can you
be so rash, so devoid of common prudence and modesty as to shamelessly put
yourselves in a position to tempt and be tempted, and thereby incur your
temporal and eternal perdition?

4. "_Nonne extra tribunal, vel in ipso confessionis actu, aliquia dixi aut
egi cum intentione diabolica has personas seducendi?_ (Idem, idem.)

Have I not, either during or after confession, done or said anything with a
diabolical intention of seducing my female penitents?

"What arch-enemy of our holy religion is so bold and impious as to put to
our saintly priests such an impudent and insulting question?" may ask some
of our Roman Catholic readers. It is easy to answer. This great enemy of
your religion is no less than a justly offended God, admonishing and
reproving your priests for exposing both you and themselves to dangerous
allurements and seductions. It is his voice speaking to their consciences,
and warning them of the danger and corruption of auricular confession. It
says to them: Beware! for ye might be tempted, as surely you will, to do or
say something against honor and purity. Husbands and fathers, who rightly
value the honor of your wives and daughters more than all treasures, who
consider it too precious a boon to be exposed to the dangers of pollution,
and who would prefer to lose your life a thousand times than to see those
you love most on earth fall in the snares of the seducer, read once more
and ponder what your church asks the priest after he has heard your wife or
daughter in confession: "Have you not, either during or after confession,
done or said anything with a diabolical intention of seducing your female
penitents?"

If your priest remains deaf to these words addressed to his conscience, you
cannot help giving heed to them and understanding their full significance.
You can not be easy and fear nothing from that priest in those close
interviews with your wives and daughters, when his superiors and your own
Church tremble for him, and question his purity and honesty. They see a
great danger for both the confessor and his penitent; for they know that
confession has many a time been the pretence or the cause of the most
shameful seductions.

If there was no real danger for the chastity of women, in confessing to a
man their most secret sins, do you believe that your popes and theologians
would be so stupid as to acknowledge it and put to confessors questions
that would be most insulting and out of place, s