Another proof of the persecuting spirit of Rome is furnished by the
"Narrative of Raffaele Ciocci, formerly a Benedictine Monk, but who now
'comes forth from Inquisitorial search and torture, and tells us what
he has seen, heard and felt.'" We can make but a few extracts from
this interesting little volume, published by the American and Foreign
Christian Union, who,--to use their own language--"send it forth as a
voice of instruction and warning to the American people. Let the facts
be heard and read. They are not to be set aside by an apology for the
dark ages, nor an appeal to the refinement of the nineteenth century.
Here is Rome, not as she WAS in the midnight of the world, but as she
IS at the present moment. There is the same opposition to private
judgment--the same coercive measures--the same cruel persecution--the
same efforts to crush the civil and religious liberties of her own
subjects, for which she has ever been characterized."
Ciocci, compelled at an early age to enter the Catholic College--forced,
notwithstanding his deep disgust and earnest remonstrance, to become a
monk--imprisoned--deceived--the victim of priestly artifice and fraud,
at length becomes a Christian. He is of course thrown into a deeper
dungeon; and more exquisite anguish inflicted upon him that he may be
constrained to return to the Romish faith. Of his imprisonment he says,
"We traversed long corridors till we arrived at the door of an apartment
which they requested me to enter, and they themselves retired. On
opening the door I found myself in a close dark room, barely large
enough for the little furniture it contained, which consisted of a small
hard bed, hard as the conscience of an inquisitor, a little table cut
all over, and a dirty ill-used chair. The window which was shut and
barred with iron resisted all my efforts to open it My heart sunk within
me, and I began to cogitate on the destiny in store for me." The Jesuit
Giuliani entering his room, he asked that the window might be opened
for the admission of light and air. Before the words were finished he
exclaimed in a voice of thunder, "How! wretched youth, thou complainest
of the dark, whilst thou art living in the clouds of error? Dost thou
desire the light of heaven, while thou rejectest the light of the
Catholic faith?"
Ciocci saw that remonstrance was useless, but he reminded his jailer
that he had been sent there for three days, to receive instruction, not
to be treated as a criminal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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