Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

MY VISIT TO CHICAGO IN 1851—BISHOP VANDEVELD—HIS PREDECESSOR POISONED—MAGNIFICENT PRAIRIES OF THE WEST—RETURN TO CANADA—BAD FEELINGS OF BISHOP BOURGET—I DECLINE SENDING A RICH WOMAN TO THE NUNNERY TO ENRICH THE BISHOP—A PLOT TO DESTROY ME.

The journey from Detroit to Chicago, in the month of June, 1851, was not so pleasant as it is to-day. The Michigan Central Railroad was completed then only to New Buffalo. We took the steamer there and crossed Lake Michigan to Chicago, where we arrived the next morning, after nearly perishing in a terrible storm. On the 15th of June, I first landed, with the greatest difficulty, on a badly wrecked wharf, at the mouth of the river. Some of the streets I had to cross in order to reach the bishop’s palace were almost impassable. In many places loose planks had been thrown across them to prevent people from miring in the mud and quicksands.

The first sight of Chicago was then far from giving an idea of what that city has become in 1886. Though it had rapidly increased in the last ten years, its population was then not much more than 30,000. The only line of railroad finished was from Chicago to Aurora, about forty miles.

The whole population of the State of Illinois was then not much beyond 200,000. To-day, Chicago alone numbers more than 500,000 souls within her limits. Probably more grain, lumber, beef and pork are now bought and sold in a single day in Chicago than were then in a whole year.

When I entered the miserable house called the “bishop’s palace,” I could hardly believe my eyes. The planks of the lower floor, in the dining-room, were floating, and it required a great deal of ingenuity to keep my feet dry while dining with him for the first time. But the Christian kindness and courtesy of the bishop, made me more happy in his poor house than I felt, later, in the white marble palace built by his haughty successor, C. O’Regan.

There were then in Chicago about 200 French Canadian families, under the pastorate of the Rev. M. A. Lebel, who, like myself, was born in Kamouraska. The drunkenness and other immoralities of the clergy, pictured to me by that priest, surpassed all I had ever heard or known.

After getting my promise that I would never reveal the fact before his death, he assured me that the last bishop had been poisoned by one of his grand vicars in the following way. He said, the grand vicar, being father confessor of the nuns of Loretto, had fallen in love with one of the so-called virgins, who died a few days after becoming the mother of a still-born child.

This fact having transpired, and threatening to give a great deal of scandal, the bishop thought it was his duty to make an inquiry and punish his priest, if he should be found guilty. But the grand vicar, seeing that his crime was to be easily detected, found that the shortest way to escape exposure was to put an end to the inquest by murdering the poor bishop. A poison very difficult to detect was administered, and the death of the prelate soon followed, without exciting any surprise in the community.

Horrified by the long and minute details of that mystery of iniquity, I came very near returning to Canada, immediately, without going any further. But after more mature consideration, it seemed to me that these awful iniquities on the part of the priests of Illinois was just the reason why I should not shut my ears to the voice of God, if it were His will that I should come to take care of the precious souls He would trust to me. I spent a week in Chicago, lecturing on temperance every evening, and listening during the days to the grand plans the bishop was maturing, in order to make our Church of Rome the mistress and ruler of the magnificent valley of the Mississippi, which included the States of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Mississippi, etc. He clearly demonstrated to me, that once mistress of the incalculable treasures of those rich lands, through the millions of her obedient children, our church would easily command the respect and the submission of the less favored states of the east.

My zeal for my church was so sincere that I would have given, with pleasure, every drop of my blood, in order to secure to her such a future of power and greatness. I felt really happy and thankful to God that He should have chosen me to help the pope and the bishops realize such a noble and magnificent project.