Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk (e book reader android TXT) 📕

In any other case but one exposing the abominations of Popery, such a volume as Maria Monk’s “Awful Disclosures” would have been received without cavil; and immediate judicial measures would have been adopted, to ascertain the certainty of the alleged facts, and the extent and aggravation of their criminality. But now persons are calling for more evidence, when, if they reflected but for a moment, they would perceive, that the only additional evidence possible, is under the entire control of the very persons who are criminated; and to whom the admission of further testimony would be the accumulation of indelible ignominy.

The pretence, that it is contrary to their rules to allow strangers to explore the interior of a nunnery, only adds insult to crime. Why should a Convent be exempt from search, more than any other edifice? Why should Roman Priests be at liberty to perpetrate every deed of darkness in impenetrable recesses called nunneries? Why should one body of females, shut up in a certain species of mansion, to whom only one class of men have unrestricted access, be excluded from all public and legal supervision, more than any other habitation of lewd women, into which all men may enter? As citizens of the United States, we do not pretend to have any authoritative claim to explore a convent within the dominion of a foreign potentate. The Roman Priests of Canada, exercise a vast influence, and are completely intertwined with the Jesuits, in this republic. Therefore, when they remember the extinction of the nunneries at Monroe, Michigan, Charlestown, and Pittsburg; and when they recollect, that the delineations of Maria Monk, if they produce no effect in Canada, will assuredly render female convents in the United States very suspicious and insecure; if they have any solicitude for their confederates, they will intrepidly defy research, and dauntlessly accept the offer of the New York Protestant Association: that a joint committee of disinterested, enlightened and honorable judges, should fully investigate, and equitably decide upon the truth or falsehood of Maria Monk’s averments. Their ominous silence, their affected contempt, and their audacious refusal, are calculated only to convince every impartial person, of even the smallest discernment, of the real state of things in that edifice; that the chambers of pollution are above, and that the dungeon of torture and death are below; and that they dread the exposure of the theatre on which their horrible tragedies are performed.

It is also a fact publicly avowed by certain Montreal Papists themselves, and extensively told in taunt and triumph, that they have been employed as masons and carpenters by the Roman Priests, since Maria Monk’s visit to Montreal in August, 1835, expressly to alter various parts of the Hotel Dieu Convent, and to close up some of the subterraneous passages and cells in that nunnery. This circumstance is not pretended even to be disputed or doubted; for when the dungeons under ground are spoken of before the Papists, their remark is this: “Eh bien! mais vous ne les trouverez pas, � present; on les a cach� hors de vue. Very well, you will not find them there now; they are closed up, and out of sight.” Why was the manoeuvre completed? Manifestly, that in urgent extremity, a casual explorer might be deceived, by the apparent proof that the avenues, and places of imprisonment and torture which Maria Monk describes are not discoverable. Now that circumstance might not even been suspected, if the Papist workmen themselves had not openly boasted of the chicanery by which the Priests, who employed them, expected to blind and deceive the Protestants. For in reference to the Romanists, a Popish Priest well knows that nothing more is necessary than for him to assert any absurdity, however gross or impossible, and attest it by the five crosses on his vestments, and his own superstitious vassal believes it with more assurance than his own personal identity. But the filling up and the concealment of the old apertures in the nunnery, by the order of the Roman Priests are scarcely less powerful corroborative proof of Maria Monk’s delineations, than ocular and palpable demonstration.

2. Some of the circumstances attending Maria Monk’s visit to Montreal, in August, 1835, add great weight in favour of the truth, which no cavils, skepticism, scorn, nor menaces, can counterbalance.

We will however state one very recent occurrence, because it seems to us, that it alone is almost decisive of the controversy. A counsellor of Quebec—his name is omitted merely from delicacy and prudential considerations—has been in New York since the publication of the “Awful Disclosures” His mind was so much influenced by the perusal of that volume, that he sought out the Authoress, and most closely searched into the credibility of her statements. Before the termination of the interview, that gentleman became so convinced of the truth of the picture which Maria Monk drew of the interior of the Canadian Nunneries, that he expressed himself to the following effect:—“My daughter, about 15 years of age, is in the Ursuline Convent at Quebec. I will return home immediately; and if I cannot remove her any other way, I will drag her out by the hair of her head, and raise a noise about their ears that shall not soon be quieted.”

That gentleman did so return to Quebec, since which he has again visited New York; and he stated, that upon his arrival in Quebec, he went to the Convent, and instantly removed his daughter from the Ursuline Nunnery; from whom he ascertained, as far as she had been initiated into the mysteries, that Maria Monk’s descriptions of Canadian Nunneries, are most minutely and undeniably accurate.

We have already remarked, that Mrs. –-, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Hogan, and Mr.

Smith, who was a Papist Priest, with scores of other persons who formerly resided in Montreal, all express their unqualified belief of the statements made by Maria Monk. Mr. Ogden’s acquaintance with the facts, as Attorney General, and that of other officers of the Provincial Government, have also been noticed. The ensuing additional circumstances are of primary importance to a correct estimate of the value which should be attached to the crafty silence of the Roman Priests and the impudent denials of infidel profligates.

Mr. Bouthillier, one of the Montreal Magistrates, called at Mr.

Johnson’s house where Maria Monk stayed, in the month of August, 1835, when visiting Montreal.

He addressed her and said:—“There is some mystery about Novices—What is it? and asked how long a woman must be a novice before she can take the veil?” Having been answered, Mr. Bouthillier then desired Maria Monk to describe the Superior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. As soon as it was done, he became enraged, and said—“Vous dites un mensonge, vous en savez. You lie, you know you do?”—Mr. Bouthillier next inquired—“Was Mr. Tabeau in the Holy Retreat when you left the Convent?” She answered “Yes.” To which he replied in French—“Anybody might have answered that question.” Something having been said about the Hotel Dieu Nuns being confined to their convent, Mr. Bouthillier declared, that they were allowed to go about the streets. He was told that could not be the case, for it was a direct violation of the rules for Nuns to depart from the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. He replied—“Ce n’est pas vrai. That is not true,”

Mr. Bonthillier then became very angry, and applied to Maria Monk some very abusive epithets, for which a gentleman in the room reproved him.

It was evident, that he lost his temper because he had lost his argument, and his hopes of controverting her statements.

On the Lord’s day after Maria Monk’s arrival in Montreal, and when the matter had become well known and much talked about, Phelan, the Priest, at the end of mass, addressed the Papists, who were assembled to hear mass, to this effect: “There is a certain nun in this city who has left our faith, and joined the Protestants. She has a child of which she is ready to swear I am the father. She wishes in this way to take my gown from me. If I knew where to find her, I would put her in prison. I mention this to guard you against being deceived by what she may say.

The Devil now has such hold upon people that there is danger lest some might believe her story.” He then pretended to weep, and appeared to be overcome with feeling. A number of the people gathered around him, and he said: “That nun is Antichrist. She is not a human being, but an evil spirit, who got among the Catholics, and was admitted into the nunnery, where she learned the rules.” He also stated, that “in that nun, the prophecy respecting the coming of Antichrist is fulfilled, to break down the Catholic religion.” Such was Phelan’s address to the people. He declared that Maria Monk had been a nun. Now he knew her, for he saw her in Montreal, where she could not know him. It would have saved all further inquiry and research, if, instead of denouncing her after mass, he had merely assented to Maria Monk’s proposition, to be confronted with those Roman Priests and nuns before impartial witnesses in the Hotel Dieu Convent.

One of the most impressively characteristic circumstances which occurred during Maria Monk’s visit to Montreal in Aug. 1835, was an interview at Mr. Johnson’s house with a carpenter who had heard Phelan’s denunciation of Maria Monk after mass.

The heinous destruction of all domestic confidence and of all female purity, is known to be the constant and general practice, not only in Canada, but in all other Popish countries, and among Papists in every part of the world. For in truth it is only fulfilling the authentic dogmas of their own system. The following authoritative principles are divulged in the Corpus Juris Canonici, which contains the Decretals, Canons, &c. of the Popes and Councils; and other participants of the pretended Papal infallibility. “If the Pope fall into homicide or adultery, he cannot be accused, but is excused by the murders of Samson, and the adultery of David.” Hugo, Glossa, distinc. 40 Chapter, Non vos.

—“Likewise if any Priest is found embracing a woman, it must be presupposed and expounded that he doth it to bless her!”—Glossa, Caus.

12. Quest. 3. Chapter Absis. According to the Pope’s bull he who does not believe those doctrines is accursed.

As that carpenter was completely overcome by the recollection of the Priest’s information and caution about his marriage, he desisted from any further questions; but upon Maria Monk’s declaration, that she was desirous to go into the convent, and prove all her accusations against the Priests and Nuns, he withdrew. Soon after he returned, and stated, that he had been to the Convent, to inquire respecting her; and that he had been informed, that she had once belonged to the Nunnery; but that they would not any longer own or recognise her. Afterwards he exhibited the most contradictory emotions, and first cursed Maria Monk; then reviled the Priests, applying to them all the loathsome epithets in the Canadian vocabulary. Subsequently, he went to make inquiries at the Seminary; and after his return to Mr. Johnson’s house he declared, that the persons there had informed him, that Maria Monk had lived in the Nunnery, but not as a Nun; then he offered to assist her in her endeavours to expose the Priests; and finally disappeared, swearing aloud as he was retiring from the house; and apparently thinking over the conduct of the Priest to his wife before their marriage. “Oh, sacre!”—he repeated to himself—“c’est trop mechant!”

Similar facts to the above occurred frequently during the time of Maria Monk’s visit to Montreal—in which strangers who called upon her, cursed and reviled her; then