The Pope’s Prison by Mary Howitt

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 10, 1874

The Pope’s Prison.

By Mary Howitt

The simple-hearted, pious peasantry of the whole Catholic world are made to believe that the “Holy Father,” as the pope is termed, is, at the present time, enduring all the miseries of a hard and cruel captivity. In the Austrian Tyrol, where our summers are spent, this is the general belief among a people not deficient in good sense and intelligence, but credulous of every fact related to them by their priests, or read by them in their Catholic newspapers. We, naturally, going direct to them from Rome, are eagerly beset with questions regarding the health and condition of the cruelly suffering head of the church, who has become to their imaginations as a second crucified Saviour; and, but for the credit which we have established in that one little village, our statements would not be accepted; for how should we, who are Protestants, know better than the priests? They believe us, however, and their simple hearts are comforted; but they are only a mere few out of the many thousands who are imposed upon by these outrageous fabrications. At Antwerp, one Sunday, a preacher having painted in most vivid colors the maltreatment, the sufferings, the imprisonment of the head of the church, cried out, “How is it possible to deny all this, when here is the straw on which lies in chains the Holy Father?” At these words, the whole congregation burst into sobbing and weeping, and, rushing forward to the priest, secured for themselves little bundles of straw, which he sold at half-a-franc a bundle. Almost all the parish priests sell these, and it is said that half the money goes to the Vatican.

But this is not all. At Ghent, they sell photographs, in which is represented the pope, in chains, looking out from between strong iron bars from a little dismal cell, a bersagliere standing guard over him with his musket. This photograph, the priests say, was taken from life, therefore it cannot be false, and there is shown the Holy Father suffering in one of the most horrid dungeons of Rome. These photographs are sold to members of the Catholic Association at half-a-franc each, and to other people at one franc and a half. The half of this money goes to St. Peter’s. They sell thousands of copies. The one I procured, bears the number 45,343 of the ninth series.

It is a singular fact that the pope at the present time has never for years been so well in health, never so merry, or so free. Hundreds of people, both Catholics and Protestants, see him every week—almost daily—in his luxurious palace, full of joke and lively repartee, as is his wont. This cannot last long, at his age; but at the time I write, he walks about his spacious gardens at a pace which tries the breath of the well-fed cardinals in attendance; visits his aviaries, is attended by his favorite black cat, and knows no imprisonment which himself or his priests, the Jesuits, have not imposed upon him. And all the while, through the distant places of Europe, the priests are selling the pretended damp straw of his dungeon, and the poor, ignorant, but devout, peasants are breaking their hearts over the lying pictures which represent him behind his prison bars!—Mary Howitt.