The Pope Did It?

[Paul Serup]

(01-06-2016 08:44 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Paul, in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome Chiniquy wrote that President Lincoln told him:

"But sooner or later, the light of common sense will make it clear to everyone that no liberty of conscience can be granted to men who are sworn to obey a pope, who pretends to have the right to put to death those who differ from him in religion.

You are not the first to warn me against the dangers of assassination. My ambassadors in Italy, France, and England, as well as Professor Morse, have many times warned me of the plots of murderers which they have detected in those different countries."

(Professor Morse is the Samuel F. B. Morse of telegraph fame)

I assume these warnings referenced by Chiniquy were in the form of letters. Are you able to provide the actual text of such letters to Lincoln? If not, do you know if they are still in existence?

I am not sure, I would think that the ambassadors would have communicated with Washington via telegram essentially. Very sensitive information like intelligence of a planned assassination would, I would think, ideally be delivered personally to the President or to others that would be concerned with his security. I did not search any of the U.S. state papers for this in the time I was in Washington as I was too busy searching for other things in the precious time I had during my research visits.

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(01-03-2016 10:05 AM)JMadonna Wrote:  It should be remembered that the civil war not only divided north and south over slavery but also religions. Jews and Catholics generally supported the North. Presbyterians divided their church into Old and New School factions in 1837 over roughly sectional lines. The Old School was the branch more accommodating of slavery.Baptists and Methodists divided their respective denominations into Northern and Southern branches between 1844 and 1845, they were unequivocal that the main object of contention was slaveholding.

The Pope refused to step in and stop Irish immigration whose Catholic manpower was essential to the North. It is not surprising that the Catholics and Jews would become scapegoats.

“Jews and Catholics generally supported the North”. I am not sure what the Jews did but Catholics and the Roman Catholic Church did not generally support the North, rather the opposite. Look at the sentiment expressed to a 1905 report in a Catholic publication, American Catholic Historical Researches, which declared: “My! What ‘a great man’ Lincoln is to Catholics nowadays. Forty-odd years ago few Catholics condemned the ‘evils and miseries of slavery,’ and any who did would have fared better to have abandoned their faith. Few thought kindly of Lincoln or that he was a ‘providential’ instrument to save the Union.” This also agrees with what writer Orestes Brownson, considered by some to be Catholicism’s greatest American intellectual, declared during the Civil War: “no religious body in the country stands so generally committed to slavery and the rebellion, or as a body have shown so little sympathy with the effort of the government to save the unity and life of the nation, as the Catholics.” This is to say nothing of the Vatican recognition of the Confederacy or the 1863 New York City Draft Riots, the worst rioting in American history that featured Irish Catholics very prominently.
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You also stated: “The Pope refused to step in and stop Irish immigration whose Catholic manpower was essential to the North. It is not surprising that the Catholics and Jews would become scapegoats.” I am not sure what you meant by that.
Militarily, according to the U.S. Pension Department, as reported by U.S. Army General Thomas M. Harris, the Irish made up only 6.8 percent of the number of enlisted men in the Union army, (General Harris was a member of the military commission that tried the eight conspirators in the summer of 1865). When it is considered that 72 percent of the Irish are recorded as having deserted, as opposed to five percent for native born Americans, then the percentage of Irish men that swerved in the Union army is even lower. In his book, American Catholic: the saints and sinners who built America’s most powerful church, Catholic writer Charles R. Morris stated, ”The truth is that Irish Catholic were the most underrepresented of all socioethnic groups in the Union army, with German Catholics next”.

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(01-06-2016 02:28 PM)L Verge Wrote:  QUOTE FROM ABOVE: Was the assassin of Abraham Lincoln a Roman Catholic? As I state in my book:

In Fifty Years, Charles Chiniquy alleged that the actor was a “Protestant pervert to Romanism“. In her 1982 article in the Lincoln Herald, “Insights on John Wilkes Booth from His Sister Asia‘s Correspondence“, historian Constance Head stated that strong evidence pointed to the fact that Booth indeed was a Catholic. Booth’s sister, Asia Booth Clarke, wrote a memoir of her brother which was published after her death. College history professor, Terry Alford, a leading authority on the life of John Wilkes Booth, attested to how valuable a witness Booth Clarke is regarding her brother’s life. He stated, “Asia Booth Clarke‘s memoir of her brother John Wilkes Booth has been recognized as the single most important document available for understanding the personality of the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln“, adding that “no outsider could give such insights into the turbulent Booth‘s childhood or share such unique personal knowledge of the gifted actor“. Alford edited a recent edition of the memoir.
Ms. Head agreed, declaring that “Asia should be accurate in the matter of her brother’s religious preference”. Head quoted from a letter the actor’s sister had written to a friend regarding the assassination and the conspirators. Booth Clarke wrote, “I was shocked and grieved to see the names of Michael O’Laughlin and Samuel Arnold [among the conspirators.] I am still more surprised to learn that all engaged in the plot are Roman Catholics. Wilkes was of the faith professedly and I was glad that he had fixed his faith on one religion”

Head also stated:

Although the Booth family was traditionally Episcopalian, Asia personally was very much inclined toward Catholicism as the result of her schooling at the Carmelite convent in Baltimore. Eventually she became a Catholic herself, and although the date of her conversion is unknown, it is a matter which she and Wilkes may have discussed. It is even conceivable that it was Asia who converted him. On the other hand, perhaps as an actor, he was simply attracted by the dramatic beauty of the Mass. He seems moreover to have entertained a low opinion of certain protestant clergymen who preached the sinfulness of the stage, and thus may have been drawn toward Catholicism as a faith more congenial to his vocation. In any case, it seems certain that Booth did not publicize his conversion during his lifetime. And while there is no reasonable cause to connect Booth’s religious preference and his “mad act”, the few who knew of his conversion must have decided after the assassination that for the good of the church, it was best never to mention it. Thus the secret remained so well guarded that even the most rabidly anti-Catholic writers who tried to depict the assassination of Lincoln as a Jesuit or Papist plot were puzzled by the seemingly accurate information that John Wilkes Booth was an Episcopalian.

Other evidence presented at the 1865 Trial of the Conspirators point towards Booth’s Catholicism as well. END QUOTE

Constance Head was a personal friend of both Betty Ownsbey and me as well as a volunteer docent at Surratt House for several years, making the trek from Western Carolina University to Maryland every chance she could get. She died quickly at the hands of cancer at an early age, and her research materials went to both Terry Alford and Jeannine Clarke Dodels.

Constance was of the Jewish faith, and the question of Booth's religious choices was interesting to her. We know that his father embraced at least bits and pieces from most sects (Christian and non-Christian), and that Mrs. Booth raised her children in the Episcopal faith (when they had a chance to go to church). When their grandfather Booth moved in, I would suspect that he added another stake in the Episcopal (Church of England) worship.

My question has always been, "When did JWB have the time to convert to Catholicism and where are the records?" Such a conversion was not a simple matter; one did not just walk into a rectory one day and ask to be converted. I have been a lifelong Episcopalian, and I married a Catholic who converted to my faith. This was years before the various Ecumenical Councils took away much of the majestic liturgy in both churches. I sat through weeks and hours of cathechism to be confirmed in my faith at age twelve, and my husband did likewise and went through the ceremony of confirmation also. When did Booth stay in one place long enough to do the same? Where are church records to prove his conversion?

Also, we believe that Booth started out supporting the Nativist political party, otherwise known as the Know Nothings. That party was anti-Catholic. Did he also drop his political persuasions to join the Catholic faith?

Do we have records from any church that he even visited? Did any of his many friends mention attending any church with him? What denomination was Lucy Lambert Hale? That would definitely have been a topic for conversation if they indeed intended to marry. There is mention of a religious medal that he wore and also that he pleased the Surratts by supporting one of their church's bazaars. Could he have "earned" the medal by contributing money to that bazaar? Or, was it a medal distributed by the Episcopalians for good deeds or good luck?

There are a lot of simple questions that need answers before anyone can flat out state that John Wilkes Booth converted to Catholicism.

I wondered a bit as to how to respond. I cite a paper published in a historical journal, Constance Head’s in the Lincoln Herald, and you cite,…what, or have I missed something on the subject? I wonder if you have written anything on John Wilkes Booth, particularly concerning his religious beliefs.
You knew Constance Head and you knew that she had written on Booth’s religion. And you disagreed with her, is that correct? Her paper was published in 1982 so that is 33 plus years ago, more than three decades to put something on paper and publish regarding any problems with what she penned. I mentioned that Booth’s sister, Asia Booth Clarke, wrote a memoir of her brother which was published after her death. History professor, Terry Alford, a leading authority on the life of John Wilkes Booth, attested to how valuable a witness Booth Clarke is regarding her brother’s life, stating, “Asia Booth Clarke‘s memoir of her brother John Wilkes Booth has been recognized as the single most important document available for understanding the personality of the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln“, and that “no outsider could give such insights into the turbulent Booth‘s childhood or share such unique personal knowledge of the gifted actor“. Do you disagree with him and if so, why do you disagree with him?
You state that your “question has always been, ‘When did JWB have the time to convert to Catholicism and where are the records?’". Wouldn’t that have been a question to have asked the person you declare you knew, Constance Head? Perhaps you didn’t get the chance with Ms. Head’s unfortunate early death though. Ms. Head was in significant part just delivering the information regarding what Booth’s sister said, that he was Roman Catholic though. The leading authority on Booth says that his sister’s memoir on him has been recognized as the single most important document available for understanding his personality and that memoir says he was a Roman Catholic. How do you deal with that?
You wonder whether Booth would have had the time to convert. Where there is a will, there is a way though. Can you show he couldn’t have had the time to convert, however long it took? In the fall of 1864, he had the time to go to the neighbourhood of Samuel Mudd twice, in November and December, looking ostensibly for land and / or horses, not roles, and though I have not researched his acting career, I recall reading from one or two sources that in the latter part of his life, his acting jobs had started to diminish, which would have given him more spare time.
You asked, “Where are church records to prove his conversion?” Ms. Head answered that, did she not, stating “the few who knew of his conversion must have decided after the assassination that for the good of the church, it was best never to mention it.”? So possible church records were not mentioned and since they weren’t to be mentioned, couldn’t they have then just disappeared, by accident on purpose?
If it is believed that Booth started out in support of a group that was opposed to the Roman Catholic Church then it would be reasonable to assume that he dropped that support when he became a Roman Catholic.
Regarding other proof of Booth’s Catholicism, I also reported in my volume that “Evidence given at the trial of John Surratt showed that at his death, Booth had a small Catholic medal on his person. As well, on at least two occasions, court testimony showed him attending Roman Catholic Church services. There reportedly is also evidence that he made a donation to St. Aloysius Catholic church in Washington.”