Transcribed from the [c1889] edition printed by J. T. Drought by David Price.

REV. T. CONNELLAN,
TO HIS
Dearly Beloved Brethren,
THE ROMAN CATHOLICS
OF THE
DIOCESE OF ELPHIN.

Dublin: Printed by J. T. Drought, 6, Bachelor’s-walk.

p. 3A LETTER,
ETC.

Beloved Brethren,—

For seven years and three months I laboured among you.  Thousands of you knew me in the Confessional; almost all of you have heard my voice from the pulpit; I have baptized not a few among you.  I have laboured in the four most populous centres in your diocese—Sligo, Strokestown, Roscommon, and Athlone—and from the day on which I entered upon my work to the day of my departure from the diocese, there has never been a word of disagreement between us.  I resided but four months in the parish of Strokestown, yet, at my departure, my flock presented me with a purse of sovereigns.  Most of you have read the comments in the local journals when I left the diocese, and I leave them to speak for themselves.

I am returning to live and die among you if you will permit me, and I know the question that will naturally be asked by every one of you.  You will say—“Yes, we remember Father Connellan very well.  He preached in our chapel, and we used to call him ‘the fair-haired priest.’  But wasn’t he drowned in Lough Ree a couple of years ago?  Is it his ghost that is coming among us?”

Well, my clear friends, I am thankful to say I was not drowned in Lough Ree.  I left the diocese, put off my clerical garb, and worked on the Press in London for eighteen months.  It was rather a curious thing for a “fair-haired priest” to do, arid I am going to give you my reasons for the step in as few words as possible.

p. 4I was not more than two years a priest when I began to have conscientious scruples.  I shall tell you the causes of these scruples and troubles, not in the order in which they arose, for that would be impossible in a short sketch like the present, and if you cannot master the difficulties yourselves, you can ask your parish priest to explain them for you.

1.  We have all a great love for St. Patrick, and I used to read everything I could lay my hands on concerning him when I was a Roman Catholic priest.  Now, St. Patrick left some writings in manuscript, and one of these is called “St. Patrick’s Confession.”  All agree in believing this the genuine work of St. Patrick.  Now, the following are the opening words of St. Patrick’s Confession:—“I, Patrick, a sinner, the rudest and the least of all the faithful, and most contemptible to very many, had for my father Calpurnius, a deacon, a son of Potitus a presbyter, who dwelt in the village of Bannavem Taberniae.”  Presbyter, I may tell you, is the old word for priest, so we find that St. Patrick’s father was a deacon, and his grandfather a priest.  If a Roman Catholic deacon or priest were to marry now, he would at once be suspended; and don’t you think the priests and deacons living only three centuries after Christ were more likely to be right than those of the nineteenth century?

Again, in none of the works of St. Patrick is there a single word about devotion to the Blessed Virgin, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, or the like.  St. Patrick always prays to God alone, and Joceline, an early Roman Catholic historian, says of him—“He used to read the Bible to the people, and explain it to them for days and nights together.”

Lastly, you have always believed, and so did I for nearly thirty years, that St. Patrick planted the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland in the fifth century.  We know that every part of the Island became Christian, and that Ireland was p. 5called “the Island of Saints.”  But if St. Patrick planted the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland in the fifth century, is it not very curious that in the Bull given by Adrian IV. to Henry the Second, in which he permits Henry to conquer Ireland, the Pope expressly states he does it “in order to widen the bounds of the Church.”  The Pope handed over Ireland to Henry the Second on condition “that he would take care that a penny should be annually paid from every house in Ireland to St. Peter,” and his Holiness expressly states that his object is “to widen the bounds of the Church.”  Now, Christianity had been spread into every corner of “the Island of Saints” for seven centuries, and yet the Pope wants to “widen the boundaries of the Church” by introducing his religion into Ireland.  What does it mean?  Well, I give you the facts from Dr. Lanigan, a Roman Catholic historian (vol. iv., 164), and leave you to draw your own conclusion.

2.  When I was a Roman Catholic priest, one of my chief duties was to hear confessions.  It is not a pleasant duty, I can assure you, but it was always a pleasure to me to work for the good-natured Irish peasantry.  Well, the chief argument in support of Confession is taken from the 20th chapter of St. John’s Gospel and the 23rd verse—“Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”  Now, to understand the point of my argument, you must read in your Douay Testament from verse 19.  Then turn back to the 24th chapter of St. Luke, and commence at the 33rd verse.  Both Evangelists narrate exactly the same incident; for in both he said, “Peace be to you,” and “He showed them His hands and His side.”  But what do we find?  In St. John, verse 19, we find that it was the “Disciples,” not the eleven Apostles only, who “were gathered together for fear of the Jews.”  In St. Luke, verse 33, we find that it was “the eleven” “and those that were with them” whom Jesus p. 6addressed.  Thence it follows that not alone did Jesus give to the eleven Apostles the power of forgiving sins, but He gave it to “those who were with them”—to the whole company of the “Disciples,” and among that company there were certainly some women.  Therefore Christ gave power to women to remit sins in the Confessional.  It follows as a necessary consequence; and I hope you will ask one of your priests to solve the difficulty for you.  My friends, you will find nowhere in the New Testament a record of any of the Apostles having remitted sins in the Confessional.  They remitted them, no doubt, by preaching the Gospel of Christ.  They bound and loosed, as you may see (Acts xv. 28, 29); but there is no record of their having set up the Confessional.  In the 16th chapter of the Acts, when the terrified keeper of the prison fell down at the feet of Paul and Silas, saying, “Masters, what must I do that I may be saved?” we do not read that Paul took out his stole, and asked him to make his confession.  On the contrary, he said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”  Indeed, it can be conclusively proved from history that private confession was introduced by Leo I. in the fifth century.  Public confession always existed.  St. James inculcates it (chap. v. 16), where he says, “Confess therefore your sins one to another,” showing that the priest is just as much bound to confess his sins to you as you are to the priest.

3.  All Roman Catholics try, where they can, to go to Mass every Sunday and holiday, and they believe that Jesus Christ is really and substantially present in the Host.  They believe they receive Him in the Holy Communion also: and many of you are yet living, I have no doubt, to whom I carried the Holy Communion when you were sick.  Now, the carnal presence of Christ in the Eucharist is tried to be proved from the sixth chapter of St. John and from the words of institution.  The words in the sixth chapter of St. John must have p. 7been spoken at least thirteen months before the Last Supper, as may be seen by a reference to John vi. 4 and John xii. 1.  The Church of Rome says Christ’s words, both in the Sixth of John, and at the Last Supper, must be taken literally.  Very well.  In the 54th verse of the sixth chapter of St. John, Christ says, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.”  Therefore all who do not receive the Holy Communion must perish, and baptized infants, for example, are eternally damned, I say the conclusion is inevitable, if the doctrine of the Church of Rome be true.  But the same Church of Rome holds that baptized infants, when they die go straight to God.  Again, in the 55th verse, Christ says, “He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.”  Therefore all communicants are saved.  In fact, you are landed in absurdities to no end unless you take Christ’s own interpretation in the 64th verse, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  Jesus gives the key also in the 35th verse, where He said, “He that cometh to me shall not hunger; and he that believeth in me, shall never thirst.”  It is by believing in Jesus, and coming to Him, that we are to have eternal life.  But the Roman Catholic Church attempts to prove the carnal presence of Christ in the Eucharist from the words of institution also: “This is My body, this is My blood.”  She says nothing can be clearer than these words, and that, unless Christ intended to leave His real Body and Blood, He would have been guilty of deception.  Well, when Jacob, in Genesis xlix. 9, said, “Juda is a lion’s whelp,” his words were very plain; but do you think any of his hearers believed Juda to be really a lion’s whelp?  When we read in the 118th Psalm (verse 105), “Thy word is a lamp to my feet,” do we think God’s Word really a material lamp?  When we read in John (x. 9), “I am the door,” do we believe Christ to be really a p. 8door?  Not at all.  Holy Scripture is full of figurative language, and Christ constantly used it.  Besides, in Luke (xxii. 19) we read, “Do this for a commemoration of me,” and in 1 Cor. xi. 26 we read, “For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord, until He come.”  So the Lord’s Supper was to be a memorial, a commemoration of Christ.  But we do not keep a memento of a person, no matter how dear, who is bodily present.  It is only when the friend is really departing that he leaves a memorial.  Jesus, in John (xiv. 2, 3), says, “I go to prepare a place for you.  I will come again, and will take you to myself, that where I am, you also may be.”  Why did not Christ say, “Do not be troubled.  I am leaving myself in the Eucharist.  You can handle me, feed on me.  I shall be a thousand times more intimately connected with you than ever before.”  He says nothing of the kind, however.  Nor does St. Peter in his famous sermon (Acts iii. 20) at Solomon’s porch; but he says, “When the times of refreshment shall come, He shall send Jesus Christ, whom heaven indeed must receive until the times of the restitution of all things.”

4.  I should be sorry to weary you, and so the last point I shall discuss here is the alleged primacy of jurisdiction given by Christ to St. Peter, and through him to the Pope.  The chief text upon which the Roman Catholic Church relies in this matter is Matt. xvi. 18—“And I say to thee, That thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  In a note in the Douay Testament we are told that Christ’s words were the same as if He said in English, “Thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”  But it is very remarkable that the Evangelist uses the word Petros for Peter, and Petra for the rock.  Now Petros means a stone, while Petra means a rock; so that the words of Christ would really signify “thou art a p. 9stone, and upon this rock I will build my Church.”  If Christ intended to found His Church upon Peter, He surely would have said, “Thou art Peter, and upon thee I will build my Church.”  But He really does say, thou art Peter (that is a stone), and upon this rock (Petra) I will build my Church.  Peter certainly was a stone in the edifice equally with the other Apostles, for St. John in the Apocalypse (xxi. 14) tells us that the wall of the new Jerusalem “had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.”  St. Augustine distinctly states that Christ is the rock—“Because I am Petra, a rock, thou art Petrus, Peter; for Petra, the rock, is not from Petrus, Peter; but Petrus, Peter, is from Petra the rock.  And upon this rock I will build my Church; not upon Peter, whom thou art, but upon the rock whom thou hast confessed” (tom, v., 1097).  St. Jerome holds the same opinion.  But the Church of Rome says Christ gave Peter the keys (Matt. xvi. 19).  No doubt; and Peter admitted the Jews by the doors of the Church (Acts ii. 41), and afterwards the Gentiles (Acts x.).  He also gave him power to bind and loose, and bestowed exactly the same power on the other Apostles (Matt. xviii. 18).  But even if Christ had conferred upon Peter this extraordinary power, it would not follow that it has been transmitted to the Pope.  They tell us that St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome.  But what authority have we for such a statement?  Only a shadowy tradition.  St. Peter is said to have founded the Church of Antioch, and has written an Epistle from Babylon.  Why should not the bishops of Antioch or Babylon have as good a right to call themselves successors to St. Peter as the bishops of Rome?  The Roman Catholic Church says Peter was bishop of Rome for twenty-five years, and was put to death the same year with St. Paul.  Well, the Acts of the Apostles take us down to A.D. 66, and it is most extraordinary they never mention Peter in connection with the See of Rome.  p. 10Even more extraordinary, if possible, is the fact that, although St. Paul resided two whole years at Rome, and wrote several Epistles therefrom, he never once mentions Peter’s name.  In his second Epistle to Timothy, written, as the Douay Testament tells us, “not long before his martyrdom,” he says: “Only Luke is with me.”  Nay, when he was before Nero, at his first examination, not a friend stood by to comfort him.  “At my first answer, no man stood with me, but all forsook me; may it not be laid to their charge.”  Where was Peter?  The Church of Rome says he had been residing at Rome twenty-five years then.  Was St. Paul totally ignorant of his presence there?

I do not propose to touch upon any more points of controversy just now, but from what I have written, you will gather that it would have been dishonourable and wicked of me to remain in the Church of Rome.  Of course the proper thing for me to do was to write to my bishop, and resign into his hands the charge he had given me seven years previously.  But you know how a poor Irish priest, who retires from his ministry for conscientious motives, is reviled and persecuted.  Then, my parents were living.  I dare say some of you know them, and if you do, you are aware that they are devout Roman Catholics, and are respected and esteemed by their acquaintances.  They doated upon me, and I knew they would much prefer to weep over my dead body than mourn over what to them would be my fall.  I gave them the easier alternative.  On Tuesday, the 20th of September, 1887, I said Mass in St. Peter’s, Athlone, as usual; had a talk with my old parish priest, Dr. Coffey, about schools, after breakfast, and then left, as I suppose for ever.  I sent a suit of secular clothes to my boat, pulled up to Lough Ree, and, having left my lay suit on the bank, undressed in the boat and swam ashore.  I thank God that from that moment I have had, what I had not tasted for years previously, perfect p. 11peace.  I got a position as sub-editor on a London newspaper, and for eighteen months gave myself to deep and constant study in the British Museum.  I began to feel that it was God’s will I should return to Ireland, and tell my dearly-loved countrymen of all that Christ has done for me.  He has accepted me.  I, a poor sinner, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, cast myself upon Him, and know that “I have peace with God, being justified by faith.”  God spared not His own Son.  “He made Him to be sin for us,” therefore for me.  “We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.”  This blessed acceptance has flooded my very soul with spiritual joy and gratitude, and as the perennial fountain spreads its waters over the surrounding meadows, so, my friends, do I long to impart to others the riches with which Christ has endowed me.  I have nothing to say, except what Paul said to his own countrymen after his conversion: “But this I confess to thee, that according to the sect which they call heresy, so I serve the Father and my God, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets” (Acts xxiv. 14).  I have written nothing that I have not grounded upon God’s Word.  Christ bids us “Search the Scriptures.”  I hope to meet you all again, and to prove to you from God’s book, admitted by your own Church to be inspired, that I have followed God’s guidance.  Your priest may denounce me, but I am quite willing to discuss the matter with him, and accept you, his own flock, as the judges.  Meanwhile, may God bless you all, and may you “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Your obedient Servant,

THOMAS CONNELLAN,

Late Roman Catholic Curate, St. Peter’s, Athlone.