This weekend, people across this proud land will gather together to enjoy hots dogs, watermelon, and fireworks as a way of celebrating Independance Day, the commemoration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence 249 years ago. There are many household names among its signatories, such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock. But among its less well-known signers was Charles Carroll, the lone Catholic in the bunch.
It shouldn’t surprise us that there weren’t more Catholics among our nation’s Founding Fathers. It’s surprising that there were any! While there was a long-standing tradition of religious refugees coming to the colonies from Europe (such as the Pilgrims), religious tolerance typically was not extended to Catholics. In fact, according to Prof. Henry Edmondson, “if a mother were widowed and then married a Catholic, her minor children might be legally moved to a foster home” to “safeguard” the children from Catholic indoctrination. Moreover, “no matter how successful or respected a Catholic might be, he could not vote, he could not practice law, and he could not hold political office without taking an oath damning his own Church.” Anti-Catholic sentiment was especially bad in the colony of Maryland, where Charles Carroll was born in 1737 into one of the wealthiest families in the colonies.
To preserve his son in the Catholic faith, Charles’ father sent him to France, where the Jesuits formed his character and gave him a top-notch theological and philosophical education, including in political philosophy. Edmondson argues that Carroll was no less erudite than the formidable Thomas Jefferson, and he publicly and powerfully made the case against a common belief at the time that his Catholic faith was incompatible with the values of liberty and patriotism. His obvious intelligence and willingness to risk his great fortune by advocating for independence won him the respect of his otherwise anti-Catholic peers. When it came to political philosophy, Carroll was a great advocate of a “blended” form of government. He was suspicious of pure democracies, believing them inherently unstable because they were too vulnerable to the changing whims of the people. He was a supporter of the bicameral (“two house”) form of legislature, with the more deliberative Senate tempering the excesses of the more directly democratic House of Representatives. This would be the form adopted for the U.S. Constitution.
Charles Carroll, writes Edmondson, “thrived in a perilous place by sidestepping bigotry and making himself an indispensable leader. He more than met his civic duties, employing all his education, intellect, virtue, money, time, and reputation to serve the burgeoning republic.” Overcoming the fierce anti-Catholic sentiment of the time, Carroll would become the president of the Maryland state Senate before being elected as one of the state’s first U.S. Senators. But at the end of his life, Carroll would say: “what I now look back on with the greatest satisfaction to myself is that I have practiced the duties of my religion.”
posted 7.5.25
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 