Exposing the Lie about Lincoln's Alleged Anti-Catholic Words

Also of interest!

Exposing the Lie about Lincoln's Alleged Anti-Catholic Words:

The following was posted by Michael(non-catholic) [mdroe@erinet.com] in the thread Where is hell:

Abraham Lincoln stated, "As long as God gives me a heart to feel, a brain to think, or a hand to execute my will, I will devote it against that power which has attempted to use the machinery of the courts to destroy the rights and character of an American citizen. But there is a thing which is very certain; it is, that if the American people could learn what I know of the fierce hatred of the generality of the priests of Rome against our institutions, our schools, our most sacred rights, and our so dearly bought liberties, they would drive them away, tomorrow, from among us, or would shoot them as traitors.... The history of the last thousand years tells us that wherever the Church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a free nation, she is a stone to her neck, and a ball to her feet, to paralyze her and prevent her advance in the ways of civilization, science, intelligence, happiness, and liberty.... I do not pretend to be a prophet. But though not a prophet, I see a very dark cloud on our horizon. And that dark cloud is coming from Rome. It is filled with tears of blood. It will rise and increase, till its flanks will be torn by a flash of lightening, followed by a fearful peal of thunder. Then a cyclone such as the world has never seen, will pass over this country, spreading ruin and desolation from north to south. After it is over, there will be long days of peace and prosperity; for popery, with its Jesuits and merciless Inquisition, will have been forever swept away from our country. Neither I nor you, but our children, will see those things." The beloved Lincoln made the statement just given at the conclusion of the trial of Mr. Chiniquy, author of the book, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.

The accusation that Lincoln ever said such deplorable words is a shameless lie, a despicable smirch of the character of that great man, and a reprehensible defamation of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church which Christ Jesus our Lord founded on the Rock of Simon the Fisherman.

Here is the truth about the words falsely attributed to Lincoln and about his very public attitude towards Catholics in the USA, from They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions, by Paul F. Boller Jr. & John George (Oxford University Press, 1989), pages 79-80, emphasis added:

"These words, entitled 'Lincoln's Warning,' have circulated among Catholic-haters in this country since the late 19th century, but there is nothing of Lincoln in them. They were written by Charles Chiniquy, a Canadian-born priest who settled in Kankakee County, Illinois, in 1851, as head of a Catholic colony, and then abandoned his faith, began spewing out hatred for his former religion, and invented anti-Catholic utterances for Lincoln as part of his anti-Catholic campaign.

"But Chiniquy did know Lincoln, though not very well. In 1856, Lincoln and Leonard Swett handled a case for Chiniquy in Springfield, Illinois, and years later, after Lincoln had become famous, the recusant priest falsely claimed he had been an intimate friend of Honest Abe and that the latter had secretly confided to him his fear and hatred of Catholicism. The false quote appeared in Chiniquy's Fifty Years in the Church of Rome (Chicago, 1886), a lengthy and bitter attack on the Roman Catholic Church.

"Lincoln of course had nothing of the bigot in him, and the kind of views Chiniquy attributed to him were entirely foreign to his thinking. In June 1844, Lincoln wrote a resolution condemning the intolerance of the Know Nothing movement: 'The guarantee of the right of conscience as found in the Constitution, is most sacred and inviolable, and one that belongs no less to the Catholic, than to the Protestant.' And in a much-quoted letter to his friend Joshua Speed on August 24, 1855, he expressed his dismay over the bigoted views of the Know Nothings and warned that if they triumphed the Declaration of Independence would be corrupted into reading: 'All men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.'"