Was Adams wrong about Catholicism? When did the Roman Catholic Church ever stand for freedom? Even in the 20th century, it aligned with Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. Certain courageous Catholic thinkers like Father John Ryan and John Courtney Murray tried to reconcile Catholic doctrine with freedom and democracy, but they were reprimanded by the hierarchy. In Adams's era, the Catholic Church was anti-Enlightenment and invoked natural law instead of the idea of natural rights--the first demanding obedience to authority, the latter the duty to resist it if rulers violate the social contract. Edmund Burke, defending the American cause before Parliament in his famous "Speech on Reconciliation," told the British that the colonists would not yield because they were "Protestants," and he spelled out what that meant: protest, resist, defy.
Adams, to be sure, had his moments of ethnic bias. In his summary defense in the Boston Massacre trial, he claimed that the British soldiers had every reason to be afraid of the crowd, "a motley rabble of saucy boys, Negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues [pigs], and outlandish Jack Tars." Abigail, tell your man that he is referring to my ancestors.
The third part of the series went beyond the opening two in the beautiful New England photography; the appropriate and telling dialogue--especially Adams telling French aristocrats that he must work hard so his children and grandchildren may later enjoy poetry and music; the musical score with some fiddles in the orchestra; and the wrenching separation for so long of John and Abigail, and even John Quincy going off to St. Petersburg at the age of 14. Duty and sacrifice came naturally to these heroic founders.
The story takes Adams away from the Revolution, but viewers ought to know that things were going bad militarily in the first years of the Revolution. Word got to Adams that some leaders wanted to have George Washington removed, having lost some battles and with the capitol Philadelphia captured by the British. General Knox made a visit to Adams to sound him out on this move, and Adams made a valiant defense of Washington.
The film makes no mention thus far that Adams was the founder of the U.S. Navy; he believed in naval superiority as essential to any victory and pressed that upon the French. Jefferson thought America could get along with small one-gun vessels. But thanks to Adams, America had a reliable fleet with which to face Britain.
Many students and some professors think Adams was the prude in Paris and Benjamin Franklin was the charming playboy, even as a doddering senior citizen. But Franklin accomplished little and the film makes clear that he didn't seem to realize what Adams did realize--that France needed America as much as America needed France. Adams's negotiation of the substantial loan from the Dutch was one of America's first diplomatic achievements and it helped win the Revolutionary War.
Franklin was witty and in many ways wise, but he was also complacent--and his idea of never pressing things to a conclusion is not the best mentality for a diplomat. To Adams, hard negotiation was what international relations was all about, and he could discern the difference between a gesture and a real commitment.
Watching the third episode of this series reminded me of how much the French supported the American Revolution. In our times, when there has been a lot of anti-French sentiment due to the Iraq War, we perhaps should remember this French contribution, which had Pierre Beaumarchais raising money, Admiral de Grasse sailing his fleet to eastern port cities to take on the British navy, and Rochambeau and LaFayette fighting valiantly with Washington. Viva La France!
Actually, we are finding it was the western atheists/socialists that sympathized with the fascists.
The Catholic Church strongly opposed Hitler in his elections (and even afterwards) and generally opposed Mussolini too.
And the church unwaveringly opposed the communists.
It is true that Franco was a Catholic.
Well, Higgins got one out of three right.
It's pathetic that this guy is a professor.
When did the Roman Catholic Church ever stand for freedom?
Too bad Higgins can't address this question to the slaves of the late Roman Empire, or his presumably Irish ancestors, or the Spaniards living under the Arab yoke, or the Hungarians under the Turkish one.
Even in the 20th century, it aligned with Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco.
Idiot.
Franco, to a certain extent - but considering Franco's enemies were totalitarian Communists in the habit of raping nuns and using churches as latrines, one can see why.
To say that the Church aligned with either Hitler or Mussolini is simply beneath contempt, the Catholic equivalent of the blood libel.
Certain courageous Catholic thinkers like Father John Ryan and John Courtney Murray tried to reconcile Catholic doctrine with freedom and democracy, but they were reprimanded by the hierarchy.
John Ryan got into trouble with his employer by advocating Marxism - in other words the diametric opposite of freedom and democracy. John Murray was criticized not for his political writings but for his denial of the theological supremacy of the Holy See. This criticism certainly didn't hurt either his ecclesiastical or secular careers.
In Adams's era, the Catholic Church was anti-Enlightenment and invoked natural law instead of the idea of natural rights--the first demanding obedience to authority, the latter the duty to resist it if rulers violate the social contract.
There is no conflict between natural right and natural law, and St. Thomas Aquinas laid it all out quite perspicuously 500 years before John Adams was born. Adams himself was an opponent of the Enlightenment as embodied by the French Revolution.
The main criticism of Jesuit theologians in the 17th century by apologists for the absolute monarchies of Europe, was their championing of the right of the people to resist tyranny and their rejection of the false doctrine of the divine right of kings.
Edmund Burke, defending the American cause before Parliament in his famous "Speech on Reconciliation," told the British that the colonists would not yield because they were "Protestants," and he spelled out what that meant: protest, resist, defy.
Burke spoke these words as a man who personally wavered between Catholicism and Protestantism all his life, and remained a Protestant largely because he would not have been allowed to serve in Parliament if he were a Catholic. His mother and sister were devout Catholics and he was a Protestant mostly because his Protestant father insisted on it - pointing out that if he were a Catholic he could never receive an officer's commission in the army or navy, or admission to university, or stand for Parliament.
Burke, as a master rhetorician, was playing on Parliament's prejudices in order to further his pro-American sympathies.
This was not anti-Catholicism on Burke's part - it was flattery of Protestants. And Burke also had a horror of the anti-clerical French Revolution.
Without doubt you are correct and I believe that sense of DUTY and sacrifice remained in our nation's ethos although in a somewhat diminished capacity up until 1960, give or take a few years.
Since then however, duty & sacrifice have been replaced by entitlement and selfishness with honor becoming a foreign and nebulous concept!