Chiniquy was born in 1809 to a
French-Canadian family 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 in 1833; after his ordination, he served his church in Quebec.
[1] During the 1840s, he led a campaign throughout Quebec
against the consumption of alcohol and
drunkenness.
[1]Later he immigrated to
Illinois in the United States.
[1] In 1855, Chiniquy was sued by a prominent Catholic layman named Peter Spink in
Kankakee, Illinois. After the fall court term, Spink applied for a change of venue to the court in
Urbana, Illinois. Chiniquy hired the then-lawyer
Abraham Lincoln, the future
16th President of the United States, to defend him. The spring court action in Urbana was the highest profile libel suit in Lincoln's career.
[7] The case was ended in the fall court session by agreement.
[8]Chiniquy clashed with the Bishop of Chicago,
Anthony O'Regan, over the bishop's treatment of Catholics in the city, particularly
French Canadians. He declared that O'Regan was secretly backing Spink's suit against him. Chiniquy said that in 1856, O'Regan had threatened him with
excommunication if he did not go to a new location where the bishop wanted to assign him. Several months later,
The New York Times published a pastoral letter from O'Regan in which he stated that he had suspended Chiniquy. Since Chiniquy had continued his normal duties as a priest, the bishop excommunicated him by his letter; he vigorously disputed that he had been excommunicated, saying publicly that the bishop was mistaken. Chiniquy left the Catholic Church in 1858,
[7] and subsequently
converted to
Protestant Christianity, becoming a
Presbyterian Evangelical minister in 1860.
[1]He asserted that Catholicism was
Pagan, that Catholics worshipped the
Virgin Mary, and that
its theology was anti-Christian.
[9] He warned of plots by
the Vatican to take control of the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from
Ireland,
Germany, and
France. This was at a time of high immigration rates from those countries, in response to social and political upheaval (the Great Famine in Ireland and revolutions in Germany and France). Chiniquy 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, and the
assassination of U.S. President Lincoln, and that Lincoln's assassins were faithful Catholics ultimately serving
Pope Pius IX.
After leaving the Catholic Church, Chiniquy dedicated his life to
preach and evangelize among his fellow French Canadians, as well as other people in
Canada and the
United States, in order to convert them from Catholicism to
Protestant Christianity. He wrote a number of books and tracts expressing his
criticism and views on the alleged errors in the faith and practices of the Catholic Church.
[4] His two most influential literary works are the autobiography Fifty Years in The Church of Rome
[10] and the polemical treatise The Priest, The Woman, and The Confessional.
[11] These books raised concerns in the United States about the influence of the Catholic Church.
[4] According to one Canadian biographer, Chiniquy is Canada's best-selling author of all time.
[12] He joined the
Orange Order and said of it: "I always found them staunch and true. I consider it a great honour to be an Orangeman. Every time I go on my knees I pray that God may bless them and make them as numerous and bright as the stars of the heaven above."
[13] When Chiniquy visited
Hobart in 1879, a riot occurred when hundreds of Catholic opponents forced their way into the lecture hall. The meeting was abandoned and more than five hundred law enforcement personnel were employed for the next meeting, with thousands of protestors outside the building.
[14]Chiniquy died in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada on January 16, 1899.
To this day, some of Chiniquy's works are still promoted among Protestant Christians and
Sola scriptura believers. One of his most well-known modern day followers was the
American Fundamentalist cartoonist and comic book writer
Jack Chick, notable for being the creator of the "
Chick tracts";
[15] he also published a comic-form adaptation of Chiniquy's autobiography Fifty Years in The Church of Rome, titled "The Big Betrayal".
[16] Chick strongly relied on Chiniquy's claims and books for writing his own
anti-Catholic tracts.
