William B. Kurtz. Excommunicated from the Union

What accounts for the periodic outbursts of anti-Catholicism throughout U.S. history? This perennial question has elicited numerous responses from historians and other social commentators. Some have tied it to anti-immigrant nativism, or the persistence of Reformation-era blasts against various Catholic traditions and doctrines. Some accounts single out questionable Catholic beliefs, e.g., papal declarations that condemned democracy, freedom of the press, and civil liberty. Even today, many Americans find it incomprehensible that American Catholics could be attached to a set of ideas and leaders seemingly so remote from the founding principles of the U.S. or even from evolving social transformations. American Catholic historians like the great Monsignor John Tracy Ellis often waxed eloquent on the “dark night” of anti-Catholicism in American history, but often happily concluded that doubts about American Catholic loyalty to the Republic were often “resolved” by the unselfish patriotism of Catholics in America’s wars. Catholics shed their blood in defense of American freedoms. How could they possibly be disloyal?

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