Title Our dear-bought liberty : Catholics and religious toleration in early America / Michael D. Breidenbach

Published Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2021

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Description 1 online resource (355 pages) : illustrations, facsimiles, map Contents Frontmatter -- Contents -- Note on the Text -- Introduction -- 1 Papist Royalists -- 2 Damnable Doctrines -- 3 The Calvert Code -- 4 Locke's Intolerables -- 5 No Papists -- 6 Sovereign Jealousies -- 7 Constitutional Liberties -- 8 Republican Catholics -- Conclusion -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index Summary How early American Catholics justified secularism and overcame suspicions of disloyalty, transforming ideas of religious liberty in the process. In colonial America, Catholics were presumed dangerous until proven loyal. Yet Catholics went on to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped to finalize the First Amendment to the Constitution. What explains this remarkable transformation? Michael Breidenbach shows how Catholic leaders emphasized their church's own traditions-rather than Enlightenment liberalism-to secure the religious liberty that enabled their incorporation in American life. Catholics responded to charges of disloyalty by denying papal infallibility and the pope's authority to intervene in civil affairs. Rome staunchly rejected such dissent, but reform-minded Catholics justified their stance by looking to conciliarism, an intellectual tradition rooted in medieval Catholic thought yet compatible with a republican view of temporal independence and church-state separation. Drawing on new archival material, Breidenbach finds that early American Catholic leaders, including Maryland founder Cecil Calvert and members of the prominent Carroll family, relied on the conciliarist tradition to help institute religious toleration, including the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The critical role of Catholics in establishing American church-state separation enjoins us to revise not only our sense of who the American founders were, but also our understanding of the sources of secularism. Church-state separation in America, generally understood as the product of a Protestant-driven Enlightenment, was in key respects derived from Catholic thinking. Our Dear-Bought Liberty therefore offers a dramatic departure from received wisdom, suggesting that religious liberty in America was not bestowed by liberal consensus but partly defined through the ingenuity of a persecuted minority Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Online resource; title from PDF title page (De Gruyter platform, viewed July 31, 2023) Subject Carroll, John, 1735-1815. SUBJECT Carroll, John, 1735-1815 fast Subject Catholic Church -- United States -- History -- 18th century SUBJECT Catholic Church fast Subject Secularism -- United States -- History -- 18th century Conciliar theory. Religious tolerance -- Catholic Church -- History -- 18th century Religious tolerance -- United States -- History -- 18th century HISTORY / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775). Religious tolerance -- Catholic Church Conciliar theory Religious tolerance Secularism United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 0674258789 9780674258792 0674258797 9780674258785

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