a dreamy way that I was being cheated out of my right of education, but what was I to do? I was tempted many times to leave home and work for schooling. I once made mention of this intention to mother. I was threatened with all sorts of punishments if I ever attempted a thing of this nature. She told me that I could study the catechism at home, that that was enough for me to know—that I would not forget the things that would take me to heaven and keep me from going to that terrible hell-fire with the devils. If there would have been any reasonable excuse for all this, I would have nothing to say. But there the school was at our very door, free to all, without price, with the exception of the few books that were needed, and yet I was denied that privilege. And why? All in the name of religion.
Oh, my American friends, can you not see the folly of it all? Can you not see the folly of allowing this one-man power to continue building these institutions all over this fair land of ours? Every time you see a parochial school in the shadow of a cross, just think that there is the institution taking the place of our public schools, and you can rest assured that even the parochial schools would not be here if it were not for the public schools. Institutions supposed to be educational, when in reality they are institutions for the purpose of teaching Roman Catholic paganism.
You may say that there are Roman Catholics who are well educated. Yes, there are. But where you will see one who is well educated, there will be hundreds and maybe thousands who have only a duped education, a fooled education, so to speak. I have given you a fair example of Roman Catholic education in my own life.
Six years before I entered the sisterhood, I had nothing to do outside the few home chores, kept in inexcusable ignorance, deprived of every opportunity for any enlightenment, even for my own future home life. I could hear nothing but punishments, purgatory, hell-fire and everlasting damnation. Prayer to the crucifix in honor of the five holy wounds, to the holy Virgin Mary and her badge—the scapular—for protection; confession, the church, the priest-Christ—these were my schooling. No reading, no