Most Chicagoans know nothing of Charles Chinquy. Most Chicagoans have probably forgotten Pastor George Stallings, a one-time Catholic priest and mentor of Pastor Mike Pfleger. Most Chicagoans know Pastor Pfleger, who returns to his Faith Community of St. Sabina flock on Monday, June 16th, after being given a forced leave by Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago.
Today the Chicago Tribune tells one and all that Pastor Pfleger was disciplined for political reasons – speaking disparagingly of Senator Hillary Clinton. The Tribune writes, “latest transgression: talking about the wrong thing, in the wrong place, with a preaching style—honed in the back pews of black churches—that some Catholics found unsettling.”
There was much more. Pastor Pfleger angered people, not so much with his barbs against Senator Clinton but the hostility and race-baiting fervor imbued throughout his sermon. Pastor Pfleger’s target it seems was white America and not Senator Clinton per se – remember Pastor Pfleger’s argument for consideration of ‘Context.’
Context was not lost on most who read or watched Pastor Pfleger’s sermon at Trinity UCC. It was lost on the editorial mind-set of Chicago Tribune and long ago lost on Chicago Sun Times.
The historical context of a social activist priest is rooted in Chicago . The Diocese of Chicago was the site of the earliest example of schism – a total break with the Church – following the excommunication of Charles Chiniquy in 1858 Kankakee , IL .
Here is a Wikpedia entry on Charles Chiniquy:
Chiniquy was born in 1809 in the village of Kamouraska, Quebec. He lost his father at an early age and was adopted by his uncle. As a young man, Chiniquy studied to become a Catholic priest at the Petit Seminaire (Little Seminary) in Nicolet, Quebec. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1833. After his ordination, he served his Church in Quebec and later emigrated to Illinois. During the 1840s, he led a very successful campaign throughout Quebec against alcohol and drunkenness.
After twice being suspended by two different bishops he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, joined the Presbyterian Church and converted nearly his entire parish in St. Anne.[citation needed] He then became a dedicated anti-Catholic preacher, attacking what he claimed was its theology. He claimed that the Catholic Church is pagan, that Roman Catholics worship the Virgin Mary, that its theology spoils the Gospel and that its theology is anti-Christian. He also claimed that the Vatican had planned to take over the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany and France.
Chiniquy further claimed that he was falsely accused by his superiors (and that Abraham Lincoln had come to his rescue), that the American Civil War was a plot against the United States of America by the Vatican, and that the Vatican was behind the Confederate cause, the death of President Lincoln and that Lincoln’s assassins were faithful Roman Catholics serving Pope Pius IX.
Chiniquy earned his living by writing several anti-Catholic books and tracts and making speeches attacking the Roman Catholic Church. His two most influential works are Fifty Years in The Church of Rome and The Priest, The Woman and The Confessional. These two books helped to swell the tide of anti-Catholic resentment in the United States. These books were written at a time when Americans were suspicious of foreign influence, as typified by the Know-Nothing movement.
On January 16, 1899, he died in Montreal.
To this day, some of Chiniquy’s works are still promoted among Protestants and Bible-Only believers. One of his most best-known modern-day followers is Jack Chick, who created a comic-form adaptation of 50 Years In The Church of Rome called “The Big Betrayal”1 and who draws heavily on Chiniquy’s claims in his own anti-Catholic tracts.
Pastor Chiniquy was a dynamic preacher, an avowed total abstinence crusader, a charismatic leader of a homogenous French speaking flock in Kankakee County doing constant battle with authoritarian Belgian and later Irish Bishops of Chicago and Pastor Chiniquy had the Press – the media solidly in his corner.
The Chicago Tribune has had a long history of its editorial hostility toward Catholics (today, Catholics are coded as ‘close-knit ethnics’ – Reagan Democrats n’cest pas?).
It sure seems true then as now – that The Chicago Tribune exercises its own historical prejudices with aplomb and some historical consistency. Here is an exchange of notes from two scholars concerning ‘the truth’ behind Charles Chiniquy’s long held claim that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated as part of a broad Jesuit/Vatican/Confederate/Mexico/Holy Roman Empire Plot against America and the Great Emancipator.
Jim,
There are 230 articles in the Tribune on Chiniquy from about 1856 thru the 1880s.There seemed to be an anti Catholic bias on the Tribune’s part. It seems there was anti-Irish sentiment on Chiniquy’s part,too.I thought you would find this one of interest:
Notice it’s 1889, many years later:
April 5, 1889.
FATHER CHINIQUY‘S STORY DISCREDITED
A Canadian MP Gives His Reasons for Believing It Untrue
Ottawa Ont April 4 (Special)
F. Bechard, member of Parliament for Iberville,
throws some serious doubts upon Father Chiniquy’s statement
that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by he hireling of a Jesuit
conspiracy. Mr Bechard was the French interpreter in the libel suit which Father Chiniquy was defended by Abraham Lincoln. It was an action in Illinois in 1856 by one Spink against Father Chiniquy, who had in the course of a lecture charged Spink with committing perjury at a trial instituted by his son-in-law Dr Gauthier, for payment for professional services.
Mr. Be chard says that not only were the Jesuits not parties to the
trial, but that they were not seen about the courtroom, nor were there any in that portion of the country. ( Chicago Tribune)
Pastor Chiniquy was disciplined by several bishops, one bishop excommunicated Chiniquy. He formed his own church. Later, at the end of the 20th Century, Pastor George Stallings did the very same thing. On June 16th 2008, Pastor Pfleger returns to the Faith Community of St. Sabina. On that same day, the Chicago Tribune, consistent to its historical prejudices, explains its truth.
**
Pat Hickey is an Irish History expert and writer from the South Side of Chicago.
Some Sources:
http://www.geocities.com/chiniquy/Two_Chiniquys.html
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/IRISH-IN-CHICAGO/2007–12/1198223217