If you live in the Washington area, you have been constantly hearing announcements about the Papal visit next week and warnings to avoid traffic jams at all costs. Pope Francis arrives at Joint Base Andrews this coming Tuesday for a two-day visit in our capital city.

A staff member just handed me a lengthy article related to the Pontiff's visit that was carried in the September 9 edition of the Washington Times. Since it is a history lesson related to the Lincoln assassination, I'm going to share it with you (don't kill the messenger) because I bet it will stir a bit of debate:

"In August 1861, Abraham Lincoln met in the White House with Charles Chiniquy, a former Roman Catholic priest and confidant whom Lincoln (as a lawyer) had victoriously defended years earlier in litigation. Chiniquy warned of an assassination plot. Lincoln replied, 'The nations who read the Bible, fight bravely on the battle-fields, but they do not assassinate their enemies. The Pope and the Jesuits, with their infernal Inquisition, as the only organized power in the world which have recourse to the dagger of the assassin to murder those who they cannot convince with their arguments or conquer with the sword...I feel more and more, every day, that it is not against the Americans of the South, alone, I am fighting, it is more against the Pope of Rome...that we have to defend ourselves...This civil war seems to be nothing but a political affair to those who do not see, as I do, the secret springs of that terrible drama. But it is more of a relgious than a civil war...To keep her ascendance in the North as she does in the South, Rome is doing here what she has done in Mexico, and in all the South American Republics; she is paralyzing, by a civil war, the arms of the soldiers of Liberty. She divides our nation, in order to weaken, subdue, and rule it.'

"In a subsequent meeting, Lincoln added, 'I conceal what I know, on that subject, from the knowledge of the nation; for if the people knew the whole truth, this war would turn into a religious war, and it would, at once, take a tenfold more savage and bloody character; it would become merciless as all religious wars are.'

"Brigadier General Thomas Harris served on the military commission that investigated (and thus examined all witnesses and evidence related to) Lincoln's assassination. Perhaps for reasons mirroring the thoughts of Lincoln, Harris waited until after Chiniquy's insights became public in the 1886 best-selling book, 50 Years in the Church of Rome, before in 1897 expressing his own, full understanding of events, in Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

"In 1867, the U.S. Congress banned the funding of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and did not formally resume until 117 years later, 1984."

Reference that last paragraph, I remember asking years ago if the diplomatic relations were banned as a result of the harboring of John Surratt, Jr. No one ever gave me an answer.

More questions: Did Lincoln really make those charges against the Catholic Church, or did Chiniquy compose the lines for his diatribe against the church? If Lincoln actually expressed a similar thought, does that mean that he was among the many anti-Catholic bigots in the U.S. (and I'm not Catholic)? I just don't see Lincoln throwing the religious angle into the war, but I'm not an expert on Lincoln.

In The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies Dr. William Hanchett wrote:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Of course, there never has been any evidence of the Catholic Church’s complicity in the assassination, and none that Lincoln himself feared Catholicism. Professor Joseph George, Jr., has shown that in all probability Chiniquy never talked to Lincoln and the White House, and it is certain that there were no theological discussions. The anti-Catholic sentiments Chiniquy put in Lincoln’s mouth were only a propagandist trick. To the editor of the Catholic magazine, Columbia, Robert Todd Lincoln wrote that he knew of no anti-catholic statement or writing of his father and reminded the editor that through the years, his father’s name had been ‘a peg on which to hang many things.’”

There is an online article by Professor George here:

http://www.reocities.com/chiniquy/lincoln_writings.html

Thanks for the back-up, Roger. I have been told that this full page "sermon" is being repeated in subsequent issues of the Times. I did not include all of the verbiage, but there is an appeal to Pope Francis to "accept historical and papal responsibility for Lincoln's assassination." (Also a political "comment" on the Church's power.) The page also conveniently recommends reprints of the Harris book as well as one entitled "Who Killed Abraham Lincoln?" purporting to be an investigation of the Roman Catholic Church's role in the assassination.

Speaking of the Harris reprint, that was an issue for me during the 150th ceremonies at Petersen House in April because the cameras kept panning back to Ford's Theatre and there was a huge, mounted banner in the doorway hawking the reprint of Rome's Responsibility... Someone was getting free advertising at a most inappropriate time and for a spurious publication (despite its origins). I have not been on this site (and probably won't view it), but this current ad recommends visiting http://www.OnlyTheGospel.com

(09-18-2015 03:04 PM)L Verge Wrote:  "In 1867, the U.S. Congress banned the funding of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and did not formally resume until 117 years later, 1984."

Reference that last paragraph, I remember asking years ago if the diplomatic relations were banned as a result of the harboring of John Surratt, Jr. No one ever gave me an answer.

Considering that the Papal States were actually willing and tried to assist the U.S. in capturing and turning over John Surratt during a time when there was no extradition treaty between the two nations, I have a hard time believing that the John Surratt incident soured the relationship. It was quite surprising that the Papal States were willing to help and one of our diplomats wrote later that a letter of appreciation should be written by the President for their help.

We received far more assistance from the Papal States in retrieving John Surratt than we did from the Kingdom of Italy or Malta. Both those "countries" refused to help capture him even when it was known he was there. The boat John Surratt took to Alexandria, Egypt stopped in Malta to take on supplies and the authorities there refused to arrest or extradite John Surratt. Luckily for us, the authorities in Egypt sort of just allowed the U.S. diplomats there to arrest John Surratt on their own without interference.

(09-18-2015 03:46 PM)Dave Taylor Wrote:  

(09-18-2015 03:04 PM)L Verge Wrote:  "In 1867, the U.S. Congress banned the funding of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, and did not formally resume until 117 years later, 1984."

Reference that last paragraph, I remember asking years ago if the diplomatic relations were banned as a result of the harboring of John Surratt, Jr. No one ever gave me an answer.

Considering that the Papal States were actually willing and tried to assist the U.S. in capturing and turning over John Surratt during a time when there was no extradition treaty between the two nations, I have a hard time believing that the John Surratt incident soured the relationship. It was quite surprising that the Papal States were willing to help and one of our diplomats wrote later that a letter of appreciation should be written by the President for their help.

We received far more assistance from the Papal States in retrieving John Surratt than we did from the Kingdom of Italy or Malta. Both those "countries" refused to help capture him even when it was known he was there. The boat John Surratt took to Alexandria, Egypt stopped in Malta to take on supplies and the authorities there refused to arrest or extradite John Surratt. Luckily for us, the authorities in Egypt sort of just allowed the U.S. diplomats there to arrest John Surratt on their own without interference.

Mike Kauffman used to say that the Vatican cooperated because they were bribed by the U.S. with an offer of naval vessels to evacuate the Pope and staff in case the tide of the civil wars going on in Italy at the time turned against Pius IX. I don't know what the source was for that.

I believe that Malta had a side issue in that either the ship or the territory was under quarantine and no one could get on the ship to make an arrest. Again, I think I'm quoting Mike.

Also recall that before fleeing Canada for England, John Surratt was harbored in a couple different Catholic monasteries or seminaries in the Quebec & Montreal areas. This is mentioned in detail in "They have Killed Papa Dead", Anthony Pitch, 2008, Chapter 29. One can only surmise if John Surratt's Catholic connections in Washington City were complicit in this concealment and escape.

Kauffman probably used Leo Francis Stock (ed.), US Ministers to the Papal States : Instructions and Dispatches, 1848-1868 (Washington: Catholic University Press, 1932).

(09-18-2015 03:43 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Thanks for the back-up, Roger. I have been told that this full page "sermon" is being repeated in subsequent issues of the Times. I did not include all of the verbiage, but there is an appeal to Pope Francis to "accept historical and papal responsibility for Lincoln's assassination." (Also a political "comment" on the Church's power.) The page also conveniently recommends reprints of the Harris book as well as one entitled "Who Killed Abraham Lincoln?" purporting to be an investigation of the Roman Catholic Church's role in the assassination.

Speaking of the Harris reprint, that was an issue for me during the 150th ceremonies at Petersen House in April because the cameras kept panning back to Ford's Theatre and there was a huge, mounted banner in the doorway hawking the reprint of Rome's Responsibility... Someone was getting free advertising at a most inappropriate time and for a spurious publication (despite its origins). I have not been on this site (and probably won't view it), but this current ad recommends visiting http://www.OnlyTheGospel.com

Pardon the tardiness of this post but a few things delayed it. Ms. Laurie Verge reported on a book entitled, Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? which was “purporting to be an investigation of the Roman Catholic Church's role in the assassination.” I am the author of the book and I would assert that it is indeed an investigation of the Roman Catholic Church's role in the assassination. The original research I did for my book, accomplished over decades, brought me to libraries, archives, museums, cemeteries, and collections from Minnesota to New York City. It has been reviewed favourable by Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, their review stating that my book is “well documented with footnotes” and it is sold in the museum bookstore. It is held in Ford’s Theatre N. H. S. research library and other such libraries including, incidentally, the Surratt House and Museum research library, where I understand Ms. Verge was the director for years.

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(09-18-2015 03:22 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  In The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies Dr. William Hanchett wrote:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Of course, there never has been any evidence of the Catholic Church’s complicity in the assassination, and none that Lincoln himself feared Catholicism. Professor Joseph George, Jr., has shown that in all probability Chiniquy never talked to Lincoln and the White House, and it is certain that there were no theological discussions. The anti-Catholic sentiments Chiniquy put in Lincoln’s mouth were only a propagandist trick. To the editor of the Catholic magazine, Columbia, Robert Todd Lincoln wrote that he knew of no anti-catholic statement or writing of his father and reminded the editor that through the years, his father’s name had been ‘a peg on which to hang many things.’”

There is an online article by Professor George here:

http://www.reocities.com/chiniquy/lincoln_writings.html

RJNorton declares that Dr. William Hanchett wrote the above.
Pardon the tardiness of this post. There is a problem with quoting William Hanchett and Joseph George and the problem is that they did not get it right, they did not refute Charles Chiniquy. Mr. Hanchett followed George, which is a very bad idea and actually Hanchett wasn’t competent enough to do that correctly.
I researched Chiniquy’s life and allegations over a period of more than twenty years and my conclusions were published in my book, Who Killed Abraham Lincoln?, As I stated in my volume,
“Since Joseph George Jr.’s, paper, ‘The Lincoln Writings of Charles P. T. Chiniquy’, was published in the February, 1976 issue of the Journal of the Illinois Historical Society, most, if not all, of those commenting negatively on Chiniquy have used his work as the basis for dismissing the ex-priest’s allegations against the Catholic Church.”
Joseph George Jr., however, erred in his dismissal of the celebrated clergyman, Charles Chiniquy. At the time his paper was published, George was chair of the history department of Villanova University, a Catholic institution.
George’s paper essentially stopped me in my tracks when I first read it some twenty years ago. One of the personnel of the Illinois State Historical Library in Springfield kindly gave me a copy of this issue of the Journal of the Illinois Historical Society, gratis, when I was there doing research on Charles Chiniquy and I then read what George said about him. The paper was written in such a final, conclusive manner that it made me think, at the time, that Chiniquy must have been wrong. I put away my work on the clergyman and his allegations for at least a year, I recall.
Having put time into my research and having traveled to places like Illinois from my home in Canada to do so however, I picked up the paper again, many months later, to see exactly where Chiniquy had gone wrong. I then discovered how George had misquoted him and all the errors of fact and reason the history professor had made.
To begin, one would think that Professor George would have put his best foot forward, if you will, at the start of his paper. He begins however, by introducing two men who have essentially nothing to say about Lincoln’s assassination, his personal secretaries: John Nicolay and John Hay. Yes the 16th President’s two secretaries may have known him, perhaps very well, but they knew no more about the assassination than any well read person in Washington. Neither Nicolay or Hay had any unique information on the assassination, neither one testified at the trial of the conspirators or the trial of John Surratt. Would anyone really question, for example, the secretaries of John F. Kennedy as to who might have been behind his murder? Why did Professor George introduce these two men who had no unique information about Lincoln’s murder? Perhaps he hoped that readers would just accept that the secretaries probably knew much about his life and not think any deeper and ask what they really had to say about his death.
After that underwhelming opening, George reviews Chiniquy’s life and allegations and how biographers have dealt with him with the same dubious level of competence and reason.
He then discusses how Chiniquy made Lincoln’s acquaintance and this is where he believes he can show the clergyman to be wrong. He states on page 22 of this issue of the Journal of the Illinois Historical Society, “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”
Professor George is concerned about the evidence, he is concerned about the facts. That is very good, historians should be very concerned about these things. George declares that the facts of the trial bear little resemblance to what Chiniquy said in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.
If Professor George is going to take anyone to task, he has to get it right, it behoves him, it is incumbent that he gets the facts correct. In his effort to take Chiniquy to task, he does not do so I suggest. In fact, I estimate there is many more mistakes of fact in the eight pages of his paper than in the 800 plus pages of Chiniquy’s autobiography, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.
In order to show Chiniquy is not be trusted, on the point of how Lincoln helped him and the legal struggle he had, Professor George had to accurately give the facts of the trial, as well as the account presented in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. If he does not do so, he is either misstating the facts of the case, or misquoting Chiniquy, and doing either of these things would bring his competence, his credibility, into question, as opposed to Chiniquy’s.
To show Chiniquy was not to be trusted, for example, George gives an error that he charges the clergyman with. On page 23 of his paper he states, “The official charge brought by Spink was slander, not immorality.” This, George asserts, is one of the mistakes Chiniquy made. Chiniquy, George states, declared that the official charge was immorality, while it really was slander, so Chiniquy is wrong on this point. It is Professor George who errs here, by the way, not Chiniquy, but as I will show, this was not out of the ordinary for George. As I said, in order to debunk Chiniquy, Professor George has to accurately give the facts of the trial and also accurately recount what Chiniquy stated in Fifty Years in the Church of Rome and he fails fairly spectacularly to do so.
I will give a sentence in his paper as an example. There actually are a number of errors contained in this one sentence. On page 22, George stated, “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.” Just before this, Professor George declared, “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 the court found him innocent but that Spink obtained a change of venue. Chiniquy was then retried, he said, at Urbana.”
George’s source was Charles Chiniquy’s autobiography, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, as the paper clearly states. It can be hard sometimes to keep track of all of the mistakes of Professor George but he makes possibly as many as four mistakes in the sentence that came next, which I had mentioned in the previous paragraph: “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.” A straight forward reading of what George says would mean that Lincoln was hired after at least one court action in Urbana, which would meant he was hired in 1856. Fifty Years however reported that Lincoln was hired in 1855, via the telegraph, after Chiniquy heard of the change of venue. This is the first mistake.
Secondly, Fifty Years did not state that Lincoln was influential in producing this key witness from Chicago. The witness in question was Philomene Moffat and it was another man, Narcisse Terrien, who independently contacted her and asked her to go to Urbana to testify. Lincoln was not aware of her existence until she showed up at his hotel door. Also, according to Chiniquy, she didn’t publicly expose anyone as a perjurer, as she didn’t end up being a witness, because Spink withdrew his charges and no more testimony was given. It appears that only Abraham Lincoln, Charles Chiniquy and his other lawyers, along with those on Spink’s side of the suit, that knew of the perjury before the case ended. Finally, if she had testified, she would have exposed the priest Lebel as a perjurer, not Spink. The account of Spink v. Chiniquy in Fifty Years, 3rd edition, are on pages, 566, 623 – 628, 653 – 667.
That is fairly impressive ineptitude. George made a number of such errors and it could be asked: why did he do so? Was it simple incompetence? Did he have reading comprehension difficulties? He seemed to suffer from blindness but I would suggest it might be a blindness caused by his anger at Chiniquy for criticizing his religion. Regardless of the reason however, as I stated in my book, “whatever George accomplished, it definitely wasn’t a refutation of Charles Chiniquy’s allegations.”
Regarding George’s statement that, “The official charge brought by Spink was slander, not immorality”, Chiniquy did not specify what charges Spink brought against him until the last court action in October, 1856. As well, the clergyman’s autobiography indicates that the charge of personal immorality at the last court action was a departure from what he had been previously accused of.
My book contains a more complete review of Joseph George’s criticism of Charles Chiniquy, as well as an examination of the criticism of four other, including three academics and a Jesuit priest.
As my work has been brought up on this site and provided that people are generally indentified and willing to engage in a civilized discourse, I am willing to engage in the discussion as much as time will allow.

Hi Paul and welcome to the forum. Could you possibly explain why President Lincoln's meetings (as reported by Chiniquy) with Charles Chiniquy are not cited in any other source other than Chiniquy himself? I consider Lincoln Day By Day - A Chronology 1809 - 1865 to be the most authoritative source of Lincoln's everyday activities, and there is no mention of Chiniquy ever meeting Lincoln in the White House.

For example, Chiniquy writes that, "The next day, he (Lincoln) took me with him to visit the 30,000 wounded soldiers picked up on the battlefields of the seven days' battle of the Wilderness, and the thirty days battle around Richmond..." Can you name any other sources besides Chiniquy himself that verify this? Thanks.

I was amused at that Washington Times article which really was a hyperbolic religious advertisement. And with that, it completes the final pieces of the Lincoln Assassination puzzle for me. I think it was a combination of the Pope, the Jews, the Rothschilds, the Freemasons, the Lost Dauphin, and the Knights of the Golden Circle who both ordered the South to secede and then ordered Booth to finish it. I may be leaving out the Martians, and the Robinson family from Alpha Centauri, and that sinister looking robot.

Welcome to the forum, Mr. Serup. I am still the director of Surratt House Museum, and your book is in our research library because I placed it there. We do try to present various sides of information related to the Lincoln assassination.

For those interested, here is the Amazon description for Paul Serup's book "Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? (But support the Surratt House and buy it from them)

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Abraham...am+lincoln

Charles Chiniquy's book "50 Years in the Church at Rome the Conversion of a Priest" is also available from Amazon.
The Internet Archive site has the same book and a few others by Charles Chiniquy, as well as a few others by different authors on similar topics.
https://archive.org/details/texts?and[]=charles chiniquy (you have to enter Charles Chiniquy in the search box)

Paul, are you asserting the Roman Catholic Church was involved in Lincoln's assassination?

(10-28-2015 04:07 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Hi Paul and welcome to the forum. Could you possibly explain why President Lincoln's meetings (as reported by Chiniquy) with Charles Chiniquy are not cited in any other source other than Chiniquy himself? I consider Lincoln Day By Day - A Chronology 1809 - 1865 to be the most authoritative source of Lincoln's everyday activities, and there is no mention of Chiniquy ever meeting Lincoln in the White House.

For example, Chiniquy writes that, "The next day, he (Lincoln) took me with him to visit the 30,000 wounded soldiers picked up on the battlefields of the seven days' battle of the Wilderness, and the thirty days battle around Richmond..." Can you name any other sources besides Chiniquy himself that verify this? Thanks.

Thank you for the pleasant welcome. Chiniquy is mentioned in Lincoln Day By Day - A Chronology 1809 – 1865, albeit briefly in 1856. I am not sure how authoritative Lincoln Day By Day is. Joseph George Jr. was considered an authority on Charles Chiniquy by such people as Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Mark Neely Jr., for instance, and I would assert that George is not an authority on Chiniquy. I did have a quick look at Lincoln Day By Day and some of the entries are pretty bare bones. For example, the entry for August 26, 1864 reads: Cabinet meets. Welles, Diary. Also, the one for August 13, 1864 reads: Gen. Robert Anderson is dinner guest. CW, VIII, 550. The entry for March 19, 1865 is: President approves Gen. Pope's plan of action for Missouri. Ibid., 365-66. I believe it is fairly logical to assume that Lincoln did more on these days than what Lincoln Day By Day reports he did, therefore because something is not mentioned in this source does not mean it did not happen. I see nothing in the June 10th, 1864 entry that would prevent Lincoln from visiting soldiers, he had visited such veterans before.

Regarding the three visits that Charles Chiniquy reported he had with President Lincoln, on August 12, 1864, the Chicago Tribune printed a letter from Chiniquy detailing a visit he had with Lincoln earlier that year. This is a report on his June 8 to June 10 visit with the 16th President. The Tribune, a significant paper of Chicago, the main city of Illinois, Lincoln’s state, put the headlines over the letter, “Letter from Father Chiniquy”, and “His Interview with President Lincoln”. The Tribune reported on or published letters by Chiniquy about a hundred times. When Chiniquy turned 80, in 1889, the Tribune put the news of the large celebration of this personal milestone on its front page. The Tribune, I suggest, had no doubts that Charles Chiniquy had indeed gone to Washington and met with the President, as the editorial staff knew him well, as their reporting on him shows. Chiniquy’s treatment by distinguished contemporaries like the Tribune, like the New York Times, further attests to the fact he was a well known, celebrated clergyman whose statements were not doubted by these distinguished contemporaries.
Regarding visiting wounded soldiers, Chiniquy, in the 1864 letter, spoke of visiting thousands of these men in hospital in Washington, whom he called heroes, although he does not specify that he did so with President Lincoln. This correspondence, by the way, is fascinating reading and details the great admiration Chiniquy had for Lincoln. In the letter, published when Lincoln was in office, Chiniquy stated, “Like the few giants whom the hands of God have placed at long distance from each other, on the top of the high mountains of humanity, Abraham Lincoln will grow greater to the eyes of the generations which will cross the plains below.” With more than a hundred books on average written on the 16th President every year since his death, 150 plus years ago, a thousand books in the last four years, I would say that Chiniquy here also was absolutely correct.

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(10-28-2015 12:16 PM)Gene C Wrote:  For those interested, here is the Amazon description for Paul Serup's book "Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? (But support the Surratt House and buy it from them)

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Abraham...am+lincoln

Charles Chiniquy's book "50 Years in the Church at Rome the Conversion of a Priest" is also available from Amazon.
The Internet Archive site has the same book and a few others by Charles Chiniquy, as well as a few others by different authors on similar topics.
https://archive.org/details/texts?and[]=charles chiniquy (you have to enter Charles Chiniquy in the search box)

Paul, are you asserting the Roman Catholic Church was involved in Lincoln's assassination?

I wasn’t there when the conspiracy was made, Charles Chiniquy, whose allegations and life I investigated, wasn’t there either, so there is only circumstantial evidence to present at this point but I would say that there is strong evidence that the Roman Catholic Church was involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Hi Paul. Can you cite any of the standard Lincoln biographies that mention/confirm Chiniquy's meetings with Lincoln when Lincoln was President? Sandburg does not mention them...neither does Donald, Burlingame, Oates, Thomas, etc. Also, neither Hay nor Nicolay mention Chiniquy ever meeting the President in the White House.

Can you cite any letters written by Lincoln that mention any of these White House meetings?

Chiniquy quoted Lincoln as follows:

"I do not pretend to be a prophet. But though not a prophet, I see a very dark cloud on our horizon. And that dark cloud is coming from Rome. It is filled with tears of blood. It will rise and increase till its flanks will be torn by a flash of lightning, followed by a fearful peal of thunder. Then a cyclone, such as the world has never seen, will pass over this country, spreading ruin and desolation from north to south. After it is over, there will be long days of peace and prosperity: for Popery, with its Jesuits and merciless Inquisition, will have been for ever swept away from our country. Neither I nor you, but our children, will see those things."

Can you name any other people who claimed/wrote Lincoln had these sentiments after they personally met with him? Can you cite any letters ever written by Lincoln where these feelings are expressed?

Is there NEVER any short easy answer, it seems, with Lincoln history? I doubt if the catholics or jesuits etc had any thing at all to do with killing Abraham Lincoln. And I doubt if John Wilkes Booth was a catholic or paid any attention whatsoever to 'catholic cabal' (or masonic or jewish etc) when he decided to shoot the president.