C. CHINIQUY. · Section 4

C. CHINIQUY.

This letter was not yet mailed when we heard that the drunkard priests around us were publishing that the bishop had interdicted me, and they had received orders from him to take charge of the colony of St. Anne. I immediately called a meeting of the whole people and told them: “The bishop has not interdicted me as the neighboring priests publish; he has only threatened to do so, if I do not leave this place for Kahokia, by the 15th of next month. But though he has not interdicted me, it may be that he does to-day falsely publish that he has done it. We can expect anything from the destroyer of the fine congregation of the French Canadians of Chicago. He wants to destroy me and you as he has destroyed them. But before he immolates us, I hope that, with the help of God, we will fight as Christian soldiers, for our life, and we will use all the means which the laws of our church, the Holy Word of God, and the glorious Constitution of the United States allow us to employ against our merciless tyrant.

“I ask you, as a favor, to send a deputation of four members of our colony in whom you place the most implicit confidence, to carry this letter to the bishop. But before delivering it, they will put to him the following questions, the answers of which, they will write down with great care in his presence, and deliver them to us faithfully. It is evident that we are now entering into a momentous struggle. We must act with prudence and firmness. Messrs. J. B. Lemoine, Leon Mailloux, Francis Bechard and B. Allaire, having been unanimously chosen for that important mission, we gave them the following questions to put to the bishop:

1st. “Have you interdicted Mr. Chiniquy?

2nd. “Why have you interdicted him? Is Mr. Chiniquy guilty of any crime to deserve to be interdicted? Have those crimes been proved against him in a canonical way?

3rd. “Why do you take Mr. Chiniquy away from us?

[Our deputies came back from Chicago with the following report and answers, which they swore to, some time after before the Kankakee court.]

1st. “I have suspended Mr. Chiniquy on the 19th inst., on account of his stubbornness and want of submission to my orders, when I ordered him to Kahokia.

2nd. “If Mr. Chiniquy has said mass since as you say, he is irregular and the pope alone can restore him in his ecclesiastical and sacerdotal functions.

3rd. “I take him away from St. Anne, despite his prayers and yours, because he has not been willing to live in peace and friendship with the Revs. Messrs. Lebel and Cartevel.

[The bishop, being asked if those two priests had not been interdicted by him for public scandals, was forced to say, “Yes!”]

4th. “My second reason for taking Mr. Chiniquy from St. Anne, and sending him to his new mission, is to stop the law-suit Mr. Spink has instituted against him.

[The bishop being asked if he would promise that the suit would be stopped by the removal of Mr. Chiniquy, answered: “I cannot promise that.”]

5th. “Mr. Chiniquy is one of the best priests in my diocese, and I do not want to deprive myself of his services. No accusation against his morality has been proved before me.

6th. “Mr. Chiniquy has demanded an inquest to prove his innocence against certain accusations made against him; he asked me the names of his accusers, to confound them. I have refused to grant his request.

[After the bishop had made these declarations, the deputation presented him the letter of Mr. Chiniquy. It evidently made a deep impression upon him. As soon as he had read it, he said:]

7th. “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.

FRANCIS BECHARD, (Signed) J. B. LEMOINE, BASILIQUE ALLAIRE, LEON MAILLOUX.”[E]

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Footnote E:

Those gentlemen, with the exception of Mr. Allaire, are still living, 1886.

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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!’

“As I told you before, we have a glorious battle to fight. It is the battle of freedom against the most cruel tyranny the world has ever seen. It is the battle of truth against falsehood; it is the battle of the old Gospel of Christ against the new gospel of Bishop O’Regan. Let us be true to ourselves to the end, and our holy church, which that bishop dishonors, will bless us. Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, whose Gospel is despised by that adventurer, will be for us, and give us a glorious victory. Have you not read in your Bibles that Jesus wanted his disciples to be free, when He said: ‘If the son of man shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.’ Does that mean that the Son of God wants us to be the slaves of Bishop O’Regan? ‘No!’ cried out the whole people.

“May God bless you for your understanding of your Christian rights. Let all those who want to be free, with me, raise their hands.

“Oh! blessed be the Lord,” I said, “there are more than 3,000 hands raised towards heaven to say that you want to be free! Now, let those who do not want to defend their rights as Christians and as American citizens, raise their hands. Thanks be to God,” I again exclaimed, “there is not a traitor among us! You are all the true, brave and noble soldiers of liberty, truth and righteousness! May the Lord bless you all!”

It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm of the people. Before dismissing them, I said:

“We will, no doubt, very soon witness one of the most ludicrous comedies ever played on this continent. That comedy is generally called excommunication. Some drunkard priests, sent by the drunkard Bishop of Chicago, will come to excommunicate us. I expect their visit in a few days. That performance will be worth seeing, and I hope that you will see and hear the most amusing thing in your life.”

I was not mistaken. The very next day, we heard that the 3rd of September had been chosen by the bishop to excommunicate us.

I said to the people: “When you see the flag of the free and the brave floating from the top of our steeple, come and rally around that emblem of liberty.”

There were more than 3,000 people on our beautiful hill when the priests made their appearance. A few moments before, I had said to that immense gathering:

“I bless God that you are so many to witness the last tyrannical act of Bishop O’Regan. But I have a favor to ask of you, it is that no insult or opposition whatever will be made to the priests who come to play that comedy. Please do not say an angry word, do not move a finger against the performers. They are not responsible for what they do, for two reasons:

“1st. They will probably be drunk. “ The priests arrived at about 2 o’clock P. M., and never such shouting and clapping of hands had been heard in our colony as on their appearance. Never had I seen my dear people so cheerful and good-humored as when one of the priests, trembling from head to foot with terror and drunkenness, tried to read the following sham act of excommunication, which he nailed on the door of the chapel:

The Reverend Monsieur Chiniquy, heretofore curate of St. Anne, Colonie of Beaver, in the Diocese of Chicago, has formally been interdicted by me for canonical causes.

The said Mr. Chiniquy, notwithstanding that interdict, has maliciously performed the functions of the holy ministry, in administering the holy sacraments and saying mass. This has caused him to be irregular and in direct opposition to the authority of the church, consequently he is a schismatic.

The said Mr. Chiniquy, thus named by my letters and verbal injunction, has absolutely persisted in violating the laws of the church, and disobeyed her authority, is by this present letter excommunicated.

I forbid any Catholic having any communication with him, in spiritual matters, under pain of excommunication. Every Catholic who goes against this defense, is excommunicated.

(Signed) ✠ ANTHONY,

Bishop of Chicago, and Administrator of Quincy.

Sept. 3rd, 1856.

As soon as the priests, who had nailed this document to the door of our chapel, had gone away at full speed, I went to see it, and found, what I had expected, that it was not signed by the bishop, neither by his grand vicar, nor any known person, and consequently, it was a complete nullity, according to the laws of the church. Fearing I would prosecute him, as I threatened he shrank from the responsibility of his own act, and had not signed it. He was probably ignorant of the fact that he was himself excommunicated, _ipso facto_, for not having signed the document himself, or by his known deputies. I learned afterwards, that he got a boy 12 years old to write and sign it. In this way, it was impossible for me to bring that document before any court, on account of its want of legal and necessary forms. That act was also a nullity, for being brought by three priests who were not _mentis compos_, from their actual state of drunkenness. And again, it was a nullity, from the evident falsehood which was its base.

It is alleged that the bishop had interdicted and suspended me on the 19th of Aug., for canonical causes. But he had declared to the four deputies we had sent him: “That Mr. Chiniquy was one of my best priests, that nothing had been proved against him,” consequently, no canonical cause could exist for the allegation. The people understood very well that the whole affair was a miserable farce, designed to separate them from their pastor. It had just, by the good providence of God, the contrary effect. They had never shown me such sincere respect and devotedness as since that never-to-be-forgotten day.

The three priests, after leaving, entered the house of one of our farmers, called Bellanger, a short distance from the chapel, and asked permission to rest a while. But after sitting and smoking a few minutes, they all went out to the stables. The farmer finding this very strange, went out after them to see what they would do in his stables: to his great surprise and disgust, he found them drinking the last of their whiskey. He exclaimed: “Is it not a shame to see three priests, in a stable, drinking rum?”

They made no answer, but went immediately to their carriage and drove away as quickly as possible, singing with all their might, a bacchanalian song! Such was the last act of that excommunication, which has done more than anything else to prepare my people and myself to understand that the Church of Rome is a den of thieves, a school of infidelity and the very antipodes of the Church of Christ.