Pod Insights Conspiracy Theories Priests vs. Presidents: Who Really Orchestrated the Lincoln Assassination? About this episode We’ve all heard the story of John Wilkes Booth firing a bullet in Ford’s Theater… but maybe you haven’t heard the theory he was a puppet, with his strings pulled by a much bigger organization. In the 1800s, a massively popular story circulated that the Jesuit Order orchestrated the Lincoln assassination. And the theory’s biggest promoter? He claimed to be Lincoln’s close friend.
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Transcript 0:06 Speaker 00 You know those people in your life whose pictures you can't stop looking at? Your girlfriend, your cats, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln? And they've got this special factor. I mean, my cat's pretty cute. And Lincoln's on two forms of money. Or, you know, was. R.I.P. the penny. There's a reason Americans look at Lincoln constantly. He's one of our heroes. Honest Abe. He started barefoot in a log cabin and became the President of the United States. His wife's a Broadway hit. He practiced law and even hunted vampires that one time. He reunified a divided America and freed the enslaved.
0:51 Speaker 00 He ended the Civil War and was assassinated five days later. Almost as soon as the gun was fired, conspiracy theories flew. But one of the most popular is one you've probably never heard of. It circulated in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was so huge, the man who wrote the most popular book about it became Canada's best-selling author of all time. Over 40 editions of his book were printed in just seven years. The author's name was Charles Chiniqui. And he believed he uncovered the assassination plot years before Lincoln was attacked.
1:34 Speaker 00 Though he tried his best to warn the President, international powers covered up the truth. They wanted Lincoln dead and Chiniqui silenced. And there has to be a reason why today almost no one has heard of Charles Chiniqui.
1:54 Speaker 00 Welcome to Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify podcast. I'm Carter Roy. New episodes come out every Wednesday. We would love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts, or check us out on Instagram @TheConspiracyPod. This episode contains discussions of murder, racism, religious discrimination, xenophobia, hate groups, and sexual harassment. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by Petivity. Every cat has a few unsolved mysteries. Why the 3 a.m. Zoomies?
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4:24 Speaker 00 All the Lincoln assassination conspiracy theories agree on a couple of facts. First, it happened on April 14th, 1865, at Ford's Theater during a performance of "Our American Cousin." And the president was shot in the back of the head, and John Wilkes Booth fired the gun. Most theories also agree that Booth shot Lincoln as part of a conspiracy to destabilize the country. Exactly who is behind that conspiracy is up for debate. Officially, John Wilkes Booth set his sights on Lincoln in 1864, not to kill him, just to kidnap him.
5:06 Speaker 00 You see, Booth wasn't a soldier, a spy, or even an assassin, though he had played one on stage. His favorite role was Brutus in Julius Caesar. Uh, yeah, the one who orchestrates a murder conspiracy, life imitating art, imitating life art? Who knows? Maybe he got a little too into the role. Booth came from a famous acting family. His dad and his two older brothers were all internationally famous actors. John Wilkes Booth performed on stages across the divided country, entertaining both the Union and the Confederacy. He was big enough that even President Lincoln saw him perform.
5:49 Speaker 00 In short, Booth wasn't a conspiratorial expert, and he knew it. He couldn't pull off a kidnapping alone. So Booth found Confederate sympathizers and recruited them into his scheme. And because we know he didn't act alone, that opens the conspiracy theory floodgates. Who did Booth talk to? When? How did they help? We do know that Booth initially recruited two childhood friends and a coworker. But his most valuable recruit was John Surratt Jr., a Confederate spy with contacts across the South and a perfect, secret meeting location: his mom's house.
6:34 Speaker 00 Yes, one of the biggest moments in American history officially started out as a bunch of 20-something dudes talking politics in their mom's basement, or, more accurately, her boarding house. Some things never change. John Serat Jr. recruited George Atserats, a Confederate smuggler familiar with the local rivers, as their escape artist. Then he roped in Louis Powell, a former POW, as the group's muscle. Officially, it was a small, independent operation, no connection to any governments or other powerful entities. But for a small group, they had big plans.
7:16 Speaker 00 And they thought kidnapping the president was a perfect bargaining chip. With a hostage, they could demand that the Union release more Confederate POWs and agree to a peace deal favoring the Confederacy. Even if the United States were never united again, the conspirators could continue to enslave people. Their ultimate goal. John Wilkes Booth called slavery, quote, "one of the greatest blessings God ever bestowed upon a favored nation." So, the plan was simple. Kidnap Lincoln, keep people enslaved.
7:57 Speaker 00 But before they could enact it, the Confederacy surrendered. The country was reunifying. The enslaved people were freed. The conspirators couldn't handle that, so they escalated their kidnapping plot to murder. And not just Lincoln. They'd simultaneously murder the top three executive branch leaders: President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward. This would cause so much chaos, it'd give the Confederacy a second chance. It would all go down at 10:00 PM on April 14, 1865.
8:41 Speaker 00 Good Friday. Officially, Booth picked the date for practical reasons. Earlier that week, he stopped by Ford's Theater, where he frequently performed. Booth had friends there, he got mail there, it was basically his office. And that week's watercooler chat was that the president had tickets to Friday's show.
9:04 Speaker 00 There it was, Booth's sign to attack. But despite months of plotting, the conspirators' plans were not airtight. First, Atzerot, the escape artist, went to a bar to psych himself up to attack the vice president. But he got too drunk and changed his mind. Meanwhile, Powell, the muscle, stabbed eight people at the Secretary of State's house. Eventually, he realized he was overpowered and ran away, leaving everyone alive. We know how Booth's plan went, but that almost didn't happen either. That Friday, Lincoln's work ran late.
9:49 Speaker 00 Ironically, one of his tasks was signing the documents to officially create the Secret Service. They wouldn't become a security agency for a few decades, but it's a wild coincidence. After he finished saving future presidents from assassinations, Lincoln learned that his wife, Mary Todd, had a headache. And then he found out his first choice of bodyguard was unavailable. The man assigned instead was known to drink on the job. Lincoln asked for a swap, but no one else was available. In spite of everything, Lincoln, Mary Todd, and the tipsy bodyguard went to Ford's Theater.
10:34 Speaker 00 They arrived late and received a standing ovation. After all, Lincoln just won a war. Everyone knew he was in the building, including Booth. Booth had already prepared Lincoln's box for his operation. Earlier in the day, he drilled a peephole into the wall and left a doorjamb inside. No one who saw questioned him because he was there all the time, and no one questioned him as he headed into Lincoln's box after intermission. Apparently, they assumed he was just going to say hello. Remember, Lincoln knew who Booth was. He knew the whole family.
11:15 Speaker 00 Lincoln's bodyguard went next door for a drink at intermission and hadn't come back yet. So Booth snuck into the box without attracting attention and jammed the door so no one else could come in and stop him. He was essentially in a private room with the Lincolns and their two friends who joined last minute. Booth knew the play, so he bided his time, waiting until one of the show's biggest laugh lines sent an uproar through the theater and shot the president. Booth leapt from the box to the stage, allegedly breaking his leg as he landed. He yelled, "Sick Semper Tyrannis," supposedly what Brutus said when killing Caesar.
12:00 Speaker 00 Thus, always two tyrants. With the entire theater in shock, Booth snuck out through the back door. He jumped on his waiting horse and galloped away. President Abraham Lincoln died from his injuries the next morning. While mourning their leader, America's national focus shifted to justice and a massive manhunt. It wasn't a simple search because Booth had a big network hiding him. People in on the conspiracy, sympathetic to the Confederate cause, or just kind strangers who believed his fake name and disguise.
12:41 Speaker 00 Booth traveled with David Harold, who'd been recruited by John Surratt Jr. And they snuck out of DC and moved south through Maryland. At one stop, a doctor treated Booth's broken leg. When they made it to Virginia, Harold got cocky and stopped using their code names, revealing Booth's identity to one of the young Confederates helping them. A critical mistake. That Confederate led the manhunt to Booth's next hiding spot, a farm. After 12 days on the run, Booth was apprehended and one of the government agents shot him. Booth was never interrogated, but he left behind a diary.
13:24 Speaker 00 When describing the assassination, he wrote, "God simply made me the instrument of his punishment." In Booth's own words, "There was a religious justification for his actions, a greater force than man alone." Exactly how religious? Well, a few years later, a pastor dropped a bombshell. Apparently, Lincoln told him he suspected he'd be assassinated by Jesuit priests.
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15:00 Speaker 00 Okay, let's flash back to 1855, about 10 years before Lincoln's assassination. Church pastor Charles Chiniqui was sued for slander while preaching in Illinois. Chiniqui needed a lawyer, fast. A friend recommended litigation superstar Abe Lincoln. Chiniqui had never heard of him, but he hired him. This is all confirmed historical record from the case files of Spink v. Chiniqui.
15:31 Speaker 00 Lincoln dug into the case. According to Chiniqui, local businessman Peter Spink was a land shark. He sought to claim public forest for himself and charge anyone who wanted to cut down the trees. But historically, members of Chiniqui's congregation had been cutting down that timber for free. Chiniqui basically said, "This man is stealing from you to make himself rich." From the pulpit, he warned his congregation, "Beware the dangers of greed."
16:05 Speaker 00 Spank said that was untrue and Chiniqui's statements had lost him business.
16:12 Speaker 00 As Lincoln defended Chiniqui, the two got to know each other. According to Chiniqui, they became great friends. When a juror had to bow out, resulting in a mistrial, Lincoln negotiated an out of court settlement. As Chiniqui tells it, Lincoln saved him. He was a hero. The two men kept in touch. Some of Chiniqui's letters to Lincoln are in the Lincoln Presidential Archives. And here's where we get into the conspiracy theory. Chiniqui claimed what happened next was kept off the official records for everyone's safety. This whole theory comes from his bestselling book, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome.
16:56 Speaker 00 And while Chiniqui wasn't shy about using quotations, he never named his sources for the information he uncovered about the assassination plot. Allegedly, a few months into Lincoln's presidency, Chiniqui spoke to a former Catholic priest. The priest said he'd left the church after uncovering a bombshell. The Pope was plotting an international assassination. The news struck terror in Chiniqui's heart. He had to warn Lincoln. The news this dangerous could only be delivered in person. So Chiniqui visited the White House in August 1861.
17:39 Speaker 00 You might be wondering, why would the Pope want to kill Lincoln? Well, according to Chiniqui's secret sources, the Vatican actually engineered the Civil War to destroy America so they could install a Catholic theocracy in the Midwest. Okay, wild, I know, but back in the 1850s, the idea didn't seem so far fetched. And because the Vatican does have a political history. There were the Crusades, where the Pope sent soldiers to conquer the Holy Land. And for centuries, the Pope ruled over the Papal States, a territory in Italy that functioned as a small country.
18:25 Speaker 00 The Pope even had his own army. In the 1500s, Pope Julius II personally commanded those military forces to claim more land from the French. And this papal army still existed in the 1860s. At the time of the Lincoln administration, the Papal States were under siege by the Unified Kingdom of Italy and actively at war. In short, there was a history of the Vatican claiming land, fighting wars, and ruling a theocracy. Back to the conspiracy theory.
19:05 Speaker 00 According to Chiniqui's unnamed sources, the Vatican hired French mercenaries and sent them into Mexico. And the plan was for those soldiers to sneak across the border and pose as Confederate soldiers. They'd help the South win the war and keep the US divided. Allegedly, the Church also built a secret militia in the US which would take over the Midwest once the Civil War had adequately weakened the Union. As Chiniqui described it, the plot was a land grab. In his research, he found the writings of Irish-Canadian politician Thomas Darcy McGee,
19:49 Speaker 00 who encouraged Irish Catholics to move to North America. Chiniqui believed this was an early step in the plot. Catholic residents would willingly submit to the Pope's coming theocracy. But Abraham Lincoln threw a wrench in the plan. The president made every effort to put the fractured pieces of the country back together, instead of letting the chaos rip it apart permanently. So, apparently, the Pope sent in the Jesuit Order. They're a fraternity of priests and, in confirmed history, no stranger to international politics.
20:30 Speaker 00 Since the Order's founding in the 1500s, they'd taken influential positions in European royal courts, including as the official confessors of the French royal family. The Order grew so powerful that in the late 1700s, politicians in France, Spain, and Portugal expelled all Jesuits from their countries. After this, the Pope actually abolished the Jesuits before resurrecting the Order in 1814. Since then, the Jesuits swear an extra private vow to the Pope. The general public doesn't know what the vow entails, but Chiniqui believed they were
21:14 Speaker 00 the Pope's spies, and their next mission was to kill the president.
21:22 Speaker 00 Okay, whoa, wow, this is insane. So, a quick recap. Lincoln's old legal client thought the Vatican was coming for America's cornfields and started the Civil War to get that land, and since Lincoln wanted to end the war and reunify the country, he had to go. Chiniqui brought this intel to Lincoln, who already knew. A few days earlier, he'd gotten the tip from Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse code. Morse was fresh off a trip to Rome, where he'd uncovered the same conspiracy plot as Chiniqui. So Lincoln and Chiniqui were on the same page, but Lincoln wasn't going to let his
22:07 Speaker 00 fear of a Jesuit attack stop him from leading the country through the Civil War. So Chiniqui returned home and continued his vigilance.
22:19 Speaker 00 Reading the newspapers over the next few months, he suspected that the Jesuits were running an anti-Lincoln smear campaign. He grew concerned enough that in June 1862, he returned to the White House. But at the height of the Civil War, Lincoln didn't have time for more than a firm handshake before brushing off. The following January, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery in the US. Then, in November, he delivered the Gettysburg Address. You know, fourscore and seven years ago. By late 1863, Lincoln had secured his image as a leader working for peace,
23:04 Speaker 00 unity, and freedom. He became a symbol of these ideals. Meanwhile, Chiniqui continued his research and communicated with his hidden sources. Somehow, he got wind of letters exchanged between Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the Pope. To Chiniqui, this was proof the Catholic Church backed the Confederacy. Chiniqui got his hands on copies of the letters, which revealed even more disturbing news. The Pope wasn't just relying on the Jesuits for the assassination plot. He'd issued an order to all Catholics.
23:47 Speaker 00 "It is your moral duty to kill Abraham Lincoln." Naturally, Chiniqui traveled to the White House the very next day. As he recounts it, Lincoln sat down with him and once again, confirmed Chiniqui's concerns. Lincoln had already read the letters between Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the Pope. But he took it all in stride. He accepted his likely fate. Chiniqui cried and prayed for his friend, but eventually had to say goodbye, devastated that the president's death warrant seemed sealed.
24:30 Speaker 00 When Lincoln died the following April, Chiniqui took it as confirmation he'd been right all along. Now, as we mentioned earlier, Chiniqui didn't share his sources, and the meetings don't show up in Lincoln's presidential archives, so there are a lot of questions surrounding the evidence here. But there are a few known historical details that align with Chiniqui's claims. First off, some of the known conspirators were Catholic. Remember John Junior and his mom? The pair who hosted the conspirators' meetings in the family's boarding house and tavern? Devout Catholics. That's a fact.
25:14 Speaker 00 And Junior was so Catholic, he spent time discerning if he should become a priest, before deciding it was not for him, but he still spent a lot of time with the clergy. The Serats routinely hosted priests at their boarding house and tavern. Allegedly, when Junior and Booth brought over new conspirators to plan the assassination, Junior's mom, Mary Serat, tried to convert them to Catholicism, including Booth. According to John Serat Junior's trial records, the officer who captured and killed Booth testified that Booth had a Catholic medal on him when he died.
25:56 Speaker 00 Then, there's Booth's claim that God used him to kill Lincoln, and his choice to attack on Good Friday, one of the holiest days in the Roman Catholic calendar. According to Chiniqui, John Wilkes Booth was an undercover Catholic. So were other conspirators. Remember the doctor who treated Booth's broken leg while he was on the run? Catholic. And the man he went on the run with? Studied at Georgetown, a Jesuit university. Other connections aren't so strong. Leading up to their execution, Powell, Atzerot, and Harold received Protestant rites and
26:38 Speaker 00 ministry, but Chiniqui asserted this was all a smokescreen, where they had to pretend they hadn't converted for the sake of the cause. More intriguing, two conspirators who were confirmed to be Catholic were not executed. And the doctor who treated Booth's leg was only sentenced to hard labor. And John Serat Jr. fled the country with help from Catholic priests. Junior's escape is confirmed history, and it might be Chiniqui's best evidence. After the assassination, Junior met up with priest friends who smuggled him into Canada and then all the way to Rome.
27:21 Speaker 00 In Rome, he assumed a fake identity and joined a mercenary group called the Zouavs, who were at the time, working for the Pope. Now, remember how I mentioned the Kingdom of Italy was trying to conquer the Papal States? Well, the Vatican had hired the Zouavs to bulk up the Papal Army. Junior hid around Vatican City for months. Until someone recognized him and turned him in, he was extradited to the USA at his trial. The jury could only confirm he'd been involved in the kidnapping plot, not the assassination. So Junior walked free and went on to live a long life.
28:05 Speaker 00 Now, this is a confirmed instance where Catholic priests aided one of the conspirators. And as Chiniqui saw it, if they were caught helping one conspirator, how many others may they have helped in the shadows? At some point, Chiniqui assembled everything he'd uncovered about the assassination. He brought it to Washington to help the government find more Catholic conspirators. And learned that the US government didn't want to involve religion in the trials or chase down Catholics. They were covering it up. Now, remember the Catholic medal? The officer who shot Booth reported seeing on his person?
28:50 Speaker 00 It's not included in the Library of Congress's official records of Booth's personal effects, but it is in a trial transcript. Perhaps the metal was removed or destroyed to cover the trail of the other conspirators. Because Chiniqui and many others believe that most of the Lincoln assassination conspirators got away with it. And this wasn't the first time the Vatican assassinated a US president. In the 1920s, author Burke McCarty built on Chiniqui's theory. According to McCarty,
29:30 Speaker 00 Abraham Lincoln was only one in a series of presidents killed or almost killed by the Jesuits. I know this sounds bonkers, but bear with me. The theory was huge in the early 1900s. McCarty's 1922 book was selected for cultural preservation by the Library of Congress, and in 2002, author Bill Hughes built on that theory, drawing lines to more presidents who were attacked in office. The story goes all the way back to 1835. Andrew Jackson, the guy from the $20 bill, was president of the United States.
30:11 Speaker 00 History goes that he didn't get along with his vice president, John C. Calhoun. Calhoun pushed for states' rights while Jackson wanted to maintain federal authority. These were some of the earliest seeds of the Civil War. The conspiracy theory goes that Calhoun pushed for states' rights as a way to destabilize the country because he was actually a Vatican secret agent. And when Calhoun couldn't change Jackson's mind, he and the Jesuits arranged for the president's assassination. According to Hughes, the Jesuits hired a man to shoot
30:50 Speaker 00 Jackson on the street. That's not confirmed. What is confirmed, on January 30th, 1835, a lone gunman attacked Andrew Jackson. Their pistol misfired. Jackson realized what happened, got mad, and beat the man up with his cane. But according to the theory, even though they failed to kill Jackson, the Jesuits kept the idea of assassinating a president they disagreed with in their back pocket. In 1841, William Henry Harrison became president. In his inauguration address, he stressed that the right to govern came from the people,
31:34 Speaker 00 not God. Naturally, the Jesuits hated this, so, according to McCarty, they poisoned him. Harrison died after just 32 days in office. Officially, it was pneumonia. Flash forward to 1850. President Zachary Taylor was about a year into his term, and there were stirrings of a civil war which he hoped to avoid. He also hoped to avoid invading Cuba, a popular idea at the time. He died suddenly, due to what historians believe was food poisoning, but theorists say was actual poisoning by the Jesuits.
32:18 Speaker 00 Seven years later, James Buchanan also faced a mysterious GI illness before he was even sworn in. At the time, theories flew that the president-elect had been poisoned when someone dropped arsenic into his hotel's water supply. Luckily, Buchanan was able to get treatment, make a full recovery, and serve his term. Add in Lincoln's sudden death in 1865, and that's five presidents killed or almost killed in a 30-year span. Exactly half of the men who held office in that period. And, get this: killing presidents wasn't the only way the Jesuits allegedly tried
33:03 Speaker 00 to control the US government. It gets so much more bizarre. Theorists allege they sunk the Titanic, created the Roswell alien creatures in a secret underground lab, they're even accused of killing JFK. Ironic, since JFK was famously Catholic. As the theories evolved, these books kept getting published, and Chiniqui became Canada's bestselling author. But, there is another explanation. This is all part of a giant, anti-Catholic smear campaign.
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34:47 Speaker 00 I think we can all agree Charles Chiniqui's theories about a Catholic plot to kill Lincoln are a little thin. But that's because he didn't need strong proof. People already wanted to believe him. Anti-Catholic sentiment was prevalent in the early 1800s. In an 1837 open debate, a Presbyterian minister told a Catholic bishop to his face Catholics were, quote, "essentially anti-American and fundamentally opposed to American freedom." He wasn't alone in that thinking.
35:27 Speaker 00 The bestselling book in America in the early 1830s was a Jesuit hate book. It was one of many in a sea of anti-Catholic propaganda which swelled through the 1910s.
35:43 Speaker 00 There was even an anti-Catholic political party, the Know Nothing Party. The party got its name from its origins as a secret society where members were encouraged to say they "know nothing" when asked about it. It eventually morphed into a legitimate political party in the 1850s, running candidates on a platform that was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant. Basically, the same thing, since the majority of the immigrants at the time were Catholic. When Chiniqui published his Lincoln assassination account, anti-Catholicism was already deep in the zeitgeist. He was building on existing fears and hate.
36:29 Speaker 00 And Chiniqui hated Catholics the most. It turns out that Charles Chiniqui had a personal vendetta against the Catholic Church. Why? Because they'd excommunicated him. Yeah, the guy who said the Pope wanted to kill people had been kicked out of Catholicism. Hmm, I wonder if it's connected? Excommunication is rare and a pretty big deal. Chiniqui's was so noteworthy, his local bishop's letter explaining the decision was published in the New York Times. And remember, they lived all the way in Illinois.
37:09 Speaker 00 It was such a big scandal because Chiniqui had been a Catholic priest. Yes, part of the same group he railed against. He served almost 20 years in the priesthood before his excommunication. Now, the reasons for the excommunication were never made public, but according to Canadian historian Dr. Paul Laverrier, Chiniqui caused several problems for the Catholic Church during his priesthood. First, Chiniqui was a vehement teetotaler. He didn't just abstain from alcohol, he looked down on anyone who drank, and he preached the dangers of drinking in his sermons.
37:54 Speaker 00 On at least one occasion, he brought in a doctor to demonstrate the dangers to his church. The doctor fed alcohol to dogs and cats to prove how dangerous it was killing them.
38:09 Speaker 00 Yeah, imagine going to church on Sunday and the priest has a special guest who's murdering pets. Chiniqui also openly discriminated against Irish people. When he was assigned to work under an Irish bishop, he refused to submit to the bishop's authority. And in Illinois, Chiniqui did everything in his power to ensure that his parish only included French-Canadian immigrants, people from his own background. And if neither of those were bad enough, he also had a long history of making unwanted
38:49 Speaker 00 sexual advances on women, especially problematic because as a priest, he'd taken a vow of celibacy. Chiniqui's biographer, Marcel Trudel, connected some dots and realized that every time Chiniqui moved parishes, it was after an incident where a woman spoke up. Records aren't clear on how far Chiniqui took his harassment, but the fact that the church moved him multiple times suggests it was bad. Faced with his public excommunication, Chiniqui tried to save face. He claimed he left voluntarily.
39:32 Speaker 00 At the time, the Catholic Church didn't encourage independent Bible study, and he said he just loved the Bible, he couldn't give it up. He didn't even let the excommunication stop him from preaching. Two years later, Chiniqui was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. He found a new flock. All of this excommunication drama happened between Chiniqui's introduction to Lincoln, when he represented him in court, and Lincoln's election to the presidency. So Chiniqui may have had secret sources tipping him off about sinister assassination plots.
40:15 Speaker 00 Or he may have just set out for revenge. You can judge that for yourself, but we can confirm that Chiniqui fabricated some of the details in his books. For example, the Pope's order that any good Catholic had a duty to kill Abraham Lincoln didn't happen. Chiniqui based his claims on Lincoln's status as an apostate, a baptized Catholic who leads the faith. But Lincoln wasn't baptized Catholic. He's such a major historical figure, that would've come out by now. And there's no evidence the Vatican started the Civil War or supported the Confederacy.
40:58 Speaker 00 The Pope did write a letter to Confederate President Jefferson Davis, but it was a polite reply to one Davis wrote him. The Pope actually suggested that the two sides stop firing cannons and work toward peaceful mediation. Then there's Chiniqui and Lincoln's relationship. Yes, they knew each other, but outside of Chiniqui's account, there's no evidence they spoke face to face again after the trial concluded, or that Chiniqui ever visited the White House. And that brings us to the Jesuit Order. While the Jesuits do have that history of political involvement I mentioned earlier,
41:42 Speaker 00 their work historically focuses much more on education and social justice. Jesuits founded and run many of America's elite colleges, including Georgetown, Boston College, Fordham, and Gonzaga. They help people in poverty, running missions in places like Belize and Haiti. And their values fall on the side of the Union, not the Confederacy. During the Holocaust, Jesuit priests resisted the Nazis and were sent to concentration camps for their beliefs. Jesuits often speak out against slavery and injustice, and Pope Francis is a good recent example.
42:27 Speaker 00 The theory that the Vatican is seeking world domination goes back centuries, but it's a classic case of exclusive group must be scheming because they're exclusive, that a lot of more dangerous conspiracy theories rely on instead of, you know, evidence. Oh, and as far as the known conspirators being Catholic, around 1850, Catholicism became America's largest Christian denomination. Over the next few decades, it became the biggest religion in the country. Many Americans were converting at this time, so that could be pure coincidence. Out of roughly a dozen people, a few of them were statistically
43:11 Speaker 00 going to be Catholic. To break it all down, Charles Chiniqui hated Catholics, and he knew Americans feared Catholics. Well, he'd been one himself, as he thought the Catholic Church had wronged him. That may have been enough motive for him to invent a story to spread the existing conspiracy theory that the Jesuits killed Lincoln. And the anti-Catholic attitude at the time was so strong, the theory took off. And that's how his book sold so many copies. Chiniqui wasn't alone in spreading or believing the theory, he was just the loudest
43:50 Speaker 00 voice. At his core, Chiniqui was a preacher. People came to him to validate their existing beliefs, and he obliged. First, as a Catholic priest, then a Presbyterian minister, then preaching to a flock of people who wanted to believe in a Jesuit murder plot. So Chiniqui gave them a story. His audience was already on board, he just needed enough narrative to fuel the fire. He got his revenge on the church who'd excommunicated him by using his platform to spread hateful lies. And the reason most people today haven't heard this theory is
44:34 Speaker 00 that there isn't a group who wants to believe it anymore. By the Great Depression, anti-Catholicism simmered down, and the Know Nothing Party fell apart. Americans came to terms with President Lincoln's sudden tragic death. And once the audience who wanted his message faded away, Chiniqui was largely forgotten.
44:56 Speaker 00 If he has a legacy, it's as a man who used his power to spread fear in times of unrest. He relied on the hope that his followers would never question if a story was true, or if they just wanted it to be. Thank you for listening to Conspiracy Theories. We're here with a new episode every Wednesday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram @TheConspiracyPod. If you're watching on Spotify, swipe up and give us your thoughts. And thank you to the fans who suggested today's topic. We dove down this rabbit hole, thanks to you.
45:41 Speaker 00 For more information on Charles Chiniqui, amongst the many sources we used, we found his book Fifty Years in the Church of Rome and the academic journal articles The Lincoln Writings of Charles P. T. Chiniqui by Joseph George Jr. and Chiniqui's Lincoln: Aiming Booth's Bullet at the Roman Catholic Church by Michael J. Sobieck, extremely helpful to our research. Until next time, remember, the truth isn't always the best story. And the official story isn't always the truth. This episode was written and researched by Maggie Admire, fact-checked by Sophie Kemp,
46:22 Speaker 00 and engineered, video-edited, and sound-designed by Alex Button. I'm your host, Carter Roy.
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