
              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 9  Num. 75
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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MORE ON ALLEGED VATICAN PLOT AGAINST ABRAHAM LINCOLN
====================================================
 
    In response to an item  in  CN 9.74 regarding the possibility
of  a  19th-century  alliance  between  the  Pope  and   European
monarchs, CN reader Michael Hoffman II writes:
 
  Catholic theology denies the Divine Right of Kings for both
  Catholic and Protestant  monarchs.   The most distinguished
  Catholic political writer  in  this  field  (who  may  have
  influenced  the  American  Founders),  was the 17th century
  Jesuit scholar, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who debated the
  "Divine Right" proponent,  the  Protestant  King James I of
  England.  (Luther also upheld the doctrine).
 
  The Catholic Church had  always  put  limits  on  monarchs.
  James and later Louis  XIV of France, identified themselves
  with God and the state.  Bellarmine, at the pope's  behest,
  contested this (cf.  John  Clement  Rager,  "The  Political
  Philosophy  of  St.  Robert  Bellarmine").   In  France the
  papacy condemned Divine Right as the heresy of Gallicanism.
 
  Of course in the  secular  realm  to  this  day  there  are
  Catholic reactionaries and royalists who are  even  willing
  to side  with  the  Protestant  crown  than countenance the
  American Revolution.  In America however,  the  Church  was
  dominated by  the  Republican  Irish  who  with  their  bad
  experience under the British monarchy embraced the American
  system of Republican government wholeheartedly.
 
  Pius IX was very concerned  about  the Union's use of Irish
  Catholics as cannon fodder in  the  war and issued a letter
  to  be  read in all the churches in Ireland resisting Union
  recruiting.
 
Hoffman does not seem to  deny  the personification of the Divine
Right concept within the Church itself, just the  possibility  of
an alliance between the Church and European monarchs.  After all,
the  Catholic  Church  is  quite  blunt  about  it:   the Pope is
(supposedly) God's representative on earth.
 
But in spite of Hoffman's  erudition,  as apparent in the excerpt
quoted above, why  wouldn't  the  Catholic  Church  and  European
monarchs  have  found  some common ground?  Politics make strange
bedfellows, and a secret  agreement between European monarchs and
the Pope is not too far-fetched.
 
In Burke McCarty's book on the Lincoln assassination (*Suppressed
Truth About the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln*, see CN  9.74),
mention  is made of a Rev. Charles Chiniquy, a defrocked Catholic
priest who authored a book  called  *Fifty Years in the Church of
Rome*.  A CN reader  was  nice  enough  to  send  the  following,
indicating that Chiniquy's book is still in print:
 
  I  am  writing  to  inform  you  about  a book written by a
  contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, which appears  to  confirm
  what Burke McCarty is saying.  The book is:
 
          "50 Years in the Church of Rome"
           by Charles Chiniquy
           Copyright 1981
           by Jack T. Chick
           Published by:
           Chick Publications 
           P.O. Box 662
           Chino, Calif.  91710
           ISBN: 0-937958-09-3
 
 
In  Burke McCarty's book, the ex-Rev. Chiniquy, who knew Lincoln,
quotes the great president as having stated as follows:
 
  The common people hear and see  the big noisy wheels of the
  southern Confederacy cars, and they call  him  Jeff  Davis,
  Lee,   Thompson,   Beauregard,  Semmes,  or  others.   They
  honestly think that they  are  the  motive power, the first
  cause of our troubles, but it is a mistake, the true motive
  power is secreted behind the thick walls of the Vatican  --
  the  colleges  and  schools of the Jesuits; the convents of
  the Nuns, the confessional boxes of Rome.
 
And again, said by Chiniquy to be a statement having been made by
President Lincoln:
 
  Father Chiniquy, I want your  views  about a thing which is
  exceedingly puzzling to me and you are the only one to whom
  I would like to speak on the subject.  A  great  number  of
  Democratic  newspapers  have been sent me lately, evidently
  written by Roman Catholics,  publishing  that  I was born a
  Roman Catholic and baptized by a priest.  They called me  a
  renegade  and  apostate on account of that, and they heaped
  upon my head mountains  of  abuse.   Now, no priest of Rome
  has ever laid his hand on my head.  But the persistency  of
  the Romish press to present this falsehood to their readers
  as  gospel  truth, must have a meaning.  Please tell me, as
  briefly as possible, what you think about it.
 
This, Chiniquy answered, was  done  solely  to incite and justify
the act of assassination in the minds of any  Catholic  fanatics.
It was, says Chiniquy, equivalent to a command.
 
Skeptics  will  rightly  point  out  that as a defrocked Catholic
priest, Chiniquy's claims  are  dubious.   Yet  that coin has two
sides:  as a defrocked priest, Chiniquy would have been  free  to
speak his mind.
 
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

