1
Anti-Catholic "Lincoln Conspiracy" Allegations
This document compiles various articles concerning the allegation that President Lincoln was murdered by the Roman Catholic Church.
FACTS VERSUS FALSEHOOD
In 1885, a former Catholic priest, Charles Chiniquy, wrote a book titled
Fifty Years in the Church of Rome in which he made many scandalous
allegations against the Catholic Church, including the accusation that the
assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 had been the result
of a conspiracy by the Catholic Church, and that the assassin John
Wilkes Booth was a Catholic who had been corrupted and led by the
Vatican to commit the murder.
Chiniquy, who had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church in
1858, claimed that "emissaries of the Pope" had promised the assassin "a
crown of glory in heaven" for the killing of Lincoln. According to
Chiniquy, the assassination was committed by the Church in revenge for
Lincoln's defense of Chiniquy in a 1856 lawsuit.
Chiniquy's writings are still widely distributed and promoted, in
books and on webpages. The goal of this website is to provide factual
information concerning Charles Chiniquy and his allegations against the
Catholic Church.
WAS BOOTH A CATHOLIC?
There have been many authors, beginning with Charles Chiniquy in
1885, who have claimed that Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes
Booth, was a Catholic who had committed the murder as the tool of a
conspiracy by the Catholic Church. Needless to say, this is a very
serious accusation. But, what are the facts?
In a nutshell, there is NO evidence whatsoever that John Wilkes
Booth was ever a Catholic. To the contrary, all the available evidence
strongly indicates that he was definitely not Catholic, and furthermore
that he was a member of a well-known anti-Catholic political
organization.
John Wilkes Booth was baptized and confirmed as an Episcopalian
protestant. His baptism took place at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in
Catonsville, Maryland, on January 23, 1853. This is documented by the
writings of Booth's sister. See, Clarke, Asia Booth, John Wilkes Booth:
A Sister's Memoir, (University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1996
edition), pp. 44-45.
Moreover, in the 1850s, John Wilkes Booth was an active member
of the American Party, an organization better known as the "Know-
Nothing Party". This was a strongly anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant
political party. See, id., Clarke, p. 75; see also, Rhodeehamel, John and
Taper, Louise, eds., Right or Wrong, God Judge Me: The Writings of
John Wilkes Booth, (University of Illinois Press, Urbana 1997), pp. 38-
39.
In fact, the only specific reference to any religion in all of Booth's
actual writings is an August 1854 letter in which he mentions attending
a Methodist religious meeting that month. See, id., Rhodeehamel and
Taper, p. 7.
John Wilkes Booth shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln on
April 15, 1865 in Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. Booth escaped
immediately after the murder.
Booth was finally found, asleep in a tobacco barn, by U.S. army
troops, on the morning of Wednesday, April 26, 1865, near Port Royal,
Virginia. A soldier named Boston Corbett shot Booth through the neck.
Booth died from the wound shortly thereafter.
There have been claims, by several authors, that Booth was holding
or wearing a necklace with a Catholic medal of the Virgin Mary when
he died. This is untrue.
A detailed search of his body, at the time of his death, turned up a
pair of revolvers, a belt and holster, a knife, some cartridges, a file, a
War Map of the Southern States, a spur, a pipe, a Canadian bill of
exchange, a compass with a leather case, a signal whistle, an almost
burned up candle, pictures of 5 women -- 4 actresses (Alice Grey, Helen
Western, Effie Germon, and Fanny Brown) and his fiancee, Lucy Hale
(the daughter of ex-Senator John P. Hale from New Hampshire), and an
1864 date book kept as a diary. There was no necklace nor any medal of
the Virgin Mary.
In plain English, the evidence is overwhelming: John Wilkes Booth
was NOT a Catholic.
THE LINCOLN WRITINGS OF CHARLES P.T. CHINIQUY
by Joseph George Jr.
reprinted from Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
February 1976 vol. 69, pp. 17-25
Joseph George, Jr., at the time of the original publication of this
article, was chairman of the history department at Villanova University.
He received his doctorate in 1959 and is the author of several published
articles on Lincoln and the Civil War.
Dr. George is presently retired. He continues to be involved with
research and writing on historical topics
In 1891 John G. Nicolay, Lincoln's former secretary, received a note
from Benedict Guldner, a Jesuit priest in New York, asking for
information about a "libellous pamphlet" printed in Germany. The
pamphlet, according to Guldner, was a translation of a work "originally
written in this country ... in which the author maintains that the
assassination of President Lincoln was the work of Jesuits." Nicolay and
John Hay, another former secretary to the President, had not mentioned
the allegation in their biography of Lincoln, and Guldner wished to
know if they had heard the charge and if they considered it false. [1]
Nicolay consulted Hay, and then replied:
To [y]our first question whether in our studies on the life of
Lincoln we came upon the charge that "the assasination of President
Lincoln was the work of Jesuits", we answer that we have read such
a charge in a lengthy newspaper publication.
To your second question, viz: "If you did come across it, did the
accusation seem to you to be entirely groundless?", we answer Yes.
It seemed to us so entirely groundless as not to merit any attention
on our part. [2]
Perhaps the decision of Nicolay and Hay to ignore the charge of a
Jesuit conspiracy against Lincoln was unwise. A prompt and firm denial
might have prevented further publication of the story. [3]
The originator of the conspiracy theory was Charles P.T. Chiniquy,
a former Catholic priest who claimed to be a close friend and confidant
of Abraham Lincoln's. According to Chiniquy, "emissaries of the Pope"
were plotting to murder Lincoln for his defense of Chiniquy in an 1856
trial. Chiniquy's autobiography, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome,
published in 1885, attributes remarks to the President on a variety of
subjects, particularly religion. [4] Most of Chinquy's stories are so
foreign to what is known about the Sixteenth President that scholars
have ignored them. Nevertheless, many of the less sensational portions
of Chiniquy's reminiscences have been used by serious students of

Lincoln's life, and the most sensational passages have been widely
quoted and disseminated by writers engaged in anti-Catholic polemics.
Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy was born on July 30, 1809, in
Kamouraska, Quebec. As a young man he was ordained a priest in the
Roman Catholic church, and his labors to stamp out drunkenness caused
him to be known throughout Quebec as "The Apostle of Temperance".
[5] In 1851 he moved to Kankakee County, Illinois, to serve a colony of
French-Canadians who had migrated there. Chiniquy got into difficulty
with his bishop, resigned his position in the church in 1860, and with
some of his former parishioners established a new church. In time
Chiniquy became a Presbyterian minister and published many books and
pamphlets with an anti-Catholic theme. He also lectured extensively
throughout the United States, Europe and Australia on the evils of
Roman Catholicism. He died in Montreal on January 16, 1899. [6]
It was while he lived in Illinois in the 1850s that Chiniquy met
Abraham Lincoln. According to Chiniquy's Fifty Years in the Church of
Rome, he hired Lincoln to defend him against a charge of personal
immorality; the charge, Chiniquy said, had been brought by his enemies
in the Catholic Church. Chiniquy won the case, thereby incurring the
wrath of the Jesuits. By Chiniquy's account, when the verdict came in,
Lincoln said; "I know that Jesuits never forgive nor forsake. But man
must not care how or where he dies, provided he dies at the post of
honor and duty." [7]
Chiniquy claimed that he later met with Lincoln on three different
occasions in Washington. The first interview, he said, took place at the
White House "at the end of August" in 1861. Chiniquy had learned from
another former priest of an assassination plot against President Lincoln,
and considered it his duty to warn him. Chiniquy reported that Lincoln
received him cordially and then made the following lengthy statement:
Your friends, the Jesuits, have not yet killed me. But they would
have surely done it, when I passed through their most devoted city,
Baltimore, had I not defeated their plans, by passing incognito, a few
hours before they expected me. We have the proof that the company
which had been selected and organized to murder me, was led by a rabid
Roman Catholic, called Byrne; it was almost entirely composed of
Roman Catholics ... A few days ago, I saw Mr. [Samuel F.B.] Morse, the
learned inventor of electric telegraphy; he told me that, when he was in
Rome ... he found out the proofs of a formidable conspiracy against this
country and all its institutions. It is evident that it is to the intrigues and
emissaries of the pope, that we owe, in great part, the horrible civil war
which is threatening to cover the country with blood and ruins. [8]
Also at that interview, according to Chiniquy, he was offered a
position as a secretary at the American legation in Paris, a post from
which he could not only investigate the evil designs of Napoleon III but
also travel occasionally to Rome and check on the Pope and Jesuits
there. Chiniquy declined the appointment; he offered as his reason the
need to continue his work in America. [9]
Chiniquy reported that the President was so pleased with that
meeting that he invited his visitor to return the next day. On that
occasion, Lincoln expressed his concern about a report in Democratic
newspapers that he had been born a Catholic and baptized by a priest. "I
have never been a Roman Catholic", Lincoln assured his guest. "No
priest of Rome has ever laid his hand on my head." Lincoln asked
Chiniquy if he could explain the meaning of the reports. Chiniquy
replied that the charges represented Lincoln's death sentence by the
Catholic church. Lincoln then concluded the interview by stating that he
was fighting the Civil War against the Pope and his Jesuits as well as
against the Rebels of the South. [10]
Chiniquy's second reported visit to Lincoln in Washington,
according to Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, took place at the
"beginning of June, 1862", but at that time Chiniquy could only shake
hands with his friend. The President was too busy for intimate
conversation. [11]
The third and last visit was alleged to have occurred on June 9,
1864, the day Lincoln received official word that he was renominated
for the Presidency. The following day, June 10, the two old friends,
according to Chiniquy, visited the wounded soldiers in Washington
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hospitals. The President then invited Chiniquy to the White House for a
long discussion to Catholicism. Lincoln assured his guest that the Pope
and his Jesuits were responsible for the French invasion of Mexico, the
New York draft riots, and other outrages. Lincoln also quoted
appropriate passages from the Bible and indicated that he was prepared
to die for the cause of liberty. [12] Chiniquy then took his leave, never
to see LIncoln again.
It is unlikely that any of these meetings took place. As this paper
will show, Chiniquy's autobiography contains numerous
misrepresentations about his life and association with Abraham Lincoln.
Three years after the appearance of Chiniquy's account, Justin D.
Fulton, a Baptist minister, published Washington in the Lap of Rome.
The book was dedicated "to Americans Who Will Aid in Throttling
Jesuitism, in Uncoiling the Serpent Encircling the Capitol of the United
States, and in taking Washington Out of the Lap of Rome; That a Free
Church and a Free School in a Free State May Make the Great Republic
the Glory of the World." [13] Fulton, a prolific writer, published a
variety of books and newspapers with a religious theme. Strongly
antislavery in pre-Civil War times, he shifted his attacks to the Catholic
church after the war. One historian judged his writings "reckless of fact
and effect." [14]
Chiniquy's and Fulton's writings were the basis for several anti-
Catholic tracts published in the 1890s. During that decade as the number
of Catholics in America rose in proportion to the increasing immigration
rate, many non-Catholics became alarmed at what they considered a
danger to the United States. By 1893 the American Protective
Association -- a nativist group founded in 1887 by H.F. Bowers, an
attorney from Clinton, Iowa -- had seventy thousand members in twenty
states. APA members took an oath to vote for and hire only Protestants.
[15]
Other anti-Catholic authors also borrowed from Chiniquy. In 1893,
for example, W.H. Burr wrote The Murder of Abraham Lincoln:
Planned and Executed by Jesuit Priests. [16] Thomas M. Harris'
pamphlet Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham
Lincoln denounced Catholic schools as breeding grounds by which to
"secure loyalty to the [Catholic] Hierarchy, and to prepare the minds of
its children for disloyalty to any other power." Harris cited Chiniquy's
story to demonstrate "conclusively the hand of Rome in this stab at our
nation's life." [17]
The Chiniquy claims were repeated in 1924 by Burke McCarty in
Suppressed Truth about the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, which
was "Affectionately Dedicated" to the author's "Patriotic Mother Who
Also Left Rome." McCarty credited the Jesuits with the murders of
Presidents William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James A. Garfield
and William McKinley, as well as Abraham Lincoln. McCarty also
accused Catholics of an attempt on the life of President-elect James
Buchanan, whom the Jesuits were alleged to have poisoned in February
1857. [18] In discussing Lincoln's assassination, McCarty quoted
extensively from Chiniquy and added some embellishments of his own.
McCarty, for example, stated that Chiniquy visited Lincoln in
Washington "once each year." Chiniquy had claimed he was in
Washington but three times. [19]
By the time McCarty published what he called the "suppressed
truth," there was a new audience in America for anti-Catholic literature.
The resurrected Ku Klux Klan opposed American Catholics as well as
Jews, immigrants, and Negroes.
In 1921 the Rail Splitter Press of Milan, Illinois, which called itself
the "oldest, most resourceful, and most reliable Anti-Papal publishing
house in America," printed Chiniquy's charges in pamphlet form. The
press also advertised a special envelope with a drawing of Lincoln's face
and a quotation from the Chiniquy book regarding Lincoln's fear of
Catholics and Jesuits. The publisher estimated that at least five people
read each envelope; readers, he said, should use the Lincoln envelopes
to "save America" and perform "great missionary work." [20]
In 1922 John B. Kennedy, the editor of Columbia, a Catholic
magazine, requested information from Robert Todd Lincoln about
Chiniquy's report. The reply was emphatic: "I do not know of any

literature in which my father is quoted as attacking Catholics and the
Catholic Church. Of course, in the years his name has been a peg on
which to hang many things." [21]
But even the denial by Lincoln's son could not stop the circulation of
Chiniquy's story. In 1924 the distinguished historian Carl Russell Fish
found it necessary to use the pages of the American Historical Review to
denounce an account titled "An American Protestant Protest against the
Defilement of True Art by Roman Catholicism." According to Fish, the
publication, which repeated the claims of Chiniquy's Fifty Years in the
Church of Rome, had "circulated by the million." Fish argued that "the
spirit of the [remarks attributed to Lincoln] ... is contrary to the whole
character of Lincoln's thought and expression." Fish concluded that
Chiniquy's fabrication demonstrated the need for a definitive edition of
Lincoln's writings and sayings -- a project that would be completed
almost thirty years later. [22]
In 1928, when Al Smith, a Roman Catholic, won the Democratic
nomination for the Presidency, the Chiniquy charges were again
reprinted. The Rail Splitter Press brought out a pamphlet titled Abraham
Lincoln's Vow Against the Catholic Church. [23] This pamphlet, like the
earlier one from the same press, was based on Chiniquy's charges.
The Abraham Lincoln Association published Lincoln's collected
writings in 1953. The nine-volume edition contained no reference to
Chiniquy or his claims regarding Lincoln's comments about the Pope,
Jesuits, and the Catholic church. [24] Yet in 1960 when the Catholic
John F. Kennedy received the Democratic nomination for the
Presidency, the Chiniquy story about Lincoln again surfaced. One
publication contained the statement that Chiniquy's interviews with
Lincoln should serve as a "warning to all Americans who see no danger
in having a Roman Catholic in the White House." That widely
distributed pamphlet was printed by the Osterhus Publishing House of
Minneapolis. The Osterhus pamphlet retold the most sensational
portions of Chiniquy's account, taken second-hand from Fulton's
Washington in the Lap of Rome. The publisher assured readers that the
words were Lincoln's, even though "self-styled Lincoln experts may tell
you the contents ... are not among his writings." [25]
In 1963 another former priest, Emmett McLoughlin, published a
study of Lincoln's assassination; he concluded that the Pope and his
Jesuits were responsible for Booth's crime. McLoughlin, too,
acknowledged his debt to Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. The
author was particularly impressed by Chiniquy's enduring friendship
with Lincoln, during which "the ex-priest visited Lincoln in the White
House and frequently warned him of the Church's antagonism and of its
threats to the very life of the President." [26]
Clearly, neither the denials by Nicolay and Robert Todd Lincoln nor
the publication of the Collected Works would stop the reappearance of
Chiniquy's charges. Fifty Years in the Church of Rome was translated
into many languages and distributed, among other places, in French
Canada, South Africa, Norway, France, New Zealand, Haiti, and
Formosa." [27]
Because Chiniquy's autobiography contains several supposedly first-
hand observations of Lincoln's religious beliefs, it has been used, albeit
cautiously, even by reputable Lincoln biographers. William E. Barton,
for example, accepted many of the less sensational portions of
Chiniquy's account, particularly the anecdotes describing Lincoln at
prayer or quoting long passages from the Bible. Barton believed that
Lincoln "trusted and believed in" Chiniquy. Barton did not believe that
Lincoln made harsh statements about the Pope, Jesuits. and Catholics
but did accept Chiniquy's version of his 1856 trial. Barton wrote:
Lincoln believed thoroughly in the justice of his cause, and of the
bad motives of those engaged in the prosecution ... I think there is good
reason to believe that in this trial Lincoln spoke with some severity of
the ecclesiastical machinery that could be made available for the
crushing of a man who had incurred the ill will of priests. But his words
were not recorded at the time, and those who remembered them
afterward probably colored them greatly. Father Chiniquy's account of
this affair is within easy reach of anyone who wishes to read it, and I
3
think it is essentially truthful, though I do not accept any such account,
made from memory years afterward, as reliable in its detail. [29]
Barton also accepted Chiniquy's recollections of visits to Lincoln in
the White House. Barton suspected that the incidents were "colored by
the imagination" of the former priest but that the account contained "a
basis of fact in accord with what we might have expected Lincoln to
say." Barton warned, however, that the conversations sounded "much
more like Chiniquy than Lincoln." "It is not safe," Barton concluded, "to
put Abraham Lincoln on record except in words that he is known to
have written or uttered. And to say this is not to impugn Father
Chiniquy, who, I think, intended to be truthful." [29]
Influenced by Barton's views, Lloyd Lewis unwittingly helped
perpetuate Chiniquy's claims. In Myths After Lincoln, Lewis agreed that
the disclosures were based on actual incidents but "were far more
Chiniquy than Lincoln." Lewis advanced the view that Chiniquy's
"unbalanced imagination" prompted him "to expand some simple
remarks of the President into a metaphysical monologue which, though
it retained, in all likelihood, some of Lincoln's words, misrepresented
him wholly. [30] Emanuel Hertz followed in the Barton tradition and
frequently cited Fifty Years in the Church of Rome as a source for
Lincoln's religious views. [31]
The evidence is conclusive that reliance on Chiniquy was
unfortunate, for his claims were baseless. Chiniquy did meet Lincoln in
1856, and he did engage Lincoln's services as an attorney. But the facts
of the trial bear little resemblance to the account presented in Fifty Years
in the Church of Rome.
According to Chiniquy, the Bishop of Chicago, Chiniquy's superior,
had induced a land speculator named Peter Spink to bring charges of
immorality against Chiniquy in 1855. Chiniquy said that the court found
him innocent but that Spink obtained a change of venue. Chiniquy was
then re-tried, he said, at Urbana. At that time Lincoln was hired as
defense attorney and was influential in producing a key witness from
Chicago who exposed Spink as a perjurer. After the acquittal, according
to Chiniquy, Lincoln declared, "Jesuits never forget nor forsake." [32]
The court records and attorneys' notes from that trial contradict
almost every point in Chiniquy's autobiography. The original documents
show that Spink v. Chiniquy involved little more than a personal feud
between two embittered friends. Peter Spink, the plaintiff in the case,
charged in his complaint that "on or about the 10th day of January A.D.
1854" he was accused by Chiniquy, "in a public assembly," of
committing perjury. Apparently the public assembly was a church
service, and Chiniquy, then a priest, had announced to his congregation
that Spink, a land speculator, was advising clients to enter public lands
on which French-Canadians had cut timber. Spink's plan, Chiniquy told
his parishioners, was to make the French-Canadians pay for the wood.
Spink charged that the accusation was "false and malicious" and had
caused his clients to lose confidence in him. As a result Spink was
unable "to do business as before, wherefore he was greatly injured and
sustained great damage." Spink further charged that the priest had "at
divers times before the instituting of this suit - slandered and defamed
this deponent." Those statements are recorded in the official complaint,
"Sworn and Enscribed," on February 3, 1855, in the circuit court of
Kankakee County. [33] The official charge brought by Spink was
slander, not immorality. The Bishop of Chicago (who was not, in any
case, Chiniquy's superior) had nothing to do with the complaint. The
trial was shifted, as Chiniquy said, from Kankakee to Urbana, but
before, not after, the first court proceedings. There was first a mistrial,
and the jury chosen for the second hearing could not agree. Lincoln then
became Chiniquy's attorney. In the words of his friend H. C. Whitney,
Lincoln "abhorred that class of litigation [slander]," and was influential
in bringing about a compromise before a third trial. [34] A statement of
agreement, in Lincoln's handwriting, is extant. It reads:
This day came the parties and the defendant denies that he
has ever charged, or believed the plaintiff to be guilty of
Perjury; that whatever he has said, from which such a charge
could be inferred, he said on the information of others,
protesting his own disbelief in the charge; and that he now

disclaims any belief in the truth of such charge against said
plaintiff -- It is therefore, by agreement of the parties, ordered
that this suit be dismissed, each party paying his own cost --
the defendant to pay his part of the cost heretofore ordered to
be paid by said plaintiff. [35]
It is difficult to believe that Chiniquy and Lincoln would have had
reason or occasion at Urbana for a discussion of the evils of the Catholic
church -- which in any case had no connection with the trial. [36]
Chiniquy's accounts of later visits with Lincoln and discussions of
religion and fears of Catholic plots against the President's life are
equally unreliable. David Davis had warned in 1866 that Lincoln was a
"secretive man." That Lincoln would discuss his religious views with
strangers Davis considered "absurd". [37] John G. Nicolay, writing
shortly after Lincoln's death, asserted that he had never heard Lincoln
explain his religious view's. [38] If such close associates of the
President's as Davis and Nicolay never heard Lincoln speak of his
religious views, it is not likely that Chiniquy would have had long
theological discussions with him. Moreover, there is no available
documentary evidence that Chiniquy was friendly with Lincoln or
visited with him privately in Washington.
According to Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, Chiniquy visited
Lincoln in August, 1861, and June, 1862. At the first interview Chiniquy
claimed that the President not only spoke of the evils of Catholicism but
offered his friend a secretaryship in the American legation in Paris. On
September 29, 1862, three months after the second meeting was
supposed to have taken place, Chiniquy wrote to Lincoln and thanked
him for services rendered in Urbana in 1856. Nothing was mentioned of
any meeting in Washington or any offer of a position for Chiniquy in the
foreign service. The letter, preserved in the Robert Todd Lincoln
Collection in the Library of Congress, reads:
MR. PRESIDENT,
I have the honor [and] the pleasure of forwarding to You the
adress of my countrymen adopted in a meeting of our whole
Colony.
Our gratitude for the good you are doing to our beloved &
bleeding Country, is increased by the great services you have
rendered me personally, in a very solemn circumstance, at
Urbana, Ill.
I have then, a double reason to bless the name of Abraham
Lincoln, & to assure you of the respect & devotedness with
which I have the h[onor] to subscribe myself, Mr. President,
Yr. Nble Servant,
CHARLES CHINIQUY [39]
One finds it difficult to believe that the author of this letter was the
confidant described in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. It is safe to
assert that the two men never shared long friendly conversations at any
time -- especially between May 23, 1856, and September 29,1862.
Chiniquy's autobiography is more specific about his reported third
and last visit to Lincoln, which, he said, took place on June 8, 1864.
According to Chiniquy, he was invited to return on June 9 for Lincoln's
official notification of renomination by the Republican party. Chiniquy
said that he attended the affair, and his descriptions of the Republican
delegations conform to the newspaper reports. [40] Chiniquy claimed
that he was invited by the President to return the following day, June 10.
On that day, Chiniquy said, the two men visited a number of hospitals,
and later at the White House had their final conversation about the Bible
and the evils of Romanism.
Chiniquy may have attended the ceremony on June 9 and may have
met with the President on June 10. If so, it was not as an old friend of
Lincoln's, however. The Robert Todd Lincoln Collection contains a
letter of June 10, 1864, from one A. Chester to the President. [41] The
letter is a request for funds for the school operated by Chiniquy in
Kankakee County. [42] In the note Chester expresses his "high
appreciation" of Chiniquy's character and commends him to Lincoln "as
worthy of your highest confidence -- a man and a Preacher of ability and
integrity whom you cannot too much encourage." Chester is clearly not
4
writing about an old friend of the President's. Along with Chester's note
is one from Chiniquy, also dated June 10. It reads:
MY DEAR MR. LINCOLN,
It was my privilege, yesterday, to bless you in the name of ten
[?] thousand French Canadians settled in our Colony of
Illinois. To day, I approach you to offer you a new oportunity
of doing one of the things you like the more; and by which
your life has been filled: "a good action."
In the Providence of God I have brought some six hundred
families of my countrymen from the errors of Rome; to the
Knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. Now, I am
trying to give to the Children of those converts the best
possible Christian & American education, and I have founded
a College: "The Saviour's College" where about 130 boys &
girls are taught to serve their God & love their country.
But, alone, I can not meet all the expenses of that new
Institution. Our Presbytery have advised me to make an appeal
to our Freinds [sic] in Washington. The eminent services you
have already rendered me, gives me, surely, the privilege of
looking to you as our first & noblest Freind.
It is then to you that we go first to get some help for the
education of that colony which has already sent more than 150
men to the defense of the Country. 12 of them have shed their
blood on the battle Fields of the West.
For God's sake, My dear Mr. Lincoln, do receive with your
usual Kindness, my humble requests
and Believe me.
Your most devoted Servant,
C. CHINIQUY
My residence in Washington is 58th Missoury [sic] Ave.
No reference is made of past intimate conversations. Nothing in the
letter suggests that two old friends from the Illinois prairies might have
spent the day visiting wounded soldiers or holding a long conversation
on theology. Lincoln did visit hospitals in and about Washington while
he was President, but there is no record that he did so on June 10, 1864.
Also, he never visited more than one hospital on any of the days listed
for that activity in Lincoln Day by Day. On the evening of June 10,
1864, the President met with Orville H. Browning and discussed an
Illinois patronage matter. [43] Lincoln may have met with Chiniquy that
evening, but there is no evidence of it. If such an interview did occur,
the subject was probably Chiniquy's request for money.
It is clear that Charles Chiniquy met Lincoln in 1856 in Urbana and
engaged his legal services. The facts of the case differ significantly,
however, from those reported in Chiniquy's autobiography. As to the
three separate interviews in Washington, it is reasonable to assume that
the first two never took place. If a third did occur, it was for the purpose
of obtaining a charitable contribution from the President. One may also
conclude that Lincoln never offered Chiniquy a post in the foreign
service, nor did he engage the former priest in long conversations about
the Bible and assassination plots. [44]
As the by-no-means-exhaustive list of pamphlets and books cited in
this essay suggests, Chiniquy's charges against the Catholic church will
be kept alive by sectarian battlers disposed to believe what was said in
Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. [45] Scholars, however, even when
tempted to use less sensational passages from Chiniquy's book, should
be wary. There is no evidence to support his claim that he was a close
friend of the Sixteenth President.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Guldner to Nicolay, Oct. 30, 1891, John G. Nicolay Papers,
Library of Congress.
[2] Nicolay to Guldner, Dec. 3, 1891, ibid.
[3] Nicolay did plan to incorporate the item in a projected volume of
spurious Lincoln quotations. After Nicolay died, his daughter gave his

notes to the Library of Congress. See, David C. Mearns, "Our Reluctant
Contemporary: Abraham Lincoln", Abraham Lincoln Quarterly, 6
(1950), 77-78.
[4] Charles P.T. Chiniquy, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, 43rd
ed. (New York: Fleming H. Ravelle Co., 1886), pp. 692-96 (all
references in this article are to the forty-third edition). The volume was
first published in 1885, in both French and English. The first English
edition was printed by the Craig and Barlow Publishing Company of
Chicago. Marcel Trudel, Chiniquy (Trois Rivieres, Quebec: Editions du
Bien Publiques, 1955), pp. xxi-xxii. An examination of other editions of
Fifty Years in the Church of Rome reveals that the editions vary only in
the dedication pages. See, for example, the third edition--published in
1886 by William Drysdale & Co. of Montreal--and the forty-second
edition--published in 1892 by the Craig Press of Chicago. Chiniquy
apparently was active in advertising the volume. The Illinois State
Historical Library (hereinafter cited as ISHL) owns Mr. Editor, a
broadside dated July 13, 1885, which was sent by Chiniquy to
newspaper editors. The broadside warned of the dangers of Romanism,
identified chapters about Abraham Lincoln, and requested a copy of the
review when published. In a handwritten note at the bottom of the
broadside, Chiniquy asked the editor to "give the book such criticism it
deserves."
[5] New York Times, Jan. 17, 1899.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Chiniquy, Fifty Years, pp. 654-57, 664.
[8] Ibid, pp. 691-92. For Morse's anti-Catholicism, see G.H.G.
[George Harvey Genzmer], "Morse, Samuel Finley Breese", Dictonary
of American Biography (1984).
[9] Chiniquy, Fifty Years, pp. 692-93.
[10] Ibid., pp. 693-96.
[11] Ibid., p. 698.
[12] Ibid., pp. 698-709.
[13] Fulton, Washington in the Lap of Rome (Boston: W. Kellaway,
1888), pp. iii, 115-35.
[14] J.D.W. [John D. Wade], "Fulton, Justin Dewey", Dictionary of
American Biography (1931).
[15] Winifred Ernest Garrison, The March of Faith: The Story of
Religion in America since 1865 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1971), pp. 211-12.
[16] W.H.B. [W.H. Burr], The Murder of Abraham Lincoln:
Planned and Executed by Jesuit Priests (Indianapolis: Ironclad Age,
1893).
[17] Harris, Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham
Lincoln (Pittsburgh: Willams Publishing Co., 1897), pp. 6, 34.
[18] McCarty, The Suppressed Truth about the Assassination of
Abraham Lincoln (Philadelphia: Burke McCarty, Pub., 1924), pp. 43-52.
[19] Ibid., p. 69.
[20] Charles Chiniquy, Assassination of Lincoln (Milan, Ill.: Rail
Splitter Press [1921]), pp. 1, 32.
[21] Thomas P. Meehan, "Lincoln's Opinion of Catholics",
Historical Records and Studies of the United States Catholic Historical
Society, 16 (1924), 88.
[22] Fish, "Lincoln and Catholicism", American Historical Review,
29 (1924). 723-24.
[23] M. H. Wilcoxon, Abraham Lincoln's Vow Against the Catholic
Church (Milan, Ill.: Rail Splitter Press, 1928).
[24] Roy P. Basler, ed., Lloyd Dunlap and Marion Dolores Pratt,
asst. eds., Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press. 1953-1955) - hereinafter cited as Collected
Works. Neither is there any reference to Chiniquy in the supplement to
the Collected Works, published twenty-one years later: Basler, ed,.
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln: Supplement 1832-1865
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974).
[25] Fulton, Lincoln's Assassination (Minneapolis: 0sterhus Pub.
House [I960]), p. 2.
[26] McLoughlin, An Inquiry into the Assassination of Abraham
Lincoln (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1963). p. 8.
5
[27] Trudel, pp. 306-07.
[28] Barton, The Soul of Abraham Lincoln (New York: George H.
Doran Co., 1920), p. 188; Barton, "Abraham Lincoln and the Eucharistic
Congress", The Outlook, 143 (1926), 375.
[29] Barton, Soul of Abraham Lincoln, p. 196; Barton, "Abraham
Lincoln and the Eucharistic Congress", p. 375.
[30] Lewis, Myths After Lincoln (New York: Harcourt, 1929), pp.
343-45.
[31] Hertz, Abraham Lincoln: A New Portrait (New York: Horace
Liveright, 1931), 1, 55-56. See also Edgar DeWitt Jones, Lincoln and
the Preachers (1948; rpt. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press,
1970), pp. 27-28; Clarence Edward Macartney, Lincoln and the Bible
(New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949), pp. 92-96. A more
recent student of Lincoln's religious views, William J. Wolf, was
suspicious of Chiniquy but believed that he "did have interviews" with
the President. See Wolf, The Almost Chosen People: A Study of the
Religion of Abraham Lincoln (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), p.
26.
[32] Chiniquy, Fifty Years, pp. 617-42, 653-61, 664.
[33] "Complaint of Peter Spink, Feb. 3, 1855," photostat, Spink v.
Chiniquy file, ISHL. Henry Clay Whitney stated in 1892 that Chiniquy's
offending statement was made in a sermon. Whitney, Life on the Circuit
with Lincoln. Introduction and notes by Paul M. Angle (Caldwell,
Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1940), pp. 73-75.
[34] Whitney, p. 75. Spink petitioned for the change of venue; he
claimed that he could not receive a fair trial in Kankakee because of "the
prejudice of the judge." See "Petition of Peter Spink," Nov. 13,1855,
photostat, Spink v. Chiniquy File, ISHL.
[35] "Peter Spink vs. Charles Chiniquy [1856]", Herndon-Weik
MSS. Library of Congress (microfilm in ISHL). The ISHL Lincoln
Collection contains a photostat of a second copy, mostly in Lincoln's
handwriting, but with three lines written by others, probably other
attorneys involved in the compromise settlement.
[36] ISHL does have a photostat in its Lincoln collection of the
handwritten bill for services that Lincoln gave Chiniquy. The document
reads: "Urbana, May 23, 1856 - Due A. Lincoln Fifty dollars for value
received." It is signed "C. Chiniquy."
[37] Davis memorandum, Sept. 20, 1866. Herndon-Weik MSS.
[38] Nicolay to William H. Herndon, May 27, 1865, Herndon-Weik
MSS.
[39] Chiniquy to Lincoln, Sept. 29, 1862, Robert Todd Lincoln
Collection. Library of Congress (hereinafter cited as RTL Collection).
[40] Evening Star (Washington. D.C.), June 9, 10. 1864; New York
Times, June 10, 1864; Public Ledger (Philadelphia), June 10, 1864. The
account quoted in Collected Works, VII. 380-82, is taken from the New
York Tribune, June 10, 1864. All newspaper accounts agree on
essentials regarding the event.
[41] Apparently this is the same A. Chester who edited the
Kankakee Gazette from 1853 to 1856; see Collected Works, IV. 30.
Chester is known to have been a friend of Lincoln's: he was a lawyer at
one time, campaigned for Lincoln in 1864, asked the President for
political jobs for friends and himself, and provided some letters of
recommendation for people wishing to see the President. See Chester to
Lincoln, April 25, June 25, Dec. 16, 1863, and March 3, Aug. 8, Oct. 21,
Nov. 15, Dec. 8, 1864 - all in RTL Collection.
[42] Enclosed with the letter is a broadside that endorses the school
and requests funds: Alex. F. Kemp, To the Christian Public, Montreal,
May 9. 1864.
[43] Earl Schenck Miers, William E. Baringer. C. Percy Powell, eds.
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology, 1809-1865 (Washington, D.C.:
Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission, 1960), III, 264: Theodore Calvin
Pease and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville Hickman
Browning: Volume 1, 1850-1864, Collections of the Illinois State
Historical Library, Vol. 20 (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library,
1925), p. 672. Chiniquy's Canadian biographer presented what he
considered only a partial list of Chiniquy's untruths and concluded "les

mensonges de Chiniquy sont legion" ("The lies of Chiniquy are legion");
Trudel, pp. 260-62.
[45] The most recent pamphlet of this genre seen by the author is
Father Charles Chiniquy, The Gift (Philadelphia: Continental Press [ca.
1974]). Chiniquy was described as a "friend of Abraham Lincoln."
Pastor Chiniquy the Seducer
E. L. Core
If you would have some direct downright proof that Catholicism is what
Protestants make it to be, something which will come up to the mark,
you must lie....
(Newman, True Testimony Insufficient for the Protestant View,
1851)
So said Rev. John Henry Newman, D.D., in a series of Lectures on
the Present Position of Catholics in England, in 1851, six years after he
had joined the Catholic Church. Within a few years, Charles Chiniquy
would appear on the Protestant scene in North America, proving
Newman right.
The apostate Catholic priest Chiniquy died in 1899, but his name is
still proclaimed and his works still promulgated. Is he denounced as the
seducer of maidens, the trickster of the generous, and the slanderer of
the innocent — as he should be denounced? Are his works decried as
lurid falsehoods, well-crafted to appeal to the basest prurient interests of
the superficially proper — as they should be decried?
Hardly. He is accounted an apostle of liberty, his works the trumpet
of truth. By whom? By anti-Catholic bigots. Not merely by
fundamentalist Protestants but also by atheists.
Charles Chiniquy’s most infamous works — masterpieces of
misrepresentation, grotesque caricaturization, fantastical embellishment,
and plain, simple lying — are The Priest, the Woman & the
Confessional (1875) and Fifty Years in the Church of Rome (1885).
The latter book is the subject of a work by Rev. Sydney F. Smith,
S.J., Pastor Chiniquy: An Examination of His “Fifty Years in the
Church of Rome”, published by The Catholic Truth Society in 1908.
Smith obtained documents concerning Chiniquy that the latter avoided
discussing in his own works, and carefully built a case that exposes the
faux exposer Chiniquy.
For instance (p. 23), Smith quotes a letter from Chiniquy’s bishop,
M. Bourget of Montreal, to Chiniquy himself, about to go to preach a
temperance crusade in Illinois; dated May 7, 1851, the letter contains the
following instructions to Chiniquy:
1. take strict precautions in your relations with persons
of the opposite sex;
1. avoid carefully all that might savour of ostentation,
and the desire to attract attention; simplicity is so beautiful and
lovable a virtue;
2. pay to the priests of the country the honour due to
their ministry; the glory of God is the best recompense of an
apostolic man.
One need not be free of anti-Catholic prejudice to get the drift:
Chiniquy’s special faults are sexual immorality, pride, jealousy, and
greed. Indeed, one need not be free of prejudice to get the drift; one need
not be intelligent, even; one must be merely awake.
More telling, Smith relates (p. 11) a lengthy discourse, given by
Chiniquy himself in controversy with a Protestant minister surnamed
Roussy, January 7, 1851. As revealed in an earlier study, The Two
Chiniquys, Chiniquy himself defended the Catholic Church against the
charge that it keeps the Bible from the people. Keep in mind the pointed
quotation from Newman above; keep in mind that the following words
are from Chiniquy’s own mouth, in the very same year Newman was
preaching in England on the bigotry of anti-Catholics:
“Protestantism is fed on lies”.
6
Those words are Chiniquy’s, in 1851; not Father Newman’s, not
Bishop Bourget’s, but Chiniquy’s own words, in 1851.
Growing disgust among the Catholic hierarchy, clergy, and laity
would change Chiniquy’s tune. Charges against him of sexual
immorality date from little later than his childhood; Bishop Bourget’s
instructions, quoted above, reveal that he had become known for pride,
jealousy, and greed; eventually, he was charged with keeping for his
personal use funds donated for the rebuilding of a burned-out American
church — and many believed Chiniquy himself had torched it as an
excuse to recruit donations from Canadian Catholics.
After being twice suspended from priestly ministry, for moral
turpitude and disobedience, he was finally excommunicated as a
schismatic, September 3, 1856. Smith quotes (p. 43) a letter written
afterwards by M. Mailloux, a Canadian then living in America:
Mr. Chiniquy had in Canada, and still has here, the
reputation of being a man of most notorious immorality. The
many women he has seduced, or tried to seduce, are ready to
testify thereunto. Those who in this country have lived in Mr.
Chiniquy’s intimacy loudly proclaim that he has lost his faith
long ago, and that he is an infamous hypocrite.
Knowing that — in Chiniquy’s own words — “Protestantism is fed
on lies”, he spent the rest of his days telling certain Protestants what
they wanted to hear: lies about the Catholic Church. He lied generally
about the Catholic Church; he lied specifically about priests, falsely
attributing to most of them his own particular sins; and, he lied
particularly about individuals who had died and could no longer defend
themselves.
(Surely, not all Protestants are anti-Catholic bigots; not all
Protestants want lies about the Catholic Church: some eschew them,
some condemn them, some couldn’t care less about them. But the
market among Protestants for slanderous misrepresentation of the
Catholic Church is nonetheless enormous.)
Smith points out (p. 10) Chiniquy’s poorly wrought lie about
Catholics and the Bible:
He is continually telling his readers that the Church of
Rome forbids the reading of Scripture to the laity, and even to
her ecclesiastical students. Thus when he was a young
seminarian at St. Nicolet he tells us it was the rule of the
College to keep the Bible apart in the library, among the
forbidden books.... Yet in the story of his boyhood — in which
he tells us how he used as a child to read aloud to the
neighbouring farmers out of a Bible belonging to his family,
and how the priest, hearing of this, came one day to take the
forbidden book away — he has to acknowledge that this copy
had been given to his father as a seminary prize in his early
days.
Upon reading this tortured tale in Fifty Years, what would a
reasonable person do? Chiniquy is not merely revealed as a liar; he is
not merely revealed as a poor liar; he is revealed as a poor liar by his
very own words, in the self-same book. Upon reading this, a reasonable
person would toss the book aside and take up something with more
enduring substance, like the day’s comic strips.
But not the anti-Catholic bigots: the fundamentalist Protestants and
the atheists. No. Among them, any lie is to be believed: any lie — no
matter how outrageous, no matter how mundane, no matter how clever,
no matter how stupid — any lie is to be believed, and excused, as long
as it is told about the Catholic Church.
Here, at this juncture, might come at last incredulity from Protestant
fundamentalists: “Do you really expect us to believe” (they may ask)
“that Pastor Chiniquy wasn’t telling the truth?” Swallowing camels, they
strain out gnats. They accept — wholesale, without question, without
pause — that a world-wide organization with nearly 2,000 years of
history is populated by nothing but (on the one hand) devious, cunning,
unscrupulous, lascivious, faithless fiends who dupe (on the other hand)
the naive and ignorant masses. Yet, they balk at the suggestion that one

man told lies to get himself prestige, influence, and money — as if the
notion offends their delicate sensibilities.
Indeed, as I have said, Chiniquy’s bald-faced lies are used as
ammunition against the Catholic Church by Protestant fundamentalists
and by atheists. (This can be easily demonstrated by a Web search.) Yes,
the fundamentalists and the atheists are ranged on the same side, using
Chiniquy’s lies to attack the Catholic Church. Yet, something
inexplicable deters the fundamentalists from realizing that the mere fact
of siding with atheists ought to show them they are on the wrong side.
Mindless hatred is inexplicable, no?
Continue with Father Smith’s seldom-seen examination of Pastor
Chiniquy’s life and his Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, now available
on the World Wide Web by the efforts of Sue Smith, Antoine Valentim,
and Jim Goodluck (link below).
Smith’s prose flows like slow-moving streams, occasionally filling
up small pools, eventually to overflow and proceed further downstream.
And — in starkest contrast to Chiniquy — Smith is master of the
ironical understatement, as when he writes (p. 63) of Chiniquy:
It was his misfortune to be continually having charges of
the same kind brought against him from different and
independent quarters.
But Smith does give Chiniquy his due. Of his work in preaching
temperance, Smith says (p. 21): “It was in this work during the next four
years that Chiniquy acquired what was certainly the best distinction of
his life.”
Following this gracious example, let us too give Chiniquy his due.
Surely, it cannot be denied that he exercised one virtue consistently
throughout his life: consistency. Even in his youth, he was the seducer
of maidens; later, he was the seducer of generous Catholics who only
wanted to contribute financially to the work of the Church; last, he was
the seducer of naive Protestants who didn’t know better than to retch at
his vile impostures — and he still is.
Yes, let us give him his due — Pastor Chiniquy the Seducer.
PASTOR CHINIQUY
AN EXAMINATION OF HIS "FIFTY YEARS IN THE CHURCH
OF ROME"
By REV. SYDNEY F. SMITH, S.J
AN ESSAY ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1908
IF the person who called himself Father Chiniquy had confined
himself to the ministrations of the religion for which he forsook the
Church of his baptism, we might have left him unchallenged to give his
own account of the motives and circumstances of his alleged conversion.
But inasmuch as he has sought to gain popularity and income by
wholesale misrepresentations against the personal character and beliefs
of those with whom he was previously associated, and his books written
for this purpose are still widely used as instruments for the persecution
of poor Catholic working men and working women in the shops and
factories, those connected with him can have no complaint against us for
submitting his past career to a searching examination, even if the result
should be to discover facts not tending to exalt his reputation. So far,
indeed, we have not taken this course, the difficulty of obtaining the
requisite information from distant places having been so great; but so
many piteous appeals have reached us from the victims of this
unscrupulous persecution, that we have seen the necessity of putting the
man's story to the test, and through the kindness of some American and
Canadian friends we have been supplied with some materials which, if
they do not enable us to check his story at every point, suffice at least to
show that he was not exactly the witness of truth.
Before entering on the particulars of his life it will be convenient to
consider the general nature of his charges against the Catholic Church
7
and her clergy. And here at the outset we discover a very remarkable
development in his allegations. In his earliest biographical effusion,
published by the Religious Tract Society in 1861, he bases his
conversion solely on doctrinal considerations, and so far from bringing
charges against the moral character of the Catholic clergy, he says
expressly that there are in the Church of Rome many most sincere and
respectable men, and that "we must surely pray God to send them His
light, but we cannot go further and abuse them"; nor is there any charge
against their personal character in his Why I left the Church of Rome,
which comes next in chronological order. But it would seem that the
ultra-Protestant palate required something more stimulating, for in his
verbose and voluminous Fifty Years in the Church of Rome (1885) he
tells quite a different story. There he represents himself as one whom the
influences of birth, education, and social connections attached firmly to
the Catholic Church, but whom a series of appalling experiences as a
child, as an aspirant to the sacred ministry, as a priest, drove in spite of
himself to realize that this Church was utterly unscriptural in her
doctrines and corrupt in her morals. Gradually and sorrowfully he was
led to realize that her rulers were perfectly well aware of this opposition
between her teaching and that of the Bible, and just for this reason
strove always to keep the knowledge of the sacred volumes from her
people, forbidding her laity to possess copies of them, and her clergy to
attach to them any meaning save such as was dictated by a unanimous
consent of the Fathers, which was never obtainable. Gradually and
sorrowfully he was led to realize that the practice of auricular confession
meant nothing less than the systematic pollution of young minds by
filthy questions, and that the vow of clerical celibacy served only to set
the priests on the path of incontinence. Gradually and sorrowfully he
was led to realize that the clergy practically as a whole were drunkards
and infidels, whose one interest in their sacred profession was by
simony and oppression to make as much money out of it as their
opportunities allowed them.
Thus Bishop Panet is represented as making the acknowledgement
that "the priests [of the diocese of Quebec] with the exception of M.
Perras and one or two others, were infidels and atheists,"¹ but as finding
a strange consolation in learning from M. Perras that "the Popes
themselves, at least fifty of them, had been just as bad."
Father Guignes, the Superior of the Oblate Fathers, tells him "there
are not more undefiled souls among the priests than in the days of Lot"
(p. 280), that "it is in fact morally impossible for a secular priest to keep
his vow of celibacy except by a miracle of the grace of God," but that
"the priests whom God calls to become members of any of the
[religious] orders are safe." Later he discovers that, so far from this
being the case, "the regular clergy give themselves up with more
impunity to every kind of debauch and licentiousness than the secular"
(p. 308). In Illinois things were quite as bad, indeed much worse. "The
drunkenness and other immoralities of the clergy there" -- as pictured to
him on his arrival in those parts by a M. Lebel, a Canadian priest who
had charge of the Canadian colonists of Chicago -- "surpassed all [he]
had ever heard or known" (p. 352), and somewhat later he made the
painful discovery that Lebel himself was among the worst of them
Nor were the bishops in the two countries any better. Bishop
Lefevere, of Detroit, was a man capable of taking the teetotal pledge
publicly in face of his assembled flock, and that same evening coolly
disregarding it at his own private table; and his predecessor, Bishop
Reese, "during the last years he had spent in the diocese, had passed
very few weeks without being picked up beastly drunk in the lowest
taverns" (p. 347). Bishop Quarter, of Chicago, is fortunate in not himself
coming under Chiniquy's lash, but the latter assures us that he died
poisoned by his Grand Vicar, who desired thus to prevent the exposure
of his own licentious conduct (p. 352). Bishop Vandevelde, who
succeeded Bishop Quarter, is on the whole more leniently dealt with, but
"though he was most moderate in his drink at table" we are assured that
"at night when nobody could see him he gave himself up to the
detestable habit of intoxication" (p. 382). Bishop O'Regan, the succesor
of Bishop Vandevelde, and the prelate who, by force of circumstances,
was brought into the sharpest conflict with Chiniquy, pays for it by

being represented as the incarnation of all that can be odious in human
character; and Archbishop Kendrick is represented as having agreed
with Chiniquy that "the rapacity of Bishop O'Regan, his thefts, his lies,
his acts of simony, were public and intolerable," and "that unprincipled
dignitary is the cause that our holy religion is not only losing her
prestige in the United States, but is becoming an object of contempt
wherever these public crimes are known" (p. 434). Bishop Bourget, of
Montreal, is another prelate whose character is aspersed by this man's
allegations. In one place we are assured that this bishop, when a young
priest staying with his Bishop at the Hotel Dieu in Montreal, was one of
two or three priests who so shocked the nuns that the latter said, "unless
the bishop went away and took his priests away with him, it would be
far better that they themselves should leave the convent and get married"
(p. 307). Also, this ecclesiastic, we are told, when Bishop of Montreal,
bade Chiniquy to allure into a convent a lady who confessedly had no
vocation, solely in order that he might transfer her large fortune into his
episcopal coffers (p. 358); and that for refusing to co-operate in this
iniquitous scheme he determined to ruin him, put up an abandoned girl
to make a false charge against his honour, and then suspend him without
allowing him to defend himself.
This is the substance of Chiniquy's indictment against the bishops
and clergy of the two countries of which he had experience, and in
support of it he brings together numerous facts, or what purport to be
such, full of detail and of long conversations, all so conceived as to
suggest that the greatest part of the iniquities of these people were either
too palpable to need proof, so were attested by the acknowledgements of
the accused persons themselves. That a book of this kind should deeply
impress readers of the Protestant Alliance type is not surprising. But
more prudent minds will note:
(1) that this mass of denunciation was not published till after 1885 --
that is, after a quarter of a century from the date when, with his apostasy,
his expriences of Catholic life from the inside must have ceased;
(2) that all rests on this unsupported testimony of Chiniquy himself;
and
(3) that the whole tone of the book is that of a man absolutely
egotistic and impracticable, absolutely incapable of seeing any other
side but his own, absolutely reckless in his charges against any one who
should venture to oppose him, and absolutely exaggerated at all times in
his language;
(4) in short, that the author of a story which makes out the Catholic
Church of Canada and the United States, at the date of which he writes,
to be so essentially different from what unbiased witnesses find it to be
within the scope of their own direct observation, is one who paints
himself in his own book as destitute of all those qualities which
predispose a discerning reader to repose confidence in an author's
statements.
To this general motive for distrust others accede as soon as we begin
to carry our examination into the details of the book. Thus in his fourth
chapter he tells us of a secret meeting in the house of one of his uncles,
which was attended by several of the leading inhabitants of
Kamouraska. Its object was to discuss the conduct of the clergy in the
confessional, and the narrator fills six closely printed pages with a
detailed report of the speeches then delivered. He was not invited to the
meeting, but was present at it in the character of an eavesdropper, hiding
in some unobserved corner, his age at the time being ten. We must
suppose, then, that this youthful scribe, with an itelligence beyond his
years, took down the speeches in shorthand, for future use; or rather,
since we are not credulous enough to believe this, we must suppose that
all this account of the meeting was pure invention of his after-years, and
must conclude that the man was capable of such amplifications and
inventions, and of palming them off as truths when it happened to suit
his purpose. And this point about his method being established, we may
surely suspect him of employing it in the similarly detailed stories with
which the book abounds, and in which priests and bishops speak just as
fierce anti-Catholic might wish them to speak, but quite unlike the way
in which they are found to speak all the world over.
8
Nor is it a question here of their speaking as bad men rather than as
good men, but of the specific style of the explanations and vindications
of their own doctrines and practices which they are made to give. For
instance, it is known perfectly well from their theological books what
replies priests and other Catholics are taught to give to those who take
objection to their Church's doctrine on the lawfulness of Bible reading
and of interpreting Scripture inconsistently with the "unanimous consent
of the Fathers", on the veneration of our Blessed Lady and the Saints
and of its accord with Holy Scripture, on the practice of asking and
refraining from asking questions in the confessional, and so on. Let us
suppose, for the sake of argument, that what these Catholic theological
books say on these subjects is altogether unsound and indefensible, at
least the clergy of Canada might be expected to answer in the language
laid down for them in their books, and not in the language which makes
Catholics laugh when some composer of Protestant fictions puts it in the
mouths of his characters. Yet the priestly characters in Chiniquy's Fifty
Years speak invariably like the latter, not the former. And, just as if we
came across a traveller's account of a country in which the lions brayed
and the donkey's roared, the nightingale cawed and the rooks sang
sweetly in the night-time, we should say that our traveller was either
joking or lying; so will any intelligent possessor of a historic sense say
of Chiniquy's paradoxical account of the sayings and doings of the
Canadian and American clergy.
It may be well to give an illustration of what we refer to under this
head, and the following is an apposite one (p. 334). Chiniquy had
preached a sermon on devotion to our Blessed Lady, and had been
congratulated on it by Bishop Prince, then Auxiliary Bishop of
Montreal. During the night he professes to have seen how unscriptural
had been his preaching, and how opposed to the teaching of the
Evangelist, who, when our Lord's mother and brethren stood without,
refused to recognize them as having any claims upon Him. It is a well-
known passage, and any Catholic commentary would, if referred to,
have explained that our Lord wished to teach a lesson to the apostles and
their successors in the ministry, of the devotedness with which they
must be prepared to subordinate all earthly ties to the service of their
ministry. Yet neither to Chiniquy nor to the bishop does it even occur to
consider this explanation, and they talk just as if they were two
Protestants.
"How", asks Chiniquy, "can we say that Jesus always granted the
requests of His mother, when this evangelist tells us He never granted
her petitions when acting in His capacity of Saviour of the world?" At
which simple, easy question the bishop is represented as seeming
"absolutely confused", so that Chiniquy has to help him out by further
asking "Who came into the world to save you and me?" to which the
bishop replies sheepishly, "It is Jesus"; and "Who is the sinner's best
friend, Jesus or Mary?" to which the bishop replies, "It is Jesus ... Jesus
said to all sinners, 'Come unto me', He never said 'Go to Mary'" -- the
bishop finally extricating himself from his embarassment by saying
feebly, "You will find an answer to your questions in the Holy Fathers."
Is it likely that a Catholic bishop talked like that? Is it not more likely
that the writer who fabricated what he supposes himself to have
overheard at the age of ten, fabricated this conversation too, and others
like it throughout the book which are similarly destitute of probability?
Nor is the test of self-contradiction wanting to complete our distrust
of Chiniquy's allegations. He is continually telling his readers that the
Church of Rome forbids the reading of Scripture to the laity, and even to
her ecclesiastical students. Thus when he was a young seminarian at St.
Nicolet he tells us it was the rule of the Collège to keep the Bible apart
in the library, among the forbidden books. But one day, having obtained
access to a copy and surreptitiously spent and hour or so in perusing it,
he afterwards felt bound to tell the director, his great friend M.
Leprohon. The latter, he assures us, was sad, and while acknowledging
his inability to answer his pupil's argumentation, said, "I have something
better than my own weak thoughts. I have the thoughts of the Church
and of our Holy Father the Pope. They forbid us to put the Bible in the
hands of our students." Yet in the story of his boyhood -- in which he
tells us how he used as a child to read aloud to the neighboring farmers

out of a Bible belonging to his family, and how the priest, hearing of
this, came one day to take the forbidden book away -- he has to
acknowledge that this copy had been given to his father as a seminary
prize in his early days.
And -- to pass over such insights as he gives us into clerical life in
the order of the day observed in the presbytery of his first Curé, where a
daily hour was assigned to Bible reading -- we may be content to set
against his later allegations the statements he made on the occasion of
his controversy with Roussy, a Protestant minister, on January 7, 1851.
This date, indeed, should be noted, for it means that this controversy
took place shortly before his departure from Canada to Illinois, and
therefore after the many occasions when, according to his Fifty Years,
he had felt and expressed to personal friends his concern at finding that
the Church feared the Bible and sought to hide it from her children. And
yet on the platform, on January 7, 1851, he talks just as a Catholic priest
would talk, except, indeed, for the repulsive egotism and browbeating
which is all his own. Take, for instance, the following passage:
"Certain Protestants will repeat that the Church forbids the reading
of the Bible by the people. This is a cowardly and absurd lie, and it is
only the ignorant or the silly amongst Protestants who at present believe
this ancient fabrication of heresy. Some unscrupulous ministers,
however, are constantly bringing it up before the eyes of their dupes to
impose upon them and keep them in a holy horror of what they call
Popery. Let Protestants make the tour of Europe and America; let them
go into the numerous book-stores they will come across at every step: let
them, for instance, go to Montreal, to Mr. Fabre's or to Mr. Sadler's; and
everywhere they will find on their shelves thousands of Bibles in all
modern languages, printed with the permission of the ecclesiastical
authorities. I hold in my hand a New Testament, printed less than five
years ago, at Quebec. On the first page I read the following approbation
of the Archbishop of Quebec: 'We approve and recommend to the
faithful of our diocese this translation of the New Testament, with
commentaries on the texts and notes at the foot of the pages. Joseph,
Archbishop of Quebec.' Every one of those Catholic Bibles, to be found
on sale at every bookseller in Europe and America in like manner, bears
irrefutable witness to the fact that Protestantism is fed on lies, when day
by day it listens with complacency to its ministers and its newspapers,
telling it in various strains that we Catholics are enemies of the Bible."
This and much more to the same effect may be found in the report of
the discussion between Chiniquy and Roussy which was republished in
1893, under the title of The Two Chiniquys at the office of the True
Witness.
Again, as regards the question of clerical morality, from time to time
we get from him, as it were through rifts in the clouds of his inventions,
little gimpses into the real life of the Canadian clergy, which reveal them
to us in a by no means unpleasant light. What could be more edifying
than the account given of M. Perras's priestly life (p. 133), or of M.
Bedard's (p. 157)? True, he tries to cast some flies into their ointment,
but there is M. Têtu, the Curé of St. Roch, who was evidently a truly
good man, and of whom Chiniquy is contrained to say that he "never
saw him in a bad humor a single time during the four years that it was
his fortune to work under him in that parish" and "from whose lips an
unkind word never proceeded" (p. 169). And there is the young priest,
M. Estimanville, who in the cholera time at Quebec was introduced by
Chiniquy for the first time to the hospital he was to serve.
"The young priest turned pale, and said, 'Is it possible that such a
deadly epidemic is raging where you are taking me? I answered, 'Yes,
my dear young brother, it is a fact, and I consider it my duty to tell you
not to enter that house, if you are afraid to die.' A few minutes of silence
followed ... he then took his handkerchief and wiped away some big
drops of sweat which were rolling from his forehead on his cheeks, and
said, 'Is there a more holy and desirable way of dying than by
ministering to the spiritual and temporal wants of my brethren? No. If it
is the will of God that I should fail when fighting at this post of danger, I
am ready.' ... He died a few months afterwards" (p. 224).
Nor was this a single case.
9
"We must be honest" (he writes in another place), "and true towards
the Roman Catholic priests of Canada. Few men, if any, have shown
more courage and self-denial in the hour of danger than they did. I have
seen them at work during the two memorable years 1832 and 1834, with
a courage and self-denial worthy of the admiration of heaven and earth.
Though they knew that the most horrible tortures and death might be the
price of their devotedness, I have not known a single one of them who
ever shrank before the danger. At the first appeal, in the midst of the
darkest and stormiest nights, as well as in the light of the brightest days,
they were always ready to leave their warm and comfortable beds to run
to the rescue of the sick and dying" (p. 166).
These admissions, wrung as it were from the traducer of his
bretheren, may serve to show that the clergy of Canada were not so
unlike the clergy elsewhere. That there should be tares among the wheat
is always to be expected, and Chiniquy, as we shall see, was his own
greatest argument to prove that they were both wanting in Canada and
the United States. But in the first generation of Christian clergy, who
received their Master Himself, the proportion of tares to wheat was one
in twelve. We may trust that it has never been anything like as high
since, nor is there any reason to suppose it was anything like as high
among the clergy in whose ranks Chiniquy lived and worked.
But what about the bishops whom Chiniquy represents as such utter
monsters? We must refer the reader to Mr. Gilmary Shea's History of the
Catholic Church in the United States for an account of the two bishops
of Detroit, Bishops Rese and Lefevre, who were evidently quite unlike
what we might gather from Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.
Nor, as Chiniquy has little to tell against Bishop Vandevelde, need
we say more than that, as we have ascertained from well-informed
correspondents, he was a little weak in his government, perhaps, but was
a thoroughly good and conscientious man, and by no means likely to
have had a habit of secret tippling. Bishop Bourget of Montreal and
Bishop O'Regan of Chicago were the prelates who had to do most of the
unpleasant work in restraining Chiniquy, and were, therefore, his pet
aversions. What is to be said of them? Bishop Bourget, so far being a
harsh, inconsiderate, unscrupulous and mendacious character, was a
prelate who left a deep and lasting impression on the Canadians by
reason of his very remarkable holiness of life. He was a man of the most
delicate charity and tenderness, quite incapable of doing the smallest
injustice even to the most guilty, and when compelled to punish ever
anxious to make the way of penitence and restoration easy for the
offender. Indeed, so eminent was Bishop Bourget for his virtues that his
contemporaries looked forward to the possibility of his being beatified
some day. And we may add that the letters written by him in this
Chiniquy case, of which we have copies now lying before us, all bear
out this estimate of his character. They breathe throughout a spirit of the
most exquisite conscientiousness and charity.
About Bishop O'Reagan, Mr. Gilmary Shea gives us the following
facts. He was born at Lavelloc, in County Mayo [in Ireland], and was
educated at Maynooth. Archbishop McHale made him Professor of Holy
Scripture at St. Jarlath's College. He came to St. Louis in 1849 at the
request of Archbishop Kendrick, to be head of the Seminary at
Carondelet. When he received the Bulls (appointing him to the see of
Chicago) he sent them back, saying that he was a college man without
missionary experience; and when he was ordered to accept, he said: "I
accept only in the spirit of obedience." He began his administration with
energy, and feeling the want of good priests, made ernest efforts to
obtain them for his English-speaking, German and French
congregations. He introduced system, and did much to restore discipline,
but his methods caused discontent, which was fostered by many. Bishop
O'Regan had entered heartily into works for the good of the diocese, and
expended large sums of his own means for it. But, tired out by the
opposition of Chiniquy and some others, he resolved to visit Rome and
plead in person for his release from a burden which he felt to be beyond
his strength to bear. His resignation was eventually accepted, and he was
transferred to the titular see of Dora on June 25, 1858. He then returned
to Europe, and spent the remainder of his life in retirement in Ireland
and England. He died in London, at Brompton, on November 13, 1866,

aged 57, and his remains were carried to his native parish of Confert.
Mr. Gilmary Shea adds: "It may be said of Bishop O'Regan that he was
a man in the truest sense, single-minded, firm as a rock, and honest as
gold, a lover of truth and justice, whom no self-interest could mislead
and no corruption could contaminate. He held fast the affection of many
and won the esteem of all."
So far we have been occupied with the general character of
Chiniquy's accusations, the truth or falsehood of which we have sought
to estimate by applying tests furnished chiefly by his own writings.
Probably our readers will agree with us that the result has been to show
that this person is not exactly the kind of witness who can claim to be
taken on his own valuation, and, apart from an external confirmation
which is not available, can be trusted implicitly. We must now go
through the stages of his life up to the time of his apostasy, to see how
far his own account of it agrees with that of others.
To help us in our task we have for the one side his Fifty Years in the
Church of Rome, which is the fullest presentation he has given us of his
story; and for the other side we have some documents which have been
procured for us by the kindness of a Canadian friend. These are:
(1) Biographical Notes Concerning the Apostate Chiniquy, a paper
which has been published quite recently: this was drawn up by
Monsignor Têtu, of Quebec Cathedral, a grandson of the Hon. Amable
Dionne, who married one of Chiniquy's maternal aunts (Document A).
(2) A copy of a manuscript belonging to the Archives of the Collège
St. Marie, at Montreal, entitled Manuscrit trouvé dans les papiers de M.
le Chanoine Lamarche après sa mort. This paper is an account and a
criticism of Chiniquy's life, but is defective, the first twenty pages being
missing as well as all that followed the forty-four pages preserved. From
internal evidence the writer is M. Mailloux, a Grand Vicar of Quebec,
who knew Chiniquy very well in his Canadian days, and was afterwards
sent to Illinois to undo the evil lie had wrought there (Document B).
(3) A copy of a letter dated March 19, 1857, and addressed by
Bishop Bourget of Montreal to the "Canadian Catholics of
Bourbonnais." It has been transcribed for us from the Courrier de
Canada, a Montreal paper, in which it appeared on April 7, 1857
(Document C).
(4) A paper entitled Explanations of certain Facts misrepresented by
M. Chiniquy in his Letter of April 18, 1857. This paper is also by
Bishop Bourget, and is dated May 6, 1857. It has been copied for us
from the archives of the see of Montreal (Document D).
(5) A number of letters exchanged between Bishop Bourget and
others between the years 1848 and 1858. These have likewise been
transcribed for us from the authentic copies in Bishop Bourget's Register
(Document E).
Charles Chiniquy was born on July 30, 1809, at Kamouraska, a town
on the right bank of the St. Lawrence, some forty miles below Quebec.
His parents were Charles Chiniquy, a notary by profession, and Reine
Chiniquy, née Perrault. His father dying on July 19, 1821, he was
adopted by his uncle, the Hon. Amable Dionne, who, on finding that he
desired to be brought up for the priesthood, sent him to school at the
Little Seminary of St. Nicolet. When he had been there three years a
difficulty arose. "Owing to a misunderstanding between myself and my
uncle Dionne he had ceased to maintain me at college" (p. 66). This is
all that Chiniquy himself tells us about the matter, but Document A says:
"In 1825 Mr. Dionne ceased paying for him, and refused him admittance
into his house, declaring him unworthy of being a member of his
honourable family," and the same document in a note says: " I [i.e.,
Monsignor Têtu] can certify that the Honourable Amable Dionne was an
intimate friend of Bishops Plessis and Panet of Quebec, and of Bishop
Provencher of the Red River Missions. The greatest sorrow of his life
was to see his unworthy nephew, who had always been a bad Catholic,
become a bad priest. But that was no fault of his."
We can gather from these words that the fault of which he was
considered guilty was an offense against morality. But, after all, he was
then only a boy, and two priests, M. Leprohon, the Director of the
College, and M. Brassard, one of the Professors -- thinking that he might
change for the better and deeming that there was promise in him, took
10
upon themselves the further burden of his maintenance, and so enabled
him to continue his studies and afterwards to pass on to the Greater
Seminary. Moreover, M. Leprohon till his death, in 1844, and M.
Brassard till the time of Chiniquy's apostasy, continued to take a fatherly
interest in him, and the latter to believe in him long after all others had
given him up as hopeless. On September 21, 1833, he was ordained
priest by Archbishop Signaie in Quebec Cathedral, having been
incorporated into that diocese. During the next few years he was
assistant priest in three parishes in succession, but in 1838 he was made
Curé of Beauport, a suburb of Quebec, and it was there that he
inaugurated the temperance movement which brought him into great
prominence. In 1842 he was transferred to his native place, Kamouraska,
in the first instance as administrator under the now aged M. Varin, and
shortly after as his successor.
This was the place of residence of his uncle Dionne, who was by no
means glad to have him in the neighbourhood. His own account is that
he signalized his tenure of office at Kamouraska by great doings which
won for him the attachment of the people; still, he cannot deny that there
was a strong party against him. And Mgr. Têtu's Document tells us that,
whilst in that place, "he scandalized many families by his bad conduct,"
and that "it is absolutely certain that his uncle, Amable Dionne, forbade
him to enter his house, and that many parents sent their children to
confession to the neighbouring parishes, to protect them from the
baneful contact of their Curé." He remained at Kamouraska till 1846,
when one Sunday in September he astonished the congregation by
announcing that he was leaving the place to join the Novitiate of the
Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Longeuil. What was the reason?
In his Fifty Years he tells us that the ghastly spectacle of an all-
pervading priestly immorality made him desire to fly to a place of refuge
where he was assured it did not enter (p. 280). In his announcement to
his people during the High Mass -- we learn from M. Mailloux
(Document B), who tells us he has good authority for what he says -- he
declared that he had long felt drawn to the religious life, but had resisted
the call, which he could do no longer; besides it was bad for his soul to
be so loved, honoured, and venerated as he was by his flock at
Kamouraska. It was whispered, however, that there was another reason
of a different kind which had most to do with the sudden change. "In
1846," says Document A, "tradition relates that he was caught in the
very act of a sin against morals, and was thereupon obliged to leave the
diocese of Quebec." This document acknowledges that the archives of
Archbishop's House in Quebec contain no official document regarding
the crime (which, if Chiniquy by leaving at once avoided a formal trial,
there need not have been). But that there was some ground for the
suspicion is implied in allusions to it in a private letter contained in
Document E. On May 21, 1848, his faithful friend, M. Brassard, always
so difficult to convince of the faults of his protégé, wrote to Bishop
Bourget of Montreal a letter in which he begs the bishop to allow
Chiniquy to be his locum-tenens for a short time at Longeuil, and, whilst
endeavouring to forestall the bishop's probable objections, says: "I have
reason for thinking that his bad conduct [mauvaise histoire] at
Kamouraska is only known to his superiors and perhaps to one or two
priests, for my brother the doctor, an intimate friend of the late J. Bte.
Tache and of M. Dionne, the sworn enemies of M. Chiniquy, told me
two years ago that these gentlemen could not refuse M. Chiniquy a
certificate of morality, and that he himself, at that time a sworn enemy
of priests, had only to reproach him with an excess of zeal. Besides, it
seems to me that M. Chiniquy has paid heavily for his fault."
For whatever motives, he joined the Oblates at their house at
Longeuil, in the diocese of St. Hyacinthe, and at the time they seem to
have thought themselves fortunate in the acquisition of so famous a
preacher, "the most eminent priest in the diocese of Quebec," as the Père
Honorat described him to M. Mailloux, (Doc. B). But they soon had
occasion to change their minds about his fitness for their life, and he
parted with them -- or they with him -- after a thirteen months' sojourn
under their roof. According to his own account "when he pressed them
to his heart for the last time, he felt the burning tears of many of them
falling on his checks ... for they loved him and he loved them " (p. 312).

And yet, as M. Mailloux tells us in his Notes (Doc. B), "he carried away
with him' from the Oblates a paper in which he painted them in the
worst colours," a paper which M. Mailloux, to whose house he went that
some day, "refused to receive from his hands, accompanying his refusal
with words which M. Chiniquy would not be able to forget." What the
nature of this portraiture of the Oblate Fathers -- a portraiture in the truth
of which M. Mailloux evidently disbelieved -- may have been, we may
perhaps judge from what he says about them in his Fifty Years (p. 306).
Now that he was free from the Oblates his natural course was to
return to his own diocese of Quebec, and ask for another post. But M.
Mailloux tells us that "to give him one there could not be thought of."
Apparently that diocese had had enough of him, either because of the
circumstances known to them in connection with his leaving
Kamouraska, or because of his general intractability.
Nor would the Bishop of Montreal give him a fixed post, and he was
forced to seek hospitality with his old friend M. Brassard, then Curé of
Longeuil, the parish in which was the Oblate House he had just quitted.
M. Brassard suggested that he should give up the idea of stationary
work, and devote himself wholly to temperance missions, and for this he
managed to obtain permission from Bishop Bourget.
It was in this work during the next four years that Chiniquy acquired
what was certainly the best distinction of his life. He was most
extravagant in his language and reckless in his statements, so much so as
to elicit from Mgr. Bourget some prudent admonitions. But he had
undoubtedly a gift of fiery though undisciplined eloquence and could
appeal with effect to the sensibility of his hearers. Nor, though the
effects, according to his own acknowledgements, were not as lasting as
they might have been had he been more solid and prudent in his
advocacy and had he relied more on spiritual and less on merely secular
motives, did he ail to do an amount of good to which even those whom
he most abused generously testify. Thus M. Mailloux writes of him at
this time (Doc. B): "No one in the country can deny that by his sermons
on behalf of temperance he has dried many tears; he has brought back
peace and happiness to a great many families; he has raised from the
gutter many thousands of his unfortunate countrymen; and has set a
mark of dishonour on the mania for drinking and getting intoxicated at
weddings, meals, family feasts, friendly gatherings, in short in the social
relations of the Canadians."
The year 1851 now drew on, and it proved to be an eventful year for
Chiniquy's fortunes. According to his own account (p. 345), he received
from Bishop Vandevelde of Chicago a letter dated December 1, 1850, in
which, addressing him (? on the envelope) as the "Apostle of
Temperance," he invited him to abandon Canada and put himself at the
head of a vast immigration of Canadians which the Bishop wanted to
draw into the as yet uncolonised parts of Illinois, south of Kankakee. In
this way they would be preserved from the temptations of the cities and
their Protestantism, and would be kept together in communities apart,
and so become one day a great political force in the United States. Only,
the proposal was to be kept for the present a secret, as the Canadian
bishops in their selfishness would oppose a movement, however
beneficial in itself, which could not but reduce the population of their
own parishes.
Whether Bishop Vandevelde ever wrote such a letter may be
doubted, for the style as Chiniquy gives it in his book is suspiciously
like his own, nor is it likely that the bishop would have made this
discreditable request for secrecy to the prejudice of his episcopal
brethren in Canada. Still, it is true that the Bishop of Chicago did wish,
not to entice Canadian colonists into his diocese, but to divert those who
were streaming in unasked, from the cities to the new lands to the south,
and that he wanted some Canadian priests to take the spiritual charge of
them. But so far from wishing to keep this desire secret from the
Canadian bishops, he had written a letter -- the text of which is before us
(Doc. E) -- on March 4, 1850, to Mgr. Bourget of Montreal. In it he lays
his trouble before that prelate, and begs for a Canadian priest or two in
most moving terms. Possibly it was as the result of this letter that M.
Lebel, of Kamouraska, was sent, and so came to be stationed in Chicago
when Chiniquy afterwards arrived.
11
Anyhow, there is no mention of Chiniquy in this letter from Bishop
Vandevelde to Bishop Bourget. He went, however, in May, 1851, to
Illinois to give a temperance mission to the Canadians there, and took
with him a letter from Bishop Bourget, dated May 7, 1851, in which the
latter asks Bishop Vandevelde to "regard M. Chiniquy as his own priest
all the time he is doing work in his diocese," adding, in the humble and
tender tone which characterizes all the letters of that truly saintly man: "I
trust that his fervent prayers will draw down upon his ministry the
copious benedictions of Heaven, and that I myself may experience some
of the fruits of them, I who am the last of all."
It would be a mistake, however, merely from this expression of hope
that Chiniquy's prayers might be fruitful, to conclude that the bishop was
altogether at ease about him. He wrote him a letter, likewise dated May
7, 1851 (Doc. E), in which he gives him some counsels -- namely:
"(1) take strict precautions in your relations with persons of the
opposite sex;
(2) avoid carefully all that might savour of ostentation, and the
desire to attract attention; simplicity is so beautiful and lovable a virtue;
(3) pay to the priests of the country the honour due to their ministry;
the glory of God is the best recompense of an apostolic man."
That the last two of these counsels were given in view of Chiniquy's
personal temperament is sufficiently manifest. That the rest was also,
Chiniquy himself must have understood, since in his letter back to the
bishop, dated May 13, 1851 (ibid), he writes: "I will not end without
asking your lordship to let me be the first told of it, when detraction or
calumny casts at your feet its poisons against me. You cannot believe,
Monseigneur, how much harm, doubtless without wishing it, you have
done to my benefactor and friend, M. Brassard, by confiding to him in
the first place certain things which for his happiness and mine he should
never have known. If I am guilty it seems to me I ought to bear the
weight of my iniquity. And if I am innocent, and it is calumny which is
pouring out its poisons over my soul, God will give me the strength, as
He has done already in more than one circumstance, to bear all and to
pardon all. But let these empoisoned darts wound my soul only, not that
of my friend."
These are fair-sounding words, doubtless, and might be the words of
an innocent man. Whether they are so or not we can only judge by
taking them in connection with what else we can get from independent
sources. But we quote them now as testifying that "in more than one
circumstance" Chiniquy had been suspected, and, as Bishop Bourget
apparently thought, not always without ground. Suspicion is not the
same as conviction, but we shall hear more presently of Bishop
Bourget's mind on the subject. Still, it is a point to notice, even at this
stage, that Chiniquy should have been so unfortunate as to excite
suspicions of the same character in so many independent quarters. His
uncle Dionne, and therefore some of his school-masters, had suspected
him in this way in his youth: the diocesan authorities of Quebec had so
far suspected him as to refuse him further work in that diocese: and now
we have Bishop Bourget entertaining similar suspicions of him.
Nor can we in this connection leave out of account another thing that
may, perhaps, throw a little light on the unpleasantness of his visit to
Detroit, which took place just at this time, namely, whilst he was on the
way to Chicago. We have already heard his own version of the
contretemps which caused him to hasten his departure from that
neighbourhood (p. 349), but an American friend assures us that a version
of another kind was given him by the late Very Rev. P. Hermaert,
formerly Vicar-General of Detroit. That version is that Chiniquy, who
used to visit Detroit on his temperance mission from time to time, had
been complained of to the bishop for his offensive attentions to the
daughter of a respectable family. During one of his visits he found that
the bishop was going to call him to account for his misconduct, and he
hastened away before the bishop could return to the city.
He arrived at Chicago on this temporary visit in June, 1851, and
went on to Bourbonnais. But he was back again by the middle of July,
and on August 13th published in the Canadian papers a glowing account
of the prairies of Illinois, assuring the Canadians that, unless they were
quite comfortable at home, their best course was to go there to settle,

which they could do with a certainly of immediate comfort if they only
had two hundred dollars with them to start with (p. 354).
This letter caused a great stir, and induced a great many young men
to respond to the advice, but at the same time aroused much indignation
among their pastors, who saw, what the result proved to be the case, that
the scheme was wild, and that famine rather than speedy prosperity was
to be anticipated for those who were caught by it. Chiniquy did not,
however, indicate in this public letter that it was part of the scheme for
him to be at the head of the emigration, as probably it was not at that
time, though it looks as if he were working up towards such an
eventuality.
In the account in his Fifty Years Chiniquy gives the readers to
understand that he was going to Illinois in response to an invitation
prompted by a sense of his merits, and that he was going in a spirit of
generosity, and at great sacrifice to his own cherished objects. "I
determined (he says) to sacrifice the exalted position God had given me
in Canada, to guide the footsteps of the Roman Catholic emigrants from
France, Belgium, and Canada towards the regions of the West in order
to extend the power and influence of my Church all over the United
States" (p. 353). We have our doubts, however, whether his departure
for this new sphere of work was so entirely spontaneous, and even
whether it was in response to any invitation at all, and not rather because
he had begged to be allowed to go, his position in Canada being no
longer tenable. Let us see.
In September, 1851, a very unpleasant thing happened to him. "I
found," he says, "on September 28, 1851, a short letter on my table from
Bishop Bourget, telling me that, for a criminal action, which he did not
want to mention, committed with a person he would not name, he had
withdrawn all priestly powers and interdicted me" (p. 363). He went
"two hours later" to see the bishop, to assert his entire innocence, and to
ask for the crime to be stated and the witnesses made known, so that he
might meet them face to face and confute them. But this, he tells us, the
bishop sternly and coldly refused to do. Then, after taking counsel with
M. Brassard, he went off that night to the Jesuit Collège of St. Marie, at
Montreal. It was to make "an eight days' retreat," and likewise to have
the "help of [Father Schneider's] charity, justice, and experience in
forcing the bishop to withdraw his unjust sentence against [him]." He
represents Father Schneider as helping him cordially, and, as his
(Chiniquy's) reflections made him suspect that his accuser was a certain
girl whom shortly before he had turned away from his confessional,
believing that she had come to entrap him, Father Schneider had the girl
found and brought to the Collège.
There, in Father Schneider's presence, and under the influence of
Chiniquy's firm cross-examination, she owned that "he was not guilty,"
but that she "had come to his confessional to tempt him to sin," and that
it was to "revenge [herself] for his rebuking her that she had made the
accusation." This was on the third day of his retreat, and therefore on
October 2nd, a date we may find it convenient to remember. When the
retreat was over, he went back to the bishop to whom he had already
sent a copy of the girl's retraction. The bishop, he says, fully accepted it
as clearing his character, and as proof that he had nothing against him
gave him a "letter expressive of his kindly feelings," and also a "chalice
from [his] hands" with which he might offer the Holy Sacrifice for the
rest of his life.
It must be clearly understood that this is Chiniquy's account of what
happened, and that he first gave it, not at the time of the occurrence, but
nearly six years later, in a letter dated April 18, 1857, which was
addressed to Bishop Bourget from St. Anne's Kankakee, and was
published in the Canadian press (p. 526). Until then nothing had been
publicly known about the story of this girl. The occasion of this letter
being written arose out of the schism which by that time Chiniquy had
stirred up among the French Canadians in Illinois. We shall understand
its character better presently; for the moment it is enough to say that
Bishop Bourget had thought it necessary to undeceive these poor French
Canadians by revealing to them some of Chiniquy's antecedents.
Accordingly, when at the beginning of 1857 some of them, who had
renounced their momentary schism, sent him a consoling letter to
12
announce the fact, he replied on March 19, 1857, by a letter (Doc. C)
addressed "to the Canadian Catholics of Bourbonnais" which letter "was
read out in the Bourbonnais Church on Passion Sunday, March 29th" (of
that year). We shall have to refer to this letter again afterwards, but must
give a long extract from it now.
"M. Chiniquy sets himself on another pedestal to capture admiration,
by pretending that God has made him the friend, the father, and the
saviour of the emigrants. To judge from these pompous words one
would have to believe that he only quitted Canada the grand work of
looking after the thousands of Canadians scattered over all parts of the
vast territory of the American Union. But here again I am going to
oppose M. Chiniquy with M. Chiniquy, for I suppose that, even if he
refuses to believe the words of the bishops, he will at least believe his
own. I am going to give an extract from a letter written by this
gentleman, but that its nature may be the better understood, I should say
that on September 27, 1851, I withdrew from him all the powers I had
given him in the diocese, for reasons I gave him in a letter which he
ought to have preserved, and which he may publish if he thinks that I
have unjustly persecuted him. Under the weight of this terrible blow he
wrote to me on October 4th following this letter: --
"'Monsignor, tribulations surround me on all sides. I perceive that I
must take the sad road of exile, but who will have pity on a proscribed
man on a foreign soil, when he whom he had looked up to as his father
has no longer a word of mercy for him?... As soon as my retreat is
finished I shall go and embrace my poor brothers and mingle my tears
with theirs. Then I shall bid an eternal farewell to my country; and I
shall go and hide the disgrace of my position in the obscurest and least
known corner of the United States. If, when my retreat is ended, I may
hope to receive the word of mercy which you thought it necessary to
refuse me yesterday, let me know for the sake of the God of mercy, and
gladly will I go to receive it before setting out. It will fall like balm on
my wounded soul, and will sweeten the rigours of exile.'
It was under these distressing sensations and in these painful
circumstances that he decided to preach the Canadian emigration."
Our readers will note several things about this letter. First, it was
written From St. Marie's Collège while he was still in retreat under
Father Schneider, and on October 4th -- that is to say, two days after the
supposed visit and retraction of the unnamed girl.
And yet there is not in it a word of reference to this retraction, nor is
what he does say consistent with that story -- for Chiniquy certainly
does not write as if he felt confident that the bishop would now
acknowledge his innocence and reinstate him. Secondly, the letter shows
that he was going reluctantly to Illinois, and (so far as he knew then),
not to preach, but to hide his disgrace in obscurity. Thirdly, the whole
tone of the letter is one of a man who pleads for mercy, not of one who
protests his innocence. Fourthly, the circumstances under which it was
written imply that he was professing, even if he did not feel, a hearty
repentance for an offence committed; since it is evident Bishop Bourget
deemed him guilty, and that being so, neither would he have removed
the suspension, nor Bishop Vandevelde have accepted him for his
diocese, unless he had professed repentance. Fifthly, two other
contemporary letters that are before us (Doc. E) point in the same
direction. For on October 6th Bishop Bourget wrote to Chiniquy, while
still in retreat at St. Marie's, a letter which is apparently the answer to
Chiniquy's of October 4th. It breathes the same spirit as all Bishop
Bourget's letters, and the reader may judge if it is that of an intolerant
despot:
"Monsieur, I am praying myself and getting others to pray for you,
and my heart is not so deaf as you appear to think. My desire is that the
most sincere repentance may penetrate down to the very depths and to
the innermost parts of your heart. I pray for this with all the fervour of
my soul, and if I am not heard it will assuredly be because of my
innumerable infidelities. O! that I could be free to weep over them, and
to bury myself for ever in some Chartreuse, under one of the sons of St.
Bruno, whose happy and holy feast the Church keeps to-day."
In this letter the Bishop makes no reference to Chiniquy going to the
United States, probably because that project was not as yet arranged. But

M. Brassard, on hearing of the misfortune of his protégé, took advantage
of Bishop Vandevelde's presence at the time in the neighbourhood, and
besought that prelate to give him a chance of retrieving himself.
A letter from Bishop Vandevelde to Bishop Bourget was a result of
this. It is dated "Troy, October 15, 1851," and contains the following
passage, the only one of interest to us now: "After all the instances made
by M. le Curé de Longeuil (M. Brassard), and the promises of his
protégé, I consented to give the latter a trial on condition that he got an
exeat from Mgr. Bourget exclusively for the diocese of Chicago" (Doc.
E).
It will be admitted that these various letters throw on the episode of
September 25, 1851, a light somewhat different from that in which it
appears in Chiniquy's own published account above given, and there will
be something further to say on the matter presently. But we have heard
Chiniquy appeal to two testimonials of esteem, a letter and a chalice,
which the Bishop gave him as a means by which he might always be
able to vindicate his character in reward to the charge brought against
him by this girl. Let us now investigate this point.
The letter is a letter written by Bishop Bourget in response to Bishop
Vandevelde's stipulation that Chiniquy, before he could accept him,
must have an exeat for the diocese of Chicago. It runs as follows (p.
528): -—
"Montreal, October 13, 1851.
"The Rev. Charles Chiniquy.
"Sir,—
"You ask my permission to leave my diocese, to go and offer your
services to the Bishop of Chicago. As you belong to the diocese of
Quebec, I think it belongs to my Lord the Archbishop to give you the
dismissal you wish. As for me I cannot but thank you for your labours
amongst us, and I wish you in return the most abundant blessings from
Heaven. You shall ever be in my remembrance and in my heart, and I
hope that divine Providence will permit me at a future time to testify all
the gratitude I owe you.
"Meanwhile, I remain your very humble and obedient servant,
"+Ignatius, Bishop of Montreal."
Chiniquy describes this letter as a "testimonial of esteem" (p. 528),
and again as "a perfect recantation of all he had said and done against
me" (p. 370). Perhaps an undiscerning reader will be disposed to agree
in that estimate of its language; but a Catholic acquainted with the style
of an exeat, or permission to leave one diocese for another, will rather
take it as a proof of Chiniquy's insincerity that he should thus represent
it, for we may be sure he knew better what was significant about this
particular document. The complimentary words refer to the results he
had attained by his temperance preaching, and it is in keeping with
Bishop Bourget's character that, in his desire to say the best he could of
the unfortunate man, he should give generous recognition to what stood
to his credit.
As he himself says (Doc. D) on this point, "We said nothing too
much in adding that we protested to him that the diocese of Montreal
would never forget his labours for the establishment of temperance. But
all this proves that if we refused faculties to M. Chiniquy, it was solely
for a motive of conscience, and for the good of the souls for whom we
shall have to answer one day before God."
But what is really significant about this "testimonial of esteem" is
that it contains not a word of testimonial to Chiniquy's personal
integrity. There is generally a printed form for these exeats, with space
left to fill in names and anything extra the bishop may think fit to add;
and that there was such an one then in use in the diocese of Montreal
may be seen from the exeat Chiniquy gives as having been issued to him
about a year previously (p. 324). There, in the printed part, we have the
phrase "[Charles Chiniquy...] is very well known to us, and we regard
him as leading a praiseworthy life in consonance with his ecclesiastical
profession, and bound by no ecclesiastical censures so far as is known to
us."
But in the "exeat" of October 13, 1851, there is a significant
omission of any such attestation of personal character as would certainly
have been inserted had it been possible to give it truthfully. And the
13
Archbishop of Quebec, who, as Mgr. Bourget says, was the prelate
whose exeat was needful, seems to have given it on October 19th, in
response to the solicitations of Mgr. Bourget and M. Brassard, but with
similar omissions. For Bishop Bourget, in forwarding it to Mgr.
Vandevelde on October 18th (Doc. E), speaks of it as "not altogether in
conformity with your desires," and Mgr. Têtu (Doc. A) says, "The
Bishop of Quebec gave him an exeat for the diocese of Chicago without
a single word of recommendation." So much in correction of the false
construction which Chiniquy puts upon Bishop Bourget's exeat.
The construction he puts upon the gift of a chalice is not less
misleading. "The best proof," he says in the letter written to Bishop
Bourget on April 18, 1857, "that you know very well that I was not
interdicted by your rash and unjust sentence is that you gave me that
chalice as a token of your esteem and of my honesty" (p. 529). It proved
nothing of the sort.
Chiniquy had professed, whether sincerely or not, that he was truly
sorry for the offences which had led to his suspension, and though
Bishop Bourget did not feel justified in giving him further employment,
Bishop Vandevelde, who was sadly in want of priests, was inclined to
give him another chance. Accordingly the suspension was taken off him
and, as he was about to start an entirely new mission, nothing was more
natural than that Bishop Bourget should give him a chalice -- not,
indeed, for himself, but for the mission about to be started and in need of
sacred vessels.
So far these contemporary letters convict Chiniquy of
untruthfulness, and this may dispose us to doubt whether it is true that,
when suspending him on September 28th, Bishop Bourget refused to tell
him either the nature of the crime imputed to him or the name of the
accuser. Be it recollected that in Bishop Bourget's Letter to the
Canadians of Bourbonnais (Doc. C) he says that he suspended Chiniquy
"for reasons stated in a letter which he must have kept and which he may
publish if he likes."
Chiniquy's reply to this challenge in his letter to the papers of April
18, 1857, was by bringing forward his story of the girl coming to his
confessional, and one would like to know what the Bishop's comment on
it may have been. We can have it, for the Bishop, who naturally could
not engage in a newspaper controversy with a suspended priest, thought
it well that his clergy should know the true facts now that Chiniquy was
endeavouring to misrepresent them.
Accordingly he drew up the paper we nave called Doc. D, and of
which we have before us a certified copy taken from the archives of the
diocese of Montreal. It is entitled Explanations of certain Facts
misrepresented by Chiniquy in his Letter of April 18, 1857, and is dated
May 6, 1857. It begins with the words, "These explanations are confided
to the wise discretion of the priests, so that each may make such use of
them as he thinks desirable." There will then be no impropriety in our
quoting from them at this distance of time. The following passage bears
on the point now before us:
"M. Chiniquy pretends that we did not tell him for what crime we
withdrew his faculties. This is false, for we told it to him with all
possible distinctness (en toutes lettres) in our letter of September 29th [?
27], 1851, which nevertheless he cites as if it were to his advantage.
"He pretends that we refused him all means of justifying himself. To
this we reply that our invariable practice has been not to proceed
canonically against any one whatever except when the accusers were
resolved to sustain their accusations under oath and in the presence of
the person they accuse. If M. Chiniquy desires to appeal to the
Archbishop of Quebec, or to the Pope, he will find us perfectly prepared
to satisfy him on this point.
"As to the incident of the poor girl whom he brings on the scene, it
is so disadvantageous to him that he would have done better for his own
credit to be silent about it. However much it costs us we will explain
about this incident, as it is the sole argument on which he relies to create
the impression that the bishops are tyrants who oppress and condemn
their priests without a shadow of justice. Some time after the culpability
of M. Chiniquy had been clearly demonstrated to us a certain girl came
to depose against him, who said she would feel an intense repugnance to

be confronted with him. This testimony therefore could not, in
conformity with our ordinary method of proceeding, enter into the
evidence against him. So we contented ourselves with telling this
gentleman that, over and beyond all that had been deposed against him,
a certain girl had quite recently complained of him.
"Now see what M. Chiniquy does. He confines himself to this fact
alone, sends for the girl and gets her to retract. To all this bit of
scheming (manège) we replied by pointing out the contradiction
between M. Chiniquy's words and his actions, saying to him: 'You
pretended that you did not know this girl when I refused to name her to
you. How, then, was it so easy for you to find her and make her retract?'
And to this he had nothing to reply at that time. Hence what he says now
(in 1857) about this girl, namely, that it was she who wished to tempt
him; that it was in vengeance that she had accused him, and that he had
been able to discover her by means of a certain individual whom he had
remarked exchanging a few words with her, is a story which any
sensible man will see is made up after the event. Moreover, this girl
afterwards confirmed her first deposition, under oath, and it was
certainly not from us that she received one hundred dollars for that if
indeed it is true at all that she was paid."
We can judge now what were the real motives that caused M.
Chiniquy to abandon Canada for Illinois, and whether he has stated them
truthfully. Probably our readers will consider that he has not, and that,
on the principle "false in one thing false in all," he has created a
presumption against the truth of any future allegations he may make,
those only excepted which are confirmed by independent witnesses.
Keeping this presumption in mind, we must pass on to consider his life
in Illinois.
He arrived at Chicago towards the end of October, 1851, and was at
once sent on by Bishop Vandevelde to a district some sixty miles south
of Chicago. This was the district of Bourbonnais, and there he proceeded
to build a church and found a mission at St. Anne, a place some ten
miles south of the town of Bourbonnais, where one had been founded
already and was under the charge of a M. Courjeault.
Later, he tells us, and doubtless correctly, he founded two other
missions further south still, one at l'Erable, one at St. Marie's in the
county of the Iroquois. But St. Anne's was his centre of action and place
of residence throughout. There he built his first church and gathered
round him his chief congregation of Canadian settlers. The first four or
five years of his life in those parts were marked by various quarrels with
neighbouring priests, all of whom he sets down as despicable
blackguards.
But this period we must pass over with just a mention of the charge
brought against him by some of his neighbours of burning down the
church at Bourbonnais on June 5, 1853, with the motive of collecting
money from Canada for the rebuilding fund, which he afterwards
misappropriated. M. Mailloux, in his letter of March 28, 1858 (Doc. A),
to Bishop Smith, then administrator of Chicago, states that "this charge
was made before witnesses in the presence of Bishop O'Regan," and that
"Chiniquy never exonerated himself from it." And Bishop Bourget refers
to it in his letter to Chiniquy himself of November 21, 1853 (Doc. E): "I
will tell you now that the report which is current here [in Montreal] is
that money sent you from Montreal for your churches does not reach its
destination, but is kept back by you for your own use. If this were the
case Montreal would cease to aid you in that way."
But let us come at once to the year 1856. By that time Bishop
Vandevelde had vacated the diocese. The dampness of the Chicago
climate aggravated his rheumatism and rendered him incapable of doing
his work properly, so he asked to be released altogether from episcopal
administration, or else to be translated to some see further south. This,
and not any such reason as Chiniquy assigns, was the reason why he
went to Natchez, to which see he was translated in the autumn of 1853
Bishop O'Regan, the conflicting accounts of whose character and
personality we have already given, succeeded Bishop Vandevelde in the
autumn of 1854. If Chiniquy is to be believed, as on a point of this sort
probably he is, a state of tension between him and his new bishop
promptly arose. But however that may be, he appears by the summer of
14
1856 to have become most anxious to get back to Canada. For from
Bishop Bourget's Letter to the Canadian Catholics of Bourbonnais (Doc.
C) we learn that on August 9, 1856, Chiniquy wrote to him a letter in
which he begs to be allowed to return to Canada, and suggests a useful
work there which he and he only could carry through.
"If" (he says in this letter) "you place an insurmountable barrier in
the way of my return to Canada, ask God to give me the strength to
drink the chalice of humiliations and sacrifices down to the dregs. For, I
will not conceal it from you, one of my most ardent desires is to see
Canada again.... The principal citizens of Montreal have expressed the
desire to see me again, and their surprise at my long absence. There are
sad secrets in the life of priests and bishops into which it would be
deplorable if the world were to penetrate."
Which last sentence appears to mean that, in face of the demand for
his return by the principal citizens of Montreal, it would be better to let
him return than risk the possibility of the reason for his exclusion getting
out, and giving scandal. But what was the work he desired to undertake
in Canada?
"The sore which under the name of emigration is devouring our
people is not sufficiently understood in Canada; or else firmer and more
energetic steps would be taken to restrain it.... Of all the Canadian clergy
I am unquestionably the one who has had the best opportunities of
knowing what this sore of emigration is. No one that I can think of has
been able in Canada or the United States to sound its depths as I have
done. It is not in an easy chair, in one of the fair presbyteries of Canada,
that I have studied the causes and disastrous consequences of
emigration.... Further, Monsignor, with all this information I have a
great desire to go and cast myself at your knees and beseech you to let
me say a word to the people in the towns and villages of Canada on this
emigration, its causes, its consequences, and its remedies. This word, the
fruit of prolonged studies and solid reflections, would not lack, you may
be sure, that force and eloquence which springs from profound
convictions and a sincere desire to hold back a whole race of brothers
who are rushing rapidly to their ruin. For five years now I have been
eating the bread of exile... but believe me, Monsignor, I have facts and
arguments, the exposition of which would resound with irresistible force
on both banks of the St. Lawrence... and which, with God's grace, might
result in a great good, by stopping this great evil. And my discourses on
this vital question would be the more appreciated, and would have the
more effect, because the mendacious press of Canada has accused me of
favouring the emigration of my fellow-countrymen."
This appeal, written in August, 1856, may well surprise us, when we
bethink ourselves of the same man's letter of August, 1851 (see above),
published by himself in all the Canadian papers, inviting the Canadians
to come en masse to the district in which he hoped himself to settle, and
describing it in such glowing terms that it came to be called "Chiniquy's
paradise." But our surprise increases when we learn that four months
later, in December, 1856, this same writer reverted to his former
contention, and in another public letter to the Canadian press took credit
to himself for the invitation to emigrate to Illinois which, when he gave
it five years previously, had been maliciously condemned by the
Canadian clergy, but which he declared had now been entirely justified
by the event. This was in a public letter to a M. Moreau, a Montreal
lawyer, the following extract from which is given by Mgr. Bourget in
his Letter to the Canadians of Bourbonnais.
"When I left Longeuil in 1851, having for my only provision the
breviary under my arm, to run after the emigrants who were losing
themselves in the corners of the United States, I was treated everywhere
as a deceiver and a visionary, bishops and priests in Canada denounced
me as a liar... the papers pledged to the Canadian clergy spread false
news about the fine and noble parish of Bourbonnais. And yet, in spite
of this fearful combination of hypocrisy, calumny, and falsehood
directed against me, I have succeeded in four years in creating all by
myself a foundation so fine and solid, with the aid of my poor brethren
from Canada, that M. Desaulniers was filled with admiration when he
saw it with his own eyes" (Doc. C).

It is impossible, after comparing these varying epistles, not to feel
that Chiniquy's method was to say, not what he thought to be true, but
rather what he thought would best serve his interests at the moment.
Still, it is also impossible not to feel that something serious must have
happened between August and December, 1856, to make such a change
of tone seem to him expedient. Was it that in August he had grounds for
thinking that a storm was gathering around him which he might,
perhaps, escape if he could have an honourable pretext for at once
leaving Illinois, but that by December the storm had broken, and he
deemed his only course was to brave it by taking up an attitude of
injured innocence and of revolt? What comes next may help us to solve
this problem.
On August 19th, ten days after his letter to Mgr. Bourget, Chiniquy
was suspended by Bishop O'Regan (Doc. A). What was the cause? From
his pages it is impossible to get any definite information.
In one place the bishop is made to say that he suspended him for his
stubbornness and want of submission when he ordered him to leave St.
Anne and go to Kakokia, on the banks of the Mississippi (p. 441). In
another he tells us he asked the Bishop "to make a public inquest about
him, and have his accusers confront him" (p. 439), which does not tally
with the notion of an offence so palpable as a refusal to go where sent,
and points to some offence of a secret kind, such as one against
morality. In a third place (p. 449) he suggests that the suspension was
inflicted because he would not give up to the Bishop the property in his
church at St. Anne -— again not the kind of offence to establish which
required confronting with accusers, and public inquests, since all that
was necessary, if Chiniquy wished to justify himself, was for him to say,
"I am quite ready to do all necessary to effect the required transfer of the
property."
Bishop O'Regan himself is much clearer (Doc. E). In a letter to
Bishop Prince, then coadjutor of Montreal, he says, under date of
November 20, 1836: "The question of the property in the church had
nothing to do with the removal of M. Chiniquy from St. Anne's, or with
his disobedience, his schism, and his subsequent excommunication.... I
had in my hands all through the legal titles to all the church property
which no one could dispute.... I came to this last conclusion (namely, to
remove him from St. Anne's to Kakokia) for reasons of urgent necessity
which I told him at the time and which he is free to make public [words
which distinctly point to some offence against morality]... his obstinate
disobedience [namely, in refusing to go to Kakokia], and the excessive
violence of his language and behavior obliged me to suspend him; his
subsequent schism brought on his excommunication."
And this agrees with what M. Mailloux wrote to Bishop Smith, in
the letter of March 28, 1858, already quoted from (Doc. A): —-
"I have lived here [at Bourbonnais] since one year. In Canada I
knew Mr. Chiniquy very well. I know what his conduct was morally, but
the moment is not favourable to mention it.... (1) Before interdicting Mr.
Chiniquy, Bishop O'Regan had received grave testimonials regarding the
moral conduct of Mr. Chiniquy. I am fully acquainted with the facts and
persons concerned. (2) The Sunday following the interdiction issued
against Mr. Chiniquy, on August 19, 1856, by the bishop's order, it was
published in the churches at Bourbonnais and l'Erable that he had
suspended Mr. Chiniquy from his functions. (3) Mr. Chiniquy having
violated that interdiction. Bishop O'Regan had him publicly
excommunicated on September 3rd following. Mr. Chiniquy had in
Canada, and still has here, the reputation of being a man of most
notorious immorality. The many women he has seduced, or tried to
seduce, are ready to testify thereunto. Those who in this country
[Bourbonnais] have lived in Mr. Chiniquy's intimacy loudly proclaim
that he has lost his faith long ago, and that he is an infamous hypocrite."
Chiniquy, as we have seen, resisted the excommunication as he had
resisted the suspension, and continued to minister at St. Anne's,
capturing the support of his congregation by representing the bishop as
having brought against him an accusation which he knew was false and
had not attempted to sustain, the bishop's underlying motive being
hatred for the French Canadians, whom he wished to drive out of his
diocese. It was a great scandal, and Bishop O'Regan was anxious to end
15
it. Accordingly he wrote to Bishop Bourget, on October 19, 1856, asking
for help (Doc. E).
"Mr. Chiniquy [he says] has thoroughly corrupted the unhappy
people under his care. This has been the work of some years. It was
begun long before I came to this diocese, and I know not how it will
terminate. The mischief can only be remedied by a few worthy, pious,
and intelligent Canadian priests. If I had one such he could do much, as
there is a Canadian settlement not yet corrupted a few miles from St.
Anne's, where such a priest being located would soon take away most of
his followers. This would be a holy mission for some pious, educated,
and devoted priest. He would protect religion and some hundreds from
the wicked man who now deceives them."
The result was that Bishop Bourget sent M. Brassard, Chiniquy's old
friend and patron, and M. Desaulniers, one of his former classmates,
with whom, by his own acknowledgement, "he had been united" ever
since "in the bonds of the sincerest friendship." The choice shows that
their desire in coming was to convert Chiniquy himself as well as his
misguided people. They arrived at St. Anne's on November 24, 1856,
and by the next day had succeeded so far as to get him to sign the
following form of retraction [addressed to the bishop] (p. 515):
"As my actions and writings in opposition to your orders have for
the last two months given scandal, and caused many to believe that
sooner than obey you I would consent to be separated from the Catholic
Church, I hasten to express to you the regret I feel for such acts and
writings. And in order to show the world, and you, my Bishop, my firm
desire to live and die a Catholic, I hasten to write to your lordship to say
that I submit to your sentence, and promise never more to exercise the
sacred ministry in your diocese, without your permission. In
consequence, I beg your lordship to take off the censures you have
pronounced against me, and against those who have communicated with
me in things divine.
"I am your most devoted son in Jesus Christ,
"Charles Chiniquy"
This retraction cannot be called satisfactory, for it equivocal in its
language, and breathes no real sentiments of penitence. But it was taken
in Chiniquy's name to Bishop O'Regan the next day by M. Desaulniers.
M. Brassard remaining with his friend, to await the result. The bishop
said to M. Desaulniers, "I would prefer that [Chiniquy] should go away
without any retraction rather than give that one, and I shall, as soon as
he abandons St. Anne's and gives security that he will not return, have
no objection to remove his censures without any retraction" (Doc. E -
O'Regan to Desaulniers, December 15, 1856, in which the bishop refers
to his words on November 25th).
Chiniquy's conduct, when he learnt that the bishop would not make
peace with him on his own terms, thoroughly justified the latter's action.
Had the unhappy man been really penitent he would have obeyed orders
and left the neighbourhood. As it was he persisted in his schism,
declaring that he had only signed the retractation as an act of grace and
on the condition that he was to be left at St. Anne's, at least as an
assistant priest to his friend M. Brassard -- a quite inadmissible
condition, of which there is no trace in the text of the retraction. And he
even had the impudence and irreverence to say that in acknowledging
that his action had given scandal he had acknowledged no more than our
Lord had acknowledged when He said "You shall all be scandalized in
Me this night" (see Doc. D, which refers to this plea and comments on
it). Thus there was nothing more to be done with the unhappy man save
to bear with him, and strive to undeceive his congregation, for which
purpose M. Desaulniers, at the bishop's request, took up his abode at
Bourbonnais; whilst M. Brassard, whose methods of dealing with
Chiniquy the bishop found compromising, was invited to return to
Canada.
M. Desaulniers found his work hard, but achieved some success in
reclaiming the schismatics, for Bishop Bourget told Bishop Baillargeon,
the administrator of Quebec, on February 4, 1857, that "Chiniquy's
followers are apparently diminishing, and are likely to cease altogether
if only a few more priests can be sent to them" (Doc. E); and on January
1, 1857, a number of them wrote to Bishop Bourget a consoling letter, in

which they expressed their regret for having been misled, and their
readiness to submit in every way to Bishop O'Regan.
This letter was sent by Bishop Bourget to the Canadian papers, and
it was in reply to it that the bishop wrote his Letter to the Canadians of
Bourbonnais, dated March 7, 1857 (see above). This reply was taken to
Bourbonnais by Grand Vicar Mailloux, of the diocese of Quebec, and
M. Campeaux, of the diocese of Montreal, who left for Bourbonnais on
March 20, 1857, to assist in the conversion of the schismatics. As it was
read from the altar in the church of Bourbonnais, and was published in
all the Canadian papers, it must have been found very disconcerting by
Chiniquy, who sought to discount its effects by a letter addressed to
Bishop Bourget, which he sent to the Canadian papers. It is the letter of
April 18, 1857, to which also we have had occasion to refer (vide supra,
p. 28), as containing the first mention of the affair with the girl at
Montreal in 1851.
This letter is given by Chiniquy (p. 526 of his Fifty Years) only in
part, for, as has been noted, Bishop Bourget, in his Explanation of
certain Facts misrepresented by Chiniquy in his Letter of April 18, 1857
(see above, p. 33), quotes as contained in it the words in which Chiniquy
assimilates the kind of scandal caused by himself with that caused by
our Lord Jesus Christ.
What Bishop Bourget thought of Chiniquy's self-vindication in this
letter we have already heard, but it will be interesting, as throwing
further light on his methods, to know what his friend M. Brassard
thought of it. If we are to believe the account in Fifty Years (p. 529), M.
Brassard, after reading the letter of April 18th in the Canadian papers,
wrote Chiniquy a letter in which he said "Your last letter has completely
unmasked our poor Bishop, and revealed to the world his malice,
injustice, and hypocrisy."
Here, however, Mr. Chiniquy seems to have forgotten that, when a
man is engaged in fabricating facts, he should be particularly careful
about his dates. "When," he says, "I received that last friendly letter
from M. Brassard on April 1, 1857, I was far from suspecting that on the
15th of the same month I should read in the press of Canada the
following lines from him" (p. 530).
"The following lines " were the text of a letter to the Courrier de
Canada, dated April 9th, in which M. Brassard says: "As some people
suspect that I am favouring the schism of M. Chiniquy, I think it is my
duty to say that I have never encouraged him by my words or writings in
that schism. When I went to St. Anne's... my only object was to persuade
that old friend to leave the bad ways in which he was walking. I hope all
the Canadians who were attached to M. Chiniquy when he was united to
the Church will withdraw from him in horror of his schism. However,
we have a duty... to call back with our prayers that stray sheep into the
true fold."
As M. Brassard wrote thus on April 9th, it is due to him to believe
that he did not write in so different a sense on April 1st, nor can this
supposed letter of April 1st be genuine, as a letter written before April
1st cannot have been occasioned by a letter published on April 18th.
Besides, if M. Brassard had written thus about unmasking Bishop
Bourget, it is inconceivable that Chiniquy should have written on April
23rd (Fifty Years, p. 530) to M. Brassard upbraiding him for the
published letter of April 9th, without bringing up against him the
inconsistency between the published and the private letter. Too much
stress, however, must not be laid on this last argument, for we are safe in
assuming that the letter of April 23rd was never sent to M. Brassard, and
was probably a fabrication perpetrated some twenty to thirty years later,
for the purpose of Chiniquy's book. We are practically safe in assuming
this, for a real letter is likely to have borne some relation to the facts as
known to M. Brassard, which this does not.
For instance, this supposed letter asks M. Brassard to say to the
Canadian people what he wrote to Dr. Letourneau, namely, that "they do
not wish to know truth in Canada more than at Chicago about the
shameful conduct of M. Desaulniers in this affair." But M. Brassard, in a
letter to Bishop Bourget of July 10th (Doc. E) tells him that in the early
winter of 1856 his advice to Dr. Letourneau had been: "Go with your
friends to M. Chiniquy and say to him, 'If you will cease from exercising
16
the ministry we will aid you in obtaining justice if it is due to you, but if
you will not we will abandon you,"' and that he further recommended
Dr. Letourneau "to get all his friends to abandon him, that finding
himself alone he might be constrained to return to his duty."
Besides, we have other and more direct proof that Chiniquy was
capable of publishing unreal letters. On p. 441 of his book he tells us
that Bishop O'Regan "published to the world the most lying stories to
explain his conduct in destroying the French congregation at Chicago,"
whereas that bishop in his letter to Bishop Prince of November 20, 1858
(Doc. E) says: "I have not contradicted M. Chiniquy's extravagant letters
or the advances of his friends in the same matter [namely, the closing of
the French church at Chicago, which had got into irremediable debt]. I
have felt that these documents contained in themselves their own
refutation. These writings purport to be, replies to a letter I am supposed
to have written to the Chicago Tribune. But I never wrote or published
this pretended letter, nor has any one written or published it for me, save
the astute M. Chiniquy himself." That means that Chiniquy had forged
and sent to the Chicago papers, as coming from the bishop, a letter in
reality composed by himself, and composed in such terms as to make it
easy for him afterwards to refute it. And M. Mailloux (Doc. A) has
occasion to allude to another public letter written at this same time,
December 17, 1856, by M. Chiniquy. It was written to the "Canadians of
Troy," and purported to be the reply to an address of sympathy sent him
from that quarter. M. Mailloux adds: "We shall see later whether this
address of the Canadians was not written by M. Chiniquy and presented
to M. Chiniquy by himself. If it was so it was nothing unusual for him to
do." As has been noted, the manuscript of M. Mailloux' memoir is
defective, and so we miss the promised demonstration which doubtless
formed a part of it. (p. 306).
Now let us come to a further, and still more monstrous, instance of
his dishonesty in the use of letters. On p. 538 of his book he tells us that
on receiving his letter of April 23, 1857 (the letter we have surmised to
be spurious), M. Brassard was confounded, and wrote to beg pardon for
his untruthful letter of April 9th, which "he had been forced to sign," and
in this alleged letter of apology, dated May 20, 1857, M. Brassard is
alleged to have said: " My dear Chiniquy, I am more convinced than
ever that you have never been legally suspended, now that I have learnt
from the Bishop of Montreal that the Bishop of Chicago interdicted you
by word of mouth in his own room -- a kind of interdiction which
Liguori says is null and of no effect."
With this alleged bit of letter a little history is connected. On June 8,
1858 (Doc. E), M. Brassard wrote to Bishop Bourget, saying. "I have
never given any testimony tending to prove that the sentence of
excommunication against M. Chiniquy was not signed by the bishop."
This disavowal Bishop Bourget sent on to M. Mailloux (Bishop Bourget
to M. Brassard, July 2, 1858, Doc. E), then in Bourbonnais, where
Chiniquy was still contending that M. Brassard was on his side. M.
Mailloux wrote back on June 24th to say that he had been glad to make
use of the disavowal, but that the day before (the 23rd) a M. Camille
Paré, a friend of Chiniquy's, had brought some papers among which was
an affidavit of M. Brassard's, signed with his own hand.
"Under oath M. Brassard declares that a letter annexed to [the
affidavit] is his, and that it contains his opinion on the schism of St.
Anne's. In this letter M. Brassard declares that Bishop Bourget had told
him that the suspension of M. Chiniquy was null because it had been
inflicted without witnesses; and M. Brassard further declares that the
bishop told him this was the opinion of Liguori."
Naturally Bishop Bourget was perplexed, and called upon M.
Brassard for an explanation, which the latter gave in two letters to the
bishop dated July 6 and July 10, 1858.
"... If I must be responsible for all that it pleases M. Chiniquy and
the inhabitants of St. Anne's to put into my mouth for the furtherance of
their cause I can never hope to clear myself. Indeed, M. Mailloux
himself would be greatly embarrassed if he were to be held responsible
for all that is attributed to him.
"Now let me reply to this latest accusation. I have never written to
M. Chiniquy that your lordship had told me the suspension inflicted on

him was invalid as having been inflicted without witnesses. Nor did I
ever write to him that you had said that this was the opinion of Liguori.
If it is my letter that has been shown to M. Mailloux, he cannot have
read in it any such thing, and if in the letter that was shown to him he
read the phrases I have just cited, that must have been a forged letter,
signature and all. As for the affidavit, that was truly signed by me,
except for the words that 'it contains my opinion on the schism at St.
Anne's.' Let me explain the history of this affidavit. On the fourth of last
May, after eight o'clock, Camille Paré came to my house with a letter
from M. Chiniquy and one from Mr. Dunn, a Chicago priest who at the
time of my visit two years ago to Chicago was Grand Vicar, but (as I
have learnt since) is so no longer. M. Chiniquy asked me to make an
affidavit acknowledging the genuineness of a letter I had written to him
more than a year ago. It was a letter which he had shown to the Bishop
of Dubuque, and which he regarded as likely to facilitate his entrance
into the good graces of the bishop, but he had been accused before the
bishop of having forged this letter, as well as all the other papers he had
produced at Dubuque, papers on the strength of which the bishop had
consented to send M. Dunn to St. Anne's on on Palm Sunday to
announce the return of peace and to celebrate the divine offices. M.
Dunn wrote to me at the same time in English asking me to accede to the
desire of M. Chiniquy, for the good of religion. It was this letter from M.
Dunn which caused me to consent to declare by affidavit that the letter
annexed to it was in my handwriting and bore my signature, and that it
stated what I thought to be the truth. I wrote at the same time to M.
Chiniquy saying that I was giving him the affidavit solely for the
purpose for which he had asked it, and that it was not to be published,
that it was a confidential letter which I could not consent to have
published. Yet see what use he has made of it....
"I see that he has abused a confidence which I have long since
withdrawn from him, and that he has even abused the last act I did on
his behalf -- one, too, done on the recommendation of M. Dunn, whom I
believed still to be Grand Vicar of Chicago. When then I have done
what your lordship may think desirable [to put a stop to this misuse of
his name], I shall have finished with [M. Chiniquy]."
From this we see that Chiniquy was capable of asking for an
affidavit under pretence that it was to attest a genuine letter, and passing
it off as attesting one quite different, which contained seriously false
statements and which he himself had forged. After this we need surely
have no remaining hesitation in disbelieving the many other letters,
conversations, and occurrences with which the book abounds, and on
which it relies to exhibit the clergy of Canada and Illinois in a detestable
light. For instance, to specify some of the more salient points of this
kind, we may on this ground reject as spurious the letters attributed to
Bishop Vandevelde on pp. 345 (see above) and 384 together with the
answers to certain questions alleged to have been given by Bishop
O'Regan (p. 440); and likewise, the various conversations he is said to
have had with M. Beaubien (p. 27), M. Leprohon (pp. 66, 109), M.
Perras (p. 136), Bishop Prince (p. 334), M. Primeau (p. 341), Bishop
Bourget (pp. 358, 365, 370), Bishop Vandevelde (p 377), Bishop
O'Regan (pp. 391, 394, 426, 429, 437), Archbishop Kenrick (p. 434),
Bishop Smith (pp. 544, 549).
Similarly we may reject as fictitious the most unlikely account of his
various dealings with Abraham (afterwards President) Lincoln, in
chapters lix to lxi. Particularly on this ground we may reject the cock-
and-bull story of the Catholic origin of the plot to murder President
Lincoln, fortified as it is by a palpably bogus affidavit made at
Chiniquy's request and for the purpose of his book in 1881 (p. 508).
A simple reference to the contemporary reports of the two trials of
the alleged conspirators, or to the standard Life of Lincoln by Nicolay
and Hay -— which, whilst exhaustive in its account of the assassination
and of the two trials of the accused, does not throw out the smallest
suggestion of a religious origin of the crime -- is sufficient to dispel the
unsupported allegation of a man convicted of the dishonest practices we
have been able to bring home to Chiniquy. Nor does he better his case
by invoking General Harris, the Methodist General, who was one of the
judges in the military trial of the conspirators. For in the first place,
17
though General Harris, in his History of the Great Conspiracy Trial
(1892), censures one nor two priests for maintaining the innocence of
the Surratts, a great deal of what Chiniquy quotes from him in his Forty
Years in the Church of Christ (p. 206) appears to be interpolated into his
account. And in the second place, General Harris says distinctly (Great
Conspiracy Trial, p. 250), that "the only reference to the Catholic
Church had been made in the public press [and] the prosecution had
carefully abstained from any assault on that Church." Besides, in 1901
General Harris wrote an approving Introduction to Mr. Osborne
Oldroyd's Assassination of President Lincoln, in the Preface to which
the latter repudiates the idea that "the Roman Catholic Church ever
sanctioned that heinous crime."
We may, too, on the same ground of Chiniquy's proved
untrustworthiness reject all that is to his purpose in what he has to say
about the Spink trial in chapters lvi and lviii. Some friends have been
kind enough to refer for us to the authentic report of this case in the
hearing at Urbana, on October 20, 1856. But it seems that only the
barest entries were made in those days, and the sole record of this
particular hearing is "Spink plaintiff, Chiniquy defendant, cause
slander."
Apparently Spink sued Chiniquy for one of the slanderous
statements he was wont to set afloat against any one who offended him,
and Spink in vindicating himself contended, that Chiniquy himself had
been guilty of the offence he had imputed to another. But, as M. Lebel's
sister, the person who seems to have declared that Chiniquy had
misbehaved with her, declined at the last moment to go into the witness
box -— the sort of thing that constantly happens in such cases -—
Spink's suit suffered.
Anyhow two things about Chiniquy's account of the case are
suspicious -— one that he so mixes the items in his narrative that no one
could gather that the charge against him in this instance was one of libel;
the other that the affidavit of Philomena Moffat, made in in 1881 (p.
462), sounds untruthful, even if it be not altogether spurious. It professes
to testify to an overheard conversation, always a doubtful kind of
testimony, and whereas at its commencement it states that two persons
overheard the conversation, at the end it states that there were three, a
contradiction most unlikely in a genuine affidavit. Besides it is hard to
conceive how what is supposed to have happened in bringing Philomena
Moffat from Chicago to Urbana, a distance of some 125 miles, could
have taken place within the short space of ten hours at most. The railway
from Chicago to Urbana had only been opened two years previously.
Whether by 1856 it had been so fully equipped with express trains, and
whether, again, at that date there were regular evening papers at
Chicago, both of which the story implies, we have not been able to
ascertain. We might stop here, but for completeness' sake will give
briefly the closing scene of Chiniquy's Catholic life.
Curiously, at the very time when according to his book he was so
much exercised by M. Brassard's condemnation of his schism, he was
meditating another attempt to get reconciled (on his own conditions?).
On May 12, 1857 (Doc. K) M. Campeaux, writing to Bishop Bourget
from Bourbonnais, reported that "Chiniquy is showing signs of giving
in," and two days previously (ibid.) Chiniquy himself had written to the
same bishop to say he was inviting Bishop Pinsonneault, of Sandwich,
Ontario, and M. Brassard to be his intermediaries with Bishop O'Regan
for this purpose. Bishop Bourget wrote him back a kind letter of
encouragement (Doc. E) but we hear nothing more of the project at this
time.
The next episode in the history brings us to the spring of the
following year, 1858. During the interval Bishop O'Regan went to
Rome, probably on his official visit ad limina. As the visit terminated in
his translation to the titular see of Dora, it was in accordance with
Chiniquy's style that he should claim to have obtained his deposition by
representations made to the Holy See and to the Emperor Napoleon (p.
540); but Mr. Gilmary Shea's account (see above, p. 15) sounds more
probable. His successor at Chicago was Bishop Duggan, who, however,
did not get his Bulls till January 21, 1859, though he was named
administrator in the summer of 1859. Bishop Smith, of Dubuque, was

appointed administrator of the see of Chicago during the interval. Hence
it was with Bishop Smith that Chiniquy had to deal in 1858.
According to Fifty Years, Mr. Dunn -- formerly Grand Vicar of
Chicago -- who apparently was of Chiniquy's party, arrived at St. Anne's
on March 11, 1858, with the news of Bishop Smith's appointment. He is
represented as having been sent by the bishop to invite Chiniquy to send
in his submission, and the bishop is made to say a good deal to the
discredit of Bishop O'Regan which probably he did not say. Indeed, it
looks as if the initiative was taken by Chiniquy, with the object of
rushing the administrator, who could as yet have had insufficient time to
sift his case.
Anyhow, Chiniquy went with Mr. Dunn to Dubuque on March 25th,
and signed an act of retractation, which the bishop seems to have
accepted, and on the basis of which he authorised Mr. Dunn to go back
with Chiniquy to St. Anne's and announce the reconciliation of
congregation and pastor on Palm Sunday, which that year fell on March
28th. We may presume that this did happen, though we do not feel
certain, having only Chiniquy's testimony to go by. Nor for the same
reason can we feel certain that his act of submission was worded as he
gives it in his book, namely, "We promise to obey the authority of the
Church according to the commandments of God as we find them
expressed in the Gospel of Christ." Such a form may be innocent, in
itself, but is evidently intended to lend to quibbling, by enabling the
person signing it to say, whenever he wished to disobey, that he did not
find that particular order in Scripture; nor is it likely that Bishop Smith
would have accepted so equivocal a document. Moreover, now that we
know how little trust can be reposed in Chiniquy's assertions, we may
doubt whether there was any tendency to Protestantism him until the
day, not then arrived, when he found it convenient to exploit Protestant
credulity for reasons of bread and butter
What is certain is that on March 27, 1858, he wrote (Doc. A) to M.
Mailloux, then at Bourbonnais, as follows: "I am happy to inform you
that I have made my peace with our good Bishop Smith, administrator of
the diocese. The Reverend Mr. Dunn will be with me at noon, at your
residence, to dine with you, and deliver into your hands my act of
submission. Meanwhile, help me to thank God for having put an end to
these deplorable divisions. And believe me your devoted servant,
Charles Chiniquy, Missionary of St. Anne's."
This looks as if the Bishop of Dubuque was not altogether satisfied
with the act of submission, and had it submitted to M. Mailloux that he
might report on it. M. Mailloux wrote back (Doc. A) to the bishop on the
following day (March 28) in terms which show that he thought the
bishop was in danger of being taken in by Chiniquy through imperfect
knowledge of his previous career. Hence he gives the substance of his
bad record from his Canadian days onward, as may be seen from the two
salient passages that have been already quoted from this letter (see
above).
The next we hear of Chiniquy was from St. Joseph, Indiana, where
he went to make the retreat which is sure to have been one of the
stipulated conditions of reconciliation. From his Fifty Years we see that
he realized that M. Mailloux was doubtful about the sincerity of his
depositions, and was warning the bishop to be careful; and Mgr. Têtu in
his Notes has preserved for us another letter written to M. Mailloux by
Chiniquy from this place of retreat.
"In April, 1858," he says, "Chiniquy wrote to M. Mailloux that he
was making a retreat and sued for peace. 'You know,' he said, 'how weak
and sinful I am. Ah! do not make me still weaker and more sinful by
driving me to despair.'" Another illustration of the different language
which the unfortunate man held in private from that which he ascribes to
himself in his book!
This letter of "April" must have been written at the beginning of
April. At least it must have been if Chiniquy is telling the truth when he
says that he was recalled from his retreat on April 6th, and went back at
once to see the bishop at Dubuque. In his account of this interview he
tells us that the bishop took back the previously accepted act of
submission, and demanded another expressed in more absolute terms.
18
This, he tells us, he refused to give, and hence was told he "could no
longer be a Roman Catholic priest" (p. 551).
Then he went to his hotel, where, according to his own tragic
account, after spending some time in an agony of distress over his
abandoned position, just in the nick of time -- when, having made
himself impossible to every Catholic bishop, he must needs seek
elsewhere for some means of living -- the light from Heaven dawned
upon him, and he saw clearly that the Church of Rome was false and
that salvation was with the Protestants. Then he went back to his flock at
St. Anne's, and on Sunday, April 11th, told them of the treatment he had
experienced from the bishop, and of the subsequent light from on high
which had come to deliver him. To his delight he found that his whole
congregation was prepared to secede with him.
It all sounds most beautiful in his pages, but once more there are
some considerations which make us a little skeptical as to whether it
happened, at all events at this time. For according to M. Brassard's letter
of July 6th (see above), M. Camille Paré came to him on May 4th -- that
is, three weeks later than this supposed conversion of Chiniquy to
Protestantism -- and brought a message from Chiniquy asking for an
affidavit, "which he regarded as likely to facilitate his entrance into the
good graces of the bishop."
Moreover, as late as June 23rd this Camille Paré, still acting on
behalf of Chiniquy, was using this very affidavit to palm off the spurious
letter on M. Mailloux. Indeed, M. Brassard's letters to Mgr. Bourget may
be cited as proving that as late as July 10th no news of Chiniquy's final
separation from the Church and conversion to Protestantism had reached
the writer, who evidently thinks that he is still keeping up his pretense
that his faculties as a Catholic pastor are intact through not having been
withdrawn by any valid excommunication.It would appear, then, that
Mgr. Têtu's Notes (Doc. A) are nearer the truth when they tell us:
"The unfortunate man was not converted. On August 3, 1858,
Bishop Duggan, of Chicago, excommunicated him publicly and in the
presence of an enormous crowd. Such was the end of an ignoble
comedy: Chiniquy after that could no longer call himself a Catholic. He
would have liked to continue to retain the name in order to glut his
passions and to command in the Church. It was not he who left the
Church; it was the Church who rejected him from her bosom. It was
then that he declared himself a Protestant and endeavoured to maintain
in heresy and schism all the souls he had perverted. The Canadian
missionaries soon set at naught his wiles and deceit. Nearly all the
families that had gone astray returned to the fold."
When thus cut off from the Catholic Church his first idea seems to
have been to keep his followers together as an independent religious
body under the name of "Catholic Christians." But, in striking agreement
with his letter of August 9, 1856, and in equally striking contradiction
with his published glorifications of the fertility of his settlement (see
above), they found before many months were passed that they were in
the midst of a financial crisis.
This appears from a letter he wrote on September 28, 1859, to Dr.
Hellmuth, at that time Protestant Dean of Quebec (see Father Chiniquy's
Reformation in the Far West, reprinted from the Record, B. M. press-
mark, 4183 aa. 12). The letter is a cry of distress in face of the "awful
calamity" which is "rapidly destroying the noble band of new converts,"
who "cannot last out much longer."
"Before next spring the Church of Rome will exult over our ruins.
We will succumb, not because our new brothers and sisters have no
charity, but because there is a want of unity in their charity. You are the
only one in Canada who takes any interest in this glorious religious
movement. Last year some had shown us some goodwill, they had
extended to us a helping hand, but now we do not hear a word from
them."
Probably it was for this reason that they quickly discovered that
"unless we joined one of the Christian denominations of the day we
were in danger of forming a new sect" (p. 571), and so were formally
received into the Presbyterian Church of the United States by the
Presbytery of Chicago on April 15, 1860 (p. 571).

But how long did he remain with these people? M. Mailloux
(Document B) tells us that "not having been able to retain the place
which the Presbyterian ministers of the United States had given him
among them, because they turned him out of their society, as we shall
see later" (namely, in the later part of his manuscript, which is
unfortunately lost), "the unfortunate M. Chiniquy had to come and unite
himself with those whom he had confounded on January 7, 1851" -- that
is, with M. Roussy (see above), and the Presbytery of Montreal. Why
was he thus dismissed?
In the days of his lecturing campaign he was often challenged to
deny, if possible, that in 1862, after a visit to Europe, during which he
had made collections for a supposed seminary in Chicago, he was
accused of fraud, and rejected or expelled by the Chicago Synod. He
never ventured to take up this challenge, but a passage in his Fifty Years
(p. 4.72) is interesting in this connection. In it he narrates that "through
the dishonest and false reports of those two men the money I had
collected [for the said seminary]... was retained nearly two years, and
lost in the failure of the New York Bank; [and] the only way we found
to save ourselves from ruin was to throw ourselves into the hands of our
Christian brothers of Canada" -- of Canada, be it noticed, not of Chicago
-- (by whom) "our integrity and innocence were publicly acknowledged,
and we were solemnly and officially received into the Presbyterian
Church of Canada on the 11th of June, 1863."
It is easy here to read between the lines that a charge of dishonesty
had been brought against him, one of the same kind as eight years
previously had been brought against him in connection with the burning
of the Bourbonnais church. It was his misfortune to be continually
having charges of the same kind brought against him from different and
independent quarters. However, on January 10, 1864, he gave what his
new friends doubtless regarded as a signal proof of the soundness of his
Protestantism, for on that day he married his housekeeper.
Still, how did they find him in the matter of personal character? His
egotism and violence are conspicuous in all that he spoke or wrote
against his former co-religionists; were they entirely absent from his
relations with his new friends?
We are never likely to be told, but we cannot read without musing
such cryptic allusions as the following in the sermons preached at the
time of his decease: "We saw thy faults when thou were with us, but
now we see thy virtues," said the Rev. A. J. Mowatt on the Sunday after
his funeral (Forty Years in the Church of Christ, p. 497). What faults, we
ask?
"He had failings, yes, and who is without these? Those with which
he could in a special manner be reproached must be charged to the
inadequate and positively harmful clerical education he had received,
and which in after years he so vigorously combated," said the Rev. C. E.
Amaron, preaching at the graveside on January 19, 1899 (ibid., p. 486).
"On leaving home for more advanced and literary and theological
studies, he entered upon a course of training much of which he
afterwards deplored. Possibly some of his best friends were right in
thinking that they saw occasionally traces of this bad education in his
after-life," says his son-in-law in the Preface to this same book. What
were these special faults, one wonders?
Of course we are aware that bigots of this type, when they pick up
eagerly, but to their cost, the weeds which the Pope has thrown over his
wall, find it convenient to ascribe their noxious properties to the defects
of the Pope's soil. We are aware, too, what are the particular noxious
properties which Chiniquy in his writings finds it convenient to debit to
the Pope's soil. Was it to matters of this sort that the preachers and the
Preface-writer were thus dimly alluding?
In this connection we may say that the Catholic Truth Society
cannot undertake a refutation of Chiniquy's book entitled The Priest, the
Woman, and the Confessional.
To write or to circulate such a work, which cannot fail to pollute the
minds of its readers, is an outrage upon decency, and it would be
impossible to deal with it in a pamphlet intended for general circulation.
The reader will accept our assurance that in it Chiniquy has employed
19
the same methods of misrepresentation and misstatement which have
been exposed in the foregoing pages.
ORIGINALLY PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC
TRUTH SOCIETY
LONDON, 1908
WAS THERE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
TO MURDER ABRAHAM LINCOLN?
Emmett McLoughlin and the Falsification of History
A Case Study
Ulysses S. Grant once said: "I would like to see truthful history
written". Most people would obviously agree with this.
Unfortunately, it is extremely rare to ever see "truthful history"
written by any of the many anti-Catholic authors who claim that the
murder of Abraham Lincoln was the result of a conspiracy by the
Catholic Church. The writings of Emmett McLoughlin are a case in
point.
McLoughlin is the author of the book, An Inquiry Into the
Assasination of Abraham Lincoln (Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1963). It is one of
the more well known books pertaining to this subject.
McLoughlin's basic thesis is that the Catholic Church was a "silent
partner" in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and he strongly
implies that Pope Pius IX was a tacit co-conspirator or perhaps even the
actual instigator of the plot. According to McLoughlin:
"On one side were dictatorship, slavery, secession, monarchy,
European imperialism, Jesuit chicanery and a Church-dominated assault
on the Monroe Doctrine, all of which found spiritual leadership in the
one person: Pope Pius IX. On the other side were freedom,
emancipation, Freemasonry, democracy, Latin American struggle
against foreign domination, all embodied in the one person: Abraham
Lincoln" [McLoughlin, p. 88].
How's that for a balanced and objective view of the nineteenth
century? Given such an analysis, what could be more natural than that
the Pope would have Lincoln assassinated! One fell stroke, and the
whole world drops into the hands of the Antichrist like a ripe melon.
Evil triumphs! The end is at hand!
Somehow the history books seem to have missed all this. Let's take a
closer look and find out why.
First of all, McLoughlin himself has zero credibility. According to
the dust jacket on his book, he was once a Catholic priest, but left the
priesthood when his superiors objected that his extracurricular activities
were interfering with his clerical duties. Among his outside
commitments were:
supervising a hospital
organizing an urban renewal campaign
obtaining federal grants for three housing projects
starting his own church in a vacant store
chairing the Phoenix Housing Authority
acting as secretary of the State Board of Health
It would seem that McLoughlin's superiors had a point. Presumably,
these are all honorable and worthy activities, but they aren't exactly what
the priesthood is designed for. If McLoughlin wanted to be a politician,
then he should have run for office -- not joined the priesthood.
So here is a man who takes vows of obedience, and then promptly
breaks them when his superiors give him instructions he doesn't like. So
much for keeping one's word. This is the same guy who verbally attacks
some Irish Catholics who deserted from the American army and fought
for Mexico during the Mexican-American War. McLoughlin
approvingly quotes a characterization of them as men who had been
"deluded by priests of their faith to violate their oaths" [McLoughlin, p.
41]. (Is that worse than being a deluded priest who violates the oaths of
his faith?)

The fact is, of course, that the Mexican-American War was
extremely unpopular in the United States, and was bitterly opposed by
men as different as Abraham Lincoln (!) and Henry David Thoreau.
Desertion under such circumstances, especially in the chaos of the
frontier, was commonplace, and Irish Catholics were not the only
Americans who fought on both sides. McLoughlin's hypocritical attempt
to use this incident to smear Catholics rings hollow when the situation is
considered in its historical context -- especially coming from someone
who is an admitted oath-breaker himself.
Another blatant absurdity is McLoughlin's ominous description of
the alleged "fourth vow" of the Jesuits: "a second vow of absolute,
complete, and utter obedience to the pope and to the General of the
Order .... Most Jesuits themselves do not know which of their fellows
have taken this final vow, and it is well-nigh impossible to find out the
wording of it" [McLoughlin, p. 29]. This from a man who, as we shall
see, goes out of his way to lionize another secretive organization -- one
which also extracts oaths of obedience whose wording is fiercely
protected from outside scrutiny.
Clearly, Catholics and especially Jesuits are the villains of
McLoughlin's piece. So who are his heroes? Let's see:
"The American Union was a full-grown independent state, a
completely heretical offspring, descended from a centuries-old family
tree of heretics and apostates -- Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Henry VIII, De
Molay, Elizabeth, John Smith, Wesley, and others" [McLoughlin, p. 22].
Apparently, in McLoughlin's eyes, heresy and apostasy are good
things. But it gets worse.
"America was an ever-stronger nation, built almost exclusively on
Protestant principles and traditions, founded and molded in great part by
leaders who drew their strength not only from their Protestant churches
but from their fellowship and inspiration in that great supra-national
body which the Popes feared and hated so much -- Freemasonry" [p.
22].
He returns to this theme again and again, referring to "the many
Freemasons who had signed the Declaration of Independence" [p. 23]
and to "Protestant America, stronghold of Freemasonry" [p. 24]. He
even admits that it was a Mason who fed him books "confirming the
Catholic involvement" in the assassination of Lincoln [p. 8]. (Anyone
surprised?) We are also told on the flyleaf that McLoughlin produced a
recording entitled, Freemasonry -- America's Sleeping Giant.
So the real heroes of American history, according to McLoughlin,
are the Freemasons. And of course we all know that Freemasons don't
take any secret oaths or vows ...
But we're just beginning to scratch the surface.
Let's see how McLoughlin handles his sources. On pp. 19-20, he
gives us a sordid tale of how the evil Catholic Church tried to crush poor
Father Chiniquy, and how the brave Abraham Lincoln came to his
rescue and became his life-long friend and intimate, with the result that
Chiniquy was able to warn Abe of the Church's plots against his life and
hear in return Abe's words of wisdom about the schemes and iniquities
of papism.
"Abraham Lincoln's defense in the court in Urbana, Illinois, in 1857,
of the rebellious ex-priest, Charles Chiniquy, from the schemes of
Bishop O'Regan of Chicago, was reason enough to bring down upon the
Great Emancipator the full fury of the Vatican. The brilliant defense by
Lincoln served to lift the veil behind which there lurked the greed and
immorality of bishops and priests alike. This event is related in detail in
the ex-priest's book, and it is confirmed by Sandburg in his monumental
study of the life of Lincoln" [p. 20].
Chiniquy's ordeal, we are told, was begun "at the instigation of the
bishop" and involved "the usual morals charge" which was "vigorously
pressed by representatives of the Church" until Honest Abe came to his
rescue. The result was "an enduring friendship during which the ex-
priest visited Lincoln in the White House and frequently warned him of
the Church's antagonism and of its threats to the very life of the
President" [p. 8]. Predictably, these warnings elicited (according to
Chiniquy) long elocutions from the President about the evils of the
Catholic Church, etc., etc., etc.
20
This is the event which, according to McLoughlin, made Lincoln
"an enemy of the Roman Catholic Church" and provided a major part of
its motivation for targeting Lincoln for murder, just as "the Vatican's
hired inquisitors and personal agents" had done "on countless occasions
before" [p. 19]. Sounds pretty bad for the Catholics, doesn't it? But let's
backtrack a bit and see how this stacks up against reality.
First of all, let's see what Carl Sandburg actually said about this
incident in his "monumental study" cited by McLoughlin: Abraham
Lincoln, the Prairie Years.
"Lincoln and Leonard Swett took the defense of Father Chiniquy, a
French Catholic priest in Kankakee County, who was accused by one of
his parishioners, Peter Spink, of falsely accusing Spink of perjury.
Father Chiniquy said he could prove his case; he would contest to the
last. So a change of venue was taken to Champaign County ... The trial
dragged on for weeks, and finally the jury went out, and came back
unable to agree on a verdict.
"Again, at the next term of court, the case was to be called ...
Lincoln had between-times been at work on a peaceable settlement, and
as the gossips and onlookers were getting ready to hear again all the ins
and outs of the scandal, he brought into court a paper that wiped the case
off the books. It read: 'Peter Spink vs. Charles Chiniquy. This day came
the parties and the defendant denies that he has ever charged, or believed
the plaintiff to be guilty of perjury; that whatever he has said from which
such a charge could be inferred, he said on the information of others,
protesting his own disbelief in the charge; and that he now disclaims any
belief in the truth of said charge against said plaintiff.' And they split the
court costs and paid their lawyers and everybody went home" [Carl
Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, the Prairie Years (1926), pp. 2:52-53].
So, far from being a battle to the death between Father Chiniquy and
Bishop O'Regan, what we have here is a nasty little personal spat in
which Chiniquy accused a parishioner of being a perjurer, got sued for
it, claimed to have the truth on his side and to be willing to defend
himself to the last -- then crumpled, and cut a deal in which he denied
everything that he had formerly trumpeted as God's own truth.
To put it simply, Chiniquy either lied at the beginning, or he lied at
the end. No matter which way you cut it, Chiniquy was a liar.
And that suggests he may well have been lying about a lot of other
things as well -- including his supposed chats with Abe Lincoln in the
White House. If in fact Chiniquy had these long talks with Lincoln about
the evils of the Catholic Church, and if in fact Lincoln knew he was
being stalked by agents of the Vatican who were conspiring to split the
union and overthrow democracy in America, then why in the world did
he send a personal envoy to Rome to urge Pope Pius IX to create an
American Cardinal? [John McKnight, The Papacy: A New Appraisal
(Rinehart & Co., 1952), p. 334.]
So Chiniquy is a worthless source -- but McLoughlin relies heavily
on him. Worse, McLoughlin falsely states that Chiniquy's account of his
involvement with Lincoln "is confirmed by Sandburg", when in fact
Sandburg's version largely refutes Chiniquy's account, confirming only
that there was a court case, that Chiniquy was represented by Lincoln,
and that the trial was held in Urbana.
But the worst is yet to come.
McLoughlin makes a big deal about Pope Pius IX's alleged atrocities
against the freedom-loving people of Rome. For example, he writes:
"Pius IX did more than fulminate against the people who merely
wanted the rights that Lincoln endorsed as self-evident. He executed
hundreds of patriots. He jammed 8,000 of them into the Papal jails in
which 'many were chained to the wall and not released even for exercise
or sanitary purposes.' The English ambassador called the dungeons of
Pius IX 'the opprobrium of Europe'" [McLoughlin, p. 94].
So where does all this "information" come from?
McLoughlin footnotes it to the work by John McKnight that we
have already cited above, entitled The Papacy: A New Appraisal,
published in 1952 by Rinehart and Co. There are two footnotes in this
passage, both referring to page 481 of McKnight's book. So we turn to
that page and discover ...
There is no page 481. McKnight's book ends at page 437.
 21

Just to make sure, we checked McKnight's index and looked up

every single reference in the entire book to Pius IX, no matter how From: j-goodluck@webtv.net (Jim Goodluck)
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 12:13:56 -0400 (EDT)
trivial. We also checked the British edition, published in 1953. Same
Subject: "Fr. Chiniquy"
results.
Nowhere does McKnight say any of the things about Pius IX that
McLoughlin claims. Not even close. Many of you may be familiar with the classic anti-Catholic writings of
Here is what McKnight actually says about Pius IX: "Fr. Charles Chiniquy", a 19th century ex-priest, most well known as the
"As domestic prelate under Leo XII and as archbishop of Spoleto author of the book "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome", as well as
and Imola, this churchman had seen with his own eyes the several other ranting books against the Catholic Church.
misgovernment of the papal domains ... and he had striven to alleviate Chiniquy claimed to have left the Catholic church for the so-called
suffering by episcopal charity ... A month after his election, Pius IX "truth" of Protestant "bible only" Christianity.
His writings are still in circulation today, mostly through constant
amnestied two thousand political prisoners and invited exiles home. reprinting by Jack Chick's publishing company.
Shortly, he launched administrative reforms, named the liberal Cardinal However, one thing that is much less well known is the fact that
Gizzi his secretary of state, appointed commissions to reform education, Chiniquy was no prize package.
broke down the doors of the centuries-old Jewish ghettos, and permitted Chiniquy was a con artist, a thief and a violent, sexually immoral man.
public discussion of political matters, including the independence and He was expelled from the priesthood in 1851 for immorality, begged for a
unity of Italy. second chance, was given one, and, in 1856, was expelled again for
So much for Pius IX with his overflowing jails and torture immorality, which led to his excommunication the same year.
chambers, his opposition to Italian patriotism, his death sentences and In 1858, he attempted to start his own
"Christian Catholic Church", which collapsed after about a year.
dungeons. As McLoughlin's own cited source demonstrates, it's all In 1860, he joined the Presbyterian Church and became a minister, but
rubbish. It simply never happened. was expelled from that church, for fraud, theft and collecting for a
But there's more. non-existant Protestant charity.
In 1848 Pius granted his territories a written constitution, with an The above facts are from a historian named Paul Stenhouse. I scribbled
elected bi-cameral legislature, an independent judiciary, freedom from from from a Catholic website which no longer exists.
arbitrary arrest, and freedom of the press. The people of Rome, in Anyway, I recently learned about a 1955 book called "Chiniquy" by Marc
response, staged a spontaneous demonstration of joy and thanksgiving. Trudel, which apparently tells the story of "Fr. Chiniquy" in detail,
But despite this astonishing liberalization, it was not enough for the with much attention to the above facts which "Bible Christians" leave
out, for some unknown reason or other. (Gee, I wonder why?)
radicals, and they turned against him. His prime minister was publicly Does anyone know anything about Trudel's book? Is it worth getting?
butchered. Six thousand armed men gathered in the plaza and began If it's good, I was thinking of tracking it down through inter-library
peppering the seat of government with bullets, killing a bishop as he loan or whatever, and possibly using it as the basis for a web page
stood at the window. A field gun was brought up and aimed at the giving the true history of "Fr. Chiniquy", so that Catholics are not so
building, which by now was defended only by the pope, a cardinal, a befuddled whenever this guy's books are trotted out, as proof of the
few priests, and a hundred Swiss guards. "evils" of the Catholic church.
After several tense days, the pope fled by night; a radical junta If anyone here knows anything about Trudel or his book, I'd appreciate
seized power, and a "republic" was declared. In the ensuing elections, a hearing any comments or feedback.
Thanks in advance,
large majority of the electorate refused to vote at all, out of sympathy for Jim
their exiled pope; of those that did vote, a large proportion wrote the
name of Pope Pius IX on their ballots. The sympathies of Rome's
population were clear: They wanted their pope back.
But the supposedly "democratic assembly" nevertheless voted 120 to
10 to depose the pope and to establish a "pure democracy". Not one
single government recognized the new "republic" as legitimate; all
supported Pius, and so did his people. [E. Hales, Pio Nono: A study in
European politics and religion in the Nineteenth century (London,
1954), 71-72, 90-98, 129.]
Finally the French intervened, chased out the radicals, and returned
Pius to Rome. He remained more or less in control, despite the
difficulties of Italian wars and politics, until 1870, when the French
withdrew and King Victor Emmanuel II sent five divisions against the
multinational volunteer force which was the only defense the Vatican
had left. The walls were breached with cannon; Rome fell to the forces
of Italian nationalism; and Pius IX spent the rest of his life as a prisoner
in the Vatican [McKnight, 202-205].
So much for the myth of the evil Pius IX locking horns with the
saintly Abraham Lincoln over the future of the world. Like many similar
charges against the Catholic Church, it simply never happened. Abe
Lincoln and Pope Pius IX were on good terms with each other.
In fact, until Pius was overwhelmed by the storms of Italian political
fanaticism, he was considered an enlightened ruler -- not only by his
own people but by almost everyone else as well. He loved Italy, and at
least for a time Italy loved him.
The bad reputation he received in later years is mostly slander
conjured up by political radicals who needed a devil to fight against, and
by the traditional enemies of the Catholic Church who always prefer to
believe that the man at the top, no matter how saintly he may truly be, is
really the Antichrist in disguise.

Chiniquy and Lincoln: Pro-Chinquy writings
From http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au/LINCOLN.HTM
The Vatican vs. Lincoln
*****
In June 1950, Protestant Publications, Glebe, NSW, asked the
Customs & Excise Office whether "Fifty Years in the Church of Rome"
by Chas Chiniquy (French-American Roman Catholic priest) was on
their secret list of prohibited books. After more than seven months of
evasive correspondence, Mr Menzies (presumably the Prime Minister,
Sir Robert) replied: "The importation of this book is prohibited under
the terms of section 52(c) of the Customs Act". (Section 52(c) of the
Customs Act reads: "Blasphemous and indecent or obscene works or
articles.")
Notwithstanding the ban, Protestant Publications published the
book. They also published in 1948 "The Priest, the Woman & The
Confessional" by the same author in defiance of the Roman Catholic
Minister of Trade & Customs, O'Sullivan.
What follows is condensed from "FIFTY YEARS IN THE CHURCH
OF ROME".
When Chiniquy sought to minister to what he perceived to be the
needs of the French-Catholic community in Illinois, and vigorously
opposed the corrupt practices of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, he was
persecuted by the Bishop of Chicago, Anthony O'Regan. Chiniquy was
fortunate in securing the services of Abe Lincoln for his defence and,
despite the accusations of priests in the pay of the Bishop, the charges
were withdrawn when it became evident that the sworn evidence of
several priests was false. At first, Lincoln declined to accept any
payment for his considerable expenses but, when pressed, wrote a
promissory note which Chiniquy signed:
Urbana, May 23rd 1856
Due A. Lincoln, Fifty dollars
for value received.
C. CHINIQUY
Chiniquy was greatly troubled because he had seen at least ten
Jesuits in the court and was afraid that they might take revenge on
Lincoln who simply joked that the note would be "a warrant of death",
but added,"I know Jesuits never forget or forsake but a man must not
care how or where he dies, provided he dies at the post of honour and
duty"
Over the following years Chiniquy met Lincoln a number of times to
explain the vile nature of ecclesiastical law and to warn him that the
Church of Rome was intent on taking control of the country.
There were eleven southern slave-owning states, predominantly
Catholic, which rejected the anti-slave legislation of the northern states.
They were led by Jefferson Davis who had been leader of the Democrats
since 1857, and when, in 1860, the Southern States seceded, he became
their President. He forthwith received the endorsement and
congratulations of the Pope.
The Vatican could see the coming conflict and moved to take full
advantage of it by ordering the Emperor of France to place an army in
Mexico for the support of the South. All Catholics were told to join the
pro-slave party of Democracy and to oppose the election of Lincoln to
the Presidency. The Democratic press, predominantly under Roman
Catholic control, deluged the country with derogatory articles. The
vilification campaign was unsuccessful and Lincoln was elected
President on 4th March 1861.
In August, Chiniquy, having been informed by a former Roman
Catholic priest of a plot to kill Lincoln, was able to meet him and again
22
give him warning. However, the President had already been alerted by
Samuel Morse (the inventor of telegraphy), who had learned of the plot
while in Rome, and so Lincoln, in Baltimore, was enabled to escape
assassination from a Roman Catholic group led by Byrne. Lincoln asked
Chiniquy to go to Europe to keep him informed of further plots, but the
priest considered it his duty to attend to his community, and declined.
However, he was able to explain why the Democratic press was saying
that Lincoln had been born a Catholic, had been baptised by a priest, and
was now apostate. Chiniquy explained that the intent of the campaign
was to turn all Catholics against him for, by the law of the Church, all
apostates are outlaws. As Pope Gregory VII decreed, killing an apostate,
a heretic, or anyone excommunicated, is not murder, but a good
Christian action. In thanking Chiniquy for his help and warning, Lincoln
confided that he had a presentiment that he would die by the hand of an
assassin. He recognised that Rome was doing in the American States
what it had done in Mexico and South America.
There were preliminary hostilities between the North and South but
the Civil War began when the Southern Confederate forces attacked Fort
Sumter in April 1861 and the Roman Catholic, Beauregard, fired the
first shot. After initial success, the Confederate army under General Lee
suffered a crippling defeat by the Union forces under General Meade,
during the first three days of July 1863, at Gettysburg.
This battle may well have ended the civil war if Meade, who was a
Catholic, had not been influenced into allowing the Confederate forces
to escape with the loss of only two guns.
It was in November, at the dedication of this battle as a National
Memorial, that the Secretary for War in Lincoln's administration, Erwin
Stanton, gave a long oration, and Lincoln followed with the two-minute
speech now forever famous as his "Gettysburg Address".
Lincoln was re-elected in 1864 with 212 votes of the Convention to
the 21 votes for the Democratic candidate.
On 8th June 1864 Chiniquy paid his last visit to Lincoln. It was
during this visit that news arrived of a substantial victory by General
Grant over Lee, who retreated towards Richmond.
The purpose of Chiniquy's visit was to discuss with Lincoln the
letter sent by the Pope to Jefferson Davis recognizing the Confederate
government as legitimate and denouncing Lincoln for fighting against
Christ and His holy Vicar. Lincoln was aware that all the Roman
Catholic bishops, not only in the Southern States, but throughout the
Northern Union, had been told to work against him, and he had advised
some that they were in danger of being charged with treason. While
supporting liberty of conscience, Lincoln drew the line when the Pope
and his followers claimed the right, through their Councils, theologians
and canon laws, to order the burning of his wife, the strangling of his
children, and the cutting of his throat when they had the opportunity.
Lincoln rejected the Pope's claim of having the right to put to death
those who differ from the Vatican in religious belief.
Lincoln recognised that the first settlers of Louisiana, Florida, New
Mexico, Texas, South Carolina and Missouri were Roman Catholics and
that their first teachers were Jesuits who hated the institutions, laws,
schools, rights and liberties of the Northern States. He saw that the
motive power of the Civil War was coming from the Vatican, the
colleges and schools of the Jesuits, the convents of the nuns, and the
confessional boxes of Rome.
Though Lincoln saw that the end of the war was in sight he was
convinced that, like Moses, he would not enter the Promised Land of
reconstruction, peace and prosperity.
On 6th April 1865 President Lincoln was invited by General Grant
to enter Richmond and be present when General Lee surrendered. On
the 10th he addressed an immense crowd in Washington. On Friday
evening 14th April he attended Ford's Theatre, Washington and was in

his box watching the drama when John Wilkes Booth entered from
behind and shot the President in the head. He died the next day.
Booth was the only person chosen by a group of conspirators to
carry out the assassination. He was the tool of the Jesuits. He was
corrupted and directed by the Vatican. Every one of the conspirators had
received a Roman Catholic education. Although it was Jefferson Davis
who promised the million dollars for the assassination of Lincoln, it was
the Jesuits who made the plans.
Chas Chiniquy spent 20 years researching before he was able to
reveal the facts behind the assassination which began and matured in the
house of Mary Surratt in Washington. This house was the common
rendezvous of the Washington Bishops who were the confessors of
Booth, John Surratt, his wife and daughters. When, on the day after
Lincoln died, Miss Surratt declared "The death of Lincoln is no more
than the death of any nigger in the army", was she not echoing what the
devoted Roman Catholic Judge Taney had recently proclaimed:
"Negroes have no right which the white is bound to respect"? By
bringing the President to the level of the lowest "nigger" the Vatican was
saying he had no right even to his life.
The Jesuits had drilled the Surratts very thoroughly, particularly in
the art of perjury. Immediately prior to Mary Surratt and her daughters
being taken from their house to prison the co-conspirator Payne, who
had failed in his attempt on the life of William Seward, the Secretary of
State, called at her house at 10pm. Then, confronted by the police,
Payne said he had come to dig a gutter for Mrs Surratt. However Mrs
Surratt declared that she did not know the man, although it was later
proved that he was a personal friend of her son and that he had often
been in her house with his friend John Booth.
It was in the house of the Catholic Lloyds that Mrs Surratt concealed
the carbine which Booth wanted for his protection as he sought to flee to
the Southern States. It was the Catholic Dr. Nudd who dressed the
broken leg which Booth sustained immediately after the assassination. It
was in the barn of the Catholic, Garrett, that Booth was caught and
killed, still clutching the medal of the Virgin Mary. The entry in his
diary the previous day reads: "I can never repent... Our country owes all
her troubles to him [Lincoln] and God simply made me the instrument
of His punishment".
The involvement of the Jesuits in the conspiracy is manifest in the
elaborate escape plan they prepared and provided. Who took care of
John Surratt, who was there in Washington helping Booth on the 14th
April?
Father Lapierre sent John Surratt to the priest Charles Boucher who
concealed him in his parsonage till the end of July during which time
Surratt received many visits from Fr. Lapierre. From July to September
Surratt was again concealed in Lapierre's house in Montreal until,
disguised, under a false name, and in the company of Lapierre, he
travelled to Quebec to board the overseas vessel "Peruvian". Fr.
Lapierre was the Canon, the confidential right-hand man of the Bishop
Bourget of Montreal. Their complicity with the murder is
overwhelming.
Surrett was a wanted man in America, so where did the United
States government find him? In the employ of the Vatican under the
name of Watson.
Arrested and taken back as a prisoner, his Jesuit father confessor
assured him that he would not be condemned because, through the
influence of a certain Roman Catholic woman, the jury would include
several Catholics. The jury did not reach a guilty verdict and Surratt
went free, but a number of those involved in the plot were hanged.
Chas Chiniquy received further confirmation of the Catholic
involvement when he learned that, in the isolated Roman Catholic
village of St. Joseph in Minnesota where the hotel keeper was in charge
of the Catholic seminar, the news of the assassination of Lincoln and
Seward was common knowledge four hours before it took place.
Jefferson Davis was captured in May 1865 and imprisoned for two
years before being granted bail. He went to Canada, but later returned
and settled in Mississippi.
23
The Catholic involvement in the murder was not disclosed because
the authorities feared the public reaction at a time when it was necessary
to bring about a reconciliation between the States and a population
divided so much by religion.
From "The Saga of St. Anne"
Pamphlet reproduced online by the Kenkankee Valley Geneological
Society, P.O. Box 442, Bourbonnais, Illinois 60914
http://www.kvgs.org/index.html
Charles P. T. Chiniquy
The Most Interesting Man in the History of St. Anne
It is as if the Catholic and Protestant inhabitants of St. Anne, having
at long last achieved peace and co-operation with their neighbors and
relatives of a different faith, refrain from mentioning a person so
controversial as Charles Chiniquy.
But internationally, the name Charles P. T. Chiniquy surfaces much
more often, and travelers from St. Anne have been astonished to
discover his fame throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and
even in Australia and the South Pacific islands.
Excerpts from a letter written in St. Anne by Father Chiniquy in
1857 to Napoleon III, Emperor of France, reveal something of his family
background:
"My grandfather, Et Chiniquia, though born in Spain, married a
French lady, became by choice and adoption a French citizen. He
became a captain in the French navy and for gallant service was
awarded lands in Canada which by the fate of war fell into the hands of
Great Britain. Upon retiring from the service of France, he settled upon
his estate in Canada where my father and myself were born. I am, thus,
with other Canadians who have come to this country, a British subject
by birth, an American citizen by adoption, but French still in blood and
Roman Catholic in religion."
According to the Encyclopedia Canadiana, volume 2, Charles
Paschal Telesphor Chiniquy, clergyman, was the eldest son of Charles
Telesfor Chiniquy, notary. (The spelling differs somewhat from his
father's name.) His mother's maiden name was Marie Reine Perrault.
Charles was born in Kamouraska, Quebec, not far from Sainte Anne de
Beaupre. In about 5 years, the family moved to Murray Bay, a new
settlement with no established school. His mother taught him to read
from a French and Latin Bible belonging to his father. While his two
younger brothers, Louis and Achille, were sleeping or playing together,
Charles and his mother spent time memorizing large sections of the Old
and New Testament.
The Chiniquy family lived some distance from the church, and the
roads on rainy days were bad. On the Sabbath days, the neighboring
farmers unable to go to church were accustomed to gather at the
Chiniquy house in the evening. He reports in his book, Fifty Years in the
Church of Rome,
"My parents used to put me up on a large table in the midst of an
assembly and I delivered to those good people the mist beautiful parts of
the Old and New Testaments.....Several times when the fine weather
allowed me to go to church with my parents, the farmers would take me
up in their caleches (buggies) at the door of the temple and request me
to give some chapters of the Gospel."
On the death of his father when Charles was twelve, an uncle placed
him in the Seminaire de Nicolet for the classical course. He elected to
study theology, and in 1833 was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic
Church. An eloquent speaker, he used his talents in preaching and
promoting temperance and quickly became a figure of public interest.
He preached in the two cathedrals of Lower Canada; his portrait was
painted by Antoine Plamondon and by Theophile Hamel: the Legislature
of Canada made him an award of about $2,000.
In 1844, he published his Manual of Rules of the Society of
Temperance, a volume of 158 pages, dedicated to the youth of Canada.
It became known as The Manual of Temperance. So popular was the
manual that in the next six years it went through three editions. In a

preface to the 1850 edition, M. SQ. Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, is
quoted as stating that more then 200,000 persons had been enrolled in
the society by Chiniquy. He received the apostolic benediction from the
Pope on August 12, 1850. The Bishop of Montreal named him "The
Apostle of Temperance" for all Canada. His book was also available in
English, translated in 1847 from the French by Pierre Octave Demaray,
a student of law.
On December 15, 1850, Chiniquy received a letter that was to
change his life-and the history of Kankakee County. It was from the
Right Rev. James Oliver Vandevelde, Bishop of Chicago:
".....Make use of your great influence over your countrymen.....by
inducing them to come here in Illinois. We have, already, in
Bourbonnais, a fine colony of French Canadians. Come and help me
make the comparatively small though thriving people grow with
immigrants from the French-speaking countries of Europe and America
until it covers the whole territory of Illinois with its pious sons and
daughters."
In 1851, Father Chiniquy was sent from Montreal by the bishop to
establish a French colony in the upper valley of the Mississippi. He
resembled a latter-day Catholic "pioneer", President John Kennedy, in
that he attacked every project "with vigor." With the same enthusiasm he
had shown in conducting the temperance campaign, he launched a
vigorous effort to persuade French-speaking Catholics from Canada,
Belgium, France and eastern United States to come as pioneers to his
new colony. He chose the spot where the Allain brothers had located
about 14 miles southeast of Bourbonnais and he named the site Sainte
Anne. By December, 1851, two hundred men, women and children had
joined him. In April, 1852, one hundred families were building homes in
St. Anne. It soon became necessary to expand the limits of the first
colony by establishing settlements in St Mary (Beaverville) and
L'Erable. These settlements soon filled up with new families that came
that spring from Canada, Belgium, and France.
After establishing his colony, he found it impossible to remain in
communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1852, he ordered New
Testaments and Bibles for distribution in his parishes. He openly
questioned the church's interpretation of its authority, its emphasis of the
Immaculate Conception and its practices of auricular confession and the
abstinence from meat-eating on Friday; consequently, he was suspended
in 1856 and excommunicated in 1858. His persuasive powers and his
enthusiasm for reform caused four-fifths of his congregation to join him
in the formation of the church called The Christian Catholic Church.
The break was highly emotional. Many families were divided
brother against brother, and there followed years of ill-feeling among
those with the same name but different religious convictions.
In 1856, Father Chiniquy was defended in a slander suit by
Abraham Lincoln, who was at that time a circuit rider lawyer. The
Illinois State Historical Society has a photostat in its Lincoln Collection
of the handwritten bill that Lincoln presented to Chiniquy for legal
services. It is signed "C. Chiniquy." According to his account in the
book Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, Chiniquy visited President
Lincoln in 1861 and 1862, and he claims he turned down Lincoln's offer
of a secretaryship in the American legation in Paris. His last visit took
place June 8, 1864, when he went to Washington for Lincoln's official
notification of renomination by the Republican Party.
Early killing frosts destroyed the crops in the summer of 1858, and
the disaster was compounded when three weeks of continuous rain
drowned the seedling crops in the spring of 1859. In order not to perish,
the St. Anne farmers were forced to mortgage their land and homes and
even their horses and cattle. Interest rates were exceedingly high. Not
being one to sit and curse the darkness, Rev. Chiniquy sought help for
his poor parishioners by lecturing in Philadelphia, New York and
Boston. Sufficient funds were secured to pay all mortgages and to
procure barrels of food and clothing.
In seeking affiliation with an established Protestant church, he chose
the Presbyterian denomination because of its French Huguenot heritage.
Rev. Chiniquy was accepted by the Presbytery of Chicago, February 1,
1860, as an ordained Presbyterian minister: however, the members of his
24
flock continued to call him "Father" Chiniquy. The St. Anne church was
admitted, April 11, 1860, as a Presbyterian Church.
During Rev. Chiniquy's speaking tour to the British Isles and other
European countries from August, 1860 to February, 1861, the church
was in charge of Rev. Henry Morrell and Mr. Theodore Monod, while
the school was taught by GustaveDeMars and Dr. J. B. L'hote. Unnamed
problems caused a group of 140 to petition the Chicago Presbytery to
form the Second Presbyterian Church with Theodore Monod as their
pastor. He was later ordained as a Presbyterian minister by the
Presbytery of Chicago. The new church was formed in 1861.
Because of some difficulties which had arisen between Rev.
Chiniquy and the Chicago Presbytery and his desire to maintain a closer
connection with his fellow countrymen in Lower Canada, Chiniquy
made application for his St. Anne church to be received by the Synod of
the Canada Presbyterian Church and was accepted in 1863.
Rev. Charles Chiniquy was married in 1864 to Euphemie Allard.
They adopted a daughter, had one son who died in infancy and two
daughters. (See family description at the end of this biography.)
Mrs. Frank Schroeder (Edna Paradis) of Champaign wrote in a letter
to her cousin, Mrs. Russell Corriveau, Sr. (Edith Sirois):
"I am happy I can remember Father Chiniquy. I remember when one
of his daughters, Rebecca, got married. They had a big wedding. Brother
Charlie was the best man with Rebecca's younger sister, Emma, as maid
of honor. The house and yard were filled with people. They were
serving large pieces of white layer cake to all. Imagine, I can still
remember the cake. That was a special event in 1887. Della Jones was
there and she had Ruby who was then two years old. Father Chiniquy
took her in hisarms and said to Rebecca, "Oh, that you would bring me
several sweet babies like this one!" However, she never had any
children. Emma also married a minister, I think."
The public debate was a popular means of testing the merits of rival
religious systems at that time, though in reality it was more a test of the
men engaged then of their theology. Nor was the debate confined to
matters religious. In politics it was a favorite method of testing political
issues and leaders and of spreading political information. The great
Lincoln-Douglas debates are notable examples. Hence, while it has lost
prestige somewhat, the debate once was an honorable and powerful
institution. Every pastor needed to cultivate the debating faculty to some
extent, at least, for self-protection. Charles Chiniquy, the orator, was
living just at the right time to capitalize on his talent.
Chiniquy, like the minister in Hawthorne's story, "The Great Stone
Face," had a tongue that was indeed a magic instrument. "In truth, he
was a wondrous man and when his tongue had acquired him all other
imaginable success, when it had been in halls of state and in courts of
princes and potentates, it made him known all over the world even as a
voice crying from shore to shore."
Preachers in the late nineteenth century gave special attention to the
particular tenets of their respective churches, often decrying with heavy
hearts the doctrinal shortcomings of sister denominations. While this
was a fault of the times which a broader Christian spirit is overcoming,
it had its compensating features. In an age of controversy, it became
every man to have some knowledge, not only of his own church but also
of other churches. It is a fact that people, generally, were better informed
on doctrinal lines in those days.
Rev. Chiniquy made many lecture tours during that period. He was
in demand as a lecturer on temperance. Since Nativism and Anti-
Catholic prejudice were rampant during the period, he was quick to take
advantage of this attitude to enhance his religious position and draw
large audiences. The Masonic Press in Europe energetically supported
his every endeavor. In 1874, he returned to Great Britain where he was
regarded as "The Luther of Illinois." He spent six months lecturing in
England, Scotland and Ireland and was frequently in Canada months at a
time. In 1878, he crossed the Rocky Mountains and spent two months
lecturing to French Protestants in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon and
the Washington territory. Then he sailed to Australia, Tasmania and
New Zealand where in two years time he delivered over 600 lectures.
That he could lecture so well in English was truly remarkable because

he relates in his book, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome: "While I was
vicar of St. Roch, Quebec, Rev. Tetu asked me to give him some lessons
in English. For, though my knowledge of English was limited, I was
only one of five priests who understood and could speak a few words in
the language." He must have applied himself to the study of English
with the same vigor he displayed on other projects.
Great crowds of people thronged to hear him. Still others gathered to
prevent him from speaking. He was often hooted, stoned, and in great
physical danger. During his absences from St. Anne, he was replaced by
Rev. Chrystophore LaFontaine, a teacher in Chiniquy's school. Others
who helped out were Rev. Misial Paradis, Rev. Joseph Paradis, Rev.
Edward Pelletier and Rev. Joseph Allard
The two Presbyterian Churches were reunited with Rev. Chiniquy's
blessing in 1888. Although he resigned to return to Montreal, the colony
of St. Anne and its people were dear to his heart. No one in need was
ever denied. His benefactors loved to tell of his generous spirit. Besides
contributing land for the community grade school, cemetery and
Presbyterian Church, he deeded some land for the right-of-way through
St. Anne to the Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroad. He appointed his
former student, Placide Boudreau, as pastor of the united church. A new
church was built, but Rev. Chiniquy gave his farewell sermon in the old
church. Years later, Mrs. Frank Schroeder wrote:
"I was at church with my mother when he preached his last sermon
bidding us goodby. I looked up. Many people were crying. My mother
was crying so I started to cry, too. I'll always remember him in prayer as
he held his hands folded in prayer, looking up to God, his lovely white
beard shaking as if he were sobbing."
In 1893, a new kind of honor came to him when the Presbyterian
College of Montreal conferred upon him the Doctorate of Theology
Honoris Causa which allowed him to put the initials D.D. after his name
and call himself Doctor.
Dr. Chiniquy came back to St. Anne in 1895 for a series of sermons.
By that time he was 86 years old. Being once more in the good graces of
the Chicago Presbytery, he attended a meeting at that body with Rev.
Boudreau. He was asked to give a short speech at that session.
After he moved to Montreal, he devoted much of his time to writing.
Between 1886 and 1899, he produced at least four books. The most
widely read are Fifty Years in the Church of Rome and Forty Years in
the Church of Christ.
During the month of January, 1899, Dr. Chiniquy's health began to
fail. The Archbishop of Montreal made an attempt to get him to return to
the Catholic Church, but he rejected the offer. He passed away January
16, 1899, in Montreal with his wife Euphemie and daughters Emma and
Rebecca at his side. He was buried in the Cimetiere de la Montagne a
Montreal. Thousands of mourners attended his funeral. The St. Anne
church sent Rev. Boudreau and Mr. D. T. Allard as its representatives.
Memorial Services were held for him in the St. Anne Presbyterian
Church on February 26, 1899. The Reverend Placide Boudreau recorded
in the minutes of the session of the Presbyterian Church of St. Anne,
March, 1899:
"At a memorial service of the congregation of the Presbyterian
Church of St. Anne, Illinois, held in honor of the Rev. Charles Chiniquy,
D.D., on the 26th day of February A.D. 1899, the following resolutions
were adopted:
"Whereas the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, D.D. in the Providence of God
has been removed by death: Resolved, That in his rare and eminent gifts,
in his earnest and untiring labors for the formation of Christian learning,
and in his integrity and kindness of character, we recognize elements
whose influence can never die:
Resolved, That, by his removal from the scenes of this life, we recognize
with feelings of regret, the Christian world has lost one of its most
worthy servants, one of the most resolute and indefatigable promoters of
sound Christianity, one of the most precious friends and benefactors of
the poor, one of the most zealous, constant and uncompromising
defenders of righteous living;
Resolved, That in his death the cause of Temperance has lost one of its
most ardent and successful advocates;
25
Resolved, That in him we love to recognize the founder of this colony
and our beloved church; that he has been the esteemed pastor of this
congregation for a period of forty years, that we look to him as one who
has been our spiritual instructor and constant advisor and leader;
Resolved, That in this time of affliction, we extend to his family, our
sympathy with the assurance that we shall ever cherish grateful
memories of his line and noble life;
Resolved, That these resolutions be entered upon the records of this
church, that a copy be sent to the the bereaved family, and that they be
published in the St. Anne Record and in the Witness of Montreal,
Canada. M. Chartier, J. Poutra, and A. Sutton-Committee on
Resolutions.
The following excerpt is from the columns of the Kankakee Daily
Times at the time of the filing of his will:
"The last will and testament of the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, executed
September 10, 1896, was filed in the county court today. It reads, 'I die
in the faith and union of our Lord Jesus Christ, such as the Holy Gospel
reveals it and according to the tenets of the Presbyterian Church.'
"In the remaining clauses of the will, Father Chiniquy bequeaths his
lands, house and money to his wife Euphemie Allard Chiniquy for her
use and at her death to be divided equally between his daughters,
Rebecca Morin and Emma Chiniquy. He appoints his son-in-law, Rev.
Joseph Morin, to be executor of his estate. He desires his son-in-law to
carry out his work among the poor of the various Canadian parishes. He
also requests his executor to have popular editions of his works and
writing issued at as cheap a price as possible. He requests that his coffin
shall not exceed $10 in cost and that $100 be given to the three poorest
widows of his congregation on the day of his funeral. His extensive
library was bequeathed to his son-in-law."
Throughout the years, many persons have published articles about
Charles Chiniquy, the latest being printed in the February, 1976 issue of
the Illinois State Historical Society Journal and reviewed, March 12,
1976 in the Kankakee Daily Journal. The article was entitled, "The
Lincoln Writings of Charles P. T. Chiniquy." John Bouchard, town
historian, and Rev. S. A. Woodruff of the Presbyterian Church of St.
Anne wrote about him in their histories, published in 1950 for the St.
Anne Centennial. Rev. John Barrett of the Notre Dame Church of
Clarendon Hills prepared a paper about Chiniquy in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for his Master of Arts Degree at St. Mary of the Lake
Seminary in 1958. Other such papers are among the files of St. Viator's
College and DePaul University. The Kankakee Community College
published in June, 1976, a manuscript by Pauline Changnon, native of
St. Anne and French teacher in Champaign, in which she devoted a large
segment to Charles Chiniquy. At least three authors are presently
preparing manuscripts about his life; one from Portsmouth, England;
one former French teacher from Moody Bible Institute; and one, a
former editor of Accent in the Daily Journal of Kankakee. Mrs. Russell
Corriveau, Sr. of rural St. Anne has an extensive file of material she has
collected about Dr. Chiniquy. Her Grandfather Sirois came from
Kamouraska, Chiniquy's hometown, and was his intimate friend. She
has generously contributed much of the information used in this
biography.
He was often referred to as "le petit pere Chiniquy." However, the
word "petit" can be applied to Dr. Chiniquy in the physical sense only.
He was in his own words, "Cinq pied et cinq pouces" (five feet and five
thumbs) tall. The roundness of his figure made his seem even shorter.
Bishop Bourget said of him, "Comment un si petit homme peut-il faire
autant de tapage!" (How can so small a man make such an uproar!)
Though he was small, his personality, devotion and influence were
exceedingly "grand." We salute him as one of the most interesting
personalities in the history of St. Anne.
 26

Rev. Charles Chiniquy, D.D. (1809-1899) Infallibility of the Pope, and had served as Christian Catholic
rector in Geneva, under Swiss Bishop Edward Herzog. The
To the glory of God in memory of the Reverend Dr. Charles Chiniquy,
Swiss Church was and still is a member of the Old Catholic
D.D., French-Canadian Reformer & first Christian Catholic Community
Movement.
Church Rector & Overseer.
 1885 Publication, in Chicago, of his book : Fifty Years in the
 1809 Born in Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada, the son of
Church of Rome.
Charles Chiniquy, Public Notary, and of Reine Perreault.
 1892 He would have been ordained in July by Bishop Vilatte
 1820 Private course in St. Thomas of Kamouraska, Quebec,
in Montreal, when Bishop Vilatte returned from Sri Lanka,
under Tutor Allen Jones.
where he had been consecrated. It was a way to show his
 1822 Classical studies at the Petit Séminaire in Nicolet,
communion with the Christian-Catholics. B. Persson affirmes
Quebec.
this event in his recent work: Some New Contributions to the
 1829 Theological studies at the Grand Séminaire in Quebec Biography of Msgr. J.R. Vilatte, St. Ephrem's Institute, Solna,
City. 1998, p. 34.
 1832 Ordained deacon in Quebec R.C. cathedral church, on  1893 Receives Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) degree from
May 18, by Bishop J. Signay. Presbyterian College at McGill University, Montreal
 1833 Ordained priest in Quebec, on September 29 (+J.  1899 Died in Montreal, January 16, and was buried in Mount-
Signay). Appointed Curate of St. Charles Parish, Rivière- Royal Cemetery. The same year was published his last book:
Boyer, Quebec. Forty Years in the Church of Christ.
 1834 Curate of St. Roch Parish, Quebec City.
 1838 Vicar of the Parish of Beauport, Quebec. Founder of the
Temperance Society (1839).
 1842 Vicar of the Parish of Kamouraska, Quebec.
 1844 Publication of the Temperance Society Manual.
 1847 Appointed Temperance Preacher in the Diocese of
Montreal, Quebec. Bishop Ignace Bourget gave him the title
of Temperance Apostle in 1850.
 1852 Tranfered to Chicago Diocese, U.S.A., to work as a
missionary among French-Canadians of Kankakee County,
Illinois. Mostt Rev. L.O. van der Veld, Bishop of Chicago,
blessed is Mission Church dedicated to St. Anne.
 1858 Opposed by R.C. authorities and clergy for his biblical
and community based teaching, he was excommunicated by
the Diocese of Chicago. At at general meeting held April 11,
decision was made by the people to turn St. Anne Parish into a
Community Church, and to appoint Father Chiniquy as Pastor
in charge.
 1859 A church society was organized under the name
Christian Catholic (Community) Church. It was filed for
records in Kankakee County District Court on September 13.
Rev. Chuiniquy was elected President of the Board of
Directors.
 1861 Intercommunion agreements were concluded between
Christian Catholics and other Christian bodies. The first of
these agreements was with the Presbyterian Communion.
 1862 Extension of the ministry to the Michigan French-
Canadian colony of Muskegon. The Rev. R. Desroches was
appointed pastor.
 1870 Publication of his book The Church of Rome.
 1875 Took charge of the Franco-Canadian
(Interdenominational Missionary) Society in Montreal. The
missionary work was supported by the Presbyterian Church.
Preached against the New Roman Dogma of the Infallibility of
the Pope, defined by the Vatican Council of 1870-1871.
Published the book The Priest, the Woman & the
Confessional.
 1880 Was joined, in Montreal, by two former teachers: J.
René Vilatte (left) and Jean-Baptiste Gauthier (right). They
served the Church under the auspices of the Franco-Canadian
Society, first in Quebec (St. Hyacinthe and Maskinonge), then
in the States (French-speaking colonies of Illinois and
Wisconsin). Were sent to McGill University to be trained in
theology, graduating in 1883.
 1884 Preached in Wisconsin and supported J.R. Vilatte's
ministry among the French-Canadians and the Belgians.
Refered him to French reformer Hyacinthe Loyson (right),
who like him was opposing the New Roman dogma of the