Popery! As It Was and as It Is. Also, Auricular Confession; And Popish Nunneries. William Hogan

PREFACE.

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      In submitting the following pages to the public, I can say, with truth, that I am actuated by no other motive than a sincere desire to promote the interest, and contribute all in my power to perpetuate the free institutions, of this, my adopted country.

      It is many years since I have had any intercourse or connection with the church or priests of Rome; and I vainly imagined that, after the first outbreak of their animosity, for repudiating their doctrines, it would succeed into a calm indifference. I was aware of the custom, in that church, to defame and calumniate all who "went out from her;" but especially those who have held any distinguished position.

      Against such, appeals are immediately made to the people by their priests, until, finally, maddened by sophistry, fanaticism, and falsehoods, they look upon the seceder as one whom it is their duty to destroy; and in whose word, honor, and virtue, no confidence is to be reposed. The object of the Romish church, in this, cannot be mistaken. it is too plain to escape even the least observant eye. A lawyer who can render legally valueless the testimony of opposing witnesses, seldom fails in establishing his case; and hence it is that the Romish church never fails to destroy, if she can, the credibility of all who break loose from her, knowing them to be the best witnesses of her iniquities. But for some years back, and until recently, the violence of Popish priests against myself seemed to slumber. This was natural. In the body ecclesiastic, as well as in the natural body, a morbid excitement often succeeds a stupor; and recently these gentlemen have assailed me again. To apparent indifference succeeded a frantic zeal; and from one end of this continent to the other, they have tried to injure me, by appeals to the public through their presses, and especially through the confessional. All this I would have disregarded, as usual, but I find that these priests have become politicians, and that every blow aimed at me, for the free exercise of my judgment as to the best mode of worshipping God, is aimed at the constitution of my adopted country, which grants this blessing, without let or hindrance, to all the children of men.

      Well aware that Americans are not acquainted with the designs of Popery against their country and its institutions, I feel it my duty to lay before them the following pages. The perusal of them will satisfy every American that our country is in danger, not so much from enemies abroad as from foes within. They will find that Papists have reduced political, as well as religious corruption, to a system, and are, at this moment, practising it amongst us, upon a great and gigantic scale.

SYNOPSIS OF POPERY, AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.

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      When this country renounced its allegiance to the British crown, and proclaimed itself independent Popery was on the wane in Europe; it was there getting more sickly, more languid and feeble, until it had little more than a mere nominal existence; but while its blossoms were fading, its thorns retained their vitality, inflicting pains and wounds on all who came in contact with them. The Jesuits, one of the most influential orders of friars belonging to the Roman church, continued still active as ever in their fiendish avocations; they roamed about, like so many gnomes, from country to country, and from people to people, carrying with them, and strewing on their paths, the seeds of moral death on all that was precious and valuable in the social system. Whatever they touched was blighted; whatever they said or preached breathed treachery; wherever they went, vice, crime, and duplicity marked their track. But dark as the times were then, enshrouded as they had been in ignorance, and idolatrous as the people were, they began to manifest some dissatisfaction at the machinations of Jesuits in their efforts to acquire temporal power. They began to feel it in the loss of their property, out of which they too late saw themselves gradually swindled; they felt it in the loss of their liberty and civil rights, out of which they had been persuaded, all for the good of the church. Endurance became intolerable, and those unhallowed agents had to be partially suppressed.

      The Popish church, at this time, seeing the influence of her most active agents gradually diminishing, her ancient glories fading, and her power vanishing from her grasp; and scarcely able to breathe any longer in the putrid atmosphere which her own corruption and impurities had created, very naturally turned her eyes towards this brilliant new world. It was then young and beautiful; it abounded in all the luxuries of nature; it promised all that was desirable to man. The holy church, seeing these irresistible temptations, thirsting with avarice, and yearning for the reestablishment of her falling greatness, soon commenced pouring in among its unsuspecting people hordes of Jesuits and other friars, with a view of forming among them institutions which were already found to be destructive to the peace and morals of all social and religious principles in Europe. We now see Popish colleges, and nunneries, and monastic institutions, springing up in our hitherto happy republic; and, if similar causes continue, as they have ever done, to produce similar effects, it needs no prophet's eye to see, nor inspired tongue to tell, what the consequences must be to posterity. Many suppose that Popery has been modified; that it is different now from what it was in ancient times; that the spirit which actuated Papists in those dark days ceases to influence them now that the faggot, the rack, and various other modes of torture, are not still in use in the Roman church, and that it has long ceased to lay claim, by divine right, to temporal sovereignty, or to any other of those prerogatives which they formerly insisted upon. There are some so fastidiously liberal as to grant them all immunities which may be with safety granted to other sects; others there are, so patriotic as to hold at defiance all their power; and others so self-conceited as to fancy themselves an over-match even for Jesuits, in religious chicanery and political intrigue.

      All this arises, not from want of true zeal in American Protestants, but because they are unacquainted with the canons of the Romish church. These canons are inaccessible to the majority of the American people, even of theologians, and with the purport and meaning of them none but those who have been educated Roman Catholic priests have much or any acquaintance. I hesitate not to say—although I do so with the utmost respect and deference—that there are but few American theologians who have much acquaintance with the doctrines or canons of the Romish church. They form no part of their studies; a knowledge of them is not necessary in the legitimate discharge of their pastoral duties; and hence it is, that in many of their controversies with Romish priests, they are not unfrequently browbeaten, bullied, and often almost ignominiously driven from the arena of controversy by men who, in point of general information, virtue, piety, zeal, and scriptural knowledge, are greatly their inferiors. He who argues with Catholic priests must have had his education with them; he must be of them and