Charles Chiniquy

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Photograph of Charles Chiniquy

Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy (30 July 1809 – 16 January 1899) was a Canadian

Protestant Christianity, becoming a Presbyterian Evangelical minister.[1] He rode the lecture circuit in the United States denouncing the Catholic Church.[1][2][3] His themes were that Catholicism was Pagan, that Catholics worshipped the Virgin Mary, and that its theology was anti-Christian.[4]

Chiniquy founded the

village located in Kankakee County, Illinois in 1851.[5] Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, an extensive autobiographical account of his life and thoughts as a priest in the Catholic Church, was written by Chiniquy and published in 1886.[4] He warned of plots by the Vatican to take control of the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and France, and suggested that the Vatican was behind the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.[6]

Biography

Chiniquy was born in 1809 to a

drunkenness.[1]

Later he immigrated to

16th President of the United States, to defend him. The spring court action in Urbana was the highest profile libel suit in Lincoln's career.[7] The case was ended in the fall court session by agreement.[8]

Chiniquy clashed with the Bishop of Chicago,

Protestant Christianity, becoming a Presbyterian Evangelical minister in 1860.[1]

He asserted that Catholicism was Pagan, that Catholics worshipped the Virgin Mary, and that its theology was anti-Christian.[9] He warned of plots by the Vatican to take control of the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and France. This was at a time of high immigration rates from those countries, in response to social and political upheaval (the Great Famine in Ireland and revolutions in 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, and the assassination of U.S. President Lincoln, and that Lincoln's assassins were faithful Catholics ultimately serving Pope Pius IX.

After leaving the Catholic Church, Chiniquy dedicated his life to

Protestant Christianity. He wrote a number of books and tracts expressing his criticism and views on the alleged errors in the faith and practices of the Catholic Church.[4] His two most influential literary works are the autobiography Fifty Years in The Church of Rome[10] and the polemical treatise The Priest, The Woman, and The Confessional.[11] These books raised concerns in the United States about the influence of the Catholic Church.[4] According to one Canadian biographer, Chiniquy is Canada's best-selling author of all time.[12] He joined the Orange Order and said of it: "I always found them staunch and true. I consider it a great honour to be an Orangeman. Every time I go on my knees I pray that God may bless them and make them as numerous and bright as the stars of the heaven above."[13] When Chiniquy visited Hobart in 1879, a riot occurred when hundreds of Catholic opponents forced their way into the lecture hall. The meeting was abandoned and more than five hundred law enforcement personnel were employed for the next meeting, with thousands of protestors outside the building.[14]

Chiniquy died in

Montreal, Quebec
, Canada on January 16, 1899.

To this day, some of Chiniquy's works are still promoted among Protestant Christians and

Chick tracts";[15] he also published a comic-form adaptation of Chiniquy's autobiography Fifty Years in The Church of Rome, titled "The Big Betrayal".[16] Chick strongly relied on Chiniquy's claims and books for writing his own anti-Catholic
tracts.

St. Anne Colony

Chiniquy, then a Catholic priest, left Canada in the wake of a series of scandals. He was offered a fresh start by

excommunicated on 3 September 1856.[1] About two years later, on 3 August 1858, O'Regan's successor, Bishop James Duggan, formally and publicly reconfirmed Chiniquy's excommunication in St. Anne.[17]

Chiniquy had definitively left the Catholic Church in 1858,

Protestant Christianity in 1860.[1] Along with many followers, he joined the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA). He was admitted as a Presbyterian minister on 1 February 1860.[18] Within two years, Chiniquy, in trouble with the Presbytery of Chicago over his administration of charity funds and a college, according to Elizabeth Ann Kerr McDougall in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, sought a new connection in order to avoid an expensive presbytery trial.[5] The college is identified in the Seventh Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Illinois as Saviour's College, founded in 1860; it is listed neither in Universities and Colleges nor Academies and Seminaries of various grades and courses, but in the Theological Seminaries and Church Schools class of institutions. The report states it "is designed to supply the educational wants of the colony brought by Father Chiniquy from Canada to this State, and to prepare men who will be fitted to preach the gospel in the regions whence he came." The report also quotes a description of the school, attributed to correspondence from a Montreal newspaper, unnamed in the report, that people, also unnamed in the report, "examined the day school or college, as the people there delight to call it" and wrote that it had five classes, ranging from students learning the alphabet to students learning the "intricacies of French and English grammar, composition, and the other studies of the school, besides the elements of Algebra, Latin, and Greek."[19]

Alexander F. Kemp was chairman of the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church committee that examined Chiniquy's application for admission as a minister.

Old School (PCUSA), and to request recognition from the Canada Presbyterian Church.[20] The Presbytery of Chicago charged Chiniquy with misrepresenting that a real college was in operation in St. Anne.[20]: 8–9  After conducting an inquiry, Kemp suggested that Chiniquy and his congregation be admitted into the Canada Presbyterian Church.[18]

In St. Anne, a religious society was incorporated in the state that was named the "Christian Catholic Church at St. Anne". It was classified as a Protestant religious association.[21] Two years later, when it joined the PCUSA in 1860, it took the name of "First Presbyterian Church of St. Anne".[22]

See also

Archives

There is a Charles Chiniquy fonds at Library and Archives Canada.[23] The archival reference number is R7160.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferland, Catherine (1 February 2020). "Charles Chiniquy, apôtre spectaculaire de l'abstinence à l'alcool". Aujourd'hui l'histoire (in French). Montreal: Ici Radio-Canada Première. Archived from the original on 17 October 2022. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  2. ISSN 0022-4227
    .
  3. ^ "Newly acquired artifacts recall a revered and reviled priest". www.historymuseum.ca. Gatineau: Canadian Museum of History. 13 June 2016. Archived from the original on 23 October 2022. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-3-73404-393-2
    .
  5. ^
    OCLC 463897210. Archived
    from the original on 1 October 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  6. ^ George, Joseph. “The Lincoln Writings of Charles P. T. Chiniquy,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, vol. 69, no. 1, 1976, pp. 17–25. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40191689.
  7. ^
    ISBN 9780981168500
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0-230-60809-2
    .
  9. ^ Chiniquy, Charles (1886). Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. Fleming H. Revell. pp. 118–128.
  10. OCLC 343196. Archived
    from the original on 2 June 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  11. ^ The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional[permanent dead link]
  12. ISBN 978-1-894667-93-7
    .
  13. ^ Beyond the Banners: The Story of the Orange Order, pg. 93
  14. Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies
    . Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  15. OCLC 458759012
    .
  16. OCLC 13016191. Archived
    from the original on 6 April 2013. Retrieved 26 February 2022.
  17. ^ Smith, Sydney F. Rev. S.J., "Pastor Chiniquy...", Catholic Truth Society, London, 1908 p
  18. ^
    OCLC 463897210. Archived
    from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2013.
  19. ^ "Seventh Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Illinois. 1867–1868". Reports made to the General Assembly of Illinois, at its twenty-sixth session, convened 4 January 1869. Vol. 2. Springfield: Illinois Journal Printing Office. 1869. pp. vi–vii, 212–214, 311–312.
  20. ^
    OCLC 63010403. Archived
    from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2013. Reprinted from the Canada Observer.
  21. ^ Chiniquy v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 41 Ill, 148 (1866) ("It was stipulated on the trial of the issues, that there was at St. Anne, an incorporation of a religious society, by the name of the Christian Catholic Church at St. Anne, incorporated under the general law of this State.").
  22. ^ Caroline B. Brettell, "From Catholics to Presbyterians: French-Canadian Immigrants to Central Illinois," American Presbyterians 63.3 (Fall 1985): 285-298.
  23. ^ "Fonds Charles Chiniquy description at Library and Archives Canada". 25 November 2016. Retrieved November 10, 2022.

Bibliography

External links
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