Renounces Rome

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 21, 1881

Renounces Rome. The following letter speaks for itself:— Sc. Anne, Kankakee Co., Ill. March 14, 1881. To the Rt. Rev. Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati:— My Lord,—You know that I was born at Calvello, in Italy, and that I was ordained a priest of Rome at Diano, province of Salerno, by Bishop D. Fanelli. After five years of priesthood, I had seen so many scandals, and such a want of religion in the secular clergy, that I thought there was no way to be saved, except by becoming a monk; and I entered the order of the Franciscans. But I found that through the whole kingdom of Italy the Franciscans were as corrupt and devoid of religious faith as the rest of the priests. Their vow of celibacy was only a mask to conceal the most unspeakable corruption, and their vow of poverty was only to become the richest men of Italy. I left them in 1875 to come to America. But here I have seen again that the same immorality, corruption, drunkenness, ignorance, and infidelity are reigning supremely everywhere, among the high and low clergy, under the gilded mask of the bastard Christianity of Rome.

In a word, I have seen with my own eyes that the Christianity of Rome, both in Europe and America, is a deception, a fraud. The millions of dollars which yourself, the bishop of St. Louis, and many other bishops on this continent, have extorted from your poor dupes, and engulfed to build your princely palaces, and drink your costly French and Italian wines and brandies, have perfectly showed to me that the church of Rome is only a caricature of the religion of the humble Jesus of Nazareth. I then went in search of that divine religion which the Son of God has brought to save this perishing world. I have, by the mercy of God, found it among those humble and devoted men called Protestant ministers, whom I had been taught to despise as heretics.

As it would be too long to name them all, I will tell you that when I have compared the words and deeds of the Revs. John Reids and D. Finks, of Colorado; Rev. Dr. Joyce of Cincinnati; and Father Chiniquy, of St. Anne, Illinois, with the words and deeds of the priests and bishop of Rome, I have felt and understood that my only chance of salvation was in uniting myself "corde et animo" to those humble and devoted disciples of the gospel, to serve my God in spirit and in truth, through Jesus Christ, with them.

It is particularly during the happy days of prayers, meditation, and study I have spent in the "Converted Priests' Home," where Father Chiniquy is giving me such a Christian hospitality, that I have seen that your transubstantiation, immaculate conception, purgatory, infallibility of the Pope, auricular confession, indulgences, worship of Mary, are blasphemous and idolatrous doctrines.

May God grant that your lordships, with all the priests of Rome, receive the light which my merciful God has given me; and that you may have the grace to give up the errors of popery, as I am just doing to-day, in order to put their hope of salvation only in Christ and him crucified. For there is only one name, the name of Jesus, through which men can be saved; there is only one sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary, which has been offered once for all, to redeem the world; there is only one store, one rock to serve as the corner-stone, the foundation of the church; that stone or rock is not Peter, but Christ.

Yours truly, F. E. DE CALVELLO. P. S.—I respectfully ask the Christian papers of the United States to reproduce this letter in order that the disciples of Jesus everywhere may pray for me. F. E. C.