{"id":3461,"date":"2007-07-03T16:26:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-03T16:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/lest-we-forget-3.html"},"modified":"2007-07-03T16:26:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-03T16:26:00","slug":"lest-we-forget-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/lest-we-forget-3.html","title":{"rendered":"Lest we forget"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, it’s easy to forget that the Land of the Free wasn’t always so free for Catholics. In this morning’s New York Times, however, historian Kenneth C. Davis sets the record straight<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Often, the disdain for the foreign was inflamed by religion. Boston\u2019s Puritans hanged several Friends after a Bay Colony ban on Quakerism. In Virginia, the Anglicans arrested Baptists. <\/p>\n

But the greatest scorn was generally reserved for Catholics \u2014 usually meaning Irish, French, Spanish and Italians. Generations of white American Protestants resented newly arriving \u201cPapists,\u201d and even in colonial Maryland, a supposed haven for them, Roman Catholics were nonetheless forbidden to vote and hold public office.<\/p>\n

Once independent, the new nation began to carve its views on immigrants into law. In considering New York\u2019s Constitution, for instance, John Jay \u2014 later to become the first chief justice of the Supreme Court \u2014 suggested erecting \u201ca wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i> We’ve come a long way. Haven’t we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, it’s easy to forget that the Land of the Free wasn’t always so free for Catholics. In this morning’s New York Times, however, historian Kenneth C. Davis sets the record straight: Often, the disdain for the foreign was inflamed by religion. Boston\u2019s Puritans hanged several Friends…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLest we forget - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/lest-we-forget-3.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lest we forget - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, it’s easy to forget that the Land of the Free wasn’t always so free for Catholics. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}