The Bad Fruits of Americanism

The famous historian, Arthur Schlesinger, once stated that prejudice and bigotry against Catholics is the deepest bias in the history of the American people. In other words, anti-Catholicism is in the very roots and foundation of the United States. Another historian, namely, John Tracy Ellis, wrote that a universal anti-Catholic bias was brought to Jamestown in 1607 and vigorously cultivated in all thirteen colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia. A Roman Catholic named, Christopher Columbus, discovered the New World. Catholic explorers, adventurers, and missionaries came to this land and established trading outposts and religious missions…they sailed our coastlines and navigated some of our great rivers. Our nation, the very continent upon which we reside, is named after the Roman Catholic mapmaker, Amerigo Vaspucci. And since July 4, 1776, the Birthday of our country, Catholics have fought for the interests of this nation and have lost more lives in service to the country than any other religious group by far. Catholics helped build the railroad system…our immigrants were a part of that industrial and manufacturing explosion that made our economy the envy of the world. Our Catholic men helped keep the streets safe from crime and put out the fires…our Catholic men settled land and built up the farms of the Midwest. Our Catholic women taught their numerous children to seek virtue and to obey those in authority and to follow all just laws of the land. It was Catholics that the FBI recruited under J. Edgar Hoover, because we were the most anti-Communist and the most loyal of Americans. As the population was largely of immigrant stock, Catholics, despite all the persecution and bigotry, grew to love this land that took them in and allowed them to live, to have families, to teach their children, to work, and to pray the Holy Mass in our churches. But our gratitude to Lady Liberty and to Ol’Glory, as well as our willingness to embrace the culture and to assimilate broug..