Though known in the New World as a colony founded on religious tolerance, Catholics who immigrated to Maryland from Europe didn’t find the refuge they hoped for when they finally reached these shores. Show The religious persecution that drove Charles Carroll the Settler from his native Ireland followed him to Maryland. Within a few short years of his arrival, Carroll soon found himself stripped of his governmental authority and facing broad restrictions on the practice of his Catholic faith. Catholics in colonial Maryland were not allowed to practice their faith publicly. They were also not allowed to send their children to church-run schools. As Oliver Cromwell came to power in England, Catholics in the colonies were no longer allowed to vote, were barred from several professions including law, and were unable to hold office unless they swore allegiance to the Church of England. The Catholic Church went underground, and the faithful found various ways to preserve and persevere in the Faith. Jesuit priests based in White Marsh frequented Annapolis, celebrating Mass and other sacraments in chapels housed in private homes. The Carroll family maintained such a private chapel that they opened to the small Catholic community in Annapolis. Historical records make it difficult to determine the exact location of the Carroll family chapel. Some evidence points to it being situated in the Settler’s frame house that was connected to the larger brick house by a small passageway. Regardless of its location, an inventory of the chapel showed it was well-equipped for Mass and other church ceremonies, a testament to the family’s wealth in a time when itinerant priests had to carry all their supplies with them. After Independence, the restrictions on Catholics eased, but they still faced discrimination and prejudice as a distinct religious minority in Anne Arundel County. Upon retiring from public life, Charles Carroll of Carrollton turned his attention to his other great loves – his family’s legacy and his Catholic faith. One of Carroll’s dreams – that of having a permanent Catholic chapel built on his property – was realized by his granddaughters who succeeded in raising the money to build a small brick chapel at the intersection of Duke of Gloucester Street and Green Street in 1822. The Jesuits established a monthly schedule of Masses at the chapel, and the Catholic community continued to grow. When Charles Carroll died in 1832, his granddaughters inherited his Annapolis home and lands. They were unsuccessful in selling the property, and a trustee also failed to find a suitable buyer. Carroll’s granddaughter, Emily Caton MacTavish, who had nursed her grandfather in his old age and through his final days, shared Carroll’s deep devotion to the Catholic faith, and had a Baltimore-based priest as her regular confessor. Father Gabriel Rumpler was a priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists). At the time, the Redemptorists were looking for a quieter location for their novices to study and pray in preparation to take their first vows with the order. The existing location at St. Alphonsus Church in downtown Baltimore was far from ideal, and when Rumpler heard the Caton sisters were seeking to dispose of several acres of land and an old house in the comparatively sleepy town of Annapolis, it appeared to be a match made in heaven. The Caton sisters deeded their family’s Annapolis properties to the Redemptorists in 1852. Fathers Rumpler, Bernard Hafkenscheid (the Redemptorist vice provincial of the American Provinces) and John Neumann, rector of St. Alphonsus Church later to become the fourth bishop of Philadelphia and the first male American saint, all signed the deed. A separate covenant established between the family and the Redemptorists dictated that the property should be used for religious purposes. Within months, the Redemptorists moved their novice students into the Carroll House. For much of the next 55 years (with an interruption between 1862 and 1866 due to the Civil War when the novices were relocated to Cumberland, MD) the Redemptorists used the Carroll House as a place of prayer, study, and formation for generations of mission preachers. In addition to signing the deed, John Neumann visited the Carroll House on at least two occasions, including his visit as bishop to bless the bell and cornerstone of the new church in 1858. For two separate terms, the Carroll House was also home to another saintly Redemptorist, Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. As novice master and later as rector of the Redemptorist community, Seelos oversaw the education of the Redemptorist students and was instrumental in starting St. Mary’s School. His cause for sainthood continues to progress in Rome. In 1907, the novices were moved to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ilchester, MD, but the Redemptorists continued to use the Carroll House as the location of the second novitiate — roughly a year’s worth of studies completed by Redemptorist priests as their first mission assignment. The Carroll House continued to operate as the second novitiate and a general residence for the priests assigned to St. Mary’s Church until 1968.
Long before the First Amendment was adopted, the assembly of the Province of Maryland passed “An Act Concerning Religion,” also called the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The act was meant to ensure freedom of religion for Christian settlers of diverse persuasions in the colony. The law made it a crime to blaspheme God, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, or the early apostles and evangelists. It also forbade one resident from referring to another’s religion in a disparaging way and it provided for honoring the Sabbath. Maryland was settled by George Calvert, Lord Baltimore, (pictured above) who was a Roman Catholic, so the law has sometimes been interpreted as a means of providing Roman Catholics with religious freedom.(Image via Archives of Maryland, painted by John Alfred Vinter circa 1881, public domain) Long before the First Amendment was adopted, the assembly of the Province of Maryland passed “An Act Concerning Religion,” also called the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The act was meant to ensure freedom of religion for Christian settlers of diverse persuasions in the colony. Toleration Act made blasphemy a crimeThe law made it a crime to blaspheme God, the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, or the early apostles and evangelists. It also forbade one resident from referring to another’s religion in a disparaging way and it provided for honoring the Sabbath. Maryland was settled under a charter sought by George Calvert, who had established a previous colony in Newfoundland. His death shortly before the charter was sealed in 1632 resulted in its transfer to his son, Cecil, with George Calvert's second son, Leonard Calvert, becoming the first governor of the colony. Because they were Roman Catholics, the law has sometimes been interpreted as a means of providing Catholics with religious freedom. However, the law was adopted by an Anglican majority, and according to Dargo (1996), it has been described less as “a product of the liberalism of theory” than as “a practical device for making Maryland more attractive to settlers of diverse religious persuasions” (p. 346). Maryland nullified this law from 1654 to 1661 and from 1692 to the end of the Revolutionary period, indicating that Maryland was not always a model of religious toleration during this period. Toleration Act was the first to refer to "free exercise" of religionThis law appears to have been the first in America to refer specifically to “the free exercise” of religion (See McConnell, 1990, p. 1425), the term later used to protect religious freedom in the First Amendment. Send Feedback on this article
Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established "as plantations of religion." Some settlers who arrived in these areas came for secular motives--"to catch fish" as one New Englander put it--but the great majority left Europe to worship God in the way they believed to be correct. They enthusiastically supported the efforts of their leaders to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led by entrepreneurs who considered themselves "militant Protestants" and who worked diligently to promote the prosperity of the church.
The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction, held by Protestants and Catholics alike, that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society. This conviction rested on the belief that there was one true religion and that it was the duty of the civil authorities to impose it, forcibly if necessary, in the interest of saving the souls of all citizens. Nonconformists could expect no mercy and might be executed as heretics. The dominance of the concept, denounced by Roger Williams as "inforced uniformity of religion," meant majority religious groups who controlled political power punished dissenters in their midst. In some areas Catholics persecuted Protestants, in others Protestants persecuted Catholics, and in still others Catholics and Protestants persecuted wayward coreligionists. Although England renounced religious persecution in 1689, it persisted on the European continent. Religious persecution, as observers in every century have commented, is often bloody and implacable and is remembered and resented for generations.
On October 31, 1731, the Catholic ruler of Salzburg, Austria, Archbishop Leopold von Firmian, issued an edict expelling as many as 20,000 Lutherans from his principality. Many propertyless Lutherans, given only eight days to leave their homes, froze to death as they drifted through the winter seeking sanctuary. The wealthier ones who were allowed three months to dispose of their property fared better. Some of these Salzburgers reached London, from whence they sailed to Georgia. Others found new homes in the Netherlands and East Prussia.
Enlarge Lutherans leaving Salzburg, 1731. Engraving by David Böecklin from Die Freundliche Bewillkommung Leipzig: 1732. Rare Books Division. The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (7) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj007 Back to top
The slaughter of Huguenots (French Protestants) by Catholics at Sens, Burgundy in 1562 occurred at the beginning of more than thirty years of religious strife between French Protestants and Catholics. These wars produced numerous atrocities. The worst was the notorious St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris, August 24, 1572. Thousands of Huguenots were butchered by Roman Catholic mobs. Although an accommodation between the two sides was sealed in 1598 by the Edict of Nantes, religious privileges of Huguenots eroded during the seventeenth century and were extinguished in 1685 by the revocation of the Edict. Perhaps as many as 400,000 French Protestants emigrated to various parts of the world, including the British North American colonies.
Enlarge Massacre Fait a Sens en Bourgogne par la Populace au Mois d'Avril 1562 . . . Lithograph in A. Challe, Histoire des Guerres du Calvinisme et de la Ligue dans l'Auxerrois, le Sènonais et les autres contrèes qui forment aujourd'hui le dèpartement de l'Yonne. Auxerre: Perriquet et Rouille, 1863. General Collections, Library of Congress (2) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj002
In the areas of France they controlled, Huguenots at least matched the harshness of the persecutions of their Catholic opponents. Atrocities A, B, and C, depictions that are possibly exaggerated for use as propaganda, are located by the author in St. Macaire, Gascony. In scene A, a priest is disemboweled, his entrails wound up on a stick until they are torn out. In illustration B a priest is buried alive, and in C Catholic children are hacked to pieces. Scene D, alleged to have occurred in the village of Mans, was "too loathsome" for one nineteenth-century commentator to translate from the French. It shows a priest whose genitalia were cut off and grilled. Forced to eat his roasted private parts, the priest was then dissected by his torturers so they can observe him digesting his meal.
Enlarge Frightful Outrages perpetrated by the Huguenots in France. Engraving from Richard Verstegen, Thèâtre des Cruautez des Hérétiques de notre temps. Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, 1607. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. (3) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj003
Shown here is a depiction of the murder by Irish Catholics of approximately one hundred Protestants from Loughgall Parish, County Armagh, at the bridge over the River Bann near Portadown, Ulster. This atrocity occurred at the beginning of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. Having held the Protestants as prisoners and tortured them, the Catholics drove them "like hogs" to the bridge, where they were stripped naked and forced into the water below at swordspoint. Survivors of the plunge were shot.
Enlarge Massacre of the Protestant Martyrs at the Bridge over the River Bann in Ireland, 1641. Engraving from Matthew Taylor, England's Bloody Tribunal: Or, Popish Cruelty Displayed . . . . London: J. Cooke, 1772. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (5) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj005
In the image on the left is Brian Cansfield (1581-1643), a Jesuit priest seized while at prayer by English Protestant authorities in Yorkshire. Cansfield was beaten and imprisoned under harsh conditions. He died on August 3, 1643 from the effects of his ordeal. At the right is another Jesuit priest, Ralph Corbington (Corby) (ca. 1599-1644), who was hanged by the English government in London, September 17, 1644, for professing his faith.
Enlarge Die Societas Jesu in Europa, 1643-1644 [left page] [right page] from Mathias Tanner, Die Gesellshafft Jesu biss zur vergiessung ihres Blutes wider den Gotzendienst Unglauben und Laster . . . Prague: Carlo Ferdinandeischen Universitat Buchdruckeren, 1683. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (6) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj006
The execution in 1555 of John Rogers (1500-1555) is portrayed here in the 9th edition of the famous Protestant martyrology, Fox's Book of Martyrs. Rogers was a Catholic priest who converted to Protestantism in the 1530s under the influence of William Tyndale and assisted in the publication of Tyndale's English translations of the Bible. Burned alive at Smithfield on February 4, 1555, Rogers became the "first Protestant martyr" executed by England's Catholic Queen Mary. He was charged with heresy, including denial of the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of communion.
Enlarge The Burning of Master John Rogers. Engraving from John Fox, The Third Volume of the Ecclesiastical History containing the Acts and Monuments of Martyrs. . . . London: Company of Stationers, 9th edition, 1684. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (9) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj009
Two centuries after John Rogers's execution, his ordeal, with depictions of his wife and ten children added to increase the pathos, became a staple of The New England Primer. The Primer supplemented the picture of Rogers' immolation with a long, versified speech, said to be the dying martyr's advice to his children, which urged them to "Keep always God before your Eyes" and to "Abhor the arrant Whore of Rome, and all her Blasphemies." This recommendation, read by generations of young New Englanders, doubtless helped to fuel the anti-Catholic prejudice that flourished in that region well into the nineteenth century. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj010 Back to top Crossing the Ocean to Keep the Faith: The Puritans
Puritans were English Protestants who wished to reform and purify the Church of England of what they considered to be unacceptable residues of Roman Catholicism. In the 1620s leaders of the English state and church grew increasingly unsympathetic to Puritan demands. They insisted that the Puritans conform to religious practices that they abhorred, removing their ministers from office and threatening them with "extirpation from the earth" if they did not fall in line. Zealous Puritan laymen received savage punishments. For example, in 1630 a man was sentenced to life imprisonment, had his property confiscated, his nose slit, an ear cut off, and his forehead branded "S.S." (sower of sedition). Beginning in 1630 as many as 20,000 Puritans emigrated to America from England to gain the liberty to worship God as they chose. Most settled in New England, but some went as far as the West Indies. Theologically, the Puritans were "non-separating Congregationalists." Unlike the Pilgrims, who came to Massachusetts in 1620, the Puritans believed that the Church of England was a true church, though in need of major reforms. Every New England Congregational church was considered an independent entity, beholden to no hierarchy. The membership was composed, at least initially, of men and women who had undergone a conversion experience and could prove it to other members. Puritan leaders hoped (futilely, as it turned out) that, once their experiment was successful, England would imitate it by instituting a church order modeled after the New England Way.
Richard Mather (1596-1669), minister at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1636-1669, was a principal spokesman for and defender of the Congregational form of church government in New England. In 1648, he drafted the Cambridge Platform, the definitive description of the Congregational system. Mather's son, Increase (1639-1723), and grandson, Cotton (1663-1728), were leaders of New England Congregationalism in their generations.
Enlarge Richard Mather. Relief cut by John Foster. Copyprint. c. 1670. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts (11) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj011
Cotton Mather (1663-1728), the best-known New England Puritan divine of his generation, was a controversial figure in his own time and remains so among scholars today. A formidable intellect and a prodigious writer, Mather published some 450 books and pamphlets. He was at the center of all of the major political, theological, and scientific controversies of his era. Mather has been accused, unfairly, of instigating the Salem witchcraft trials. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj012 Back to top The Bible Commonwealths
The New England colonies have often been called "Bible Commonwealths" because they sought the guidance of the scriptures in regulating all aspects of the lives of their citizens. Scripture was cited as authority for many criminal statutes. Shown here are the two Bibles used in seventeenth-century New England and a seventeenth-century law code from Massachusetts that cites scripture.
The Geneva Bible was published in English in Geneva in 1560 by English reformers who fled to the continent to escape persecutions by Queen Mary. Their leader was William Whittingham, who married a sister of John Calvin. The Geneva Bible was used by the Pilgrims and Puritans in New England until it was gradually replaced by the King James Bible. According to one twentieth-century scholar, "between 1560 . . . and 1630 no fewer than about two hundred editions of the Geneva Bible, either as a whole or of the New Testament separately, appeared. It was the Bible of Shakespeare and of John Bunyan and of Cromwell's Army and of the Pilgrim Fathers." Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj014
Obedient to the New Testament command to preach the Gospel to all nations, ministers in all of the first British North American colonies strove to convert the local native populations to Christianity, often with only modest results. One of the most successful proselytizers was John Eliot (1604-1690), Congregational minister at Roxbury, Massachusetts. His translation of the Bible into the Algonquin Indian language is seen here. At one time Eliot ministered to eleven hundred "Praying Indians," organized into fourteen New England style towns. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html#obj018 Back to top |