The American Protestant Empire and "The Incorporation", 1940-1947

In my first two posts on Michael DeHaven Newsom's article "The American Protestant Empire: A Historical Perspective" I reviewed his interpretation of the Long English Reformation from Henry VIII to William and Mary and his views of the Protestant Empire established in the British American colonies and the Founders' vision of the United States of America. Newsom concludes that the Founders intended to protect Protestant hegemony in the new USA not at the federal level (thus including a provision for no religious tests for federal office and the non-establishment clause in the First Amendment) but at the state level, through established Protestant churches, institutions, and the destruction of the religious system of African slaves in the USA (and of Native American religious beliefs too). He concludes that section on establishment of the American Protestant Empire with the note that Protestants hoped that through the system of suasion and coercion at the state and local level dissenters--especially Catholics--would eventually become "orthodox" Protestants (evangelical fundamentalists). That was certainly one of the ancillary benefits National Prohibition reformers hoped for: Catholics would sober up and become good evangelical fundamentalist Protestants!

All that remains to discuss is Newsom's section "C. The Incorporation". I admit I struggled with this section because I cannot determine where he defines or finds the term The Incorporation, which he dates to 1940-1947. It's not a period I've ever seen mentioned in surveys of American history. I presume he coined the term himself or perhaps he is referring to the incorporation of the Bill of Rights and other Amendments into state laws by the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in the nineteenth century, because he does not cite a specific source for The Incorporation of 1940-1947 that I can see--or why he dates it to 1940-1947. He describes the Incorporation as "an adjustment of the rules of the Protestant Empire, largely inspired by the conclusion that the Protestant majority had proceeded in an excessively ham-handed way with respect to religious minorities." Catholics were still the main group the American Protestant Empire wanted to persuade or coerce--the same Elizabethan/Stuart fear of Catholics as alien and dangerous was in place, "embedded in American culture." (p. 256)

He sets the scene for this Incorporation by explaining how the result of "the Scopes Monkey Trial" (The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes) in 1925 and the failure of National Prohibition in 1933 left only the Protestant control of religious teachings and Bible reading (The King James Bible) in the common (public) schools as the main source of suasion and coercion in the American Protestant Empire. In general, he notes, State Courts upheld this religious control--and of course states had legislated this control through the Blaine Amendments.

Newsom sees an English historical parallel for the inspiration of this Incorporation in the Restoration reaction to the Puritans as the Anglicans in 1660 recognized that the "zealous push to Protestantize in a radical Puritan direction can go too far" (p. 259). Therefore, the Incorporation was a Protestant effort to maintain the American Protestant Empire by non-evangelical fundamentalist Protestants in the USA comparable to the Stuart religious settlement at the Restoration because evangelical fundamentalist Protestantism had caused "serious trouble" (p. 269) in the USA as Puritans had in the Interregnum England. So through the Incorporation--whose "idea" Newsom notes "may go back to the time [1868] of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment" (p. 261), the Tentative Principle was revised.

The previous Tentative Principle was:

allocate much of the work of the Anglo-American Reformation to the states and other institutions and not the federal government (pp. 250 and 251).

In 1833, Massachusetts became the last state to end support of its established church, the Congregationalists: thus the first part of that Tentative Principle had fallen away long before 1940-1947, the Scopes trial, or the experiment of Prohibition.

The Revised Tentative Principle was/is:

allocate much of the work of the Anglo-American Reformation to the states and other institutions and not the federal government, but allocate none of the work of the work of the Anglo-American Reformation to the officials, administrators or teachers in the common schools (p. 263)

Again, I could not find a citation for some pan-Protestant document or agreement among mainline Protestants that set forth this new agreement: it must be his interpretation of what happened, as U.S. Supreme Court and State Court decisions removed all religious (Protestant) expression from the common/public schools:

• eliminate prayer in common schools
• eliminate religious instruction in common schools
• eliminate the posting of the Ten Commandments in common schools
• eliminate the teaching of creationism in common schools (or the "balanced treatment" of both evolution and creationism in common schools

and Newsom fills almost a page with footnotes describing the cases that led to this secularization of the common schools (p. 262)--but most of them were decided after 1940-1947(?).

Newsom doesn't deal with it much, but I presume that the onus of upholding the American Protestant Empire in the common schools is thus left to the students (and their parents), who demand the freedom to pray, to read the Holy Bible when out of the classroom but still in the school, to cite the Ten Commandments or other religious, biblical, moral, doctrinal or liturgical beliefs in their homework assignments, presentations, etc. Thus the battle over valedictorian speeches at graduation ceremonies with any mention of God or faith: what freedom of religion does the student have at an official event?

In 2001, Newsom--in his Conclusion--asserted not only that the American Protestant Empire was a "historical reality" but also that it is "a present reality in a way that would warm the hearts of Henry and Elizabeth." (pp. 263-264) He cites Catholics losing their faith in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist as a key to the kind of assimilation Lyman Beecher hoped for in the nineteenth century--without that belief Newsom doesn't see much difference between Catholics and evangelical Protestants. According to more recent Pew polls, that failure of belief may have only gotten worse. Newsom comments in a footnote (611) that there is a tendency to view Catholicism in America as just another pan-Protestant denomination engaged in the "culture wars". 

He also notes that "The continuing problem of race in America, particularly as it relates to African-Americans, a problem invented by Anglo-Protestants, is far from being solved." (p. 264) He absolved the Catholic Church from racial problems in footnote 68 on p. 197, with the statement that "Slavery in the Roman Catholic New World was far less harsh than in the British and American New World"--an absolution I don't think that many Catholic historians would accept absolutely. Certainly we could argue that the Catholic Church taught against chattel slavery, argued for the good, fair treatment of indentured servants, outright condemned all forms of slavery, etc., during our long. long history, but instances like the Jesuits at Georgetown University owning--and selling--slaves in the nineteenth century make any Catholic virtue signalling on African-American chattel slavery uncomfortable.

Current common opinion seems to be that the United States is an officially secular country insofar as our government and administration of laws attest, but that many United States citizens live according to religious moral and doctrinal teachings, wanting to worship freely, live according to our faith, and hand on our religious beliefs through catechesis. Thus we rely upon the government and administration of laws to protect those freedoms. Thus the continuing existence of parochial and private schools, Catholic and Protestant, Jewish and Muslim, etc. 

Newsom is not content with that common opinion, not because he sees the virtues of an American Protestant Empire, but the dangers of an American Protestant Empire. As he stated in note 3, page 188:

It is my ultimate judgment that the American Protestant Empire has largely been an unmitigated disaster for people who are not both white and Protestant, particularly, but not exclusively, Native Americans and African-Americans. I also believe that it has posed enormous difficulties for whites who are not Protestants, mainly Catholics, Jews and Eastern Orthodox, the so-called "white ethnics". . . .

The American Protestant Empire needs to end, but it will not unless and until people who have been harmed by it take conscious and deliberate steps to end it. . . .

I wonder if anyone has taken up his challenge, that if they really want to claim that the USA is a post-Protestant country, they have "a great deal of explaining to do"[!] He thinks that with 500 plus years of history, and of constraint and coercion, the American Protestant Empire is "a culturally embedded reality" (p. 266)

As you can reasonably conclude from the fact that I dedicated three posts to a seventy-nine page article in a law journal, Professor Newsom's argument, historical and legal, fascinated me. The main difficulty I had was the lack of documentation for either the first Tentative Principle of the Founders' religious arrangements in The Constitution of the United States of America or the Revised Tentative Principle of The Incorporation of 1940-1947. Since his argument is based on "historical inquiry" (p. 245), shouldn't he present some documentation for these Tentative Principles? I did not find that documentation clearly presented in his notes--they seem to be inventions of his interpretation of nineteenth and twentieth century American history. 

The Stuart Dynasty, Toleration, and the American Protestant Empire

Last week I posted some comments on Michael DeHaven Newsom's article in the Washburn Law Journal, "The American Protestant Empire: A Historical Perspective", particularly his interpretations of the Tudor religious settlements during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth II. Herewith some comments on his views of the Stuart era, including the English Civil, the Interregnum, Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution.

Newsom discusses the varieties of religious belief during the seventeenth century, ranging from Laud's High Church Anglicanism (Arminian Church of England), to Presbyterianism (Calvinist Church of England), to Separatist/Independent Calvinist,  noting that through the century the Presbyterians lost the most ground, while High Church Anglicanism held on weakly until its nineteenth century Tractarian revival. He doesn't highlight low or broad church Anglicanism, but those forms of the Church of England also survived, while Separatist/Independent Calvinism was the more dominant view of English Protestantism, the one whose adherents brought to British America.

As he notes, the Stuart monarchs constantly fought the House of Commons on religious matters in domestic and foreign policy, and the Commons was the equal if not the master of the Stuart kings. He focuses on two Stuart era Religious Settlements: in 1662 after the Restoration and in 1688 after the Glorious Revolution. During the Interregnum comments that there was no established religion in England--it was neither Presbyterian nor Episcopalian.

Newsom does credit both Charles II and James II with giving "us a foretaste of a broad and liberal toleration" (p. 235) with their Declarations of Indulgence in 1672 and 1687--both of which were thwarted by Parliament opposition.

But it is Newsom's review and judgment of the 1689 Act of Toleration (and John Locke's empirical views of religious Toleration) that I found most interesting. He notes that William of Orange wanted to "restore [religious] unity without threatening the Anglican hegemony" (p. 235). Therefore, Dissenters received some freedom of religious practice and worship with Anglicans having the control of Parliament since Charles II's Corporation and Test Acts still dominated English Protestantism. Catholics, non-Trinitarian Protestants, and Atheists were not included in the Act of Toleration.

Newsom opines that the Act of Toleration fails on the three grounds he identifies as sources for the idea of religious tolerance: prudence (inadequate), rationality (irrational), and morality (too narrow), concluding that it is an obstacle and not an opportunity for the establishment of religious tolerance as a governing principle that may be acted upon in a community.

If the abiding rule is that the "tolerant must be intolerant of the intolerant" (p. 238), Newsom places the burden on the tolerant to prove that they've prudently, rationally, and morally identified the intolerant. Were Catholics, Unitarians, and Atheists intolerant? any more intolerant than Dissenters? than some Anglicans? Newsom thinks that William and Parliament could not prove they weren't and thus concludes that the Anglicans and Dissenters who designed the Act of Toleration "flunked the test." (p. 239)

Nevertheless he says that they institutionalized the ideas of "restraint and attrition" in government's view of religion. (Anglicans hoped that Dissenters would eventually become weaker while they remained in power.) And because the Act of Toleration maintained the Penal Laws and Test Act in the name of maintaining Anglican power but wouldn't exercise them against Dissenters who swear designated oaths, Newsom believes it "compels a discourse distinguishing toleration and rights". (p. 239) He concludes that the Act of Toleration fostered the pan-Protestant diversity present in English religion since the Tudor era and that it "confirms the moral strengths and weaknesses of the Anglo-American Reformation" (p. 240) without identifying either the strengths or the weaknesses!

I think it would be hard to demonstrate that England had any stronger moral code in 1689 (public or private) after the long Reformation period of Tudor and Stuart religious settlements than it did before 1533. Per Newsom's own comments, these religious settlements, establishing a pan-Protestant Empire in both England and the United States, have demonstrated great moral weakness in discrimination and oppression of those who didn't belong to their citizens' race or religion. Thus, I don't know what that sentence really contributes to our understanding of this result of the Anglo-American Reformation in the Act of Toleration--intolerant tolerance or tolerant intolerance?

So then Newsom leaves England for British America, defining the predominant, normative form of American Protestantism as revivalistic and evangelical with a pietist strain, demonstrating lack of respect for institutional mediation (the Church of England/Episcopal Church), and certainly Calvinistic.

Anti-Catholicism and the fear of individual Catholics was also part of the colonial belief system. As for social reform in the colonial era, Newsom points out that Chattel slavery was a pan-Protestant project and institution. He could have also noted, as Martin E. Marty does in the first chapter of his Righteous Empire: The Protestant Experience in America, the genocidal pan-Protestant attitude toward the Native Americans.

Citing Jon Butler's "Coercion, Miracle, Reason: Rethinking the American Religious Experience in the Revolutionary Age", Newsom outlines how the American Protestant Empire practiced "Suasion and Coercion", adapting English methods to the colonial setting: 1) the colonial religious establishments (colonial churches); 2) the establishment of colonial religious institutions (colleges, etc), exerting "coercive power" over their members; and 3) the "wholesale destruction of the African religious systems" brought by African slaves (which would also apply to the Native American religious systems). (pp. 244-245)

Examining the Founding of the United States of America via the Constitution, Newsom opines, "Neither originalist nor theoretical forms of inquiry can yield up a constitutional principle of religious freedom. However, historical inquiry can" and notes that the principle of religious freedom developed by the Founders is based upon "an ideology of anti-Roman Catholicism, pan-Protestant toleration, the destruction of African Religion and a 'persistent insensitivity' to Native American Religion."

Thus again "confirm[ing] the moral strengths and weaknesses of the Anglo-American Reformation"?

Newsom notes that the delegates to the Constitutional convention were predominantly Protestant, mostly Congregationalist and Anglicans, and predominantly Zwinglians, opposed to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist.

Regarding the constitutional principle of religious freedom that was finally written into the U.S. Constitution, Newsom states: "The Constitution does not declare that America is a Protestant Empire. It imposes no religious test for national office, but the Founders did not overthrow the entire political and religious world in which they had grown up." The Constitution does not declare the newly founded country a Protestant Empire because of the Federalist model of governance the Founders established; colonial Protestant diversity; and "the opposition of some delegates to organized religions" (the Deists at the Convention).

Therefore, Newsom argues that the Founders established "The Tentative Principle" for the establishment of an American Protestant Empire:

allocate much of the work of the Anglo-American Reformation to the states and other institutions and not the federal government (p. 250 and 251).

I am not saying that I agree with everything that Newsom is saying; it is different view of religious freedom in the Founding and in the Constitution than I have read before, for example in The Right to be Wrong: Ending the Culture War over Religion in America by Kevin Seamus Hasson or The God of Liberty by Thomas S. Kidd.

And how fascinating that that this historical view of religious freedom was published in a law journal! I have not explored what kind of reaction Newsom received in the Washburn Law Journal or other publications.

After Holy Week, I'll conclude my notes from this article, as Newsom discusses Prohibition, Public Schools, and what he call "The Incorporation" of pan-Protestantism in the 1940's.

The English Reformation and the American Protestant Empire

I break my posting fast again to comment on some recent reading.

As followers of this blog may know, one of its themes is religious freedom and the lessons of the English Reformation reflected in the Constitution of the United States of America. Earlier this year--seems a very long time ago now--when researching the anniversary of Prohibition in 1920, I found an article by one Michael DeHaven Newsom (Howard University School of Law): "Some Kind of Religious Freedom: National Prohibition and the Volstead Act's exemption for the Religious Use of Wine" published in the Brooklyn Law Review, Volume 70, Issue 3, 2005.

Then I found Professor Newsom's previous article, "The American Protestant Empire: A Historical Perspective", published in the Washburn Law Journal (Washburn University is in Topeka, Kansas), Volume 40, Issue 2 (Winter, 2001), which I finished reading last week. (I purchased a copy of the journal since I could not access it on-line.)

And I've found another article online, "Common School Religion: Judicial Narratives in a Protestant Empire", published in the Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal (Volume 11, 2002), which I have not yet read.

In the two articles I've read, Newsom traces the history of the English Reformation in its religious settlements through the Tudor and Stuart dynasties and how they impacted religious practice and political systems in the British American colonies and in the Federal Constitution and the States' Constitutions of the United States of America. In the Washburn Law Journal article he provides a historiographical overview of the religious settlements of the English Reformation from legal, political, social, and judicial enforcement perspectives as the background to the American religious settlements from those same perspectives. In other two articles, he applies that background to specific events and laws, specifically, Prohibition of the production, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages and the public school or common school system in the United States of America, having previewed both causes in the Washburn article.

His thesis is that the establishment clause of the First Amendment was not really for the protection of religious liberty for all in the United States of America, but an effort to protect the British colonial Protestant Empire by allowing the states to establish official Protestant churches and thus protect Protestantism in the states, individually and united. In a footnote at the beginning of the Washburn Law Journal article, he offers his opinion that this Protestant Empire has been an unmitigated disaster for Native Americans and African Americans, and detrimental to ethnic whites (Jews, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox). He focuses on American anti-Catholicism in the latter part of that article, noting that fear of Catholics influenced Protestant support of Prohibition and the religious instruction in the Public/Common Schools.

In the Washburn Law Journal article I am particularly interested in Newsom's analysis of the religious settlements of 1534 (Henry VIII); 1549 (Edward VI); 1554 (Mary I); 1559 (Elizabeth I); 1662 (Charles II and Parliament); and 1688 (Parliament and William & Mary). Except for the religious settlement of Mary I which restored England's religious connections to the universal Catholic Church and the Papacy to some extent, these English religious settlements have certain things in common:

• Anti-Roman Catholicism (either against the Church or individual Catholics)
• Protestantization (transitioning from a Catholic to a Protestant England)
• Pan-Protestantism (wide-ranging, sometimes inchoate Protestant beliefs)
• Suasion and Coercion (either letting change occur over time by slow or lax enforcement or forcing change by punishment, including torture and death)
• Social Reform (sometimes; sometimes good and sometimes bad)

Newsom relies on some definitely Whiggish sources, especially in his evaluation of Mary I (he was writing before the mini-wave of re-evaluations of her reign), citing attacks on her intelligence and character in a footnote(!). He ignores the work of Christopher Haigh, John Bossy, and Eamon Duffy entirely, referencing A.G. Dickens, G.R. Elton, Jasper Ridley, etc. He cites J.J. Scarisbrick's biography of Henry VIII but not his The Reformation and the English People.

Newsom has some blunt opinions: he minimizes Cromwell and Cranmer to emphasize Henry VIII's methods and intentions; he opines that "the Edwardians went too far too fast" (216); that the Marian "obsession with persecuting heretics had much to do with the inattention to propaganda" (217), which Eamon Duffy's later Fires of Faith would prove not as true as Newsom thought in 2001, relying on Loades and Ridley; and even though he admires Elizabeth I's overall balance of Suasion and Coercion, he admits that "ideology obviates the need to establish the fact of a particular case" in her dealing with Catholics and real and supposed plots against her. (219)

In his estimation of the state of the Catholic Church in England before the Reformation, Newsom is insistent that there had been a "medieval distortion of the liturgicological meaning of the Mass" (212), emphasizing a new division between the priest and the people during the celebration of the Mass and the fact that the priest alone received both forms of Holy Communion (the Body and the Blood), while the people received Holy Communion infrequently. This means of course that he puts the emphasis on the Sacrament of Holy Communion and does not acknowledge the power of the Sacrifice of the Mass, nor the people's participation in that Sacrifice, nor the community of the Church, expressed in what Newsom calls the "extra-liturgical" elements of parish life, like the Corpus Christi Guilds--again, if he had read Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of Altars, first published in 1992, he might have had more corporate and less individualistic view of late Medieval Catholicism. As I read his commentary on the liturgical and devotional practices of that era it seemed that Newsom was viewing it through the lens of a post-Vatican II emphasis on the participation of the laity (I don't know if he is a Catholic or not!), finding a dualism that Catholics in the late Medieval era might not have deprecated as he seems to do. Some lay Catholics, as Duffy showed, attended Mass often--Henry VIII himself several times a day--whether or not they received Holy Communion more than once a year. They knew the sacrificial depth of the Mass and wanted to participate in it through attentive and informed attendance, preparing for the great annual events of Lenten penance, sacramental Confession, and reception of Holy Communion. Newsom emphasizes that Henry VIII destroyed all this extra-liturgical devotion during his religious settlement(s) and reformation, but cannot demonstrate that Henry did anything to replace it or was successful in making lay participation any more obvious or reception of Holy Communion any more equal between the laity and the priest--if any equality was achieved through the English Reformation settlements, it was probably by lowering the priest to the level of the laity, not raising the laity, as Newsom seems to perceive it!

I'll look at what Newsom says about the Stuarts, British Colonial America, and the founding of the USA, with an emphasis on religious liberty next week.

Raphael, Beethoven, and the Great Hunger

Please remember that I'll be talking to Anna Mitchell on the Son Rise Morning Show as we continue our series on the great historical events to be remembered this year : about 6:50 a.m. Central/7:50 a.m. Eastern. The next three topics:  the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael, the 200th anniversary of the baptism/birth of Ludwig von Beethoven, and the 175th anniversary of the potato famine in Ireland.

We will discussion the Great Hunger more than the two great artists. 

BTW, my favorite Beethoven symphonies are the 3rd, the 5th, and the 7th, especially the second movement of the 7th, the Allegretto. 

Please listen live here; the podcast will be archived here!

Image Credit: An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store by Cork artist Daniel MacDonald, c. 1847.

Anniversary Preview: A Death, a Baptism, and a Famine

We'll continue our discussions of 2020 anniversaries on Monday, February 3 on the Son Rise Morning Show. The next three are: the 500th anniversary of the death of Raphael, the 200th anniversary of the baptism/birth of Ludwig von Beethoven, and the 175th anniversary of the potato famine in Ireland. I'll talk to either Anna Mitchell or Matt Swaim at about 7:50 am. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central.

Italy Magazine has a nicely illustrated story about many exhibitions in Italy and beyond commemorating Raphael's early death 500 years ago on April 6, 1520:

The artist Raffaello Sanzio—better known as Raphael—is one of the undisputed masters of the High Renaissance style in Italy. But when you realize that the artist died on his 37th birthday, the range and quantity of Raphael’s artistic achievements seem nothing short of astonishing.

2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death, and, similar to museum exhibitions and celebrations surrounding Leonardo da Vinci’s anniversary in 2019, Raphael will be the star of the show this year.

In addition to his artistic talent, Raphael was known for his good looks, his popularity with the ladies, and his courtly manners—probably honed at the ducal palace of Urbino, where Raphael’s father was employed as a court painter.

The Phaidon website explains why Raphael achieved greatness in a great period of art history:

As Bette Talvacchia, distinguished professor of art history at Connecticut University writes in our updated Phaidon classic Raphael: "His art never fails to engage the viewer's imagination, whether through the mesmerizing, graceful beauty of his Madonnas, the perfection of his classicizing forms, or the inescapable pull of his narrative scenes." Or, as Gombrich puts it, “some of his best works give us a glimpse into a world more serene and harmonious than our own.”

Moreover his working practices gave rise to that perverse, yet unusually common quality found among those who really strive hard: he made his labours look effortless. As Gombrich puts it, “Raphael’s greatest paintings seem so effortless that one does not usually connect them with the idea of hard and relentless work.” . . .

More strikingly, when grouping figures together, Raphael managed to achieve a level of harmony unseen before; when decorating the Vatican with his frescos, he gave rooms both a diversity and an accord of imagery.

Before his death, on his birthday at the tender age of 37, he had bested his contemporaries in at least on regard. “Just as Michelangelo was found to have reached the highest peak in the mastery of the human body, Raphael was seen to have accomplished what the older generation had striven so hard to achieve: the perfect and harmonious composition of freely moving figures.”

We've paired up the anniversary of Raphael's death with the anniversary of Beethoven's birth, or more precisely, the anniversary of Beethoven's baptism, in Bonn:

Beethoven was born and raised in Bonn, the city on the Rhine. He was baptized Ludwig van Beethoven in Bonn’s St. Remigius Church on December 17, 1770; his birth date was very likely December 16. His parents were Johann and Maria Magdalena Leym née Keverich. Married in 1767, the couple had seven children, although only three survived infancy: Ludwig, Kaspar Karl (baptized April 8, 1774) and Nikolaus Johann (baptized October 2, 1776).

The celebration has already begun:

The anniversary year will officially begin on December 16, 2019. From that point until December 17, 2020, Bonn and the region will host various special projects alongside the main events like the "Beethoven-Bürgerfest" (people's party) and two phases of Bonn's Beethovenfest.

According to Christian Lorenz, artistic director of the Beethoven Anniversary Society, Ludwig van Beethoven's artistic approach means the composer should not only resonate with lovers of classical music.

"As an individual, ‘modern' artist, Beethoven targeted society, in fact humanity as a whole. His musical expression of a utopia where people live together in peace is appealing," Lorenz explained.

In Beethoven's own words: "Freedom, progress, is purpose in the art world as in universal creation."

The British Library explains Beethoven's accomplishments:

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is one of the most significant and influential composers of the western art music tradition. He was a ground-breaker, in all senses. He oversaw the transition of music from the Classical style, full of poise and balance, to the Romantic style, characterised by emotion and impact.

A prolific composer who wrote for wealthy patrons and also earned money from public concerts, he wrote nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, one opera, five piano concertos, and many chamber works including some ground-breaking string quartets. He could be a difficult and unsociable man, who felt bitter and isolated by the deafness which developed in his 20s; he never married.

He enjoyed great success and recognition in his lifetime. It is said that at the premiere of his Ninth, he could not hear the thunderous applause at the end, and had to be turned round to see the delighted audience reaction.

Virtually all his major works are standard repertoire pieces, familiar to musicians and listeners throughout the commercial world.

In 2027, the 200th anniversary of his death will also be celebrated in Bonn, Germany and Vienna, Austria, the city of his birth and the city where he died, respectively.

This year also marks the 175th anniversary of the beginning of the Irish Potato Famine.

The Irish Potato Famine Exhibition in Dublin describes some of the issues:

The Irish Potato Famine is also referred to as The Great Hunger, a period of mass death from starvation and disease between 1845 and 1852. This exhibition tells the story of what happened and why.

After centuries of British colonial rule, a large section of the Irish population lived in extreme poverty and depended on the potato as their main (and often their only) food source for survival.

Centuries of British invasions, land confiscations and anti-catholic laws had reduced the country and it's people to levels of poverty not seen in other parts of Europe.

At the same time, Britain was booming and in the throes of the industrial revolution. Ireland (forcibly) was part of the United Kingdom at this time and might have expected to benefit accordingly. But this was not to be. . . .

Massive humanitarian aid was required, and quickly. Instead the British Government chose piecemeal and slowly. Their overriding concern was not to disrupt market forces, and food continued to be exported to Britain as the Irish starved. They raised taxes and washed their hands of the crisis when it was still only half way through.

The Great Hunger devastated Ireland. At least a million died, perhaps even 1.5 million...we will never know the true figure. Millions more were forced to feel the country. The population of the island has never recovered. From a population of between 8 and 9 million in 1845, a steady decline ensued for the next century and a half as other European populations grew.

Queen Victoria's government wanted to make Ireland more like England: it instituted Poor Laws, Workhouses, and maintained the use of Ireland as the breadbasket of wheat and corn and grains for England's use and trade. Cecil Woodham-Smith's history of the famine, The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 is a classic view; she was born in Wales in a famous Irish family, the Fitzgerald's, but she married an Englishman. Her book is measured in its evaluation of British response to the Irish Potato Famine, and places blame on certain persons and policies, but Tim Pat Coogan's book, The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy,  accuses the British government of deliberate genocide. He is a Dublin-born Irish historian and journalist.

It is certainly a most controversial topic: when the PBS Masterpiece Theater program Victoria set an episode in the midst of the Famine, IrishCentral.com corrected some of the impressions given that the Queen had real sympathy and concern for the plight of the Catholic peasants in Ireland:

Many commended the episode for finally portraying the devastating horrors of the Irish famine on British TV screens for the first time. Much praise was heaped onto screenwriter Daisy Goodwin for not shying away from the rather unpalatable role played that the British landlords and government played in the disaster. However, the portrayal of Queen Victoria, quite commonly known as The Famine Queen throughout Ireland and who was depicted as berating her government ministers for not doing enough to help the Irish, did draw some criticism.

“There is no evidence that she had any real compassion for the Irish people in any way,” said historian Christine Kinealy, founding director of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute at Quinnipiac University.

The Pope's Stone and the Washington Monument

Kevin Schmeising was on the Son Rise Morning Show yesterday to talk about this week in Catholic history and mentioned the events of March 5, 1854, as a sad reminder of anti-Catholicism in the USA during the mid-nineteenth century, all because Pope Pius IX had sent a large marble stone carved from the Temple of Concord in Rome to the Washington National Monument Society after they had requested such stones in donation from around the world. As this website explains:

On the night of March 5-6, 1854, at 1 AM to 2 AM, several men descended upon the grounds to steal the Pope’s Stone. What happened next was vividly described in the March 8, 1854 Daily National Intelligencer on page 1. The night watchman George Hilton was on duty in his watch box, so the men tied clothes-line cords around the box, and warned him to be quiet. The thieves also pasted newspapers over the box windows facing the lapidarium. Somehow they got the block into a handcart used by the workmen, and carried it off for dumping in the Potomac River.

This wasn’t as far a trip as it would be today. Back then, the Potomac was much wider than it is now, before the land reclamation of the 1870s and 1880s, and it flowed quite close to the southwest corner of the Monument.

Afterwards, the watchman came under suspicion. After all, he did have a double-barreled gun, and the pasted-over windows could be raised or lowered at will. He was fired from his job.

On March 9, 1854, on page 1, the Intelligencer announced that the Washington National Monument Society, in charge of the project, had put up a $100.00 reward for catching the thieves, raised on April 4 to $500.00. The crooks were never caught, however.

In addition to stealing the Papal donation, however, the Know-Nothings also took over control of the Washington National Monument Society, and as this other website notes, that's when the progress on the monument slowed down, because the Know-Nothings wanted to make sure that there was no Catholic or foreign influence on the project:

They then took over the Society for several years, did some shoddy construction work which later had to be removed, and presided over the drying up of funding for the project. By attempting to turn the monument of all people in honor of Washington into a monument to themselves, they found themselves suddenly confronted with a Tower of Babel that was impossible for them to finish.

The Know-Nothings as a party were a short-lived phenomenon, even if anti-Catholicism never entirely died out. They quickly fell apart over the issue of slavery, with Northern members supporting abolition and Southern members opposing it. They eventually relinquished control of the Society, which in any case by 1860 was depleted of funds thanks to public dissatisfaction with the Know-Nothings running the show. After the interruption of the Civil War, thanks to the efforts of President Ulysses S. Grant and a government takeover of the project, the Washington Monument was eventually completed and dedicated in 1884.

As Kevin Schmeising noted in his segment, Father James E. Grant (any relation to Ulysses?) donated a replacement stone in 1982 inscribed in Latin "A Roma Americae". You may see a picture of it here from the National Park Service.

As The Blog of the Courtier notes, however, the Know Nothings were certainly ignorant of George Washington's friendly tolerance of Catholics. He ordered his soldiers not to observe the Fifth of November/Pope Day/Guy Fawkes Day because it would offend the Catholic French and Polish officers assisting the Continental Army in the War for Independence. And he wrote to some Catholics when they congratulated him on his election as the first President of the United States words that would shock the Know Nothings:

As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed. (March 15, 1790)

As ever, hatred and prejudice make us stupid.

Evelyn Waugh and Blessed Miguel Pro

On the memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro the Jesuit priest executed on November 23, 1927 in Mexico, it seems appropriate to remember how Evelyn Waugh, in the introduction to the second edition of his biography of then Blessed Edmund Campion, mentioned that the "Martyrdom of Father Pro in Mexico re-enacted Campion's in faithful detail" and that the "haunted, trapped, murdered priest is our contemporary."

Waugh visited Mexico after he wrote Campion's biography and wrote a book criticizing the Mexican revolution and its effects, particularly the persecution of the Catholic Church and her priests. He spent two months in Mexico:

I went to Mexico in order to write a book about it ; in order to verify and reconsider impressions formed at a distance. To have travelled a lot, to have spent, as I had done, the first twelve years of adult life intermittently on the move, is to this extent a disadvantage that one’s mind falls into the habit of recognizing similarities rather than differences. At the age of thirty-five one needs to go to the moon, or some such place, to recapture the excitement with which one first landed at Calais. For many people Mexico has, in the past, had this lunar character. Lunar it still remains, but in no poetic sense. It is waste land, part of a dead or, at any rate, a dying planet. Politics, everywhere destructive, have here dried up the place, frozen it, cracked it and powdered it to dust. Is civilization, like a leper, beginning to rot at its extremities? In the sixteenth century human life was disordered and talent stultified by the obsession of theology; today we are plague- stricken by politics. It is a fact; distressing for us, dull for our descendants, but inescapable. This is a political book; its aim, roughly, is to examine a single problem; why it was that last summer a small and almost friendless republic jubilantly recalled its Minister from London, and, more important, why people in England thought about this event as they did; why, for instance, patriotic feeling burst into indignation whenever a freight ship — British only in name, trading in defiance of official advice — was sunk in Spanish waters, and remained indifferent when a rich and essential British industry was openly stolen in time of peace. If one could understand that problem one would come very near to understanding all the problems that vex us today, for it has at its origin the universal, deliberately fostered anarchy of public relations and private opinions that is rapidly making the world uninhabitable. 

The succeeding pages are notes on anarchy. 

Waugh was very critical of the Wilson administration's response to the persecution of Catholics under the new Mexican government and Constitution:

President Wilson was reluctant to admit the crimes of his proteges; it was only after the facts had again and again been set before him and Catholic opinion in America was becoming seriously inflamed, that he sent a protest. He asked for three things: freedom for foreigners to pursue their businesses in peace; an amnesty for political opponents; a remission of the persecution of religion. ‘Nothing will shock the civilized world more,’ he wrote, ‘than punitive and vindictive action towards priests or ministers of any Church, whether Catholic or Protestant; and the Government of the United States ventures most respectfully but most earnestly to caution the leaders of the Mexican people on this delicate and vital matter. The treatment already said to have been accorded priests has had a most unfortunate effect on opinion outside of Mexico.’ Carranza accordingly went before the Congress in December 1918 to propose a modification of the ‘Constitution of Queretaro’ in favour of the Church. But Obregon had now entered into an alliance with the CROM; the price for their support was the continued persecution of the Church. Obregon’s supporters in Congress were therefore instructed to reject the amendments. Carranza was driven out and murdered. Once again American intervention had proved disastrous.

Chapter Seven of Robbery Under Law, "The Straight Fight", offers his interpretation of anti-Catholicism in Mexico, its sources and propaganda. Of Blessed Miguel Pro, he writes, noting how President Calles had photographs of his execution published, that he was the hero of Catholics in the late 1930's:

There were hundreds of others done to death at the same time. Mexico had been infertile of religious heroes for some generations; now she suddenly burst into flower; but popular imagination always seeks to personify its ideals, and it is on Pro, very worthily, that it has fastened as the embodiment of the spirit Calles provoked. Within a few hours of his death he was already canonized in the hearts of the people; with typical ineptitude Calles had photographers on the scene of the execution and issued pictures of it to the press; within a day or two it was a criminal offence to possess one; they circulated nevertheless from hand to hand and were reproduced in secret all over the country. Today you can buy cards of Pro outside the churches and even government apologists have stopped trying to justify his death. It was a mistake, they admit; it was indeed; one of those resounding mistakes which make history. While Dwight Morrow and his clown and Calles were off on a trip together in the Presidential train talking of debt settlements, Pro was being shot in a back yard. Dwight Morrow is already forgotten. Pro is the inspiration of thousands through whom the Mexican Church is still alive.

Waugh writes about the Cristeros:

The present situation of the Church in Mexico is the result of the truce effected with the mediation of Dwight Morrow. Mexican Catholics profess small gratitude to him for his intervention. The promises then made by the government have not been kept. The Cristeros were induced to surrender their arms under an amnesty which has been broken by a series of retributive murders. The hierarchy believed that their spiritual work was to be allowed to continue without persecution; they have been bitterly disappointed. For Catholics the unhappy character of the compromise has been emphasized by the grave warning of the late Pope in the encyclical Firmissimam Constantiam of Easter 1937.

Browsing that chapter, with Waugh's description of Our Lady of Guadalupe, demonstrated to me what a thoughtful Catholic Evelyn Waugh truly was. He understands--as a convert--both the outsider and the insider view of the Catholic Church, our doctrine, worship, and devotion.

Blessed Miguel Pro, pray for us!

English Artists and Catholic Art in the Eighteenth Century

William Hogarth's commission for St. Mary's Redcliffe in Bristol in the mid-eighteenth century was indeed unusual. As Clare Haynes wrote in her 2006 study, Pictures and Popery: Art and Religion in England, 1660-1760, English artists faced a dilemma. Their ideal and example of great art came from Catholic artists, sponsored by the Catholic Church: Raphael and Michelangelo were their heroes, but Raphael and Michelangelo had created such great works of art for the Vatican! It was all Papist and smacked of Popery--yet many English artists yearned to create magnificent public art, religious and/or historical. As Haynes notes, there's a mixture of straightforward aesthetic appreciation mixed with distaste of the subject matter and its source.

She offers the example of "The Last Communion of St. Jerome" by Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri), the Italian Baroque painter. It was considered to be one of the greatest works of art in the world, but it presented the "exaltation of that vile shriveling passion of beggarly modern devotion" and superstition, according to Lord Shaftesbury. He admired it and hated it at the same time.

Charles I (as Prince of Wales) had obtained Raphael's Cartoons for the series of tapestries commissioned by Pope Leo X--who had declared Henry VIII the "Defender of the Faith" in 1521--for the Sistine Chapel. The seven cartoons of the full set of ten were among those artworks NOT offered for sale after Charles I was beheaded. The purpose of the tapestries was to tell the life stories of St. Peter and St. Paul and to emphasize St. Peter as the Pope and head of the Catholic Church. They were popular and on public display until King George III moved them to Buckingham Palace in 1763; Queen Victoria lent to them to the Victoria and Albert Museum where they are today.

But English artists wanted to show that they were capable of this scale of work and the compositional technique. They wanted English patrons to support them rather than importing copies of works they'd seen when on the Grand Tour of Catholic Europe. An English Gentleman needed to visit the St. Peter's and other Catholic churches in Rome on the Grand Tour to see the great art of the Renaissance and the Baroque. Like John Henry Newman in the 19th century, they were often perplexed about how to respond to what they were seeing--the relics of the Roman Republic and Empire AND the greatness of the Roman Papacy in the order of the city's public works, the grandeur of the architecture, mosaics, sculptures and paintings--especially when they were witnessing the Catholic Mass, Catholic devotions, and seeing priests, bishops, cardinals, friars, etc., all around them!

Imagine what they were hearing in those churches: Palestrina, Scarlatti, etc! More about that tomorrow . . .

Book Review: Sons of Saint Patrick

The Faith and Reason Institute sent me a review copy of Sons of Saint Patrick: A History of the Archbishops of New York, from Dagger John to Timmytown by George Marlin and Brad Miner, published by Ignatius Press:

Sons of Saint Patrick tells the story of America's premiere Catholic see, the archdiocese of New York—from the coming of French Jesuit priests in the seventeenth century to the early years of Cardinal Timothy Dolan. It includes many intriguing facets of the history of Catholicism in New York, including:
~the early persecution of and legal discrimination against Catholics
~the waves of catholic (sic) immigrants, most notably from Ireland
~the Church's rise to power under New York's first archbishop, "Dagger" John Hughes
~the emerging awareness in the Vatican of New York's preeminence
~the clashes between America and Rome over the "Americanist" heresy
~the role New York's archbishops have played in the life of America's greatest city—and in the world

The book focuses on the ten archbishops of New York and shows how they became the indispensable partners of governors and presidents, especially during the war-torn twentieth century. Also discussed are the struggles of the most recent archbishops in the face of demographic changes, financial crises, and clerical sex-abuse cases.

Sons of Saint Patrick is an objective but colorful portrait of ten extraordinary men—men who were saints and sinners, politicians and pastors, and movers and shakers who as much as any other citizens have made New York one of the greatest cities in the world. All ten archbishops have been Irish, either by birth or heritage, but given New York's changing ethnic profile, Cardinal Timothy Dolan may be the last son of Saint Patrick to serve as its archbishop.

In about 500 pages, the authors cover the history of the Catholic Church in New York through its ten archbishops. The history of the area before the establishment of the diocese, citing the presence of St. Isaac Jogues--who was hard to kill--and the transition from Dutch to English control, demonstrates the dangers and hostility Catholics would face in New York City. Each archbishop is given a nickname:

The Gardener: John Joseph Hughes

The First: John Joseph McCloskey

The Roman: Michael Augustine Corrigan

The Builder: John Murphy Farley

The Bureaucrat: Patrick Joseph Hayes

The Power Broker: Francis Joseph Spellman

The Equalizer: Terence James Cooke

The Admiral: John Joseph O'Connor

The Realist: Edward Michael Egan

The Evangelist: Timothy Michael Dolan

For each archbishop, the authors provide background on his family and education, his ordination and priestly career before being named archbishop, and then a description of his achievements and failures. They include details about the archbishop's relationships with the priests of the diocese and the politicians in power. Each chapter also describes the personality of the archbishop and his administrative style, hands-off, detail-oriented, and in-between. The archbishops from first to last wrestle with government for the sake of the Catholics in New York so that they are treated fairly. Cardinal Spellman confronted Eleanor Roosevelt and others over legislation for public and private schools distributed by the Federal government in 1949, for example, and her fearful anti-Catholicism shows. The Barden Amendment, sponsored by a congressman from North Carolina, was defeated when it was discovered that the congressman had supported funding for Protestant schools in his home state. As time passes in the story, the archbishops face greater challenges to their efforts to uphold Church teaching and religious freedom as artificial birth control, abortion, and so-called same-sex marriage are not only legalized but imposed on the Church in her work in education, family services, healthcare, etc.

There are some unpleasant revelations: Archbishop Hayes not only disregarded and neglected the major seminary for the archdiocese, St. Joseph's/Dunwoodie, but he created unhealthy and unsafe conditions for the seminarians and faculty studying there. Archbishop Spellman went along too easily, the authors seem to indicate, with the eminent domain arguments of architect Robert Moses in the building of Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side, displacing "seven thousand mostly Catholic families" and destroying St. Matthew's church of West Sixty-Eighth St. 

Archbishop O'Connor, one of my heroes, hated the rich so much that he insulted donors; he thought every rich person had grown up with a silver spoon in his or her mouth and "led leisurely, superfluous lives." Many rich donors--some of whom had grown up in blue-collar, working-class families just like his and had worked hard to become successful-- and who wanted to make substantial donations when visiting O'Connor "walked out with the check still in their breast pockets" because of his stated prejudice against them. (The same issue comes up in the last chapter about Archbishop Dolan because of comments Pope Francis made about wealthy people in 2014).

I know that the book is focused on the archbishops of New York City, but I do wish there could have been some more supporting material about the archdiocese--a map of the changing territory, a table of the census of Catholics through the years--just to add context. Was there something particularly special about St. Matthew's on West Sixty-Eighth Street?

This is a remarkable, well-researched, sometimes chatty, well-written book. It's more than just a series of biographies because the authors describe the links and the transitions between archbishop and archbishop. 

The Tradition of Prejudice

In The Catholic Herald, Professor David Paton asks, in response to a question about the Catholic Church forbidding dissection of the human body during the Middle Ages:

How can it be that such an easily-disprovable slur against the Church is being taught to thousands of youngsters across the country? In fact, the problem seems to be wider than one incorrect statement. I do urge you to read the BBC GCSE Bitesize page in its entirety. It places the blame for lack of medical progress in the Middle Ages almost entirely on the Church. Apart from the mythical ban on dissection, the website criticises the Church’s “encouragement of prayer and superstition” and the “emphasis on authority rather than observation and investigation”. Pupils are also told that the Church’s “belief that disease was a punishment from God” prevented investigation into cures. . . .

It’s a complex subject, and of course no-one wants to whitewash the Church’s record. But is it really fair not to mention the contribution of monks to preserving Greek and Roman learning during the dark ages, the Catholic insistence on the use of reason in academic study, the Church’s sponsorship of universities, the developments in surgery in the 13th century under the patronage of Pope Innocent IV, or the contributions of Grosseteste, Bacon, Magnus and countless other Catholic scientists?

Professional historians will be able to give a more informed view here. Still, the overall content of the webpage (and indeed many standard textbooks) seems to me at best misleading. Frankly, it verges on straightforward anti-Catholic prejudice.

Blessed John Henry Newman answered Professor Paton's question in his 1851 Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England, Lecture II. "Tradition the Sustaining Power of the Protestant View":

Now, if I must give the main and proximate cause of this remarkable state of mind, I must simply say that Englishmen go by that very mode of information in its worst shape, which they are so fond of imputing against Catholics; they go by tradition, immemorial, unauthenticated tradition. I have no wish to make a rhetorical point, or to dress up a polemical argument. I wish you to investigate the matter philosophically, and to come to results which, not you only, Brothers of the Oratory, who are Catholics, but all sensible men, will perceive to be just and true. I say, then, Englishmen entertain their present monstrous notions of us, mainly because those notions are received on information not authenticated, but immemorial. This it is that makes them entertain those notions; they talk much of free inquiry; but towards us they do not dream of practising it; they have been taught what they hold in the nursery, in the school-room, in the lecture-class, from the pulpit, from the newspaper, in society. Each man teaches the other: "How do you know it?" "Because he told me." "And how does he know it?" "Because I told him;" or, at very best advantage, "We both know it, because it was so said when we were young; because no one ever said the contrary; because I recollect what a noise, when I was young, the Catholic Relief Bill made; because my father and the old clergyman said so, and Lord Eldon, and George the Third; and there was Mr. Pitt obliged to give up office, and Lord George Gordon, long before that, made a riot, and the Catholic Chapels were burnt down all over the country." Well, these are your grounds for knowing it; and how did these energetic Protestants whom you have mentioned know it themselves? Why, they were told by others before them, and those others by others again a great time back; and there the telling and teaching is lost in fog; and this is mainly what has to be said for the anti-Catholic notions in question. Now this is to believe on tradition.

It does appear that the BBC GCSE Bitesize page--perhaps because of Professor Paton's commentary--has been archived. But the question perdures: why were such falsehoods published in the first place?

Prayer for Our Nation

At last, Election Day! Voters in the U.S.A. will make our choices on whom to represent us from the local to the federal level. God bless us, everyone! God grant that we make the right decisions.

The first Catholic bishop in the U.S.A. was the Bishop of Baltimore, John Carroll. Carroll and his brother Daniel, who had been one of two Catholic delegates signing the Constitution in 1789 (and his cousin, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence) had studied on the European Continent. They were Catholics in colonial Maryland in a time when the practice of the Catholic faith was proscribed, including Catholic education, and thus attended St. Omers, the Jesuit college founded in Flanders for English men in recusant England. John Carroll prepared for the priesthood, was ordained, and became a Jesuit in Europe.

On November 10, 1791, Bishop Carroll published a Prayer for Government, in which, for Catholics, he included the Church hierarchy from the Pope through the Bishops and the clergy. Then he looks at the secular government--and note that, since the prayer was composed in November, it ends with prayers for the dead:

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.

We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.

We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.

We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.

We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Note also the insistence on "equal liberty"; Bishop Carroll (later called Archbishop Carroll) was a staunch defender of religious liberty and particularly the freedom of Catholics to practice their faith in the new United States of America. As the website for the Archdiocese of Baltimore describes his efforts:

When a cousin, Charles Henry Wharton, wrote a work to justify his conversion to the Protestant Episcopal Church suggesting that Roman Catholicism was inimical to a free society, Carroll felt compelled to publish in 1785 a 115-page rebuttal, An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of America, his most ambitious literary effort. In it he argues that "America may come to exhibit a proof to the world, by general and equal toleration, by giving a free circulation to fair argument, is the most effectual method to bring all denominations of Christians to an unity of faith" (140). . . . In 1785 he fought a bill that would have laid a tax for the support of clergymen in Maryland. To at least two American newspapers he sent essays demanding equal rights for Roman Catholics.

A facsimile of An Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States of America may be found here, although you must be prepared to read each "f" as an "s"!

Just remember that Catholics have had to answer these charges of being members of a Church that's "inimical to a free society" through the centuries. Think of Paul Blanshard in the 1940's and 1950's. Eleanor Roosevelt feared Catholic influence on education, etc, etc. 

And religious liberty must always be defended. Recently, the Chair of the Commission on Civil Rights said that "religious liberty" is just a code for discrimination (“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy, or any form of intolerance,” he [Martin Castro] wrote.) Anyone who believes that might act upon it. Eternal vigilance!

Rodney Stark's "Bearing False Witness"

Rodney Stark is not a Catholic but he wants to tell the truth about Church History for the sake of history itself: not to let it be used in the cause of deceit and hatred. In his latest book, he debunks "Centuries of Anti-Catholic History", dealing with the common topics and events that are usually cited as attacks upon the Catholic Church--some of the same topics I covered a few years ago for Homiletic & Pastoral Review. As his publisher, Templeton Press, describes the book:

As we all know and as many of our well established textbooks have argued for decades, the Inquisition was one of the most frightening and bloody chapters in Western history, Pope Pius XII was anti-Semitic and rightfully called “Hitler’s Pope,” the Dark Ages were a stunting of the progress of knowledge to be redeemed only by the secular spirit of the Enlightenment, and the religious Crusades were an early example of the rapacious Western thirst for riches and power. But what if these long held beliefs were all wrong?

In this stunning, powerful, and ultimately persuasive book, Rodney Stark, one of the most highly regarded sociologists of religion and bestselling author of The Rise of Christianity (HarperSanFrancisco 1997) argues that some of our most firmly held ideas about history, ideas that paint the Catholic Church in the least positive light are, in fact, fiction. Why have we held these wrongheaded ideas so strongly and for so long? And if our beliefs are wrong, what, in fact, is the truth?

In each chapter, Stark takes on a well-established anti-Catholic myth, gives a fascinating history of how each myth became the conventional wisdom, and presents a startling picture of the real truth. For example,

• Instead of the Spanish Inquisition being an anomaly of torture and murder of innocent people persecuted for “imaginary” crimes such as witchcraft and blasphemy, Stark argues that not only did the Spanish Inquisition spill very little blood, but it was a major force in support of moderation and justice.
• Instead of Pope Pius XII being apathetic or even helpful to the Nazi movement, such as to merit the title, “Hitler’s Pope,” Stark shows that the campaign to link Pope Pius XII to Hitler was initiated by the Soviet Union, presumably in hopes of neutralizing the Vatican in post-World War II affairs. Pope Pius XII was widely praised for his vigorous and devoted efforts to saving Jewish lives during the war.
• Instead of the Dark Ages being understood as a millennium of ignorance and backwardness inspired by the Catholic Church’s power, Stark argues that the whole notion of the “Dark Ages” was an act of pride perpetuated by anti-religious intellectuals who were determined to claim that theirs was the era of “Enlightenment.”

In the end, readers will not only have a more accurate history of the Catholic Church, they will come to understand why it became unfairly maligned for so long. Bearing False Witness is a compelling and sobering account of how egotism and ideology often work together to give us a false truth.

Much of what Stark does in this book is familiar to me; the important thing about this book is that it's written by a non-Catholic and a respected scholar. When a Catholic, even using the same evidence and sources, defends Church History, the reader can accuse him or her of special pleading--'of course you defend your Church; you're blinded by loyalty'--but with a non-Catholic standing up for the truth, perhaps someone otherwise inclined will listen. Nevertheless, if the reader is motivated by hatred against the Catholic Church for whatever reason, no rational explanation will probably influence them. Hatred and bigotry will probably blind such a reader and he or she will persist in, as Stark cites one misguided historian on the Spanish Inquisition, despising the Catholic Church. Highly recommended.

A Religious History of the American Revolution

Kirkus Reviews commented on Thomas S. Kidd's God of Liberty that it was an:

Intriguing look at the role played by faith in America’s movement for independence.

Though books about the faith lives of America’s founders are abundant, Kidd (History/Baylor; The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America, 2007, etc.) finds a useful niche by exploring how religion affected the American Revolution itself. Without the various roles and uses of religion, the revolution would have gone quite differently, if it would have come about at all. The author points to two disparate precursors of the independence movement: the Great Awakening of the 1730s and ’40s and the Seven Years’ War (1756–’63). He describes the Great Awakening as the “first American revolution,” as it began an overthrow of traditional church-state relationships. Through the Awakening, state-supported churches came under severe attack as lay preachers rose up and dissenting churches became ever more popular. As state-supported churches lost power and prestige, so too did the colonial structures behind them. This was a movement that would carry on past the revolution. Kidd writes that “for religion in America, disestablishment would prove to be the most significant political outcome of the Revolution.” The Seven Years’ War expanded religious sentiment in the colonies, stirring up an anti-Catholic hatred that was used with surprising effect against the British monarchy. The war also instilled an apocalyptic viewpoint among many colonists, which was easily turned against their occupiers. The author also discusses the importance of virtue to the founders and its role in establishing the nascent federal government, and examines other aspects of faith, including chaplains in the war effort and ethical arguments over slavery. Kidd ends fittingly with a look at Tocqueville, who was the first, and perhaps best, observer of American history in comprehending the role of faith in the creation of the American experiment.

An important contribution to American religious history.

I agree with much that Kirkus wrote, but I found a strange gap in the way Kidd told the story of how much religious freedom--as well as economic freedom--was important to the leaders of the American Revolution. Kidd examines the great fear and loathing the revolutionaries had for the Catholic Church: it was the focus of all their attacks on tyranny. Catholicism and tyranny were indeed almost synonymous and the pope was the Anti-Christ. The religious revolutionaries began to see the English government and King George III even as equal to the Catholic Church in tyranny when Parliament negotiated with the Catholics in Quebec and allowed them the freedom to worship. They feared the establishment of an Anglican diocese in the colonies because it meant the consolidation of Anglican influence and they thought that the Church of the England was just too close to being Catholic for their safety. King George III was both tyrant and Anti-Christ. 

With all that build-up of animosity toward Catholicism in the colonial and revolutionary era, Kidd does not explain why Catholics were allowed, along with everyone else, to worship freely and practice their religion after the United States won independence from England. John Locke, one of the Enlightenment figures who influenced several founders, denied Catholics the same religious toleration and freedom he granted dissenters from the Church of England because he saw them, as most of the religious leaders of eighteenth century America agreed, as subjects of a foreign prince and purveyors of “doctrines absolutely destructive to the society wherein they live.” So how were Catholics accepted or at least officially tolerated in the newly-independent United States? Kidd does not describe this tremendous change in attitude. 

His focus, which makes sense for a professor at Baylor University, is very much on how Baptists sought religious freedom since they were often harassed in the colonies with Anglican or Congregational established churches. 

Please note that I purchased this book from Eighth Day Books. I highly recommend it in spite of the gap in narration noted above.