LETTER FROM THE REV. BISHOP VANDEVELD, OF CHICAGO—VAST PROJECT OF THE
BISHOPS OF THE UNITED STATES TO TAKE POSSESSION OF THE RICH VALLEY OF
THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PRAIRIES OF THE WEST, TO RULE THAT GREAT
REPUBLIC—THEY WANT TO PUT ME AT THE HEAD OF THE WORK—MY LECTURES ON
TEMPERANCE AT DETROIT—INTEMPERANCE OF THE BISHOP AND PRIESTS OF THAT
CITY.
On the 15th of December, 1850, I received the following letter:
CHICAGO, Ill., Dec. 1st, 1850.
REV. FATHER CHINIQUY,
Apostle of Temperance of Canada.
DEAR SIR:—When I was in Canada, last fall, I intended to confer with you
on a very important subject. But you were then working in the diocese of
Boston, and my limited time prevented me from going so far to meet you.
You are aware that the lands of the State of Illinois and the whole
valley of the Mississippi are among the richest and most fertile of the
world. In a near future, those regions, which are now a comparative
wilderness, will be the granary, not only of the United States, but of
the whole world; and those who will possess them, will not only possess
the very heart and arteries of this young and already so great republic,
but will become its rulers.
It is our intention, without noise, to take possession of those vast and
magnificent regions of the west in the name and for the benefit of our
holy church. Our plan to attain that object is as sure as easy. There
is, every year, an increasing tide of emigration from the Roman Catholic
regions of Europe and Canada towards the United States. Unfortunately,
till now, our emigrants have blindly scattered themselves among the
Protestant populations, which too often absorb them and destroy their
faith.
Why should we not direct their steps to the same spot? Why should we
not, for instance, induce them to come and take possession of these
fertile States of Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, etc. They can get
those lands now at a nominal price. If we succeed, as I hope we will,
our holy church will soon count her children here by ten and twenty
millions, and through their numbers, their wealth and unity, they will
have such a weight in the balance of power that they will rule
everything.
The Protestants, always divided among themselves, will never form any
strong party without the help of the united vote of our Catholic people;
and that party alone which will ask and get our help by yielding to our
just demands, will rule the country. Then, in reality, though not in
appearance, our holy church will rule the United States, as she is
called by our Saviour Himself to rule the whole world. There is, to-day,
a wave of emigration from Canada towards the United States which, if not
stopped or well directed, is threatening to throw the good French
Canadian people into the mire of Protestantism. Your countrymen, when
once mixed with the numberless sects which try to attract them, are soon
shaken in their faith. Their children sent to Protestant schools, will
be unable to defend themselves against the wily and united efforts made
to pervert them.
But put yourself at the head of the emigrants from Canada, France and
Belgium; prevent them from settling any longer among the Protestants, by
inducing them to follow you to Illinois, and with them you will soon see
here a Roman Catholic people, whose number, wealth and influence will
amaze the world. God Almighty has wonderfully blessed your labors in
Canada, in that holy cause of temperance. But now the work is done, the
same Great God presents to your Christian ambition a not less great and
noble work for the rest of your life. Make use of your great influence
over your countrymen to prevent them from scattering any longer among
Protestants, by inducing them to come here, in Illinois. You will then
lay the foundation of a Roman Catholic French people whose piety, unity,
wealth and number will soon renew and revive, on this continent, the
past and fading glories of the Church of France.
We have already, at Bourbonnais, a fine colony of French Canadians. They
long to see and hear you. Come and help me to make that comparatively
small, though thriving people, grow with the emigrants from the
French-speaking countries of Europe and America, till it covers the
whole territory of Illinois with its sturdy sons and pious daughters. I
will ask the pope to make you my coadjutor, and you will soon become my
successor, for I already feel too weak and unhealthy to bear alone the
burden of my too large diocese.
Please consider what I propose to you before God, and answer me. But be
kind enough to consider this overture as strictly confidential between
you and me, till we have brought our plans into execution.
Truly Yours, ✠OLIV VANDEVELD,
_Bishop of Chicago_.
I answered him that the bishops of Boston, Buffalo and Detroit had
already advised me to put myself at the head of the French Canadian
emigration, in order to direct its tide towards the vast and rich
regions of the West. I wrote him that I felt as he did, that it was the
best way to prevent my countrymen from falling into the snares laid
before them by Protestants, among whom they were scattering themselves.
I told him that I would consider it a great honor and privilege to spend
the last part of my life in extending the power and influence of our
holy church over the United States, and that I would, in June next, pay
my respects to him in Chicago, when on my way towards the colony of my
countrymen at Bourbonnais Grove. I added that after I should have seen
those territories of Illinois and the Mississippi valley with my own
eyes it would be more easy to give him a definite answer. I ended my
letter by saying: “But I respectfully request your lordship to give up
the idea of selecting me for your coadjutor or successor. I have already
twice refused to become a bishop. That high dignity is too much above my
merits and capacities to be ever accepted by me. I am happy and proud to
fight the battles of our holy church; but let my superiors allow me to
continue to remain in her ranks simply as a soldier to defend her honor
and extend her power. I may, then, with the help of God, do some good.
But I feel and know that I would spoil everything, if raised to an
elevated position, for which I am not fit.”
Without speaking to anybody of the proposition of the Bishop of Chicago,
I was preparing to go and see the new field where he wanted me to work,
when, in the beginning of May, 1851, I received a very pressing
invitation from my Lord Lefebre, Bishop of Detroit, to lecture on
temperance to the French Canadians, who were then forming the majority
of the Roman Catholics of that city.
That bishop had taken the place of Bishop Rese, whose public scandals
and infamies had covered the whole Catholic church of America with
shame. During the last years he had spent in his diocese, very few weeks
had been passed without his being picked up beastly drunk in the lowest
taverns, and even in the streets of Detroit, and dragged, unconscious to
his palace.
After long and vain efforts to reform him, the pope and the bishops of
America had happily succeeded in persuading him to go to Rome, and pay
his respects to the so-called vicar of Jesus Christ. This was a snare
too skilfully laid to be suspected by the drunken bishop. He had hardly
set his feet in Rome when the inquisitors threw him into one of their
dungeons, where he remained till the republicans set him at liberty, in
1848, after Pope Pius IX. had fled to Civita Vecchia.
In order to blot out from the face of his church the black spots with
which his predecessor had covered it, my Lord Lefebre made the greatest
display of zeal for the cause of temperance. As soon as he was inducted,
he invited his people to follow his example and enroll themselves under
its banners, in a very powerful address on the evils caused by the use
of intoxicating drinks. At the end of his eloquent sermon, laying his
right hand on the altar, he made a solemn promise never to drink any
alcoholic liquors.
His telling sermon on temperance, with his solemn and public promise,
were published through nearly all the papers of that time, and I read it
many times to the people with good effect. When on my way to Illinois, I
reached the city of Detroit to give the course of lectures demanded by
the bishop, in the first week in June. Though the bishop was absent, I
immediately began to preach to an immense audience in the Cathedral. I
had agreed to give five lectures, and it was only during the third one
that Bishop Lefebre arrived. After paying me great compliments for my
zeal and success in the temperance cause, he took me by the hand to his
dining-room and said: “Let us go and refresh ourselves.”
I shall never forget my surprise and dismay, when I perceived the long
dining table covered with bottles of brandy, wine, beer, etc., prepared
for himself and his six or seven priests, who were already around it,
joyfully emptying their glasses. My first thought was to express my
surprise and indignation, and leave the room in disgust, but by a second
and better thought I waited a little to see more of that unexpected
spectacle. I accepted the seat offered me by the bishop at his right
hand.
“Father Chiniquy,” he said, “this is the sweetest claret you ever
drank.” And before I could utter a word, he had filled my large glass
with the wine and drank his own to my health.
Looking at the bishop in amazement, I said: “What does this mean, my
lord?”
“It means that I want to drink with you the best claret you ever
tasted.”
“Do you take me for a comedian? and have you called me here to play such
a strange comedy?” I replied, with lips trembling with indignation.
“I did not invite you to play a comedy,” he answered. “I invited you to
lecture on temperance to my people, and you have done it in a most
admirable way these last three days. Though you did not see me, I was
present at this evening’s address. I never heard anything so eloquent on
that subject as what you said. But now that you have fulfilled your
duty, I must do mine, which is to treat you as a gentleman and drink
that bottle of wine with you.”
“But, my lord, allow me to tell you that I would not deserve to be
called or treated as a gentleman were I vile enough to drink wine after
the address I gave this evening.”
“I beg your pardon for differing from you,” answered the bishop.“ Those
drunken people to whom you spoke so well against the evils of
intemperance are in need of the stringent and bitter remedies you offer
them in your teetotalism. But here we are sober men and gentlemen, we do
not want such remedies. I never thought that the physicians were
absolutely bound to take the pills they administer to their patients.”
“I hope your lordship will not deny me the right you claim for yourself,
to differ with me in this matter. I entirely differ from you, when you
say that men who drink as you do with your priests, have a right to be
called sober men.”
“I fear, Mr. Chiniquy, that you forget where you are, and to whom you
speak just now,” replied the bishop.
“It may be that I have made a blunder, and that I am guilty of some
grave error in coming here and speaking to you as I am doing, my lord.
In that case, I am ready to ask your pardon. But before I retract what I
have said, please allow me to respectfully ask you a very simple
question.”
Then taking from my pocket-book his printed address, and his public and
solemn promise never to drink, neither to offer any intoxicating drinks
to others, I read it aloud, and said:
“Are you the same Bishop of Detroit, called Lefebre, who has made this
solemn promise? If you are not the same man, I will retract and beg your
pardon, but if you are the same, I have nothing to retract.”
My answer fell upon the poor bishop as a thunderbolt.
He lisped some unintelligible and insignificant explanation, which,
however, he ended by a _coup d’etat_, in saying:
“My dear Mr. Chiniquy, I did not invite you to preach to the bishop, but
only to the people of Detroit.”
“You are right, my lord, I was not called to preach to the bishop, but
allow me to tell you that if I had known sooner that when the Bishop of
Detroit, with his priests, solemnly, publicly, and with their right hand
on the altar, promised that they would never drink any intoxicating
drinks, it means that they will drink and fill themselves with those
detestable liquors till their brains shiver with their poisonous fumes,
I would not have troubled you with my presence or my remarks here.
However, allow me to tell your lordship to be kind enough to find
another lecturer for your temperance meetings; for I am determined to
take the train to-morrow morning for Chicago.”
There is no need to say that during that painful conversation the
priests (with only one exception) were as full of indignation against me
as they were full of wine. I left the table and went to my sleeping
apartment, overwhelmed with sadness and shame.
Half an hour later, the bishop was with me, conjuring me to continue my
lectures, on account of the fearful scandals which would result from my
sudden and unexpected exit from Detroit, when the whole people had the
assurance from me that very night that I would continue to lecture the
two following evenings. I acknowledged that there would be a great
scandal, but I told him that he was the only one responsible for it, by
his want of faith and consistency.
He, at first, tried to persuade me that he was ordered to drink by his
own physicians, for his health; but I showed him that this was a
miserable illusion. He then said that he regretted what had occurred,
and confessed that it would be better if the priests practiced what they
preached to the people. After which, he asked me, in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, to forget the errors of the bishop and priests of
Detroit, in order to think only of the good which the conversion of the
numberless drunkards of that city would do to the people.
He spoke to me with such earnestness of the souls saved, the tears
dried, the happiness restored to hundreds of families by temperance,
that he touched the most sensitive chords of my heart, and got from me
the promise that I would deliver the other two expected lectures. He was
so glad that he pressed me on his bosom and gave me, what we call in
French, _Le baiser de paix_ (kiss of peace), to show me his esteem and
gratitude.
When alone, I tried to drown in a sound sleep the sad emotions of that
evening; but it was impossible. That night was to be again a sleepless
one to me. The intemperance of that high dignitary and his priests
filled me with an unspeakable horror and disgust. Many times during the
dark hours of that night, I heard as if it were a voice, saying to me:
“Do you not see that the bishops and priests of your church do not
believe a word of their religion? Their only object is to throw dust in
the eyes of the people, and live a jolly life. Do you not see that you
do not follow the Word of God, but only the vain and lying traditions of
men, in the Church of Rome? Come out of it; break the heavy yoke which
is upon you, and follow the simple, pure religion of Jesus Christ.”
I tried to silence that voice by saying to myself: “These sins are not
the sins of my holy church—they are the sins of individuals. It was not
the fault of Christ if Judas was a thief! It is not more the fault of my
holy church if this bishop and his priests are drunkards and worldly
men. Where will I go if I leave my church? Will I not find drunkards and
infidels everywhere I may go in search of a better religion?”
The dawn of the next day found me feverish, and unable to get any rest
in my bed. Hoping that the first fresh air of the morning would do me
good, I went to the beautiful garden, covered with fruit trees of all
kinds, which was then around the Episcopal residence. But what was my
surprise to see the bishop leaning on a tree, with his handkerchief over
his face, and bathed in tears. I approached him with the least noise
possible. I saw that he did not perceive me. By the motion of his head
and shoulders, it became evident to me that he was in anguish of soul. I
said to him: “My dear bishop, what is the matter? Why do you weep and
cry at such an early hour?”
Pressing my hand convulsively in his, he answered:
“Dear Father Chiniquy, you do not yet know the awful calamity which has
befallen me this night.”
“What calamity?” I asked.
“Do you not remember,” he answered, “that young priest who was sitting
at your right hand, last evening? Well! he went away, during the night,
with the wife of a young man, whom he had seduced, and stole $4,000 from
me before he left.”
“I am not at all surprised at that, when I remember how that priest
emptied his glasses of beer and wine last night,” I answered. “When the
blood of a man is heated by those fiery liquors, it is sheer absurdity
to think that he will keep his vow of chastity.”
“You are right! You are right! God Almighty has punished me for breaking
the public pledge I had taken never to drink any intoxicating drinks. We
want a reform in our midst, and we will have it,” he answered. “But what
horrible scandal! One of my young priests gone with that young wife,
after stealing $4,000 from me! Great God! Must we not hide our face now,
in this city?”
I could say nothing to alleviate the sorrow of the poor bishop, but to
mingle my tears of shame and sorrow with his. I went back to my room,
where I wept a part of the day, to my heart’s content, on the
unspeakable degradation of that priesthood of which I had been so proud,
and about which I had such exalted views when I entered its ranks,
before I had an inside view of its dark mysteries.
Of course, the next two days that I was the guest of Bishop Lefebre, not
a single drop of intoxicating drink was seen on the table. But I know
that not long after, that representative of the pope forgot again his
solemn vows and continued with his priests drinking, till he died a most
miserable death in 1875.