This week's segment continues the examination of the effects that the religious and political situations in England had on the settlements in America.
Our Catholic Roots 1492—1865
3: The English Contribution (Part 2)
Anti-Catholic Movements
These first years of peace and progress for the Church in Maryland were brought to an end by a series of events that occurred thousands of miles away. Civil war erupted in England in 1642. Lord Baltimore's friend and protector, Charles I, slowly lost his royal power to parliamentary forces dominated by the radical Puritans. With the king's authority fading away, Puritans everywhere became more aggressive in dealing with Catholics. In 1642, eleven priests were put to death in England. In the same year the colony of Virginia, Maryland's neighbor, passed a law forbidding priests and Catholics even to enter the colony. Other colonies, such as Massachusetts, followed Virginia's example. They made no effort to hide their intentions:This Court, taking into consideration the great wars and combustions which are this day in Europe, and that the same are observed to be chiefly raised and fomented by the secret practices of those of the Jesuitical order, for the prevention of like evils amongst ourselves, it is ordered by the authorities of this Court, that no Jesuit or ecclesiastical person ordained by the authority of the pope shall henceforth come within our jurisdiction; and if any person shall give any cause of suspicion that he is one of such society, he shall be brought before some of the magistrates, and if he cannot free himself of such suspicion, he shall be committed or bound on to the next Court of Assistants, to be tried and proceeded with by banishment or otherwise, as the court shall see cause; and if any such person so banished shall be taken the second time within this jurisdiction, he shall upon lawful trial and conviction, be put to death . . .
Puritans were determined to restore the church to the kind of simplicity they believed it had in the times of the first apostles. They despised the Catholic Church as the most corrupt and farthest away from the ideal church of the apostles. But they had no use for the established Church of England either. Not only did they call for the abolition of priests and bishops and most of the sacraments, they also smashed statues and stained glass windows as forms of idolatry and sources of distraction from God.
In Maryland, Puritans had been moving into the colony in increasing numbers. They soon were in a position to cause trouble for their Catholic neighbors. With help from Virginia, they attacked and plundered Catholics' plantations. They even forced Governor Calvert, Lord Baltimore's brother, to flee for his life. Father White was captured by a Puritan band and sent in chains to London for trial as a papist traitor. Order was restored after two years, but the future was grim. In 1649 King Charles I was tried for treason and beheaded by the Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell.
These developments posed frightening questions for the small Catholic minority in Maryland, even though they still held a slight majority in the Maryland assembly. Their famous Toleration Act of 1649 was an effort to protect themselves by giving the force of law to the religious toleration that had been quietly practiced in Maryland since its founding.
Be it enacted . . . that whatsoever person shall from henceforth call or denominate any person within this province a heretic, schismatic, idolator, puritan, independent, Presbyterian, popish priest, Jesuit, Jesuited papist, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist, Roundhead, Separatist, or any other name or term in a reproachful manner relating to matter of religion shall for every offence forfeit and lose ten shillings sterling . . . And whereas the inforcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in those commonwealths where it hath been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and amity amongst the inhabitants thereof, be it therefore enacted that no person within this province professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be any way troubled, molested or discountenanced for or in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof within this province or the islands thereunto belonging nor any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion against his or her consent, so as they be not unfaithful to the Lord Proprieter, or molest or conspire against the civil government . . .
Their law was very generous and forward-looking. But it did not long survive. Events were rapidly moving in very different directions. Puritans, who had been welcomed and given full religious freedom, seized control of Maryland from Lord Baltimore. In 1654, they abolished the Toleration Act and deprived those who profess and exercise the popish religion of their civil rights, including the right to vote. They also drove the Jesuits out of Maryland, confiscated their estates, and put at least four Catholics to death.
In time, England's people tired of these Puritan excesses. When the Puritan leader Cromwell himself died, the monarchy was restored, with King Charles II succeeding his executed father. In Maryland this brought a restoration of religious toleration, although the situation was still insecure for Catholics. Once again the Jesuits were allowed to return, but Father White was not among them. He had died trying to reconvert the Protestants of England.
Oliver Cromwell was a stern Puritan who despised Catholics. He defeated the royalist forces of Charles I in the English Civil War of the seventeenth century.
William Penn was a Quaker who worked to guarantee religious toleration in the colony named for him. He also agreed to a treaty of peace with the Indians of Pennsylvania.
New York
The king's brother, the Duke of York, was friendly to the Catholic Church. He became a Catholic himself before inheriting the throne as King James II. In 1664, King Charles gave the Duke of York the colony of New Amsterdam, which he seized from the Dutch and renamed New York. The Duke began to think about a policy of religious toleration. Eventually, he did take action, appointing a Catholic governor and instructing the New York legislature to adopt a generous policy of religious toleration for all Christians. Despite Protestant opposition, he showed his support for New York Catholics by sending some Jesuits from England to care for their spiritual needs and to open a school. All of this made New York a more attractive place for Catholics to settle. It persuaded at least a few English Catholics to immigrate to the colony.
William Penn, a Protestant Englishman, was as determined as the Duke of York and Lord Baltimore to guarantee religious toleration for all people in his planned New World colony. As a member of the hated Quaker sect, Penn knew what it meant to be discriminated against because of his religion. Penn had often lent sums of money to King Charles II. The king repaid his debt by granting Penn the colony of Pennsylvania. There, in 1682, Penn undertook his "holy experiment." He established a refuge where all people could follow their own religious beliefs without fear of harassment.
Of the thirteen original English colonies, then, only Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania welcomed Catholics in the 1600s. But as the century neared an end, events in England threatened to overwhelm the enlightened policies of even those three colonies. Very soon after he became king in 1685, James II began to show the same arrogance and lack of diplomacy his father had shown. He showed off his Catholicism in ways that roused the deepest fears and angers of his Protestant subjects. In less than four years he had lost his throne and had to flee to France to avoid execution by his own people. A new Protestant king and queen, William and Mary, were installed by Parliament in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1689. A strong emphasis on official anti-Catholicism soon followed.
In New York, Protestants revolted against the Catholic governor, drove out the Jesuits, established the Church of England, and adopted anti-Catholic laws. Official religious toleration had lasted there only six years, but the miserable experience for New York Catholics that followed was to last until the American Revolution, about seventy-five years later. Mass was not celebrated in public again in New York until offered by the chaplains of the French troops who were sent to aid the colonies in their fight against England.
Maryland and Pennsylvania
The fate of Maryland's Catholics was even worse. Almost immediately after the Glorious Revolution, Lord Baltimore lost his colony altogether, and its assembly abolished religious toleration and established the Church of England. Matters became worse and worse. By the time of the American Revolution, Catholics had been forbidden to practice their religion or to conduct schools, had been denied their right to vote or hold government office, and had been subjected to double taxation.Confronted with these facts, the current Lord Baltimore converted to the Church of England and regained possession of the colony in 1715. But many Maryland Catholics quietly held their ground. With the help of the Jesuits, they practiced their faith behind locked doors. They even provided a Catholic education for their sons at a secret Jesuit academy, Bohemia Manor. Most prominent among these Catholic families were the Carrolls, who at one point even purchased land in Louisiana in preparation for having to leave Maryland. They remained, however, and survived to become the richest family in America at the time of the Revolution. One family member, Charles, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and another, John, the first American Catholic bishop.
Conditions in Pennsylvania were considerably better for Catholics than in New York or Maryland. William Penn and his Quaker followers continued to hold deep beliefs in religious freedom. Despite external pressures, the colony never enacted the kinds of anti-Catholic legislation that appeared everywhere else in English America. The celebration of a public Mass in Philadelphia in 1707 gave rise to numerous complaints, but nothing would deter the colony from its "holy experiment."
For quite a while, an occasional Jesuit up from Maryland was the only source of spiritual guidance for Pennsylvania's Catholics. But in 1733 a Jesuit priest, Father Joseph Greaton, came to live in Philadelphia. He bought land and built St. Joseph's Chapel, the first Catholic Church in the city. A year later, the governor challenged the priest's right to erect this chapel, but was overruled by the Philadelphia city council. Not long after, Father Greaton was joined by two German priests who had come to care for German immigrants that were moving into the Pennsylvania farming country. In 1757, the priests reported the presence of 1,365 Catholics in the colony, and in 1763 they opened St. Mary's Parish Church to serve the city of Philadelphia.
At mid-century, as the French and Indian War prepared the scene for the American Revolution, Catholics were an almost invisible minority in English America. They had endured two centuries of determined harassment and intolerance. According to a report written in 1756, there were no more than 7,000 Catholics in a total population of nearly two million people. Most of the colonies had no Catholics at all. Twelve Jesuits were working in the hostile atmosphere of Protestant Maryland, and four more served the Church in Pennsylvania. Catholics were scorned, overtaxed, barred from political life, and usually deprived of even the simple satisfaction of praying in their own churches. But these determined Catholics turned their thoughts inward, kept silent, and waited for a better day.
Terms
toleration: recognition and acceptance of the rights of others
allegiance: loyalty
Questions for Reflection
What was there in William Pennšs prior experience that inclined him to be very sensitive to the need for religious toleration? In what other ways might he have reacted to that experience?
How "glorious" were the consequences of the Glorious Revolution for Catholic living in America?
How effective was the 1649 Toleration Act?
Are there anti-Catholic movements going on today? Where?
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