Charles Chiniquy

Charles Chiniquy

Charles P. Chiniquy (30 July 1809 – 16 January 1899) was a Canadian Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church and became a Presbyterian pastor. He is known for his writings and sermons against the Roman Catholic Church. In the period between 1885 and 1899 he was the focus of a great deal of discussion in the United States of America. During the 1880s his conspiracy theories included the claim to have exposed the Jesuits as the assassins of President Abraham Lincoln, and that, if unchecked, the Jesuits could eventually politically rule the United States.^[1]

Biography

Chiniquy was born in 1809 in the village of Kamouraska, Quebec. He lost his father at an early age and was adopted by his uncle. As a young man, Chiniquy studied to become a Catholic priest at the Petit Seminaire (Little Seminary) in Nicolet, Quebec. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1833. After his ordination, he served his Church in Quebec and later emigrated to Illinois. During the 1840s, he led a very successful campaign throughout Quebec against alcohol and drunkenness.

In 1855, he was sued by a prominent Catholic layman named Peter Spink in Kankakee, Illinois. After the fall court term, Spink applied for a change of venue to the court in Urbana. Abraham Lincoln was then hired by Chiniquy to defend him. The spring court action in Urbana was the highest profile libel suit in Lincoln’s career. ^[2] The case was ended in the fall court session by agreement. ^[3]

Charles Chiniquy clashed with the Bishop of Chicago, Anthony O'Regan, over the bishop’s treatment of Catholics in Chicago, particularly French Canadians. He declared that O’Regan was secretly backing Spink's suit against him. Chiniquy stated that in 1856 O’Regan threatened him with excommunication if he didn’t go to a new location where the bishop wanted him. Several months later the New York Times published a pastoral letter from Bishop O’Regan in which O’Regan stated that he had suspended Charles Chiniquy and since the priest had continued in his normal duties as a priest, the bishop excommunicated him by his letter. Chiniquy vigorously disputed that he had been excommunicated, saying publicly that the Bishop was mistaken. Chiniquy left the Church in 1858. ^[4] He claimed that the Catholic Church is pagan, that Roman Catholics worship the Virgin Mary, that its theology spoils the Gospel and that its theology is anti-Christian. He also claimed that the Vatican had planned to take over the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany and France.

Chiniquy claimed that he was falsely accused by his superiors (and that Abraham Lincoln had come to his rescue), that the American Civil War was a plot against the United States of America by the Vatican, and that the Vatican was behind the Confederate cause, the death of President Lincoln and that Lincoln's assassins were faithful Roman Catholics ultimately serving Pope Pius IX.

After leaving the Catholic Church, Chiniquy dedicated his life to trying to win his fellow French Canadians, as well as others, from Catholicism to the Protestant faith. He wrote a number of books and tracts pointing out the errors in the faith and practises of the Roman Catholic Church. His two most influential works are Fifty Years in The Church of Rome^[5] and The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional.^[6] These books raised concerns in the United States about the Catholic Church. According to one Canadian biographer, Charles Chiniquy is Canada’s best-selling author of all time. ^[7] These books were written at a time when Americans were suspicious of foreign influence, as typified by the Know-Nothing movement.

He died in Montreal on January 16, 1899.

To this day, some of Chiniquy's works are still promoted among Protestants and "Bible-Only" believers. One of his most best-known modern-day followers is Jack Chick, who created a comic-form adaptation of 50 Years In The Church of Rome called "The Big Betrayal"^[8] and who draws heavily on Chiniquy's claims in his own anti-Catholic tracts.

References

1. ^ Phelps, Eric Jon (2001). Vatican assassins: wounded in the house of my friends, the diabolical history of the Society of Jesus. Halycon Unified Services. ISBN 978-0970499929.  p. 56: "Charles Chiniquy, a French Canadian and “the Martin Luther of America,” who, although having been deceived into joining the Masonic Lodge after his conversion to Christ (believing Satan’s Masonic Craft was the enemy of Satan’s Jesuit Order), boldly exposed the Jesuits as the assassins of President Lincoln during the 1880s. He also warned, that if unchecked, the Jesuits would rule this country."
2. ^ Serup, Paul (2008). Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? An investigation of North America's most famous ex-priest's assertion that the Roman Catholic Church was behind the assassination of America's greatest President. ISBN 978-0-9811685-0-0. 
3. ^ Fenster, Julie M. (2007). The Case of Abraham Lincoln. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0230608092. 
4. ^ Serup, Paul (2008). Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? An investigation of North America's most famous ex-priest's assertion that the Roman Catholic Church was behind the assassination of America's greatest President. Salmova Press. ISBN 978-0-9811685-0-0. 
5. ^ Fifty Years in The Church of Rome
6. ^ The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional
7. ^ Lougheed, Richard (2009). The Controversial Conversion of Charles Chiniquy Texts and Studies in Protestant History and Thought in Quebec. Clements Academic. ISBN 978-1-894667-93-7. 
8. ^ The Big Betrayal

Further reading

• Richard Lougheed, “Le Luther de Canada: La conversion de Charles Chiniquy comme modèle évangélique,” La Revue Farel 3 (2008): 23-37.
• Richard Lougheed, The Controversial Conversion of Charles Chiniquy Texts and Studies in Protestant History and Thought in Quebec, Vol. 1, Toronto: Clements Academic, 2009, 366pp.

External links

• Chiniquy's personal archive
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Persondata
Name	Chiniquy, Charles
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	30 July 1809
Place of birth
Date of death	16 January 1899
Place of death

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Chiniquy"