“THE ROAD TO THE PRIESTHOOD”

In light of the recent pedophile scandal to rock the Roman Catholic church, it seemed a good thing to search out the reason behind the sexual deviation that seems so prevalent within her priesthood.

I know of one young girl from Holland who loved the Roman Catholic church and served it with her whole heart. She even considered becoming a nun, until she was raped repeatedly by her priest for two years. Believing this man was a servant of God, she obeyed him, fearing his threats, that she would go to hell if she did not submit to his advances, or if she told anyone. For two years this young girl lived in horror. Finally, she decided that if this priest was a servant of God, she decided she did not want to serve this kind of God. She left the church, having never heard of the true God of grace and peace. Today she lives alone, still tormented by the ordeal, and denies even the existence of God. I have to wonder how many other young girls and boys have turned away from God because men who claim they are “Christ” commit such atrocities.

We know from historians that sexual misconduct was the norm for priests, bishops and popes of the Dark Ages.

Peter De Rosa, in his book, Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy, describes some of the men who held the office of a pope:

“Among the popes were a large number of married men, some of whom gave up their wives and children in exchange for the papal office. Many were sons of priests, bishops and popes; some were bastards; one was a widower, another an ex-slave; several were murderers, some unbelievers; some were hermits, some heretics, sadists and sodomites; many became popes by buying the papacy (simony), and continued their days selling holy things to rake in the money; one at least was Satan-worshipper; some fathered illegitimate children, some were fornicators and adulterers on a grand scale….” [ P. 30; Written 1988]

With leaders like this, is it any wonder that those under them are perverted also?

By the grace of God, there fell into my hands a book written in 1949 by a former Catholic Canadian priest named Jean Lucien Vinet, entitled, “I Was A Priest”. He deals with the same issues that we are reading in today’s newspapers. Pedophile and sodomite priests are not a new phenomenon within Roman Catholicism. It has always been the norm for her priests to be perverted according to Vinet.

Jean Lucien Vinet was born in 1902 to very devout French-Canadian parents. His father’s family line had at least 10 priests and several nuns, so he was influenced early to revere the priesthood as being a “holy calling” from God. He attended a Catholic school run by brothers of a religious Order and the parish priest. At 15, Vinet thought he understood the Catholic religion fully and believed that Protestants were “people who had no Faith at all in God, or in Christ, the Saviour of Mankind. We were trained to look upon them as enemies of our Holy Roman religion.” (p.14-15) This was the only influence that Vinet had concerning Protestantism. Vinet was convinced that many Protestants were members of Freemasonry. These men were the sworn enemies of Roman Catholicism (or so it was believed...today a Catholic is no longer forbidden to be a member of the Masonic order. Many of Rome’s cardinals and bishops are known Masons).

Vinet writes about the parish priest who had told them a story which “stirred our soul and produced in our mind a great desire to become a priest.” Although the story was

“...void of truth and common sense...it served well the priest’s purpose of impressing upon our young minds the amazing Roman doctrine of transubstantiation and at the same time, to put the fear of God in our hearts against any future association with Freemasons.”

The priest’s account of the story went something like this:

“One day the Freemasons paid a Roman Catholic boy to steal a host which the priest had deposited on his tongue at Communion. Instead of consuming the host the wicked boy concealed it in his handkerchief and delivered it to the enemies of our church, the impious Freemasons. Like Judas, the boy had sold the real Body and Blood of Christ for a few pennies. The Freemasons, in their mad and sacreligious hatred for God, placed the stolen host on a table and cut it in several pieces in an effort to destroy God Himself But a miracle occurred...Blood and more blood began to flow from the mutilated host...it covered the table, the floor, filled the room, then the whole house with such quantity and rapidity that the satanic Freemasons were all drowned but one. The fortunate survivor advised the Parish priest of the miracle. The good Father rescued the particles of the host and the blood immediately ceased to flow. The surviving Freemason renounced Freemasonry, made his confession to the priest and became a good Roman Catholic” (p.15-16).

On one fable alone, many young men entered the priesthood, convinced that there was no greater calling “than that of the Roman priesthood which empowers a man to change bread into the real, actual and substantial Body of Christ” (16).

Rome teaches that not only does a priest change a piece of bread into God, but they also claim that the priest himself becomes “Christ literally”. Fulton Sheen, in his book, This is the Mass, expounds on this:

“In this moment [when the priest changes the bread into the “body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ”], the priest quite literally becomes Christ Himself: his own personality is blotted out; it is absorbed in that of the everlasting Priest who is, at one time, the offered victim and the supreme officiant.”

With comments from other priests saying such things as: “The priest is a storm: hurricane, cyclone, tornado rolled into one. Like Christ in the temple. Like Christ before the Pharisees. Like Christ hanging on the cross...No, He is more than that. The Priest is not just the cross, he is Christ Himself" (Lone Star Catholic, "Father" Brigante, March 1, 1959).

"...glorious priests...oracles of the Eternal Word...chiefs in the celestial militia...custodians of the Keys of heaven" (The Priest, His Dignity and Obligations, "St." John Eudes, XXV).

“To the carnal eye, the priest looks like other men, but to the eye of faith, he is exalted above angels" (Faith of our Fathers, Gibbons, 442).

"God deigns to make prelates, His own equals...If then, you receive a command of one who holds the place of God, you should observe it with the same diligence as if it came from God Himself" (True Spouse of Christ, Liguori, 93).

"Thus priests are gods in power. O power and dignity of the priesthood which surpasses all the powers of heaven and earth, second only to the ineffible dignity of the Mother of God" (The Priest, His Dignity and Obligations, John Eudes, 177).

“St. Gregory Nazianzen asserts that the priest is a 'God who makes gods'" (The Priest, His Dignity and Obligations, 13).

With doctrines such as these concerning the priesthood, is it any wonder that Jean Lucien Vinet was so excited when the priest told him that he’d been chosen to go to St. Boniface Seminary to become a priest. Vinet notes that the very day they were “ear-marked for celibacy and for the Roman priesthood”:

“It became improper for us to miss daily Mass and even to talk to the young girls of our town. Such conduct on our part, we were told, could be punished by God who would rescind the divine calling” (p.16).

A “close watch” was kept on all the young men and the parish priest had to send a letter confirming that they attended Mass daily and “kept aloof from any association with the fair sex”. If one so much as smiled at one of the young ladies in the village, this would have been taken as a “possible sign that we had no calling for celibacy and for the Roman priesthood.”

Jean Lucien Vinet describes the kind of priest that headed the seminary:

“The Rector of the Seminary who was rather dictatorial, and who had just been significantly removed from the Ministry of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, was not successful in gathering the esteem and confidence of either the professors or the students. His greed for money and his inordinate love of authority, which he exercised ruthlessly, made him exceedingly unpopular. There was much talk as to the reason why he had left the Ukrainian ministry and our suspicions were soon confirmed that this man as a sex addict of the worst type. However, he was respected for his wide knowledge of languages and his many degrees in Roman philosophy and theology.”

Interesting that many knew this priest was a pervert “of the worse type”, yet he was respected!

Vinet goes on: “This man has since occupied various important positions in his Church. In our mind he is the prototype of Roman priest and personifies Romanism to perfection. To this Roman mind and conscience, Church authority and Church tradition take precedence over the teachings of Holy Scripture. Armed with theological degrees and extensive orational abilities he dictated his teachings and condemned others while he rested at ease in matters of his own private life. Before World War II, he interviewed the Winnipeg German Consul in an effort to arrange a meeting with Hitler. However, the two Dictators never met. A profound believer in discretion and secrecy of the Roman type, he was also a great believer in the motto of Romanism: “Do as I say or die...and die if you say what I do.”

St. Boniface Seminary closed its doors during the epidemic known as the “Spanish Influenza”. After a series of trials, Vinet resumed his studies for the priesthood at the Seminary of St. Victor, a small town near Quebec City, believing the Roman Catholic Church that had ordered him, in the name of God, to become a priest. Vinet began to realize the discrepancy between the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and the personal convictions and behavior of its priests. It was there that Vinet became disillusioned with the priesthood.

Vinet writes:

“Priest trainers must possess certain qualifications in order to impart to their pupils the genuine principles of Rome. It was the late and learned Cardinal Rouleau, Archbishop of Quebec, who had chosen the professors for St. Victor and there is no doubt that the cream of Quebec priests were to be found in this Seminary.”

The “cream of Quebec priests” trained young men to become priests. You would expect the conversation to be godly, but Vinet paints a totally different picture of so-called “priests of God”.

“The seminaries, or training centres, as they were known were infested with the traditional ‘chattage’ which is common ‘entertainment’ of priests and students. The word ‘chattage’ is a consecrated expression in Quebec institutions, which means an abnormal and intimate friendship between male inhabitants of these colleges. One lover is the robust, active and manly type, while his partner is rather young, delicate, effeminate and passive. The normal effects of these unnatural marriages, of course, are homosexuality and sex crimes of all descriptions. Students, for reasons of confession or spiritual direction, spend much time in the intimacy of a priest’s study, which is in most cases, his bedroom. We have seen students closeted for hours with priests and we were asked to believe that this ordeal did much to train young men to high spirituality and Romanism.”

One day Vinet entered the room of his learned professor priest to discuss some academic subjects. This is where Vinet met the “Waterloo” of his respect and esteem for the alleged holiness of priests. He often thought of this priest as a great “Doctor of Divinity and a great lover of music”, who eloquently said the Mass in such a manner that Vinet thought the angels in heaven could hardly realize this priest was a human being. What a revelation it would be for Vinet when it became apparent that this priest, like so many others, was a “dyed-in-the-wool religious hypocrite”. It was the first time that Vinet had visited this priest and conversed with him intimately.

Vinet describes his horror as the priest “...approached me and planted a kiss on my blushing cheeks. Before I could gather my bewildered senses, the monster had given me an exhibition of the most disgusting obscenity. I was in the presence of a full-fledged sex pervert and a dangerous sex maniac! The learned and ‘pious’ pervert noticed my embarrassment. HE MADE HASTE TO EXPLAIN TO ME THAT SUCH ACTIONS WERE THE ONLY SEXUAL PLEASURE PERMITTED CELIBATE PRIESTS. He promised to write high marks on my examination papers if I submitted to being a partner in his sexual abominations. I refused, and this refusal almost cost me the success of my academic year. The angry priest even went so far as to advise the Rector and the Cardinal that I had no disposition to become a priest. According to him, a young man with no abnormal sex tendencies, was not fit to become a good priest. He might not have been so far from the truth after all, because I had indeed no disposition for homosexuality.” [Emphasis added]

What Vinet most criticizes in this incident is not particularly the sins of the man, but the system of the Roman Church which trains and tolerates such perverts. He advised the Cardinal of the sexual activities of this priest, but the professor remained at his post for years after, giving Vinet the impression that such sex perversion, by a priest, is tolerated and accepted conduct. This is the same problem Catholic face today. The pedophile priests remain in high positions and were just moved to other areas where their perversions were unknown. Rome has not changed in her treatment of perverts! How can one trust that she will change now?

Following this incident Vinet advised the Rector of the Seminary that he was discontinuing his studies for the priesthood. He went on to become engaged, but the parish priest had quite an influence on him. He ordered him in the confessional to resume his studies and become a priest. Vinet ended his engagement broken hearted. He now would put all of his trust in the hands of the Jesuits and the Archbishop of St. Boniface. Often, during the course of his theological studies, serious doubts on the Roman doctrines taught to him, crept into his mind, but his conscience was silenced every time “by the encouraging words of my confessor ‘Papa dixit’ The Pope has said so. I submitted and believed.”

Vinet was ordained a priest of Rome in our home town Church at St. Pierre, Manitoba, on June 4th, 1933. The Bishop, according to the teaching of Rome, gave him power to perform transubstantiation and to forgive all the sins which would be confessed to him. Vinet would be fobidden to marry by Roman law (also known as “divine law”). Even if he should marry legally in civil law, Roman law would consider the marriage “void and sinful” and any children born out of such a marriage would be “illegitimate”.

Now as to the exact reason WHY the Roman Church prohibits marriage to its priests is confused. We know, however, that this law of celibacy was originally based on a false conception of mysticism. Some ancient "Fathers of the Church" have considered matrimony and the legitimate procreation of children as something naturally disgraceful and to be tolerated only as a necessary evil. Augustine believed that the “holy fountain of life was always dirtied by lust even in the tidy garden of marriage.”

In sermon after sermon, Augustine repeated: “‘Husband, love your wives but love them chastely. Insist on the work of the flesh only in such measure as is necessary for the procreation of children. Since you cannot beget children in any other way, you must DESCEND TO IT AGAINST YOUR WILL, FOR IT IS THE PUNISHMENT OF ADAM….A man should yearn for that embrace in which there can be no more corruption. If only a couple could have children without the sordidness of sex, say, by praying on their knees together.’ According to Augustine, a man in his wife’s arms should concentrate icily upon the child and look forward to heaven when he can embrace her like a statue” (Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy, Peter De Rosa, 319).

Even today the Roman Catholic Church has kept some remnants of this falsehood in her ritual. It provides for a "purification blessing" of mothers who have legitimately given birth to children.

Is it any wonder that Vinet writes:

“A priest, according to this mysticism, commits a greater sin against the Church and against God by contracting marriage, than by violating a hundred virgins. Forced celibacy is indeed a most anti-social and anti-Christian measure of dark-age Romanism” (24).

How different Rome’s attitude towards sex and marriage than God’s word, which clearly teaches us that “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled.” (Heb. 13:4)

Now we come to this question: "Is celibacy and chastity actually observed by Roman Priests?" Let us stop to define “celibacy”. The dictionary defines celibacy as two-fold: 1) Being unmarried; and 2) Being sexually abstinent, especially by reason of religious vows.”

First, we must make a distinction between "celibacy" and "chastity". Celibacy is indeed commonly observed by priests and monks. Of course there have been exceptions but the parishioners knew nothing of it...the priests' wives were called their "housekeepers".

But although celibacy is almost always observed by Roman Catholic priests, Vinet writes:

“I regret to inform you...the same cannot be said of chastity. The fact is that innumerable sins of lust are committed in the Church of Rome in the name of the law of celibacy. It is unnecessary to state that there is absolutely no difference between the human nature of a Roman Priest and that of an ordinary layman, but priests who are bound by celibacy, solve their sex problems in defiance of the laws of God and country. Therefore, the vow of celibacy is the greatest hoax invented by Romanism. Priests who are avowed moralists become professional hypocrites in order to conceal their romances and the discrepancy between their teachings and their private lives” (24-25).

Vinet goes on to say:

“Opponents of the Roman Church have often suggested that nuns are the common accomplices of the priests' sexual sins. We believe this is incorrect. True, in the Middle Ages, tunnels were built between convents and monasteries to facilitate secret meetings of the parties concerned, but the modern priest's technique is no different from any other modern Romeo. If nuns and priests, in certain circumstances, do indulge in romances, tunnels are no longer necessary. Sexual crimes of nuns, priests, bishops and popes are accepted facts that cannot be denied. My old teacher, a religious Brother, used to tell us that Hell is ‘paved with heads of popes, bishops and priests’” (25).

Even Roman Catholic historians and moralists admit that the law of celibacy of priests and the vow of chastity of monks, are historical failures. True, the Roman Church makes a supreme effort to conceal this fact from Roman Catholics. There isn’t enough space, nor could we even begin to reveal all the acts of depravity of priests and monks But, throughout the centuries, one thing is for sure when discussing sexual perversion in Rome, "Semper eaden", that is, "always the same." Just as the Catholic hierarchy moves pedophile priests from one church to another, so Vinet describes the same situation in the 1940’s:

“Manitoba Roman Catholics still talk of a Winnipeg priest who was sent East on account of his known sex perversions of young boys; the inhabitants of the small town of St. Pierre, Manitoba have just been relieved of an assistant priest who also returned East because he was drunkard and an exhibitionist.”

Vinet goes on to tell of his own niece:

“Not very long ago, my seven-year old niece was criminally assaulted in the very precincts of St. Boniface Cathedral. The Cathedral authorities, with the co-operation of the local police, endeavoured to apprehend and punish the brutal criminal who had desecrated this holy place of Roman worship, but when the little girl identified as her assailant a young priest of the Cathedral staff, the case was hush-hushed into oblivion.”

Vinet wondered why the Catholics throughout the world shut their eyes to the sexual crimes of priests, much like we wonder today. He saw the priesthood as hypocritical, preaching holiness and sanctity of lives while their private lives were in sexual shambles. Vinet writes:

“We must now surprise our readers by stating the most disgusting sexual crimes of priests are not committed in a normal fashion in company with adult women.. Moreover, many priests are women haters. Some of them refuse even to shake hands with the ladies; they keep their eyes cast down and abstain from looking at them. These are the usual signs of an abnormal and homosexual priest. The priests’ and the monks’ great sexual crimes are homosexuality and sexual abnormalities of various description. The victims are young boys and often young girls. We must make haste to explain that these so-common sex crimes of the Roman priests must be blamed on the system which trains them, rather than on their own God-given human nature. It is a gruesome fact that forced celibacy, auricular confession and some aspect of the priest’s training, render a Roman priest a sexually-abnormal person or a sex pervert” (29)

Vinet reconstructs the various phases of a priest’s training which lead him to the deplorable state of a sexual pervert.

“Let us take a good, clean boy of fifteen years. He is indeed a normal boy. Let alone, he would probably become a good, natural and Christian husband and father, but he is ear-marked for the priesthood and celibacy. He enters a seminary; he is told that henceforth he must not only renounce the possibility of marriage, but must also consider all young women proximate occasion of sin and the infallible cause of the loss of his calling to the priesthood. He must not think of them, must not look at them and must not associate with them. This boy is now trained in an abnormal life and will naturally look for compensation for the normal ambitions of his nature. If he attends a Quebec college or seminary he will invariably come in contact with the many practitioners of the infamous ‘chattage’. He will be taught unnatural love between persons of the same sex and it will be a miracle if he does not become sexually abnormal in a short time. This future priest accepts celibacy in his mind but finds an unnatural compensation in sex abnormalities, and homosexuality is the common one. Later he will become a sex pervert. The forced law of celibacy has destroyed him.”

Vinet did not want to convey the impression that all priests and monks were perverts, as he was aware that many had escaped. Yet, the statistics of his day was alarming.

“...we will state here the estimate of a group of young priests whom we visited in a Quebec college. They thought at least ninety percent of all the priests were either sex perverts or sex addicts of some variety and degree. This is not our estimate and we hope that the college professors were wrong.”

The Roman Catholic church took great pains to conceal these facts from the public of that day. In Canada, for instance…

“If a priest is too widely known in the town where he is stationed, he will be transferred to the East or to the West as the case may be. Priests with sex records roam the country and pervert the young as they pass.”

Vinet names many offenders of the day, with the record of the complaints. A short time before Vinet withdrew from the Roman priesthood, he visited a friend, the “Head of a religious Order in Montreal”. When Vinet confided to him his intention of leaving the priesthood and getting married to the woman he left behind, the “Father” bluntly stated:

“As far as I am concerned, give me a nice-looking little boy and you may have all the women in the world.”

The priest’s answer was a frank admission of what Romanism had done to the priest’s mind and heart. He believed marriage was a great sin and that sexual perversion was an acceptable substitute for matrimony.

God said, “It is not good that man be alone”. Rome said, “It is good for priests to be alone”. Paul said, “A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife.” Rome says, “A priest must not have a wife.” Paul said, “Marriage is honorable in all.” Rome says, “Marriage is abominable for priests.”

Paul said it was the doctrine of devils to forbid marriage [1 Timothy 4:1-3]. Rome forbids her priest to marry. The root of the problem is the fact that the very foundation of Catholicism is based upon “Doctrines of Devils”!

Vinet noted the horrible hypocrisy of the confessional. He watched as two young priests of his day used the confessional to “make dates” and solicit sexual favors. Vinet took the affidavits from the innocent victims. He was forbidden by Rome to turn them over to the civil authorities and he was forbidden to testify against them in civil courts. Vinet did complain to the bishop who removed the two young priests to another area.

In the 1940’s, Vinet felt that young girls and boys were allowed to associate too freely with priests under the pretext of confession, spiritual direction and sport or study organizations. Today, things have not changed. We still hear of hundreds upon hundreds of young girls and boys who have been abused by these masters of mysticism. Their doctrines claim they are “alter Christus”, that is “another Christ”. What a distorted image of the true Jesus these poor children must have! Men who claim to be “Christ” behaving in a perverted manner, threatening their victims with hell if they ever reveal their secrets. Truly hell is paved by the heads of popes, bishops and priests, as they have confessed with their own mouths.

by Rebecca A. Sexton

Former Catholics For Christ

Cutting Edge Ministries, “What Saith Rome”