Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy (30 July 1809 – 16 January 1899) was a Canadian socio-political activist and former Catholic priest who left the Catholic Church and converted to Protestant Christianity, becoming a Presbyterian minister. He later rode the lecture circuit in the United States, denouncing the Catholic Church. His themes were that Catholicism was pagan, that Catholics worship the Virgin Mary, and that its theology was anti-Christian. Chiniquy founded the St. Anne Colony, a village located in Kankakee County, Illinois in 1851. Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, an extensive autobiographical account of his life and thoughts as a priest in the Catholic Church, was written by Chiniquy and published in 1886. He warned of plots by the Vatican to take control of the United States by importing Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Germany, and France, and suggested that the Vatican was behind the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.