Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 31, 30 July 1903, Page 18

Notes

A ' Chestnut ' Adapted. Here is a ' recent ' and ' true ' story which has found its way into two New Zealand daily papers :■— ' A certain Cardinal at an evening party, when pressed by an admiring circle of ladies to say whether he had ever received any startling confessions, replied that the first person who had come to him after he had taken Orders desired absolution for a murder which he confessed to have committed. A gentle shudder ran through the frames of the audience. This was turned to consternation when, ten minutes later, an elderly marquess entered the apartment, and eagerly claimed acquaintance, with the Cardinal. " But I see your fEminence does not remember me," he said. " You will do so when I lemind you that I was the first person who confessed to you after you entered the service of the t'hurcn. ' ' * Cilholic readers do not need to te loid iliat ihe story is, from beginning to end, a fairy tale. 'Ladies,' whether Catholic or non-Catholic, could not be guilty of such an outrageous exhibition of bad taste as to press any Catholic ecclesiastic, much less a Prince of the Church, for disclosures—' startling ' or otherwise — regarding his experiences in the confessional. There are subjects that, by the common consent of mankind, are protected by a perpetual close season from the arrows of the jester. Such are suffering, infirmity, death, and the sacred things of religion. And such, to Catholics at least, is the sacred tribunal of penance. No priest, no Catholic ecclesiastic, would for a moment tolerate, even in jest, much less in earnest, the odious and unpardonable impertinences which ' an admiring circles of ladies ' are represented above as having addressed— and successfully addressed— to an elaborately anonymous Cardinal lat an evening party ' in an elaborately anonymous place. Some years ago we recounted a number of instanced, from the days of St. John of Nepomuk to our own, of Catholic ecclesiastics having endured stripes, imprisonment, torture, and death rather than reveal the sins confessed by a penitent in the sacred tribunal. There is no known instance of any priest— even an insane or excommunicated one — having betrayed the confidence reposed in him in the confessional. The story told above is merely an adaptation of a venerable/ chestnut ' that was probably told by our grandfathers over the walnuts and wine or in the chimney-corner two generations ago. The stoiy runs as follows :—

A successful barrister, having been raised to the knighthood, Avas entertained at dinner by a wealthy triend. In responding to the toast of his health, he ran briefly over the chief events of his career. In the course of his remarks he said ■ ' I was very nervous over my first case. My client, though of good family, was a man of disreputable character. But, if he had been convicted, the good name of his family would have been hopelessly tarnished ; so I took up the case, threw my coat off at it, and got the scoundrel off.' After dinner a wealthy friend of the host entered and was presented to the newly-made knight. ' I see you do not remember me,' said the newcomer ; ' but I hardly need an introduction to you, for I was your first client, and, I may say, gave you your successful start in life.' And the newcomer wondered where the laughter came in. So the ancient story runneth. ' Tit-Bits ' of May 16, 1903, repeats it with slight variations, laying the scene in America instead of England. It is, we fancy, one of the harmless and not ' ower-true ' legends of the legal profession. But harmless tales commonly get an evil tinge when they pass through the alembic of the mind of a bigot or a roue.