SUBJECTED TO THE INQUISITION
It may be inferred from this that peccant confessors were not likely to be prosecuted, unless there were other circumstances or offences to stimulate action, and this is confirmed by another case, about the same time, which also shows the readiness of the tribunal to claim jurisdiction. Pedro Bermúdez, incumbent of Ciempozuelos, employed a priest named Pareja as vicar, from 1525 to 1529. They quarrelled; Pareja was dismissed, found employment at Valdemoro, and commenced suit against Bermúdez. The latter retorted by instigating a certain Catalina Roldan, who had borne a child to Pareja, and her mother, to complain to Romero, a visiting inquisitor from Toledo, about the seduction, asking that he be forced to provide a dower and find a husband for her. Romero took up the case. Bermúdez busied himself in collecting testimony and was aided by a priest named Solorzano, whose enmity had been excited by Pareja having served as commissioner in taking evidence as to his seduction of a married woman, for which he was prosecuted in Alcalá. The proof collected against Pareja was conclusive. Two of his penitents admitted to having yielded to him, and several others testified as to his advances in the act of confession. When one of them was asked whether she confessed to him their mutual sin, she said that he told her not to do so, and afterwards admitted her to communion. There was also evidence as to his violating the seal of confession, and to irreverence in administering the sacrament. The trial pursued the usual course, the main charges being his misdeeds with his female penitents, which he admitted more or less explicitly. When the papers were sent to the Suprema, it returned them, saying that the charges for the most part were beyond the competence of the tribunal, and appertained to the episcopal court, to which they should be transferred, while the tribunal could proceed with the little that remained. The charges thus, after omitting the solicitation, were reduced to four—that he persuaded his accomplices that their mutual sin need not be confessed, that he told them that they could take the sacrament without confessing, that he said it was better to have masses celebrated than to pay debts, and thatalmost all the witnesses held him to be a bad Christian, a heretic and an evil man.
Pareja and his advocate argued that the case was outside of inquisitorial jurisdiction, but the tribunal pushed it to the end on these subsidiary points and, on May 23, 1532 sentenced him to perpetual deprivation of hearing the confessions of women, to a fine of twenty thousand maravedís, and to have Toledo as a prison for two years, during which he was to fast and recite psalms on Fridays. As he was not required to abjure, even for light suspicion, the charge of heresy was abandoned, and as solicitation was not included in the sentence, he was liable to further prosecution by the Ordinary. Yet the character of the penalties shows that solicitation was the real gravamen, over which the tribunal was seeking indirectly to acquire jurisdiction.[182]
Evidently, if there was to be any cure or mitigation of this corroding cancer, some less sympathetic tribunal than the episcopal court was requisite, and the Inquisition was eager to supply the want, yet matters were allowed to drift for a quarter of a century longer. Possibly it may have been the Lutheran alarm of 1558 that led Archbishop Guerrero of Granada to seek the remedy and to call to the attention of the Holy See the frequency of the crime and the need of its more energetic repression.[183]His appeal was heard, and Paul IV, in a brief of February 18, 1559, expressed his sorrow at learning that certain priests of Granada misled their penitents and abused the sacraments, wherefore he granted, to the inquisitors of Granada, jurisdiction over the heresy implied in the crime and withdrew all exemptions of the religious Orders.[184]What activity the Granada tribunal manifested in the exercise of its new function is not recorded, but the field thus thrown open was sufficiently inviting for Valdés, in 1561, to obtain from Pius IV a brief granting to him and to his delegates throughout Spain the same faculties.[185]It required some ingenuity to bring the crime within the purview of the Inquisition, but it was alleged that no one whose faith was correct could thus abuse the sacraments of the Church of God. The point is not without importance, for it made the matter one of faith and not of morals, leading, as we shall see, to a notable limitation in the efficacy of the reform attempted.
The regular clergy sought to escape to the milder mercies of their own superiors, and claimed that, in the constitution of Pius IV, in 1562, which subjected them in general to the Inquisition, there was an exception of cases in which the superiors had taken the earlier action.[186]The application, however, of this exception to the crime of solicitation was negatived, in 1592, by a decree of Clement VIII, which declared that the jurisdiction of the Inquisition in this matter was exclusive and not cumulative, and it ordered the members of all privileged Orders to denounce to the Inquisition their guilty brethren.[187]In 1608, Paul V granted the same powers to the Inquisition of Portugal and, in 1612, he settled in favor of the faith a question which had arisen, whether the briefs comprehended the solicitation of men as well as of women.[188]Even before this, solicitation in Italy had been subjected to the Roman Inquisition, for it issued, December 15, 1613 a decree ordering confessors to instruct their penitents that they must denounce to the tribunals all attempts to solicit them to evil and, on July 5, 1614, it included, what it described as a frequent offence, the discussion of indecent matters with women in the confessional, even without confession.[189]
LEGISLATION OF GREGORY XV
Thus the Church was gradually realizing the necessity of more stringent measures to curb the evil propensities of those to whom it confided the salvation of souls, but as yet it had made only local regulations. Gregory XV recognized that a general law was required, to cover all the lands of the Roman obedience, and not merely those possessed of an Inquisition and, at the same time, to define more comprehensively the nature of the offence. The briefs thus far had limited this to seduction in the act of hearing confessions. Papal legislation was always construed in the strictest manner, and confessors felt safe if they confined their seductions to the time preceding and following the actual utterance of the confession. Had the moral and spiritual welfare of priest andpenitent been the only matter involved, it would have been easy to include in general terms any indecent or illicit passages between them, no matter when or where committed, but solicitation had been made to involve suspicion of heresy, in order to bring it under the Inquisition, and it became regarded as a purely technical offence, punishable only when it could be connected directly with the sacrament, leading to the unfortunate corollary that otherwise it was a trivial matter, undeserving of special consideration.
Accordingly Gregory, in his briefUniversi Dominici Gregis, August 30, 1622, while enlarging the definition, confined it to what was said or done in the place destined to hearing confessions, whether it was before or after confession, or even if there was only a pretext of confession. He extended the provisions of his predecessors to all lands, and delegated all inquisitors and Ordinaries as special judges, with exclusive jurisdiction to inquire into and diligently prosecute such cases, according to the canons in matters of faith. He further decreed the penalties of suspension of functions, deprivation of benefices and dignities with perpetual disability for the same and, for regulars, of active and passive voice; besides these there were the temporal penalties of exile, galleys, perpetual and irremissible imprisonment and, in cases of exceptional wickedness, of degradation and relaxation. In view of the difficulty of proof, single witnesses should suffice for condemnation, when circumstances afforded due presumption. Confessors, who found that their penitents had been previously solicited, were required to admonish them to denounce the offenders, and for neglect of this they were to be duly punished. This latter provision was of difficult enforcement, for Urban VIII, in 1626, felt obliged to address all archbishops, instructing them to call the attention of confessors to it, and to insert a corresponding clause in all licences. The regular clergy seem to have been the subject of special anxiety for, in 1633, the superiors of all religious houses were ordered to assemble the inmates yearly and warn them as to the observance of these decrees, and this was also to be done in all chapters, general, provincial and conventual.[190]
The Holy See was in earnest, but the result did not correspond to its efforts. France and Germany paid virtually no attention to the decrees, and in Spain the Inquisition made no change in its procedure or in the mildness of its penalties. The only effect ofGregory’s brief was to raise the question whether it did not confirm, at least cumulatively, to the bishops the jurisdiction of which they had been practically deprived. No distinction was expressed between lands with and those without an Inquisition, and the original briefs of Paul IV and Pius IV had not deprived the bishops of jurisdiction, although the latter had made little effort to assert it against the exclusive claims of the tribunals. We chance to hear of the case of Dr. Miguel Bueso, who was surrendered by the Archbishop of Valencia, in 1608, for trial on this charge and, after punishment, was returned to the archiepiscopal court.[191]Soon after this de Sousa argues that, in spite of the papal decrees, bishops have cumulative jurisdiction, although the inquisitor-general can evoke cases.[192]In 1620, Inquisitor-general Luis de Aliaga had a struggle with his brother Isidor de Aliaga, Archbishop of Valencia, over the case of Gaspar Flori, rector of Urgel, who was on trial by the vicar-general for various offences, including solicitation. The tribunal demanded cognizance of this special charge; the vicar-general asserted cumulative jurisdiction, adding that he had already tried two cases of the kind. The inquisitor-general argued strenuously that, as a matter of faith, it belonged to the Inquisition; if it were not a matter of faith it would go unpunished, for there would be no obligation to denounce, and without this women would never imperil their honor, for experience showed how rarely they did so voluntarily, and they had to be compelled by the refusal of absolution. Notwithstanding all this the archbishop of Valencia held good; his vicar-general tried the case and executed the sentence.[193]There were few episcopal courts, however, so audacious as this, and the claim of the Inquisition to exclusive jurisdiction was generally conceded.
EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION CLAIMED
The brief of Gregory XV was not published in Spain but, by some means, the Ordinary of Seville obtained a copy and exhibited it to the inquisitors. The Suprema promptly, on January 14, 1623 addressed a consulta to Philip IV, stating that it had not learned that the brief had reached any other bishop and dwelling eloquently on the frequency and heinousness of the crime, the energy and rigor of the Inquisition in its repression, and the disastrous consequences of concurrent episcopal jurisdiction, where the leniencyof punishment encouraged evildoers, and the publicity of procedure conveyed knowledge to husbands and kinsmen. The king was therefore asked to apply for the exemption of Spain from the operation of the brief; this was speedily arranged and, on April 10, Ambassador Alburquerque reported the forwarding of a decree of the Congregation of the Inquisition, stating that it was not the papal intention that the brief should apply to the Spanish dominions. Cardinal Millino, at the same time, wrote that the pope had declared that the Inquisition should continue to prosecute such cases in its customary form and manner.[194]
This simply left the matter where it was before, but the Inquisition boldly asserted that it had been given exclusive jurisdiction and, when Urban VIII granted, to the Bishop of Astorga, cognizance of these cases among the regular clergy, it had the effrontery to raise a competencia with him.[195]On May 19, 1629, it sent to the tribunals copies of Gregory’s brief, with instructions to follow its prescriptions, as punishment should be uniform in a crime of such frequent occurrence. Although, it added, the brief appeared to confer only cumulative jurisdiction, the pope had declared to the king that in his dominions it was exclusive so that, if any Ordinary should undertake to hear such a case, he was to be inhibited and a prompt report be made to the Suprema. To make matters sure, this was followed by an order of August 9th, that this exclusive cognizance should be asserted in the Edict of Faith.[196]
It was not long before this produced another quarrel with Archbishop Aliaga of Valencia. In 1631, Vicente Palmer, rector of Játiva, was prosecuted in the archiepiscopal court for sundry offences, including a charge of solicitation preferred by Ana Martínez. The notary employed was a familiar who informed the tribunal. It promptly notified the Ordinary to omit that specification, to which Aliaga replied that his court had always possessed jurisdiction over the matter, and the brief of Gregory XV had confirmed the cumulative jurisdiction of both tribunals; if Urban VIII had rendered that of the Inquisition exclusive, he had not seen the brief, but if shown to him he would of course obey it. Then came a pause during which Palmer returned to Játiva and, from the pulpit, denounced all who had testified against him, declaring that all who accused ecclesiastics were excommunicated and he would not hear them in confession, especially Ana Martínez; the town was in an uproar and one man died without confession. After some months the tribunal, in its customary arrogant fashion, with threats of excommunication, summoned the archbishop to surrender the papers and admit that he was inhibited. To this he replied at much length, pointing out that it was unreasonable to ask him to strip himself of an established jurisdiction on the simple assertion of the inquisitors that they held a brief of Urban VIII, which they would not exhibit. He offered to submit the question to the pope or to form a competencia in the regular way, but both suggestions were rejected, although the tribunal adopted a more moderate tone. The records are imperfect and we do not know the outcome, but probably the Suprema quietly let the affair drop out of sight through delay, in preference to provoking an investigation which would have manifested the fraudulence of its claims.[197]
INCLUDED IN EDICT OF FAITH
The audacity of the claim increased with time and, in the formula of the Edict of Faith, in use in 1696, there was an absolute assertion that Gregory XV had declared that, in the Spanish dominions, the offence was subjected to the exclusive cognizance of the Inquisition and not to that of the bishops, their vicars, provisors or ordinaries.[198]Notwithstanding this, when bishopsasserted their rights, the Suprema shrank from a direct contest. Thus, in 1755, when the Bishop of Quito undertook to try cases of the kind, the Suprema merely presented a long and argumentative consulta to the king. So, in 1807, the Bishop of Badajoz tried Joseph Méndez Rodríguez, priest of Llerena, for solicitation, apparently without remonstrance on its part and when, in 1816, Rodríguez was prosecuted by the tribunal of Llerena for propositions andmala doctrina, the Suprema ordered it to obtain from the bishop the papers of the former trial and add them to the new proceedings.[199]
While the Inquisition was thus aggressive in grasping exclusive jurisdiction, it hesitated for some time as to the vigorous use of its powers. It could evidently do little more than the inert episcopal courts unless it included solicitation in the Edicts of Faith, which specified offences and the obligation of denouncing them, but this involved the ever-present dread of scandal, and the necessity of calling attention to a matter so delicate. This explains the initial fluctuations of policy. When jurisdiction was first conferred, the Suprema ordered the omission of solicitation and then, by edict of July 17, 1562, that it should be included.[200]This speedily brought forth a vigorous remonstrance, which earnestly urged the necessity of secrecy to prevent scandal and the rendering of confession odious. It should never be admitted that such wickedness was possible; it had, in fact, always existed, but such a remedy had never been imagined, which would lead men to keep their wives and daughters from the confessional, nobles to refrain from putting their daughters into convents, religion to be despised and Christianity itself to be abhorred. Good confessors would be driven to abandon the confessional, and the clergy, seeing that their weaknesses were to be punished by the Inquisition, would withdraw their support from it, leading to serious results. At least the punishment should be secret, so that the people, seeing no results, might be led to believe that there were no wicked menadministering the sacrament.[201]This final suggestion was superfluous, for clerical offenders, short of those incurring degradation and relaxation, were always punished in secret.
The opposition to this public admission of clerical frailty grew so strong that the Suprema, in a carta acordada of May 22, 1571, stated that, after many discussions, it had been decided that the disadvantages attendant on it required its omission, and inquisitors were told to find some other means, including notice to the Ordinaries to instruct confessors to admonish penitents to denounce offenders to the Holy Office. The exception thus made in favor of soliciting confessors evidently led to a marked diminution in the number of denunciations, causing the Suprema to hesitate for, in a carta of September 20, 1574, repeating the orders to omit, the Suprema spoke of it as possibly a temporary regulation.[202]The conviction seems to have grown that in no other way could the abuse be checked and, in a carta acordada of March 2, 1576, inquisitors were ordered to replace the clause in the Edict of Faith.[203]
REPUGNANCE TO DENOUNCE
Notwithstanding the publicity of the Edict, which imposed excommunication for failure to denounce, the trials show that the most fertile source of denunciation was the refusal of confessors to absolve penitents who had been solicited, unless they would accuse their guilty partners to the Inquisition. In spite of the assurance of secrecy, women were naturally reluctant, whether they had yielded or not, to expose themselves to the necessity of reciting details more or less revolting, and subjecting themselves at least to suspicion. One feature which rendered this exposure peculiarly distressing was the necessity of ratification, when all the foul or incriminating matter was rehearsed in the presence of two more men and, as much of this testimony was taken on the spot, by commissioners and notaries appointedad hoc, in small places where everything was known, such revelations would only be made under the severest pressure. Again there was the enmity which was sure to be excited for, in these cases, the device of suppressing the names of witnesses was no protection against identification,which was a risk not lightly to be encountered, especially when the culprit was a parish priest, whose capacity for revenging himself was unlimited. The Inquisition sorrowfully admitted that, even when it had one accusing witness, corroborative evidence was almost impossible to obtain.[204]
Even where no direct enmity was excited, the incidental troubles to which a denunciation might give rise are illustrated in the case of Sor María de Santa Rita, a nun, 29 years of age, in the convent of La Magdalena at Alcalá de Henares, in 1737. During the absence of the regular confessor, she confessed thrice a week for five weeks to Maestro Diego de Azumanes, pastor of Alcalá. On her alluding to certain carnal temptations, he pushed his inquiries to the furthest extent and then, day after day, he poured into her ears a flood of foul and indecent talk, with personal applications to her and to himself in a manner most provocative of lust—or disgust. The regular confessor, on his return, instructed her to report Azumanes to the Inquisition. In doing so she unluckily mentioned that the superior of the house, Sor Teresa de San Bartolomé, a virgin with thirty-eight years of conventual experience, observing her repugnance to confess to Azumanes, told her not to mind him; it was true that he was too clear and explicit in discussing such matters, leading to temporary excitement of the passions, but she would soon overcome this. The tribunal ordered a commissioner to examine Sor María and, on receiving his report, instructed him to interrogate Sor Teresa, which he did with a directness that must have been excessively unpleasant, and it is easy to conjecture how miserable must have been Sor María’s subsequent life in the convent. The tribunal, it may be added, did nothing, except to ascertain that no other denunciations had been made against Azumanes. He was allowed to go on infecting the minds of his penitents with his obscenity, until his death a few years afterwards, in happy ignorance that any complaint had been made against him.[205]When there were so many reasons to deter women from denunciation, it is easy to understand how small a proportion of the cases of solicitation reached the Inquisition. In 1695, Fray Luis Aritio, a Recollect, was accusedto the tribunal of Valencia by two women and, on his trial, he confessed to ten.[206]
IS A TECHNICAL OFFENCE
The most available means of overcoming this repugnance was to render denunciation a binding obligation on the woman. To effect this as far as possible, when, in 1571, the clause in the Edict of Faith was suspended, the Suprema issued an edict requiring confessors, under pain of excommunication, not to absolve penitents confessing to having been solicited, unless they would promise to denounce the offender.[207]It was admitted, however, that there were degrees of danger which would release the woman from the obligation, and casuists endeavored to define this with their usual acuteness and lack of unanimity. One learned writer, about 1620, even laid down the general principle that natural law is superior to positive law, and the preservation of reputation belongs to the former, while the obligation to denounce belongs to the latter.[208]The Roman Inquisition, in 1623, made a concession to this weakness, by providing that, when noble or modest women could not be induced to denounce, there might be granted to their confessors faculties to absolve them, on condition that, when the cause of fear was removed, they would fulfil the duty, but this permission apparently was abused for, in 1626, inquisitors and bishops were warned to grant such faculties only when there were serious grounds.[209]That danger was really sometimes incurred would appear from some fragmentary cases in the Valencia records. In one of these, a baffled confessor threatens his penitent with death if she betrays him; in another a priest, on finding himself denounced, similarly threatens the confessor who had been the medium of denunciation, unless he will write that the women had withdrawn their statements.[210]The Spanish Inquisition, however, made no allowances. It was apparently to put an end to the refinements of casuistry that when, in 1629, it distributed to the tribunals the brief of Gregory XV, it granted to all inquisitors a faculty to punish confessors who taught that penitents were not obliged to denounce such solicitors.[211]To render this more effective,in 1713, it ordered that all women bringing charges of solicitation should be interrogated whether any confessor had neglected to impose on them the obligation of denunciation, and if so his name, residence and all the circumstances were to be ascertained, so that he could be called to account.[212]
While the Spanish Inquisition was thus creditably rigid in exacting denunciations, it was equally strict in construing the limits of the technical offence as defined in the papal decrees. As stated above, morals had nothing to do with the matter; the business of the tribunals was not to prevent women from being ruined by their spiritual fathers, but only to see that the sacrament of penitence was not profaned in such wise as to justify suspicion of the orthodoxy of the confessor. In 1577, inquisitors were warned that it did not suffice for prosecution that confessors had illicit relations with their penitents, or that they solicited in the confessional when there really was no confession and, in 1580 it was expressly stated that they were not to be prosecuted if they said that they did not intend to have their penitents confess.[213]This covered assignations under pretext of confession, to deceive onlookers, which we are told was a frequent custom and, as there were no confessional stalls, and the churches were largely deserted, there was little danger of interruption. It was argued that there was no confession and no sacrament, so there could be no heresy, but the Roman Inquisition, in 1614, decided it to be solicitation, and the brief of Gregory XV, in 1622 settled the question, although it required another brief of Urban VIII, in 1629, to render it authoritative in Spain.[214]This involved the question as to the knowledge which either party might have of the other’s intention, opening the door to the endless refinements of antecedent or consequent invincible ignorance, in which the casuists disported themselves.[215]
Even more dubious and fruitful of discussion was the question as to what constituted the solicitation itself. About torpezas or physical indecencies, there could be no rational doubt, thougheven here the laxity of Probabilism gave scope for arguing them away.[216]It is such things that usually meet us in the trials, in a shape admitting of no debate, but there was a wide range of less incriminating acts, such as words of flattery and endearment, praising the penitent’s beauty or telling her that if he were a layman he would marry her. Theoretically, what were known to the moralists asparvitas materiæ—trifles insufficient for animadversion—were not admitted in solicitation. Pressing the hand, touching the foot, foul expressions and the like were admitted to be subjects for denunciation, but the gradations of such advances are infinite, and the elaborate discussions in some of the works on the subject are examples of perverted ingenuity, apparently directed to teach libidinous priests how to gratify sensuality without incurring risk.[217]The question of lewd and filthy talk was an especially puzzling one, for the confidences of the confessional presuppose a licence on subjects usually forbidden between the sexes, which may readily be abused by a brutal or foul-minded priest, and it is impossible to frame a definition which in practice shall rigidly differentiate moral instruction from heedless pruriency or deliberate corruption. How difficult it is to draw the line in such matters is indicated by a case before the Valencia tribunal in 1786. A nun of the convent of Santa Clara in Játiva complained of the indecent and unnecessary questions repeatedly put to her in confession by the Observantine Fray Vicente González. Under the advice of the definitor of the Order she empowered him to denounce González to the Inquisition. Then the regular confessor of the convent pronounced that the questions were necessary and proper, and persuaded the definitor to write to the tribunal to that effect.[218]
DOUBTFUL QUESTIONS
There were other intricate questions arising from human perversity. A Cunha tells us that the more probable opinion affirms the guilt of a confessor who acts as a pimp with his penitent for the benefit of another, and also in the more frequent case in which he solicits the penitent to serve as procuress for him with her daughter or a friend. De Sousa, however draws a distinction and asserts positively that, in the former case, he is liable under the papal briefs and, in the latter, he is not, nor is he if he tries to seduce a woman who is confessing to another priest.[219]Then there was a nice question as to priests without faculties to hear confessions, or who were under suspension or excommunication, on which the doctors were evenly divided.[220]Distantly akin to this were cases in which laymen would secrete themselves in confessionals and listen to confessions, whether from prurient motives, or through jealousy, or to obtain opportunities for seduction. If they carried deceit to the point of conferring absolution, they incurred serious penalties, as we shall see hereafter; if they merely solicited the penitent, the weight of authority is that there is no sacrament and no liability to the papal briefs.[221]
There was another phase of the subject on which the doctors were hopelessly divided—what was known as passive solicitation, where the woman was the tempter. This case, we are told, was rare, and we can readily believe it, although there are not wanting zealous defenders of the cloth who assert that in the majority of cases the penitent is really the guilty party. The earliest allusion to the matter is by Páramo, in 1598, whose treatment of it shows that as yet there had been no formal decision; if the confessor resists, he says, he should denounce the woman; if he yields, he should denounce both her and himself, though perhaps it would be best to consult the pope.[222]As regards the confessor, the authorities differ irreconcileably, but they are virtually unanimous in holding that, as the woman is not mentioned in the papal briefs, she is not subject to the Inquisition.[223]Yet, notwithstanding theabsence of papal authority, we happen to find María Izquierda prosecuted for this offence, in 1715, by the Valencia tribunal and, in 1772 Antonia Coquis, wife of Bruno Vidal, by that of Madrid.[224]
It will be seen that solicitation subject to inquisitorial action was so purely technical an offence, and one so difficult of precise definition, that it offered many doubtful points affording ample opportunity of evasion by the adroit. Gregory XV had sought to be precise and explicit, but the ingenuity of casuists and evildoers continued to find exceptions and, in 1661, the Roman Inquisition rendered sixteen decisions on disputed points, but its ingenuity was baffled by so intricate a subject, and it was obliged to leave some matters rather darkened than illuminated.[225]Then it was pointed out that the papal briefs were silent as to handing love-letters to penitents during confession and, as everything not specifically prohibited was held to be licit, this was assumed to be allowable, until Alexander VII stamped the proposition as erroneous.[226]After this the perverted ingenuity of the casuists had free scope until, in 1741, Benedict XIV, in the solemn bullSacramentum Pœnitentiæ, deplored that human wickedness was perverting to the destruction of souls that which God had instituted for their salvation. He renewed and confirmed the brief of Gregory XV, and added to its definitions all attempts in the confessional to lead penitents astray by signs, nods, touching, indecent words and writings, whether to be read there or subsequently. In eloquent words he warned all those in authority to see that the wandering sheep, endeavoring to re-enter the fold, should not be abandonedto the cruel beasts seeking their destruction, and he branded the sacrilegious seducers as ministers of Satan, rather than of Christ.[227]Still, it was only the technical heresy and not morality that was considered, and illicit relations between spiritual father and daughter, outside of the confessional, were left unpunished as before.
ABSOLUTION OF ACCOMPLICE
At the same time he endeavored to suppress the most flagrant abuse connected with solicitation—an abuse which, more than anything else, smoothed the path for the seducer—the absolution of the woman by her partner in guilt. Alexander VII, in 1665, had only gone so far as to condemn the proposition that this absolution relieved her from the obligation of denouncing her seducer—a proposition which proves how audacious were the laxer moralists of the period who asserted it.[228]Benedict now formally prohibited the guilty confessor from hearing the confession of his accomplice, except on the death-bed when no other confessor could be had; he deprived him of the power of granting absolution, which consequently was invalid, and the attempt to do so imposedipso factoexcommunication, strictly reserved to the Holy See.[229]As this excommunication suspended all the functions of the priest until removal, its observance would have gone far to check any abuse that was not incurable, but neither priest nor penitent paid to it the slightest attention. It is impossible to trace, in the business of the Spanish Inquisition, any result from Benedict’s well-meant legislation. Trials for solicitation continued as numerous as ever, and the only difference observable is that, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the sentences almost invariably assume that the culprit has incurred excommunication for absolving his accomplice; that, until he obtains absolution from this, he must abstain from using his functions, that he must consult his conscience as to his ministrations hitherto while under this irregularity, and that his penitents must be discreetly warned to repeat their confessions which, having been made to him, were invalid. This continued to the end and is a feature in the case of Fray Josef Montero, the last one sentenced by the Córdova tribunal, April 24, 1819.[230]
MORALITY DISREGARDED
It is no wonder that confessors endeavored to evade the technical definitions of the papal briefs for, if they could do so, no matter how heinous was their guilt there was practically no penalty. Juan Sánchez asserts that a priest who has commerce with his penitent is not obliged to specify the fact when making confession, for it is not incest and there is no papal prohibition of it.[231]All authorities, from that time to this, tell us that he can obtain absolution from any confessor, for it is not a reserved case, which shows the universal benignity of the bishops and the popes, who have the power of reserving to themselves the absolution of what sins they please.[232]It is easy to understand, therefore, how, in the trials, the inquisitors bent their energies to obtain definite evidence as to the exact location and time of the acts of solicitation, and how the accused sought to prove, not his innocence, but his dexterity in evading the definitions of the papal decrees. A suggestive example is the case of Doctor Pedro Mendizabal, cura of the parish of Santa Ana in the City of Mexico. He was denounced, June 21, 1809, by Doña María Guadalupe Rezeiro, by command of her confessor, when she stated that, in January, 1807, she made to him a general confession, too long to be finished in one day. On returning to his church to complete it, she was told to go up to his room, when he said he was too busy to listen to her. She retired but, on her way down stairs, his servant recalled her and, on entering his apartment, he threw his arms around her, professed ardent love and promised to support her if she would become his mistress, which she refused. As he had thus eluded the definitions of Benedict XIV, four calificadores out of six reported that he was not technically guilty of solicitation. The denunciation was filed away and, in 1817, there came another, of which he had warning in order that he might spontaneously accuse himself, as he did. It was from an attractive young girl of 17, and investigation developed four more cases of girls of whom he was confessor. Abundantevidence showed habitual indecent liberties—hugging, kissing, sitting in his lap, in presence of their families or even in public resorts. He had been ordered out of two houses and, on appeal to the archbishop, he had been forbidden to confess one of the girls who was a boarder in a convent. The distraction of the mother of the first accuser, endeavoring to save her daughter from one whose authority as a priest overawed her, is very touching and suggestive. Yet in all this there was no proof of anything in the act of confession—as one of the calificadores piously remarked, “God, in his goodness, preserved him from this.” Two calificadores argued at much length that he was not guilty of solicitation; then two others proved that he was guilty, and finally two more laboriously demonstrated that the first pair were correct. This is the last document in the case. It is dated November 3, 1819, and, as the Inquisition was suppressed in June, 1820, and as there is no endorsement on the record showing that the case was concluded, Mendizabal undoubtedly escaped to continue his corrupting career, especially as he had four out of six calificadores in his favor.[233]
The technicalities, which eliminated morality from consideration, resulted in curious contrasts. In November 1762, Fray Clemente de Cartagena went to Toledo to assist in the profession of his neice Gerónima, in the Bernardine convent, where he already had a sister. He and his sister were in the confessional near the altar, when some duty called her away and she told Gerónima to go to her uncle. She seated herself in the confessional, while he occupied the penitent’s place outside and, in an affectionate talk, he asked her to kiss him. The next day he said to her that he had forgotten at the moment that they were in the confessional; this made no impression on her, until she heard the nuns talking about the exceeding delicacy of such matters, and she consulted Fray Fernando de San Josef, who ordered her to denounce her uncle. This she did in writing, and Fray Fernando conveyed it to the tribunal, which duly took up the case. We shall see that prosecutions required two distinct and separate denunciations; inquiries, according to custom, were made of all the other tribunals; fortunately for Fray Clemente nothing was found against him and the case was suspended, but if there had been, or if subsequently he chanced to draw upon himself a denunciation, the innocent kiss to his neicewould count as though he had deliberately seduced a penitent.[234]It was the spot and not the nature of the act that was decisive.
Against this may be set the case of Cristóbal Ximeno, parish priest of Manzanera, a brute who was in the habit of violating the young girls of his church, who came to his house for examination in theDoctrina Cristiana, as a preparation for communion at marriage, until mothers would not trust their daughters there alone. They were his penitents, but the outrage was not in the confessional and he had nothing to fear under the papal decrees. At length, however, he made himself liable to the Inquisition by pretending to confess Pasquala Torres, at her marriage, without absolving her and then, when administering communion to her and her bridegroom, dropping the host into the ciborium—a sacrilege for which he was duly punished by the Valencia tribunal.[235]So complete, indeed, is the dissociation of morals and solicitation, that some doctors hold that, when a priest is confessing a sick woman, if she falls into delirium or stupor, he can violate her without exposing himself to denunciation. It is satisfactory, however, to be told that the weight of authority is opposed to this opinion.[236]