Claims Against the Catholic Church

[L Verge]

In another thread on this forum (that I can't find right now), mention was made of Gen. Thomas Harris, a member of the military commission trying the Lincoln conspirators, who later wrote about his beliefs that the Catholic Church was behind the assassination. This brought back memories of reading books by others who claimed much the same thing. Emmett McLoughlin, Burke McCarty and Charles Chiniquy come immediately to mind.

In the case of Chiniquy, someone told me recently that his highly inflammatory book Fifty Years in the Church of Rome was just reprinted again this summer. It is amazing to me that there still exists great enough interest in this 19th-century work to demand another reprint.

I went online today to check it out and found a reference to a site, "Who Was Charles Chiniquy?" It's quite an interesting read about a man who trained for the Catholic priesthood and ended up a Presbyterian pastor. Chiniquy supposedly had a soft spot for Mr. Lincoln, who had defended him in a case against the church.

There is a section in the book dealing with the assassination, and it is very harsh on Mary and Anna Surratt, as well as John, of course. In one statement, Chiniquy says that, shortly after the assassination, Anna was heard to say that "the death of Abraham Lincoln is no more than the death of any n***** in the army." I would love to know who reported that, but my suspicions IF TRUE would have to point to Louis Weichmann.

In any case, Chiniquy comes down harshly on the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church. Of course, Maryland was a Catholic colony from the beginning and was heavily dominated by the Jesuits; therefore, Chiniquy had a good target to throw up for the rest of the world to speculate on - even though only three of the conspirators were Catholic -- the two Surratts and Dr. Mudd.

Anyhow, have a look at the site mentioned above to get a good idea of the rantings and ravings against the Catholics that were typical of 19th-century American thought. And, I am not a Catholic.