Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

Those who have read the two volumes of the trial of John Surratt, know, that never more evident proofs of guilt were brought against a murderer than in that case. But the Roman Catholic jurymen had read the Theology of St. Thomas, a book which the Pope had ordered to be taught in every college, academy and university of Rome, they had learned that it is the duty of the Roman Catholics to exterminate all the heretics.—St. Thomas’ Theology, vol. iv., p. 90.

They had read the decree of the councils of Constance, that no faith was to be kept with heretics. They had read in the council of Lateran, that the Catholics who arm themselves for the extermination of heretics have all their sins forgiven, and receive the same blessings as those who go and fight for the rescue of the Holy Land.

Those jurymen were told by their father confessors that the most holy Father, the Pope Gregory VII., had solemnly and infallibly declared that “the killing of an heretic was no murder.”—Jure Canonico.

After such teachings, how could the Roman Catholic jurymen find John Surratt guilty of murder, for killing the heretic Lincoln? The jury having disagreed, no verdict could be given. The government was forced to let the murderer go unpunished.

But when the irreconcilable enemies of all the rights and liberties of men were congratulating themselves on their successful efforts to save the life of John Surratt, the God of heaven was stamping again on their faces, the mark of murder, in such a way that all eyes will see it.

“Murder will out,” is a truth repeated by all nations from the beginning of the world. It is the knowledge of that truth which has sustained me in my long and difficult researches of the true authors of the assassination of Lincoln, and which enables me to-day, to present to the world a fact, which seems almost miraculous, to show the complicity of the priests of Rome in the murder of the martyred President.

Some time ago, I providentially met the Rev. Mr. F. A. Conwell, at Chicago. Having known that I was in search of facts about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he told me he knew one of those facts, which might perhaps throw some light on the subject of my researches.

“The very day of the murder,” he said, “he was in the Roman Catholic village of St. Joseph, Minnesota State, when, at about six o’clock, in the afternoon, he was told by a Roman Catholic of the place, who was a purveyor of a great number of priests who lived in that town, where they have a monastery, that the State Secretary Seward and the President Lincoln had just been killed. This was told me,” he said, “in the presence of a most respectable gentleman, called Bennett, who was not less puzzled than me. As there were no railroad lines nearer than 40 miles, nor telegraph offices nearer than 80 miles, from that place, we could not see how such news was spread in that town. The next day, the 15th of April, I was at St. Cloud, a town about twelve miles distant, where there are neither railroad nor telegraph, I said to several people that I had been told in the priestly village of St. Joseph, by a Roman Catholic, that Abraham Lincoln and the Secretary Seward had been assassinated. They answered me that they had heard nothing about it. But the next Sabbath, the 16th of April, when going to the church of St. Cloud, to preach, a friend gave me a copy of a telegram sent to him on the Saturday, reporting that Abraham Lincoln and Secretary Seward had been assassinated, the very day before, which was Friday, the 14th, at 10 P. M. But how could the Roman Catholic purveyor of the priests of St. Joseph, have told me the same thing, before several witnesses, just four hours before its occurrence? I spoke of that strange thing to many, the same day, and the very next day, I wrote to the ‘St. Paul Press,’ under the heading of ‘A Strange Coincidence.’ Sometime later, the editor of ‘The St. Paul Pioneer,’ having denied what I had written on that subject, I addressed him the following note, which he had printed, and which I have kept. Here it is, you may keep it as an infallible proof of my veracity:”

“To the Editor of The St. Paul Pioneer.

“You assume the non-truth of a short paragraph addressed by me to the St. Paul ‘Press,’ viz: