Pater Achatius
Pater Achatius was a Capuchin monk in Düren, Germany, at the time of the French Revolution (1789-1799).
He gained notoriety as a confessor for starting a kind of flagellant society among women, especially widows and spinsters. Pater Achatius would take their confessions and then administer penitence by making them kneel down and whip them with great (birch?) rods on their bare buttocks.[1] He created initiation rituals in which his holy rods, as he called them, brined in vinegar, were always involved. Thus he founded a kind of order or society of female Adamites (nudists) and flagellants, who would engage in maledom/femsub (M/F) flogging and sexual games, which we might call today BDSM, under religious pretext.
When the matter was discovered and investigated, its size was found so extensive-several monasteries and many people of high ranks were found to be involved-that it was decided to curb further investigations in order to keep the scandal small. After the matter was reported to Napoleon, he ordered to stop the investigations altogether. Pater Achatius, together with a several other offenders, was imprisoned, but suffered no harder punishment.
See also
- Flagellation and the Flagellants
- Corporal punishment in religious institutions
- Spanking and religion
- Religious authority figure
- Cornelius Adriaensen
References
- ↑ Ernst Hermann Joseph Münch: Aletheia: Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Staats- und Kirchenrecht, Volume 4, page 323: "Sie musste sich bis an die Nieren entblösen und der Pater züchtigte sie mit einer grossen Ruthe; darauf überliess er sich der Lust, und weihete sie feierlich zum ersten Mitgliede des Ordens ein, den er zu stiften gedachte."
- Dr. A. Eulenburg: Sadismus und Masochismus. Wiesbaden 1911, page 76 online at Datenschlag (in German)