Conversion Testimony of a Former Catholic Priest
As a child, Chiniquy memorized scriptures at his mother's knee and
developed a deep love for God. Becoming a priest, he wanted
desperately to place full trust in his "church", but was hit by waves
of doubt as his "church" claimed adherence to the Gospel, yet
violated it at every turn. His jealous superiors falsely accused
him, but Abraham Lincoln, a young lawyer from Illinois, defended him
and saved his reputation. Chiniquy proves that it was the Jesuits
who later killed Lincoln, and explains why.
Finally, after twenty-five years as a priest in the Roman Catholic
Church, his bishop demanded that he give up his precious Bible, and
pledge blind obedience to the "church. After a dark night of struggle,
he emerged gloriously saved, and led almost the entire Catholic
population of St. Anne, Illinois to trust in Christ alone. Here is
the finest work ever written to show, from the inside, what
Catholicism really is. You will feel Chiniquy's broken heart for
Catholics, even as he clearly refutes Catholicism's errors. Now,
abridged from the 1886 edition, it is even more readable than before!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
- The Bible and the priest of Rome
Chapter 2
- My first schooldays at St. Thomas
- The monk and celibacy
Chapter 3
- The confession of children
Chapter 4
- The shepherd whipped by his sheep
Chapter 5
- The priest, purgatory, and the poor widow's cow
Chapter 6
- Festivities in a parsonage
Chapter 7
- Preparation for the First Communion
- Initiation to idolatry
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
- Intellectual education in the Roman Catholic college
Chapter 10
- Moral and religious instruction in the Roman Catholic colleges
Chapter 11
- Protestant children in the convents and nunneries of Rome
Chapter 12
- Rome and education
- Why the Church of Rome wants to destroy the common schools of the United States
- Why she objects to the reading of the Bible in the schools
Chapter 13
- Theology of the Church of Rome: its anti-social and anti-Christian character
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
- The impurities of the theology of Rome
Chapter 16
- The priests of Rome and the Holy Fathers; or, how I swore to give up the Word of God to follow the word of men
Chapter 17
- The Roman Catholic priesthood, or ancient and modern idolatry
Chapter 18
- The dogma of transubstantiation
- The old paganism under a Christian name
Chapter 19
- Vicarage and life at St. Charles, how the Church survives the immorality and dabauchery of its priests
Chapter 20
- Blue devils at the grand dinner of the priests
- The maniac sister of Rev. Mr. Perras
Chapter 21
- I am appointed vicar of the curate of Charlesbourgh
- The piety, lives and deaths of Fathers Bedard and Perras
Chapter 22
- Simony
- Strange and sacrilegious traffic in the so-called body and blood of Christ
- Enormous sums of money made by the sale of Masses to retrieve souls from purgatory
- The Society of Three Masses abolished, and the Society of One Mass established
Chapter 23
- Canadian masses sold in Paris for a discount
Chapter 24
- Quebec Marine Hospital
- The first time I carried the "Bon Dieu" (the wafer god) secretly in my vest pocket
Chapter 25
- Dr. Douglas
- My first lesson on temperance
- Study of anatomy
- Working of alcohol in the human frame
- The murderess of her own child
- I forever give up the use of intoxicating drinks
Chapter 26
- Coversions of Protestants to Romanism
- Rev. Parent's peculiar way of finding and converting Protestants
- How he spies on the Protestants through the Confessional
- I persuade ninety-three families to become Catholics
Chapter 27
- The murders and thefts in Quebec from 1835 to 1836
- The night excursion with two thieves
- The restitution
- The dawn of light
Chapter 28
- Chambers and his accomplices condemned to death
- Asked me to prepare them for their terrible fate
- A week in their dungeon
- Their sentence of death changed into deportation to Botany Bay
- Their departure for exile
- I meet one of them a sincere convert, very rich, in a high and honorable position in Australia in 1878
Chapter 29
- Miracles
- Attack of typhoid fever
- Apparition of St. Anne and St. Philomene
- My sudden cure
- The curate of St. Anne du Nord almost a disguised Protestant
Chapter 30
- My nomination as curate of Beauport
- Degradation and ruin of that place through drunkenness
- My opposition to my nomination useless
- Preparation to establish a Temperance Society
- I write to Father Mathew for advice
Chapter 31
- The hand of God in the establishment of a Temperance Society in Beauport and vicinity
Chapter 32
- Foundation of temperance societies in the neighboring parishes
- I am ordered to drink wine by my bishop
- Monsignor De Forbin Janson, Bishop of Nancy publicly defends me against the Bishop of Quebec and forever breaks the opposition of the clergy
Chapter 33
- The god of Rome eaten by rats
Chapter 34
- Visit of a Protestant stranger
- He throws an arrow into my priestly soul never to be taken out
Chapter 35
- Sent to succeed Rev. Mr. Varin, Curate of Kamouraska
- Stern opposition of that curate and the surrounding priests and people
- Hours of desolation in Kamouraska
- The Good Master allays the tempest and bids the waves by still
Chapter 36
- Organization of temperance societies in Kamouraska and surrounding country
- The girl in the garb of a man in the service of the curates of Quebec and Eboulements
- Frightened by the scandals seen everywhere, I give up my parish of Kamouraska to join the "Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Longueuil"
Chapter 37
- Novitiate in the monastery of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Longueuil
- Some of the thousand acts of folly and idolatry in the life of a monk
- The spy system
- The deplorable fall of one of the fathers and the Grand Vicar Quiblier
- Sick in the Hotel Dieu of Montreal
- Sister Urtubise: confirms Maria Monk
- The two missionaries to the lumber men
- What one of the best Father Oblates thinks of the monks and the monastery
Chapter 38
- I accept the hospitality of the Rev. Mr. Brassard of Longueuil
- I give my reasons for leaving the Oblates to Bishop Bourget
- He presents me with a splendid crucifix blessed by His Holiness for me, and accepts my services in the cause of temperance in the diocese of Montreal
Chapter 39
- Preparations for the last conflict
- Longueuil the first to accept the great reform of temperance
- In 200 Parishes 200,000 people take the pledge
- Gold medal
- Officially named Apostle of Temperance in Canada
Chapter 40
- My sermon on the Virgin Mary
- Compliments of Bishop Prince
- Stormy night
- First serious doubts about the Church of Rome
- Faithful discussion with the bishop
- The Holy Fathers opposed to the modern worship of the Virgin
- The branches of the vine
Chapter 41
- The Holy Fathers
- New mental troubles at not finding the doctrines of my Church in their writings
- Purgatory and the sucking pig of the poor man of Varennes
Chapter 42
- Letter from the Rev. Bishop Vandeveld, of Chicago
- Vast project of the Bishop of the United States to take possission of the rich valley of the Mississippi and the prairies of the West to rule that great republic
- They want to put me at the heart of the work
- My lectures on temperance at Detroit
- Intemperance of the bishops and priests of that city
Chapter 43
- My visit to Chicago in 1857
- Bishop Vandeveld
- His predecessor poisoned
- Magnificent prairies of the West
- Return to Canada
- Letter encouraging emigration
- Bad feelings of Bishop Bourget
- I decline sending a rich woman to the nunnery to enrich the bishop
Chapter 44
- The plot to destroy my reputation
- The interdict
- The retreat at the Jesuit's college
- The lost girl, emplyed by the bishop, retracts
- The bishop confounded, sees his injustice, makes amends
Chapter 45
- I arrive at Chicago
- I select the spot for my colony
- I build the first chapel
- Great success of the colony
Chapter 46
- Intrigues, impostures, and criminal life of the priests in Bourbonnais
- Indignation of the bishop
- The people ignominiously turn out the criminal priest from their parish
- Frightful scandal
- Faith in the Church of Rome seriously shaken
Chapter 47
- Colony grows
- New chapel burned by arsonists
- Bishop Vandeveld replaced by O'Regan
- The bishop demands my house and garden
Chapter 48
- Pope Pious IX declares new dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary
- My parishioner asks some hard questions
Chapter 49
- My beautiful penitent teaches me the abominations of auricular confession
Chapter 50
- Misconduct of the priests at the ecclesiastical retreat
- The bishop forbids me to distribute the Bible
Chapter 51
- Public acts of simony
- Thefts and brigandage of Bishop O'Regan
- General cry of indignation
- I determine to resist him to his face
- He employs Mr. Spink again to send me to jail
- Abraham Lincoln defends me
- My dear Bible becomes more than ever my light and my counselor
Chapter 52
- Bishop O'Regan's tyranny of the French Canadians of Chicago
- He determines to turn me out of my colony and send me to Kahokia
- He publishes that he has interdicted me
- My people send a deputation to the bishop
- His answers
- The sham excommunication by three drunken priests
Chapter 53
- My people ask me to remain
- I am tried in Urbana for immorality
- Abraham Lincoln's anxiety
- My distress
- Miss Philomene Moffat sent by God to save me
- Lebel's confession and distress
- My innocence acknowledged
- Noble words and conduct of Abraham Lincoln
Chapter 54
- The bishop's plot to dominate the cities
- Rome the implacable enemy of the United States
Chapter 55
- My first visit to Abraham Lincoln to warn him of the plots I knew against his life
- The priests circulate the news that Lincoln was born in the Church of Rome
- Letter of the pope to Jeff Davis
- My last visit to the president
- His willingness to die for his nation's sake
Chapter 56
- Abraham Lincoln a true man of God
- The assassination by Booth, the tool of the priests
- Mary Surratt's house the rendezvous of the priests
- John Surratt secreted away by the priests
- News of the assassination known in St. Joseph, Minnesota, three hours before it occurred
Chapter 57
- Two priests, Brassard and Desaulnier, sent by the bishops of Canada to persuade us to submit to Bishop O'Regan
- They acknowledge publicly that the bishop is wrong and that we are right
- I consent to withdraw from the contest on certain conditions
- Desaulnier turns false and betrays us, to be put at the head of my colony
- My last interview with them
Chapter 58
- Mr. Desaulnier is named Vicar-General of Chicago to crush us
- Our People more united than ever to defend their rights
- Letters of the bishops of Montreal against me, and my answer
- Mr. Brassard forced, against his conscience, to condemn us
- My answer to Mr. Brassard
- He writes to beg my pardon
Chapter 59
- I send Pope Pius IX and Napoleon, Emperor of France, the legal and public documents proving the bad conduct of Bishop O'Regan
- Grand-Vicar Dunn sent to tell me of my victory at Rome
- I go to Dubuque to offer my submission to the bishop
- The peace sealed and publicly proclaimed by Grand-Vicar Dunn the 26th March, 1858
Chapter 60
- Excellent testimonial from my bishop
- My retreat
- Grand-Vicar Dunn writes me about the new storm prepared by the Jesuits
- I refuse to remove the "Word of God" from my pledge
- I am freed from the priesthood
- Vision: Christ offers Himself as a gift
- Back to my people
- More than one thousand enter the Promised Land
Chapter 61
- I gently lead my people out of their superstitions
- We give up the name of Roman Catholic
- Dismay of the Bishops
- Duggan, coadjutor of St. Louis, comes to St. Anne to persuade the people to submit to his authority
- He is ignominiously turned out and runs away in fear for his life
Chapter 62
- Bird's eye view of the principal events after my conversion
- My narrow escapes
- The end of the voyage through the desert to the Promised Land
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
- The Bible and the priest of Rome
Chapter 2
- My first schooldays at St. Thomas
- The monk and celibacy
Chapter 3
- The confession of children
Chapter 4
- The shepherd whipped by his sheep
Chapter 5
- The priest, purgatory, and the poor widow's cow
Chapter 6
- Festivities in a parsonage
Chapter 7
- Preparation for the First Communion
- Initiation to idolatry
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
- Intellectual education in the Roman Catholic college
Chapter 10
- Moral and religious instruction in the Roman Catholic colleges
Chapter 11
- Protestant children in the convents and nunneries of Rome
Chapter 12
- Rome and education
- Why the Church of Rome wants to destroy the common schools of the United States
- Why she objects to the reading of the Bible in the schools
Chapter 13
- Theology of the Church of Rome: its anti-social and anti-Christian character
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
- The impurities of the theology of Rome
Chapter 16
- The priests of Rome and the Holy Fathers; or, how I swore to give up the Word of God to follow the word of men
Chapter 17
- The Roman Catholic priesthood, or ancient and modern idolatry
Chapter 18
- The dogma of transubstantiation
- The old paganism under a Christian name
Chapter 19
- Vicarage and life at St. Charles, how the Church survives the immorality and dabauchery of its priests
Chapter 20
- Blue devils at the grand dinner of the priests
- The maniac sister of Rev. Mr. Perras
Chapter 21
- I am appointed vicar of the curate of Charlesbourgh
- The piety, lives and deaths of Fathers Bedard and Perras
Chapter 22
- Simony
- Strange and sacrilegious traffic in the so-called body and blood of Christ
- Enormous sums of money made by the sale of Masses to retrieve souls from purgatory
- The Society of Three Masses abolished, and the Society of One Mass established
Chapter 23
- Canadian masses sold in Paris for a discount
Chapter 24
- Quebec Marine Hospital
- The first time I carried the "Bon Dieu" (the wafer god) secretly in my vest pocket
Chapter 25
- Dr. Douglas
- My first lesson on temperance
- Study of anatomy
- Working of alcohol in the human frame
- The murderess of her own child
- I forever give up the use of intoxicating drinks
Chapter 26
- Coversions of Protestants to Romanism
- Rev. Parent's peculiar way of finding and converting Protestants
- How he spies on the Protestants through the Confessional
- I persuade ninety-three families to become Catholics
Chapter 27
- The murders and thefts in Quebec from 1835 to 1836
- The night excursion with two thieves
- The restitution
- The dawn of light
Chapter 28
- Chambers and his accomplices condemned to death
- Asked me to prepare them for their terrible fate
- A week in their dungeon
- Their sentence of death changed into deportation to Botany Bay
- Their departure for exile
- I meet one of them a sincere convert, very rich, in a high and honorable position in Australia in 1878
Chapter 29
- Miracles
- Attack of typhoid fever
- Apparition of St. Anne and St. Philomene
- My sudden cure
- The curate of St. Anne du Nord almost a disguised Protestant
Chapter 30
- My nomination as curate of Beauport
- Degradation and ruin of that place through drunkenness
- My opposition to my nomination useless
- Preparation to establish a Temperance Society
- I write to Father Mathew for advice
Chapter 31
- The hand of God in the establishment of a Temperance Society in Beauport and vicinity
Chapter 32
- Foundation of temperance societies in the neighboring parishes
- I am ordered to drink wine by my bishop
- Monsignor De Forbin Janson, Bishop of Nancy publicly defends me against the Bishop of Quebec and forever breaks the opposition of the clergy
Chapter 33
- The god of Rome eaten by rats
Chapter 34
- Visit of a Protestant stranger
- He throws an arrow into my priestly soul never to be taken out
Chapter 35
- Sent to succeed Rev. Mr. Varin, Curate of Kamouraska
- Stern opposition of that curate and the surrounding priests and people
- Hours of desolation in Kamouraska
- The Good Master allays the tempest and bids the waves by still
Chapter 36
- Organization of temperance societies in Kamouraska and surrounding country
- The girl in the garb of a man in the service of the curates of Quebec and Eboulements
- Frightened by the scandals seen everywhere, I give up my parish of Kamouraska to join the "Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Longueuil"
Chapter 37
- Novitiate in the monastery of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Longueuil
- Some of the thousand acts of folly and idolatry in the life of a monk
- The spy system
- The deplorable fall of one of the fathers and the Grand Vicar Quiblier
- Sick in the Hotel Dieu of Montreal
- Sister Urtubise: confirms Maria Monk
- The two missionaries to the lumber men
- What one of the best Father Oblates thinks of the monks and the monastery
Chapter 38
- I accept the hospitality of the Rev. Mr. Brassard of Longueuil
- I give my reasons for leaving the Oblates to Bishop Bourget
- He presents me with a splendid crucifix blessed by His Holiness for me, and accepts my services in the cause of temperance in the diocese of Montreal
Chapter 39
- Preparations for the last conflict
- Longueuil the first to accept the great reform of temperance
- In 200 Parishes 200,000 people take the pledge
- Gold medal
- Officially named Apostle of Temperance in Canada
Chapter 40
- My sermon on the Virgin Mary
- Compliments of Bishop Prince
- Stormy night
- First serious doubts about the Church of Rome
- Faithful discussion with the bishop
- The Holy Fathers opposed to the modern worship of the Virgin
- The branches of the vine
Chapter 41
- The Holy Fathers
- New mental troubles at not finding the doctrines of my Church in their writings
- Purgatory and the sucking pig of the poor man of Varennes
Chapter 42
- Letter from the Rev. Bishop Vandeveld, of Chicago
- Vast project of the Bishop of the United States to take possission of the rich valley of the Mississippi and the prairies of the West to rule that great republic
- They want to put me at the heart of the work
- My lectures on temperance at Detroit
- Intemperance of the bishops and priests of that city
Chapter 43
- My visit to Chicago in 1857
- Bishop Vandeveld
- His predecessor poisoned
- Magnificent prairies of the West
- Return to Canada
- Letter encouraging emigration
- Bad feelings of Bishop Bourget
- I decline sending a rich woman to the nunnery to enrich the bishop
Chapter 44
- The plot to destroy my reputation
- The interdict
- The retreat at the Jesuit's college
- The lost girl, emplyed by the bishop, retracts
- The bishop confounded, sees his injustice, makes amends
Chapter 45
- I arrive at Chicago
- I select the spot for my colony
- I build the first chapel
- Great success of the colony
Chapter 46
- Intrigues, impostures, and criminal life of the priests in Bourbonnais
- Indignation of the bishop
- The people ignominiously turn out the criminal priest from their parish
- Frightful scandal
- Faith in the Church of Rome seriously shaken
Chapter 47
- Colony grows
- New chapel burned by arsonists
- Bishop Vandeveld replaced by O'Regan
- The bishop demands my house and garden
Chapter 48
- Pope Pious IX declares new dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary
- My parishioner asks some hard questions
Chapter 49
- My beautiful penitent teaches me the abominations of auricular confession
Chapter 50
- Misconduct of the priests at the ecclesiastical retreat
- The bishop forbids me to distribute the Bible
Chapter 51
- Public acts of simony
- Thefts and brigandage of Bishop O'Regan
- General cry of indignation
- I determine to resist him to his face
- He employs Mr. Spink again to send me to jail
- Abraham Lincoln defends me
- My dear Bible becomes more than ever my light and my counselor
Chapter 52
- Bishop O'Regan's tyranny of the French Canadians of Chicago
- He determines to turn me out of my colony and send me to Kahokia
- He publishes that he has interdicted me
- My people send a deputation to the bishop
- His answers
- The sham excommunication by three drunken priests
Chapter 53
- My people ask me to remain
- I am tried in Urbana for immorality
- Abraham Lincoln's anxiety
- My distress
- Miss Philomene Moffat sent by God to save me
- Lebel's confession and distress
- My innocence acknowledged
- Noble words and conduct of Abraham Lincoln
Chapter 54
- The bishop's plot to dominate the cities
- Rome the implacable enemy of the United States
Chapter 55
- My first visit to Abraham Lincoln to warn him of the plots I knew against his life
- The priests circulate the news that Lincoln was born in the Church of Rome
- Letter of the pope to Jeff Davis
- My last visit to the president
- His willingness to die for his nation's sake
Chapter 56
- Abraham Lincoln a true man of God
- The assassination by Booth, the tool of the priests
- Mary Surratt's house the rendezvous of the priests
- John Surratt secreted away by the priests
- News of the assassination known in St. Joseph, Minnesota, three hours before it occurred
Chapter 57
- Two priests, Brassard and Desaulnier, sent by the bishops of Canada to persuade us to submit to Bishop O'Regan
- They acknowledge publicly that the bishop is wrong and that we are right
- I consent to withdraw from the contest on certain conditions
- Desaulnier turns false and betrays us, to be put at the head of my colony
- My last interview with them
Chapter 58
- Mr. Desaulnier is named Vicar-General of Chicago to crush us
- Our People more united than ever to defend their rights
- Letters of the bishops of Montreal against me, and my answer
- Mr. Brassard forced, against his conscience, to condemn us
- My answer to Mr. Brassard
- He writes to beg my pardon
Chapter 59
- I send Pope Pius IX and Napoleon, Emperor of France, the legal and public documents proving the bad conduct of Bishop O'Regan
- Grand-Vicar Dunn sent to tell me of my victory at Rome
- I go to Dubuque to offer my submission to the bishop
- The peace sealed and publicly proclaimed by Grand-Vicar Dunn the 26th March, 1858
Chapter 60
- Excellent testimonial from my bishop
- My retreat
- Grand-Vicar Dunn writes me about the new storm prepared by the Jesuits
- I refuse to remove the "Word of God" from my pledge
- I am freed from the priesthood
- Vision: Christ offers Himself as a gift
- Back to my people
- More than one thousand enter the Promised Land
Chapter 61
- I gently lead my people out of their superstitions
- We give up the name of Roman Catholic
- Dismay of the Bishops
- Duggan, coadjutor of St. Louis, comes to St. Anne to persuade the people to submit to his authority
- He is ignominiously turned out and runs away in fear for his life
Chapter 62
- Bird's eye view of the principal events after my conversion
- My narrow escapes
- The end of the voyage through the desert to the Promised Land
