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The Pope Did It?
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12-31-2015, 02:50 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-31-2015 03:17 PM by Paul Serup.)
Post: #20
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RE: The Pope Did It?
(12-17-2015 05:22 PM)Gene C Wrote:(12-17-2015 04:27 PM)Paul Serup Wrote: So it has been well over a month since I answered Mr. Norton and I wonder if I will get a response to my latest post. Perhaps I will but no one has declared that any further answers are to be forthcoming. Gene C. said: This quote attributed to Lincoln from the chapter on the assassination, page 715 - " 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 light- ning, 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 forever swept away from our country. Neither I nor you, but our chil- dren, will see those things." I find it hard to believe that Lincoln said this, as well as many other things about this chapter. That's my intellectually honest opinion…. Well let’s see, Chiniquy was there and you were not. You cannot prove Lincoln did not say what Chiniquy said he did in a private meeting with him, even if you were living at the same time, even if you were in the next room, close by but unable to hear what was said. You could only provide evidence that Chiniquy has proven to be untruthful, unreliable at other times and it therefore could then be said, “well, look at the source, you can’t believe him.” So you doubt he is credible. People like me then have a choice between you, living more than a century after he lived, and his distinguished contemporaries at, for instance, the New York Times. Sorry but in a contest between whether to be persuaded by your “intellectually honest opinion” or the testimony of the prestigious New York Times, by people who lived at the same time, very possibly had met him, undoubtedly knew what kind of man he was, I will go with the Times. Chiniquy’s allegations were out for years when he was alive. Leaders and laity of the Roman Catholic Church would have had great reason to try to refute him, to show that he was wrong in what he said. Yet they did not do so and we know that because if they had, the Times, and other large reputable newspapers like the Chicago Tribune would not have treated him as the accomplished, celebrated clergyman he undoubtedly was. Why didn’t Catholic officials and other apologists of the Catholic Church debunk him? They would have had the motivation to do so. They didn’t do so though. Isn’t the only the reason because they couldn’t do so because what Chiniquy said was correct? I studied in depth what he said and I found that he made no significant mistakes regarding historical fact. As I have said, if one is ideologically opposed to the view that Lincoln could have said what Charles Chiniquy said he did, then likely no amount of evidence will make a difference. You are not constrained to get into any long discussion, (people like Joseph George could have made it a short thing except for the problem of not being able to refute Chiniquy). When I said that no one had answered me, I was not aiming my remarks at any one person and I also expect that Mr. Norton can answer for himself. You also don’t have to remain in any debate, discussion, but if you, or anyone else wants to effectively critique what Chiniquy said, you will have to get specific and show point by point that what he said cannot be believed instead of making general blanket statements. You may wish to dismiss Chiniquy without getting into specifics, which just doesn’t work, even Joseph George and William Hanchett did not try to do that, so I will just put you down as someone who has nothing to say about Chiniquy. That is fine, as I have said, you don’t have to get into any long discussion. I am getting used to people evidently not wanting to engage, making statements saying they don’t accept Chiniquy’s assertions and then running away without providing specifics, without proving proof, because they don’t, I assume, have any to offer. As I point out to SSlater, this also seems to include a man who has achieved prominence as a Lincoln scholar. (12-17-2015 11:41 PM)SSlater Wrote: I can see that I have a great deal of reading to do. I never paid much attention to Chiniquy, since he was a former priest, and thus, I never expected him to say anything nice about the church. Then I read authors that I trust and read - they never have anything to say about him, I classified him as a "Crank". I appreciate your attitude of wanting to be informed and then make your judgement on whom to believe from a position of knowledge. This was my position when I had first read Chiniquy’ autobiography decades ago. I could believe him, or not believe him, based on the evidence and still wish to be guided by the evidence. You asked: “Why did the Church defrock him?” According to Chiniquy. he was not defrocked, nor was he excommunicated, as some have claimed. He and his congregation had had a very well publicised struggle with the Bishop of Chicago, Anthony O’Regan, (which included his legal defence by Abraham Lincoln according to Chiniquy) and after O’Regan had been replaced, Chiniquy was asked to make a declaration of submission to their new bishop. He wrote what he termed their “act of submission”, promising to obey the authority of the church, “according to the word and commandments of God as we find them expressed in the gospel of Christ”. This was ultimately refused and when Chiniquy declared that he and his people would only submit to any bishop on the condition that they follow the Word of God, he was told that he could not then be a Roman Catholic priest and so he left the priesthood, and the Catholic Church. Regarding whether he was excommunicated, as I reported in my volume, in the October 11, 1856 issue, the New York Times published a pastoral letter from the Bishop of Chicago, Anthony O’Regan, in an article entitled, “Schism in the Roman Catholic Church of Chicago; Excommunication of Father Chiniquy, The Great Apostle of Temperance”. In his letter, which was dated September 3, 1856, O’Regan declared that he had suspended Charles Chiniquy. Since Chiniquy had continued his normal duties as a priest, the bishop excommunicated him by his letter therefore. Weeks later, in a November 1st article though, the Times also detailed that Chiniquy and his congregation had met at the court-house at Kankakee. There the priest had made a speech and the people determined to support him in his struggle with the prelate. They stated “That we, French Canadians of the County of Kankakee, do hereby decide to give our moral support to Rev. C. CHINIQUY, in the persecution now exerted against him by the Bishop of Chicago, in violation of the laws of the Church, expressed and sanctioned by the Councils.” In addition, in a letter published in the May 1, 1857 Chicago Daily Democrat, while acknowledging O’Regan had declared that he had suspended him, Chiniquy vigorously disputed this, asserting that the Bishop was mistaken. Chiniquy asserted that in this matter, the prelate had not followed the laws of the Catholic Church. As far as an assassination plot in 1861 goes, Charles Chiniquy said that he first feared for Abraham Lincoln’s life in 1856, when he rescued him from Bishop O’Regan. In 1861, he had learned of a plot to murder Lincoln from a Catholic priest and so he went to see his friend in the White House to warn him. You stated, “Then I read authors that I trust and read - they never have anything to say about him”. You do not mention who these authors are. Whoever they are, they may have been influenced by people like William Hanchett or Joseph George, as the Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Mark Neely Jr., was unfortunately. Neely dismissed Chiniquy, evidently taking what George said about Chiniquy on face value. They may have been influenced, wrongly, by George, Hanchett or then by Neely, who had followed George. Therefore the authors you speak about may just be misinformed regarding Charles Chiniquy and they dismissed him, based on the erroneous writings of George, Hanchett etc. I also wonder if you have checked what the authors that you speak of have said, as they may also not be reliable. This is not something we like to generally consider but it is possible. As an example, I point to this year’s winner of the prestigious Gilder Lehrman Lincoln prize, Harold Holzer. He gave a talk at the National Archives on April 16, this spring. He was asked about the allegations of U. S. General, Thomas M. Harris, who followed Chiniquy’s theme in his book, Rome's Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. You may see Mr. Holzer’s talk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCdIwwkq...e=youtu.be . At 52:00 approximately, he is asked about Harris’ book. He said that he did not believe that the plot to murder Lincoln was “managed by the Pope“, and as proof for this he pointed to Lincoln’s “interesting relationship” with the Archbishop of New York, John Hughes. He does not give any information or proof of this relationship but he does talk about the New York City Draft Riots and how the archbishop acted. Hughes, he says, was “so mortified by the overwhelming number of Irish Catholics who participated in the Draft Riots”, (absolutely correct), that he personally went out in front of Protestant churches, Presbyterian, Methodist and Episcopalian churches and ordered rioters not to touch them and “was pretty heroic” during the Draft Riots. I was in Washington at this time but had not heard that he would be giving this talk and ended up watching the video months later. I was immediately struck by what Harold Holzer had said, as I had studied the Draft Riots fairly extensively and never come across what he stated regarding Hughes actions. I emailed Mr. Holzer on August 18. In my email, I stated that I had not previously heard of what he said about Archbishop Hughes standing in front of Protestant churches and asked where this information came from. To his credit, Mr. Holzer answered quickly, within some 15 minutes, but he only had a one line answer. He said that it had been some time since he had done research on the Draft Riots but he “may well do some again” for a future book. I later on responded to his answer, expressing my surprise that he had made his positive statement at a not inconsequential venue, while not having evidence to back it up. I received no further response from Mr. Holzer. This is the concrete thing that Mr. Holzer brings up as to why he doesn’t believe the Roman Catholic Church had anything to do with Lincoln’s murder and when he is asked for proof for it, he has absolutely nothing to offer. I find that pretty astounding, especially coming from a current major Lincoln prize winner. I also am quite sure that further research will not help him find proof for his position. 2013 was the sesquicentennial year of the New York City Draft Riots and the only article in a major American newspaper on it that I know of was published in the Washington Post, on April 29, 2013. Joel Headley was the only journalist / historian quoted in the article on the Draft Riots by the Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle...tory.html. Headley, who wrote the 1873 book, The Great Riots of New York, says the essentially the opposite in regards to Hughes, that Archbishop Hughes had expressed an irrational fear to go out on the streets and that he did nothing heroic or useful during the riots. So you have this prestigious prize winner, the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln prize winner, who makes a definite statement when asked a question at a high-profile venue, the National Archives. He makes his positive, definite statement about why he doesn’t believe the Roman Catholic Church was involved and when he is asked for the proof for his statement, the “heroic” actions of the prelate, he does not have a shred of evidence to provide. “Pretty heroic”, how about pretty imaginary? I don’t know who the authors are you speak of but hopefully they do not practise the same type of scholarship as Mr. Holzer apparently does. Happy New Year to all. |
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