Catholic Sources and the Declaration of Independence - Democracy not a "child of the Reformation"

Our Sunday Visitor via Catholic Education Resource Center ^ | 1930 | REV. JOHN C. RAGER, S.T.D.

[Cronos]

You want to blow Texas Fossil’s mind and let him know who George Washington summoned to his death bed to administer last rites?
John Carroll, brother of Charles Carroll, and founder of Georgetown University, and future first United States Catholic bishop and Archbishop of Baltimore.
We’re not talking nominal Catholics!

TexasFossil -- do you know your history?

[dangus]

Yes, and let’s keep in mind that three out of fifty-five may not seem like much, but it is HIGHER than the Catholic portion of the colonial population (~4%).

[dangus]

Oops! Turns out only 1.2%, not 4% of the colonists were Catholic. So that three signers were Catholic is quite something.

(Wikipedia, citing Middleton, 225. Also see Michael Lee Lanning, The American Revolution 100 (Napierville:Ill.: Sourcebook,Inc.), 193.)

[dangus]

I’d also consider it of quite significance that John Carroll was promptly made the Archbishop of Baltimore, despite being from a religious order, and a suppressed on at that! (Normally, diocesan priests are chosen to head dioceses; religious order priests are chosen to head only religious ordinariates, although there are many exceptions, like the Franciscan Cardinal O’Malley of Boston.) That the other priests in America nearly unanimously chose him as their leader, and had their selection approved by the Vatican, and that the Vatican immediately established an archdiocese in the newly formed states can only be read as an enthusiastic approval of Carroll’s actions in the states.

And not to little cost! Catholic France’s support of the American Revolution (admittedly, not stemming from the French king’s fondness for Catholicism) cost dearly; the largest Catholic kingdom at that time was plunged into a horrifying Reign of Terror by the anti-clerical French Revolution.

[WPaCon]

For people open to facts, here is a brief article which sums up some contributions by Catholics in the founding of this country.

http://www.catholichistory.net/Spotlights/SpotlightFounding.htm

Considering that there was a low population of Catholics in the colonies, Catholics did a pretty good job in helping the American cause.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Lol. Four hundred years of history is wrong and Rome has suddenly determined it invented television, fruit salad and email.

Rome lies like the Russians.

Rome is all about a top-down authoritarian hierarchy with an "infallible" king (pope) as its leader who possesses "divine" rights.

Who does the Vatican think it's fooling? Rome's idiotic boasts get more outlandish every day.

"There is nothing holier, or better, or safer, than to content ourselves with the authority of Christ alone." -- Calvin, Institutes IV:xv.19

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Meant to ping you guys.

[Gamecock]

It may have been during your sabbatical, but just recently the Papist monarchists were popping up all around FR, extolling the virtues of have us under an earthly king.

This is nothing more than Papist PR, spinning the Rome as an angel of light.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Fiction

[rollo tomasi]

They were 3 Roman Catholic founders if you count the religion of those who signed the DOI, Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution together.

Also, I hate to break the news, but the majority of the founders were affiliated with the Church of England. Most colonists were of the English persecution and many did not come to the colonies to avoid religious persecution (Hence, their continued allegiance to the dogma of the Church of England).

[rollo tomasi]

Sorry “English persecution” = English persuasion

[Dutchboy88]

"“There is no reason why among equals one should rule rather than another” (ibid.)."

Thus the "pope" is about to step down? We have been awaiting his wake-up call.

[Quix]

INDEED.

Hugs and prayers.

[stfassisi]

Dear brother,

This is an interesting article, but the reality is the DOI is not complete Catholic teaching,there are only parts that are and the un catholic parts leads to pluralistic societies which is far from Catholic/Orthodox teaching.

The truth of the matter is that it’s impossible to maintain any kind of Christian identity and separate it from Catholicism.Like many heretics like Nestorius and others the FF’s of the US try and reconcile heretical teaching with Christianity. Thus, we see things like the US Constitution not much different from many other heretical ideas that fail in there completion because they only are based in half truths

[daniel1212]

Re "an accurate expression of the Catholic mind, medieval and modern." While some RCs and writings influenced the DOI, as Judea-Christian principles ethics do, and if they reflected that then there is soundness, but what it left out is that what the founders sought to construct is in contrasts the some of the ethos of Rome during times when it wielded its unScriptural sword of men against theological adversaries. And which was wrong when Protestants did so as well, but there was much they had and have to unlearn if they will learn the way of the Master.

Another Traditional Roman Catholic (which Dr. Kopp apparently is) asserts regarding religious freedom, “No man should be forced to become Catholic, but all men should be forcibly restrained from attacking the Faith in any fashion.“ “...Cannibals should not be allowed on street corners. Ask yourself this: If it is OK to permit a man to murder his mother, what do I do if that man is my brother? Honor his "right" to kill Mom, or defend to the death my Mom?” — TWENTY-FIVE EXPLICIT ERRORS OF VATICAN COUNCIL II, Michael Malone http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/vatican2.htm

▀ The crucifiers of Christ ought to be held in continual subjection.(Pope Innocent III, “Epistle to the Hierarchy of France,” July 15, 1205)

▀ It would be licit, according to custom, to hold the Jews in perpetual servitude because of their crime. (St. Thomas Aquinas, “De Regimine Judaeorum”)

▀ It is insanity to believe that liberty of conscience and liberty of worship are the inalienable rights of every citizen. From this stinking fountain of Indifferentism flows the erroneous and absurd opinion, or rather derangement, that liberty of conscience must be asserted and vindicated for everyone. This most pestilential error opens the door to the complete and immoderate liberty of opinions which works such widespread harm both in Church and State. (Pope Gregory XVI, “Mirari Vos,” August 15,1832)

▀ That every man is free to embrace and to profess that religion which he, led by the light of reason, thinks to be the true religion is hereby CONDEMNED as ERROR. (Ven. Pope Pius IX, “Syllabus of Modern Errors,”December 8, 1864)

Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors) December 8, 1864:

▀ Error condemned: In this age of ours, it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion be the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other cults whatsoever. In certain regions of Catholic name, it has been praiseworthily sanctioned by law that men immigrating there be allowed to have public exercises of any form of worship of their own.

▀ [It is error to believe that] Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.” Section X, Errors Having Reference to Modern Liberalism, #78.

▀ Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors): “[It is error to believe that] The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus Issued in 1864, Section VI, Errors About Civil Society, Considered Both in Itself and in its Relation to the Church, #55. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM

▀ Pope Pius X VEHEMENTER NOS: That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error....

Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State...

▀ When the law, by the suppression of the Budget of Public Worship, exonerates the State from the obligation of providing for the expenses of worship, it violates an engagement contracted in a diplomatic convention, and at the same time commits a great injustice. - Encyclical of Pope Pius X promulgated on February 11, 1906. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10law.htm

▀ Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, 1302: Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered _for_ the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, 1302 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/b8-unam.html

▀ Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors): "[It is error to believe that] The (Catholic) Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect." Section V, Errors Concerning the Church and Her Rights, #24. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM

▀ The Roman Pontiff "does not only have the office of inspection and direction," but enjoys "full and supreme power of jurisdiction, not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and governance of the Church dispersed throughout the world" (DS 3064).

▀ Boniface VIII: “It is I who am Caesar; the Sovereign Pontiff is the only King of the Romans”, as he rode thru the city, carrying sword, globe and sceptre. (”Rome and its story”, p. 241, by Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Lina Duff Gordon)

▀ The Church has the right, as a perfect and independent society provided with all the means for attaining its end, to ...admonish or warn its members, ecclesiastical or lay, who have not conformed to its laws and also, if needful to punish them by physical means, that is, coercive jurisdiction. — Catholic Encyclopedia Jurisdiction

▀ In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture ‘cannot be contravened under any circumstances’”. — Pope Benedict XVI, in a speech of 6 September 2007; Torture and corporal punishment as a problem in Catholic Theology, September 2005

▀ That it is against the will of the Spirit to burn heretics at the stake is condemned as false. (Pope Leo X, “Exsurge Domino,” 1520

▀ Innocent’s Bull [Ad Extirpanda] prescribes that captured heretics, being “murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith, . . . are to be coerced – as are thieves and bandits – into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.” — Bull Ad Extirpanda (Bullarium Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 3 [Turin: Franco, Fory & Dalmazzo, 1858], Lex 25, p. 556a.) http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html

▀ Canons of the Ecumenical Fourth Lateran Council, 1215:

We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that raises against the holy, orthodox and Catholic faith which we have above explained; condemning all heretics under whatever names they may be known, for while they have different faces they are nevertheless bound to each other by their tails, since in all of them vanity is a common element. Those condemned, being handed over to the secular rulers of their bailiffs, let them be abandoned, to be punished with due justice, clerics being first degraded from their orders. As to the property of the condemned, if they are laymen, let it be confiscated; if clerics, let it be applied to the churches from which they received revenues. But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all 1-intil they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics.

Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath.

But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action.

The same law is to be observed in regard to those who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp)

▀ Those who have been detected, even by slight proof, to have deviated from the doctrine of the Catholic religion ought to fall under the classification of heretic and under the sentences operating against heretics. (Pope Innocent IV, “Registers of Innocent IV,” Berger, Paris:1881)

Pope Innocent IV., in his instruction for the guidance of the Inquisition in Tuscany and Lombardy, ordered the civil magistrates to extort from all heretics by torture a confession of their own guilt and a betrayal of all their accomplices (1252).371371 In the bull Ad extirpanda http://userwww.sfsu.edu/%7Edraker/history/Ad_Extirpanda.html

The requirement that torture only be used once was effectively meaningless in practice as it was interpreted as authorizing torture with each new piece of evidence that was produced and by considering most practices to be a continuation (rather than repetition) of the torture session (non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis).[1]

The bull conceded to the State a portion of the property to be confiscated from convicted heretics.[3] The State in return assumed the burden of carrying out the penalty. The relevant portion of the bull read: "When those adjudged guilty of heresy have been given up to the civil power by the bishop or his representative, or the Inquisition, the podestà or chief magistrate of the city shall take them at once, and shall, within five days at the most, execute the laws made against them."[4]:

[boatbums]

Jesus already set up His millennial kingdom, the New Jerusalem, the Church. Which is why you folks get so much wrong. Your basic premises are flawed.

Right....that's why there are no bars on the cages of all the wild animals at our zoos now. Let me know when The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, The calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. (Isaiah 11:6-7)

[Cronos]

yes, content in your posts are fiction, we know.

[Cronos]

dangus: Turns out only 1.2%, not 4% of the colonists were Catholic. So that three signers were Catholic is quite something.

yes, 3 out of 55 is 5.5% --> so the Catholics were present way beyond their numbers.

Even Washington pointed out that CAtholics fought on the American side way in excess of their proportional population.

Mariner -- your statement that none of the founders were Catholic belies an incredible lack of knowledge of American history -- I would suggest more reading

As I posted above

1. There were no Baptists among the Founding Fathers --> there were
   1. Church of England/Episcopalian: 28
   2. Presbyterian: 8
   3. Congregationalists: 8
   4. Lutherans: 2
   5. Dutch Reformed: 2
   6. Methodists: 2
   7. Catholics: 3 (C. Caroll, D. Caroll & Fitzsimons)
   8. Deists: 7 (including Thomas Jefferson
   So perhaps since there were no Baptists, they shouldn't be considered (according to your statement) Americans?

2. Evidently you never heard that Maryland was founded for providing religious toleration of England's persecuted Roman Catholics?

3. Evidently you never knew that John Caroll had initially been a priest before devoting himself to the Revolution?

4. Evidently you never heard of Fr. Pierre Gibault who pledged the support of the region of S-W Indiana to the USA (to Col. George Rogers Clark)?

5. Evidently you never heard of the accomplishments of John Barry, a native Irishman who captained a number of ships during the war. Barry was the first to capture a British war vessel on the high seas; he also was wounded in a sea batter yet captured two British ships and fought the last battle on the seas of the Revolutionary war. He was George Washington's choice for commander of the US navy -- he was issued Commission Number 1 by Washintong and was not only the first American commissioned naval officer but also it's first flag officer

6. Evidently you've never heard of the Marquis de Lafayette, a Catholic or the Polish captain Tadeusz Kosciuszko and both were key in the Revolutionary War?
7. Evidently you never heard of Casimir Pułaski, a Pole who led Washington's cavalry and died in the battle for Savannah

8. Evidently you never heard of the Catholic Philadelphia merchant Stephen Moylan who became Quatermaster General of the Continental Army?

9. John Caroll says this about Catholic participation in the Revolutionary war (remember the country was only 1.6% Catholic):"Their blood flowed as freely, in proportion to their numbers, to cement the fabric of independence as that of their fellow citizens. They concurred with perhaps greater unanimity than any other body of men in recommending and promoting from whose influence America anticipates all the blessings of justice, peace, plenty, good orders, and civil and religious liberty"

The religious freedom fought for was also religious freedom for Catholics from Protestant England, hence the Catholic volunteers and support from Catholic Irishmen, Frenchmen and Poles.

[Cvengr]

In several places the Cardinal insists that “a people never so completely transfers its power to a king but that it reserves to itself the right to withdraw it.”

It appears Catholic doctrine insists that because the majority of Christian believers withdraw their power from the Pope, the Pope hardly has the authority to represent the Church before God.

[HarleyD]

Rome has suddenly determined it invented television, fruit salad and email.

LOL!! Whatever way the wind is blowing you'll find the Catholics.

Sir Thomas Aquinas, Sir Thomas More, and many of the Catholics who embraced the Renaissance were nothing less than the forefathers of communism and marxism. (Has anyone read More's, Utopia?) These are the men Rome has dubbed as "saints" and the greatest minds of the Church. When freedom from the Church was sprending throughout Europe, it was men like these that tried to stop it.

Who is the patron saint of email? Why, Sir Francis of a CCs.