50 Years in the 'Church' of Rome

by Charles Chiniquy 1886

A Review of the Salvation and Conversion Testimony of a Former Roman Catholic Priest

Colin Melbourne © 03-08 Born-Again-Christian.Info

Chiniquy was an ordained Roman Catholic priest serving in Illinois, USA, who in 1886 wrote a powerful exposé of what the 'church' of Rome is like from the inside. As he sincerely tried to follow the Scriptures, he was confronted with the daily realities of their violation by Rome's priests and doctrines. Finally, he had to choose between Catholicism and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Introduction

This ex-Roman Catholic priest, and friend of Abraham Lincoln, discovered the errors of Rome and renounced Catholicism to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in the 19th century. His story is one of the most heart-rending appeals to Catholics ever written.

Today the Lord is exposing the false doctrines and unscriptural practices of Catholicism so that those seduced by its errors will turn to Him before the End comes.

After twenty-five years as a Roman Catholic priest, Chiniquy's bishop demanded that he give up his precious Bible, and pledge blind obedience to Rome. Following a dark night of struggle, he was gloriously saved, and then led practically the whole Catholic population of St. Anne, Illinois, to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for the salvation of their souls.

When falsely accused by the Catholic hierarchy, in an attempt to discredit the ex-priest, the young lawyer Abraham Lincoln succesfully defended him.

Chiniquy proves in his book how it was the Jesuits who later killed President Lincoln, and reveals why they did so.

Ordination & Discovery

Chiniquy relates in the first chapters how he was raised memorizing Scripture on his Mother's knee, and developing a sincere love for God, pursued the career of a priest. He describes the intense preparation and study needed to conduct a Mass, and how it felt to perform it for the first time.

Gradually, as he contemplated God's Word and compared it to the indoctrination he had received, and was now dispensing, he became wracked by doubt in the authenticity of the Vatican's teachings.

He gives careful attention to the errors of Rome concerning; the authority of the Holy Bible, the validity of the Mass, Catholic theology, the vow of celibacy, and sheds light on the purpose of inviting Protestant children into convents and nunneries.

Chiniquy writes, 'When I was in the Church of Rome, we often spoke of the necessity of making superhuman efforts to attract young Protestants into our colleges and nunneries, as the shortest and only means of ruling the world before long. The priests of Rome themselves boast that more than half of the pupils of the nuns are the children of Protestants, and that seven-tenths of those Protestant children, sooner or later, become the firmest disciples and the true pillars of popery in the United States."

This has long been part of Satan's strategy to attempt to deceive both the gullible, and the elect, culminating in today's Ecumenical Movement, where nominally 'Protestant denominations' bow to the errors of Rome.

Is your Fellowship mixed up with these counterfeits of Christianity? If so you must come out of them today whilst there's still time. And find a genuine Christian fellowship, not some lukewarm apostate assembly.

Rome's Word or God's Word?

The author describes his ordination as a priest of Rome;

"There are several imposing ceremonies at the ordination of a priest; and I will never forget the joy I felt when the Roman Pontiff, presenting to me the Bible, ordered me, with a solemn voice, to study and preach it. That order passed through my soul as a beam of light. When holding the sacred column, I accepted the command with unspeakable joy. But I felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen upon me when I pronounced the awful oath that is required from every priest: 'I will never interpret the Holy Scriptures except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers.'"

The new priest was deeply troubled by this ungodly oath, and discussed it with his fellow priests in detail, culminating with conclusive logic,

"And now we are gravely asked, in the name of the God of Truth, to swear that we will interpret the Holy Scriptures only according to the unanimous consent of those Holy Fathers, who have been unanimous but in one thing, which was never to agree with each other, and sometimes not even with themselves... If I cannot rely upon my private judgment when studying, with the help of God, the Holy Scriptures, how can I rely on my private judgment when studying the Holy Fathers?"

The First Mass

Following his ordination by the Papal delegate in Quebec, 1833, Charles describes, with ironic hindsight, the joy of the newly imbued power he'd obtained,

"The dignity that I had just received was above all the dignities and thrones of this world. I was to be a priest of my God for ever and ever. Christ now so perfectly associated me with Himself as the great and eternal Sacrificer that I was to renew, every day of my life, His atoning Sacrifice!

At my bidding, the only and eternally begotten Son of my God was now to come into my hands in Person! The same Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father was to come down every day to unite His flesh to my flesh, His blood to my blood, His divine soul to my poor sinful soul, in order to walk, work and live in me and with me in the most perfect unity and intimacy!"

This chapter is one of the most revealing passages I've ever read by an ex-Roman Catholic. With deep affection and sincerity Chiniquy eloquently describes the self-deception that all Roman Catholics priests must indulge in to fulfil their 'ministry'.

"I had really persuaded myself that I had done the most holy and sublime action of my life, when, in fact I had been guilty of the most outrageous act of idolatry! My eyes, my hands and lips, my mouth and tongue, and all my senses and intelligence, were telling me that what I had seen, touched, eaten, was nothing but a wafer; but the voices of the pope and his Church were telling me that it was the real body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.

I had persuaded myself that the voices of my senses and intelligence were the voices of Satan, and that the deceitful voice of the pope was the voice of the God of Truth! Every priest of Rome must come to that strange folly and perversity, every day of his life, to remain a priest of Rome."

The Virgin Mary, Lincoln's Assassination, the Pope and Napoleon

The book is full of fascinating detail, not only on the deceptive doctrines of Rome, notably the elevation of the Virgin Mary above Christ, but also insights and proof of the Jesuit plot to murder President Abraham Lincoln.

He also reveals what happened when he exposed a Roman Catholic Bishop by writing to the Pope, and to Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. You'll see that not a lot has changed in this corrupt demonic religious system.