 |
Heritage
of anti-Catholic prejudice among American Protestants:
 |
Pope’s
Day celebrations & Quebec Act fears in New England.
|
|
Association
of Catholicism with superstition, corruption, mindless obedience to authority,
European monarchy. Belief that Catholics were unfit for self-government.
|
|
|
After
War of 1812, immigration from Germany and Ireland picked up, and the immigrants,
once mostly Protestants, became increasingly Catholic.
|
|
By
1830s, increased Catholic population led to an expanded and more assertive
Catholic Church, esp. in Midwest, aided by missionary groups (Leopold Assoc.).
|
|
Bitter
resistance to Catholic expansion by evangelical Protestants, with wild CTs:
|
Samuel
F.B. Morse, Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States
(1834), Lyman Beecher, A Plea for the West
(1835): Catholic Church seen as conspiring to destroy American
republicanism on behalf of European monarchy. Cartoon on this theme.
|
|
Anti-Catholicism
openly joined with nativism (opposition to immigration.) First nativist parties
such as the Native American Democratic Association.
|
|
CTs
& rumors about convents: girls held against will, turned into sex slaves of
priests. Burning of Mt. Benedict convent & school in Charlestown, Mass.,
Aug. 1834.
|
|
The
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk
(1836): Best-seller that told “true” story of sex & baby-killing in
Montreal’s Hotel Dieu convent by an alleged escapee.
Widely believed despite independent investigation &
author’s mental illness.
|
|
|
In
1840s, Catholic Church fought with state & city governments over Bible
reading & school funding and with congregations over church property.
|
|
Great
fear was that immigrants would vote en masse & take power, so Protestants
conspired to stop it, organizing secret societies like the Order of United
Americans. Election violence and corruption blamed on Catholic immigrants.
|
|
Nativism
became huge factor in national politics in early 1850s, as Whig party was
falling apart due to slavery and temperance issues.
|
|
Old
Catholic controversies revived, plus Catholics showed signs of political power,
and a papal nuncio, G. Bedini (“Butcher of Bologna”), visited the United
States.
|
|
Order
of the Star-Spangled Banner organized, set up like Masons but secret, with
members sworn to support no foreigners
or Catholics in elections.
|
|
OSSB
became the “Know-Nothing” party & wiped out the Whigs by surprise in
1854 elections, controlling some state governments & sending members to
Congress.
|
|
K-Ns
absorbed themselves by the Republicans themselves by 1856. Antimasons +
Know-Nothings + Antislavery Whigs & Dems = Republican Party.
|