Lincoln Assassination Controversy: Just Politics or Catholic/Jesuit Plot?

Another Christian blogger, Harry A. Gaylord, discovered ex-Catholic priest Charles Chiniquy's book that exposes the Catholic conspiracy behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and presents Chiniquy's claims in this post at his blog, Sun and Shield.  

He begins his post with this:

I, like so many other Americans, was always told the conspiracy to assassinate one of our best Presidents was because of anger over the South losing the Civil War.  However, my research shows Lincoln’s assassination was about much more than that.

He goes on to sketch out Chiniquy's account of his life in the Roman Church, Fifty Years in the "Church" of Rome including the eventual assassination of Lincoln for successfully defending Chiniquy against trumped-up charges brought by his superiors in the Church, and Chiniquy's claim that the Roman Catholic Church, specifically the Jesuits, was behind the assassination.

Paul Serup who wrote the book Who Killed Abraham Lincoln?  based on a couple of decades of research into Chiniquy's claims, discovered Gaylord's blog and posted a comment, which turned into an exchange with Gaylord and others, including a couple of defenders of the Catholic Church against Chiniquy [who posted this link to a Catholic apologetics website. (written by a Jesuit of course) ].

Gaylord found Chiniquy's book completely credible, as did I when I read it some months back.  Then I heard about Paul Serup's book and have intended to read it eventually.  [Finally I've ordered it and hope I'll get to read it in rehab after surgery on my hip on the 9th (prayer appreciated).  It's most readily available at the moment at Chris Pinto's site, Adullam Films.]  Serup researched old newspaper accounts of the trials of Charles Chiniquy over the charges against him by his Catholic superiors, as well as the trial of the conspirators in the Lincoln assassination among other things.

As Gaylord indicates in his blog, if Chiniquy's story is true it flies in the face of what we've always been told about the assassination of Lincoln, so clearly there is controversy about all this that's going to need to be unraveled.  There was even a movie, The Conspirator, made by Robert Redford in 2011 [Trailer here] attempting to exonerate Mary Surratt who was convicted as the main conspirator in the assassination and put to death for it, which is a subject of comment by Serup at Gaylord's blog;  and there was also a book on the assassination by Bill O'Reilly that came out in the same year that apparently doesn't deal with the Chiniquy allegations.

Ever since his death there have been attempts to discredit Chiniquy that Serup tries to answer in his book, including the 1908 article by the Jesuit Smith linked above, and a more recent article by Joseph George Jr. in 1976, titled the Lincoln Writings of Charles P. T. Chiniquy and of course if there is a "scholarly" claim attached to any of these efforts they are likely to be believed and both Chiniquy and Serup are then accused of lying.  This has been happening here and there where this topic comes up. 

Since I was persuaded by Chiniquy I expect the best of Serup's research and hope to learn enough about all these things to join in the discussion on their side.

More from Jan Markell

Just a short excerpt from Jan Markell's EAlert that spoke to me today.  You can read the rest at the link. 

Are You Weary Of Being Outraged?

 

If you're like me, you're fed up. You're disgusted that evil always seems to win! You wonder why God allows serial liars in government and elsewhere to keep prospering and even to win re-election in many places. Just being aware of the fact that we're in an Isaiah 5:20 world isn't enough: that we're likely in the midst of evil being called good.  

 

We have unspeakable atrocities going on at the highest levels. People are being silenced on Benghazi and the perpetrators are still running free. America funds one of the most evil outfits on earth: the Muslim Brotherhood. All Americans are being spied on! What I'm typing here in real time is likely being recorded somewhere. You and I are being watched and listened to as if we were criminals. Truth is, we are being watched by criminals -- the ones who are murdering the Constitution.  And soon we're going to have to trust the most corrupt institution there is - the IRS - to administer our healthcare.

 

And even if we rioted in the streets, or started a third, fourth, or fifth political party, we wouldn't see much of a change for the good. Government is supposed to serve us yet it is clearly operating the other way around and to many, government has now become a god. Just quoting the familiar verse from Proverbs 29:2, "When the wicked rule, the people mourn," is not a comfort. We want to throw the wicked bums out and cannot.  

   

...Set aside the world for a minute and let's consider the church. We're outraged that people love false teachers and that they cannot see that they are false!  We're driven nuts by the death of discernment. We watch a lot of Christians today beat up on one another probably for their own personal gain. We're sick of the religious Left deluding Christians to take their focus off of the gospel and onto global warming, immigration, and social justice. And we're even more outraged when these Christian Leftists parade around as evangelicals, but then we're saddened that the word evangelical has become so trashed.

     

..."Do not fear" is in the Bible 365 times.  Is there a message there? It is an act of faith to look at this world and not fear. Not be anxious. Not be angry. Not be frustrated. Focusing on eternal things neutralizes the attitude and the angry juices in your gut telling you that you can't stomach one more dilemma.

  
So, come quickly, Lord Jesus! 

Amen.

I'm so weary of it all I don't even feel outrage much any more, evil is just the new normal, at some point you grasp that there is little to nothing you can do about it and it's just sad. 

It's just a handful of people who even know the world is as evil as it is these days, many of the rest have a strange optimism that day by day we're getting better and better, and if there's anything wrong more often than not it's the fault of the crazy Christians and other anti-progressives. 

But yes, do not fear but look up for your redemption draweth nigh.  

End Times sadness about Israel, & about the condition of the Church

More sadness about the times we live in.  Gets to me a lot these days.  Just heard Jan Markell's weekend radio show, When Being Jewish is a Crime where she demonstrates the growth of anti-Semitism in America, really depressing stuff, and of course the usual negative attitude against Israel which is all of a piece with the anti-Semitism.  I don't share the theology of those ministries that teach that the Old Testament still applies to unsaved Israel, but I nevertheless believe Israel and the Jews are a big part of God's plan for the last days, and even if I didn't, I know Israel is not guilty of the charges the world keeps slamming against her.  It's all trumped up and that fact alone shows that God still cares about* His wayward people or they wouldn't be attracting such hatred.  They need the gospel above all of course, need to recognize their own true Messiah whom they've always rejected, that's where all our prayers should be focused.

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UPDATE 7/21:  *Feel I need to be more accurate about the hatred piling up against Israel.  Yes it certainly indicates God has His eye on her, but so did the miraculous events of their wars in which a vastly outnumbered little nation defeated the big Arab nations that tried to destroy her more than once.  There is no doubt in my mind that God is watching over Israel, and scripture indicates that when the Lord Jesus returns it will be to the Mount of Olives.  There is no doubt that Israel figures in God's end times plans. 

Nevertheless it seems necessary to try to account for the hatred in other terms as well, as God's judgment.   This is how I explain the precarious position of America in the world today after all, so much hatred around the world after a long time of being in the world's favor, the demoralization and undermining of the culture that we've been witnessing for some time and so on.  I think America has been particularly blessed by God, and in some sense also in a covenant with God because of the dedications of the land to God by early Protestant settlers, and their determination to live by God's law.  This is not the same as the covenant initiated by God with Israel but it is still a special relationship that many early Americans honored and appears to have been greatly blessed by God.  So God's judgment of America is likely to be more severe than His judgments of other nations that haven't known God. 

Israel of course represents the God of the Old Testament in a very high profile way, and the fact that they themselves don't recognize their own God but are in an apostate condition, a sinful condition, even rejecting Him outright, puts them in the position of drawing down a really terrible judgment, described clearly in the Hebrew scriptures, Deuteronomy 10 and Leviticus 26 in particular.  I also don't think we can ignore the fact that they are still under the curse they took upon themselves when they chose Barabbas over Christ and called for our Lord's crucifixion.  Jesus from the cross asked the Father to forgive them, but until they repent there can be no forgiveness.  Yet scripture says they WILL repent, the last generation will recognize Him as the Messiah and turn to Him.  But before that happens they are under God's judgment.   Again, simply on the basis of the curses in Deuteronomy and Leviticus they are under God's judgment anyway because they are in the apostate condition of having turned away from their God altogether to rule themselves.  To recognize this would be a very bitter thing for the Jews but in the end they must come to recognize it. 

God hasn't abandoned them.  He's watching over them.  Something wonderful is going to happen with them and probably not too long from now, if I understand this rightly, but before that happens scripture seems to indicate they are to go through a terrible time of judgment known as "Jacob's trouble." 

Yes, they need the gospel of their Messiah above all and we need to be praying for them.    

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Then I read a new attack on the Harbinger, the usual crazy misreading of it, the idea that Cahn thinks America was directly predicted in Isaiah's text.  What's depressing about that is that Christians can think so wrongly about anything and be so aggressive and destructive in their wrong thinking as well.  There are also Christians who accuse him of "extrabiblical revelation" and again I experience the sadness that Christians have no ability to judge these things rightly.  Extrabiblical revelation is the Book of Mormon, it's the papal teachings of Rome that contradict the Bible, it's the people who think they have the Spirit and trust whatever the "Spirit" seems to say even if it's contrary to scripture, and The Harbinger is not guilty of any such thing; it is a straightforward application of the Biblical text.  This is not some need I have to defend The Harbinger, because I've been terribly disappointed in Jonathan Cahn's alliances with false teachers and apostates and figure the book's message is compromised by that and can't do the work of influencing the nation to repentance and revival for that reason.  Despite all that I still find the main message of his book to hold up so now it just stands as God's judgment of the nation that won't be turned back.

Christians all around seem to be falling for compromises of various sorts, seem unable to apply the most basic biblical discernment to the situations we are facing these days.  It's all very sad.  Not that I consider myself safe from such errors either, all I can do is pray to be preserved from them as much as possible.

As usual there are other things on my mind I could add to this and as usual I'm not sure I have the energy to get to them.  But if I can I will.

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Meanwhile I'm due for surgery in a few weeks and hope Christians reading any of my blogs would pray for a good outcome.  Thanks.

The Lincoln Assassination the work of the Vatican / Jesuits

First a brief musing on how the World Out There, or some parts of it, insists on demonizing Biblical Christians these days.  If we express our belief in the scripture's teaching that homosexuality is sin, we "hate gays" although we also recognize many other kinds of sins than homosexual sin without being labeled as "hating adulterers" or "hating thieves" or whatnot;  if we argue against evolution we "hate science" although I've never known a Christian who didn't appreciate the achievements of science, and most science has nothing to do with evolution; and if we suggest that the Vatican is a power hungry organization that still wants to take over the world, we're characterized as "hating Catholics" even though we usually work hard to make it clear we understand that ordinary Catholics have nothing to do with that.   It doesn't matter what we say, THEY know the truth and we're just ignorant dupes of religion.

When it comes to things Catholic, such as the information I've been gathering lately about how Jesuits were behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, there is no way to get even a moment's open-minded consideration of the idea, which they label as a "conspiracy theory" as if that magic label all by itself dispels the very possibility.  You even get accusations of believing in Bigfoot or the like as if there's any connection whatever.  The way these people think is hard to follow, they just leap from one category to another within some bizarre frame of reference entirely of their own, but it all adds up to an abiding bias against Bible Christianity whatever mental route they take.  About all we can glean from this is that prophecy is being fulfilled more rapidly and consistently than we might have expected only a few years ago.

About the Lincoln assassination, I first learned of a Jesuit connection from the book by Charles Chiniquy, 19th Century priest who eventually left the Church of Rome.  He knew Lincoln from the time Lincoln as a lawyer successfully defended him against some false charges by his Catholic superiors.  He described all this in his book Fifty Years in the "Church" of Rome.  Now there is a book out by a Paul Serup, a Canadian who researched Chiniquy's claims over a couple of decades and ended up confirming them.  I have yet to read his book, Who Killed Abraham Lincoln? but of course I'm already well disposed toward it because Chiniquy is a credible witness. 

But you can't tell the World about this without being treated to heaps of scorn and abuse.  Don't we already know enough about the assassination?  It was all Confederate vengeance for the Civil War according to current wisdom.  The idea that perhaps the truth of who was behind it has been suppressed is just proof of "conspiracy thinking" that couldn't possibly have any merit. 

A typical taunt from this quarter goes:

When you have a letter from Pope Pius IX to John Wilkes Booth you let us know, okay?

I wonder if correspondence between Pope Pius IX and Jefferson Davis would suffice, in which the pope tacitly recognizes the Confederacy as a nation unto itself by referring to Davis as "President of the Confederate States of America," making him the only head of state to recognize the Confederacy.  Could this suggest a connection between Catholicism and the Confederacy that might then suggest a connection with the conspirators to kill Lincoln?

Then there is this quote of Lincoln given by Chiniquy, which of course is denied by Catholic apologists and therefore also denied by those who must believe all this a mere case of conspiracy thinking that has no real substance: 

This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to Popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons. Though there were great differences of opinion between the South and North, on the question of slavery, neither Jeff Davis nor any one of the leading men of the Confederacy would have dared to attack the North, had they not relied on the promise of the Jesuits, that, under the mask of Democracy, the money and the arms of the Roman Catholics, even the arms of France, were at their disposal if they would attack us.”

 
Here's an interesting website, or perhaps a rather strange website, but its content is interesting.  They make the following accusations including the above quotation: 


That Pope Pius IX did plan, coordinate and deliberately instigate the conditions and actions that directly led to the American Civil War, in particular the rise of the secessionist movement of wealthy slave owners, the funding of extremists on both sides (North and South), on the political successes of Southern President Davis an in particular on the attach of Fort Sumter in South Carolina which started the conflict.

That the motivations of the Papacy were not only to sustain its last profitable enterprise of slave trade, but to actively destabilize the largest constitutional democracy in the world.

That so directly involved were the Papacy in causing the war that President Abraham Lincoln himself did write and say: “This war would never have been possible without the sinister influence of the Jesuits. We owe it to Popery that we now see our land reddened with the blood of her noblest sons. Though there were great differences of opinion between the South and North, on the question of slavery, neither Jeff Davis nor any one of the leading men of the Confederacy would have dared to attack the North, had they not relied on the promise of the Jesuits, that, under the mask of Democracy, the money and the arms of the Roman Catholics, even the arms of France, were at their disposal if they would attack us.” President Lincoln.

Furthermore, the direct and constant involvement of Pope Pius IX is also evident in his attempt to prolong the war by pledging support in a letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis in 1863 in which the Pope pledged his sympathy to the Southern cause, that there were people loyal to their cause in the North and all around the world. That when this letter was published to encourage support in 1863, it did have the opposite effect whereby of 144,000 Irishmen that enlisted, 104,000 deserted after the recognition of the Confederacy by the Pope. That because of the direct and deliberate involvement of the Vatican and Pope Pius IX in deliberately destabilizing the United States, the Roman Catholic Church is directly responsible for the death of 498,332 people because of the Civil War and the ensuing decades of misery and cost it caused. Of murder (political assassination) (1865)

That Pope Pius IX did authorize the funding and mission that resulted in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865. That John Wilkes Booth and other conspirators were recruited, funded and controlled for their mission by the Jesuit emissaries of the Pope. That on at least one occasion there was clear evidence of the connection between the Vatican’s involvement when John Wilkes Booth did spend ten days in October 1864 in Montreal with Catholic priests and several days in Toronto at St. Patrick Hall, an important meeting place for the Irish Catholic Benevolent Union. It is in Canada, that it is believed Booth was shown (never given) letters of authority from the Pope himself for the assassination mission.

That of the conspirators discovered and arrested, a number of their family did successfully escape through the direct and known assistance of the Roman Catholic priests from Montreal. That John H. Surratt (son of conspirator Mary Surratt) upon reaching Rome was appointed to the Pope's Zouave military unit but was arrested by U.S. officials and brought back to trial in Washington, D.C. in 1867.

That upon US authorities discovering the extent of the Papal involvement, it did end all diplomatic ties with the Vatican in the same year. (1867). That these relations with the US were only normalized in 1984.

Of crimes against humanity for the purpose of promoting the international slave trade : (1866) That the Holy Office upon the orders of Pope Pius IX did declare on 20 June 1866: “Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law, and there can be several just titles of slavery and these are referred to by approved theologians and commentators of the sacred canons.... It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given”. That this position was officially published as part of a campaign to encourage European and Latin American Catholic nations to enter the war on the side of the South to ensure the most profitable slave market for the Vatican remained operational.

Of historic false statement, moral indignity, heresy and contempt for the fundamental rights of common law (1871) 

I would like to see all this documented of course, but since I find Chiniquy credible and many others who have written similarly about the machinations of the Vatican, I don't have any reason to doubt it.  I will eventually get Paul Serup's book, hoping he's done a lot of the needed documentation there.

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Here's an earlier post I did on this subject at my Catholicism blog, including links to Chris Pinto's radio shows on the subject.
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http://xpknights.net/images/lettertoJeffersonDavispdf

http://one-evil.org/content/people_19c_pius_ix.html

Sainting a Pope, conjuring a miracle, misleading a faithful Catholic woman.

So Pope John Paul II is going to be made a "saint" according to the pagan formula of the Roman Catholic system.  It takes a recognized "miracle" to qualify a person for "sainthood" in that system.  Turns out there's a woman in Costa Rica who believes the Pope healed her of a brain aneurism she had been told would take her life probably within a month. 

She says she prayed to the late pope to heal her

Roman Catholics pray to dead people.  The Pope isn't even officially a "saint" yet but she prayed to him.  She has a shrine in her house to that Pope, something pagan religions set up to honor their gods.

The doctor who diagnosed her says he didn't give her a short while to live but rather a very small chance of bleeding in her brain, and put her on a diet to reduce this very slight risk, but he does say it's amazing that there are now no signs of the aneurism present, and it looks like this will be counted as a miracle toward the sainting of the former Pope. 

I don't have any reason to doubt her story about the healing episode itself.  I would of course doubt the source of the voices she heard and of the healing as well, assuming it can be considered a healing. 

But what most interests me is the patent paganism in the Roman Church, and how this Roman Catholic woman is so sadly misled. 

What does Roman Catholicism have to do with Christianity at all?