Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/126

120 The danger of the priest is not in the confessional, it is the same as for any voluntary celibate, and need not be enlarged upon; though it must be remembered that, in the light of what has been said about the age of taking the vow, the priest must be regarded practically as an involuntary celibate. The fact that from time immemorial ecclesiastical legislation has returned again and again to the question of priests’ servants is significant enough. The house to house visits of the priests, and the visits he receives, are also principally of ladies, for the priest is idle in the hours that the husband is employed. Priests are, however, as a rule, extremely cautious in this regard.

Whatever may be said of the general integrity of the priest’s life it may be safely admitted that the occasional transgressions of his vow in connection with the confessional have been grossly exaggerated. And one unfortunate feature of the excess is that it has withdrawn attention from the essential hideousness of the ‘tribunal of penance.’ For in point of fact nothing could be more degrading, to priest and penitent alike, than the practice of auricular confession. It is bad enough for adult men and women to have to kneel weekly or monthly at the feet of a priest (usually one whom they know intimately), and detail every unworthy thought and act into which they have been betrayed, but for girls and young women to discuss their inmost thoughts and feelings with a person of the opposite sex, is vicious and