Anti-Catholicism In Part Inspired The American Revolution

An excerpt from, “The role of anti-Catholicism in framing the American Revolution” by Michael Sean Winters, NCR, November 26, 2025:

Back in 2014, I published a weeklong historiographical look at books which, in part, examined the ways anti-Catholicism was in the political air the American colonists breathed and which shaped their increasing hostility to British rule. Linda Colley’s Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837 considered the ways anti-Catholicism was deployed to overcome differences between the Scots and the English, fashioning British identity. Bernard Bailyn’s seminal work, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, argued that country whig ideas united the various ideological currents of the time, and created a narrative that was especially potent in New England’s colonies. Bailyn was in Burns’ documentary but did not discuss religion. Patricia Bonomi’s Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America examined the ways religious belief and practice stoked the fires of the American Revolution. And, Robert Emmett Curran’s Papist Devils: Catholic in British America, 1574-1783, looked at the ways anti-Catholic prejudices were fed by, among other things, the French and Indian War and the British parliament’s passage of the Quebec Act.

Once the Revolution began, and the few Catholics in Maryland and Pennsylvania rallied to the patriot cause, anti-Catholicism became largely dormant until the 19th century. Anti-Catholicism was not a central force driving the colonists to revolt, but it played a role, shaping their political beliefs in profound ways. Even enlightenment figures like Thomas Jefferson were deeply prejudiced against Catholicism: There simply were not enough Catholics in the early United States to sustain any substantive fear of their influence.

When waves of Catholic immigrants arrived at our shores in the 1800s, that prejudice came to the surface again, still shaping political ideas, still suspicious of Catholics’ ability to be loyal to both the Constitution and the pope. Not until President John F. Kennedy’s election can we say that anti-Catholicism ceased to be a political factor. During the revolutionary era, it still was, and my one complaint about Burns’ documentary was that he did not pay enough attention to it.

An excerpt from, “The Catholic stories Ken Burns left out of his new American Revolution documentary” by Anthony D. Andreassi, America Magazine, December 5, 2025:

Among the other European powers that had shaped the region were the French, whose defeat in 1763 and the subsequent British annexation of Quebec set the stage for the Continental Army’s first major initiative—to conquer the territory—under Major General Benedict Arnold 12 years later. Although that campaign failed, the documentary does not address a diplomatic attempt to draw French Canada into the colonies’ rebellion, which had a decidedly Catholic connection. 

A 1775 draft of the Articles of Confederation invited every British colony—from Bermuda to Quebec and even Ireland—to join this new “Association.” Hoping to win over Canada, that November, Washington forbade Continental troops to observe the usual Guy Fawkes (Pope’s) Day festivities, mindful that gestures hostile to Catholicism would hinder that effort. 

Then, in 1776, Congress sent a four man delegation, including Benjamin Franklin and the Rev. John Carroll of Maryland (technically no longer a Jesuit because the Society of Jesus had been suppressed three years earlier), chosen both for his fluency in French and his Catholicism, to Montreal to encourage the Canadians to, in the words of Washington, “unite with us in an indissoluble union.”

Although the mission to Canada, like Arnold’s invasion, ultimately failed, it nonetheless helped shape the course of Carroll’s later life. Prior to meeting him, Franklin harbored the general anti-Catholic sentiments of Protestants of his day. However, Carroll’s learning and his kindness toward Franklin likely softened Franklin’s view of Catholicism, a point underscored by Carroll’s decision to accompany him from Montreal to Philadelphia when he became ill. 

“American Independence,” says Bancroft, “like the great rivers of the country, had many sources.”

It was not due solely to oppressive tax laws nor to restriction on popular rights. Indeed though these hold the main place in the popular narration of causes which brought on the Revolt, it is a question for historical consideration whether these oppressions alone would have moved the body of the people to acts of resistance had not Religion been a moving force upon the minds of the people. The active malcontents or leaders of the Revolt sought to impress upon the people that Protestantism had been assailed and might in America be overthrown.