FRANCIS BECHARD,
(Signed) J. B. LEMOINE,
BASILIQUE ALLAIRE,
LEON MAILLOUX.”[[E]]
[E]. Those gentlemen, with the exception of Mr. Allaire, are still living, 1886.
After the above had been read and delivered to the people, I showed them the evident falsehood and contradictions of the bishop when he said in his second answer: “If Mr. Chiniquy said mass since I interdicted him, he is irregular, and the pope alone can restore him in his ecclesiastical functions,” and then in the seventh, “Tell Mr. Chiniquy to come and meet me to prepare for his new mission, and I will give him the letters he wants to go and labor there.”
The last sentence, I said, proves that he knew he had not interdicted me as he said at first. For, had he done so, he could not give me letters to administer the sacraments and preach at Kahokia before my going before the pope, who alone, as he said, himself, could give me such powers, after he (the bishop) knew that I had said mass since my return from Chicago. Now, my friends, here is the laws of our holy church, not the saying or the law of a publicly degraded man, as the Bishop of Chicago: ‘If a man has been unjustly condemned, let him pay no attention to the unjust sentence; let him even do nothing to have that unjust sentence removed.’ (Canon of the Church, by St. Gelase, Pope.)
“If the bishop had interdicted me on the 19th, his sentence would be unjust, for from his own lips we have the confession, ‘that no accusation has ever been proved before him; that I am one of his best priests; that he does not want to be deprived of my services.’ Yes, such a sentence, if passed, would have been unjust, and our business, to-day, would be to treat it with the contempt it would deserve. But that unjust sentence has not even been pronounced, since, after saying mass every day since the 19th, the bishop himself wants to give me letters to go to Kahokia and work as one of his best priests! It strikes me, to-day, for the first time, that it is more your destruction, as a people, than mine, which the bishop wants to accomplish. It is my desire to remain in your midst to defend your rights as Catholics. If you are true to me, as I will be to you, in the impending struggle, we have nothing to fear; for our holy Catholic church is for us; all her laws and canons are in our favor; the Gospel of Christ is for us; the God of the Gospel is for us; even the pope, to whom we will appeal, will be for us—for I must tell you a thing which, till to-day, I kept secret, viz.: The Archbishop of St. Louis, to whom I brought my complaint, in April last, advised me to write to the pope and tell him, not all, for it would make too large a volume, but something of the criminal deeds of the roaring lion who wants to devour us. He is, to-day, selling the bones of the dead which are resting in the Roman Catholic cemetery of Chicago! But if you are true to yourselves as Catholics and Americans, that mitred tyrant will not sell the bones of our friends and relatives which rest here in our burying ground. He has sold the parsonage and the church which our dear countrymen had built in Chicago. Those properties are, to-day, in the hands of the Irish; but if you promise to stand by your rights as Christian men and American citizens, I will tell that avaricious bishop: ‘Come and sell our parsonage and our church here, if you dare!’