The Priest, the Woman and the ConfessionalChiniquy, Charles Paschal Telesphore
Religion
The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional
Chiniquy, Charles Paschal Telesphore
Catholic Church -- Controversial literature -- Protestant authors; Confession
If Christ has not come to deceive the world through His Apostle, must not
the wife go to her husband for advice? Ought she not to expect from him,
and him alone, after God, the light she wants and the consolation she is in
need of? Is it not to her husband, and to him alone, after God, she ought
to look in her days of trial for help? Is it not under his leadership alone
she must fight the battle of life and conquer? Are not this mutual and
daily sharing of the anxieties of life, this constant shouldering on the
battle-field, and this reciprocal and mutual protection and help renewed at
every hour of the day, which form, under the eyes and by the mercy of God,
the holiest and the purest charms of the married life? Is it not that
unreserved confidence in each other which binds together those golden links
of Christian love that make them happy in the very midst of the trials of
life? Is it not through this mutual confidence alone that they are _one_ as
God wants them to be _one_? Is it not in this unity of thoughts, fears and
hopes, joys and love, which come from God, that they can cheerfully cross
the thorny valley, and safely reach the Promised Land?
The Gospel says that the husband is to his wife what Christ is to His
Church! Is it not, then, a most sacrilegious iniquity for a wife to look to
another rather than to her own husband for such advice, wisdom, strength,
and life, as he is entitled, qualified, and ready to afford? As no other
has the right to her love, so no other man has any right to her absolute
confidence. As she becomes an adulteress the day that she gives her body to
another man, is she any the less an adulteress, the day that she gives her
confidence and trusts her soul to a stranger? The adultery of the heart and
soul is not less criminal than the adultery of the body; and every time the
wife goes to the feet of the priest to confess, does she not become guilty
of that iniquity?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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