Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:10am

Fortnight For Freedom: The Father of Our Country

Fortnight For Freedom 2014

 

America has been blessed by God in many ways but I suspect no blessing has been greater than His granting us George Washington to lead us in our struggle for independence and to be our first President.  Catholics have perhaps more reason than other Americans to keep the memory of Washington alive in our hearts.  In a time of strong prejudice against Catholics in many parts of the colonies he was free from religious bigotry as he demonstrated on November 5, 1775 when he banned the anti-Catholic Guy Fawkes celebrations.

“As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope – He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.”

Order in Quarters, November 5, 1775

– George Washington

This stand against anti-Catholicism was not unusual for Washington.  Throughout his life Washington had Catholic friends, including John Carroll, the first Catholic bishop in the US.  He would sometimes attend Mass, as he did during the Constitutional Convention when he led a delegation of the Convention to attend Mass in Philadelphia as he had attended Protestant churches in that town during the Covention.  This sent a powerful signal that under the Constitution Catholics would be just as good Americans as Protestant Americans.

Washington underlined this point in response to a letter from prominent Catholics, including Charles and John Carroll, congratulating him on being elected President:

“[March 15], 1790

Gentlemen:

While I now receive with much satisfaction your congratulations on my being called, by an unanimous vote, to the first station in my country; I cannot but duly notice your politeness in offering an apology for the unavoidable delay. As that delay has given you an opportunity of realizing, instead of anticipating, the benefits of the general government, you will do me the justice to believe, that your testimony of the increase of the public prosperity, enhances the pleasure which I should otherwise have experienced from your affectionate address.

I feel that my conduct, in war and in peace, has met with more general approbation than could reasonably have been expected and I find myself disposed to consider that fortunate circumstance, in a great degree, resulting from the able support and extraordinary candor of my fellow-citizens of all denominations.

The prospect of national prosperity now before us is truly animating, and ought to excite the exertions of all good men to establish and secure the happiness of their country, in the permanent duration of its freedom and independence. America, under the smiles of a Divine Providence, the protection of a good government, and the cultivation of manners, morals, and piety, cannot fail of attaining an uncommon degree of eminence, in literature, commerce, agriculture, improvements at home and respectability abroad.

As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protection of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution, and the establishment of their government; or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed.

I thank you, gentlemen, for your kind concern for me. While my life and my health shall continue, in whatever situation I may be, it shall be my constant endeavor to justify the favorable sentiments which you are pleased to express of my conduct. And may the members of your society in America, animated alone by the pure spirit of Christianity, and still conducting themselves as the faithful subjects of our free government, enjoy every temporal and spiritual felicity.

G. Washington”

Pope Leo XIII recalled the attitude of Washington towards Catholics in his encyclical Longinqua:

“Nor, perchance did the fact which We now recall take place without some design of divine Providence. Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional Republic the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop was set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and familiar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord and amity with the Catholic Church. And not without cause; for without morality the State cannot endure-a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom We have just mentioned, with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. But the best and strongest support of morality is religion.”

As we struggle today to preserve our liberties, Catholics have good reason to remember the Father of Our Country and to echo the words of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, in his funeral eulogy of Washington in Congress on December 26, 1799:  “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

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Mary De Voe
Friday, June 27, AD 2014 6:44am

Americans are indeed blessed by God with George Washington. Every citizen ought to emulate Washington’s wisdom, courage and love for God, country and his fellow man.
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Common sense is necessary for the common good and the general welfare and to fulfill the mandates of the Preamble, the purpose, the unchangeable purpose, of the Constitution. Washington called anti-Catholicism “a void of common sense”.”a void of common sense” is called “a no people, a foolish nation” in the Bible.”a void of common sense” is filled with criminality.
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A recent guest on EWTN’s Father Mich Pacwa Show said that only 6% of people entering into college this fall know the Ten Commandments, a very great “void of common sense”.
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It must be noted as well, that Thomas Paine, a pamphleteer who supported freedom and independence for the colonies wrote “Common Sense” to encourage the people to realize their unalienable civil rights. To realize one’s unalienable human rights, one must acknoweldge all men’s unalienable human rights.
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Obama denies his conscience and imposes his “void of common sense” on all citizens.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, June 28, AD 2014 6:46am

“Thomas Paine, a pamphleteer”

Having been granted honorary French citizenship, along with other foreign friendsof liberty by the Legislative Assembly’s decree of 26 August 1792, later that year, he was elected to the National Convention as deputy for Pas-de-Calais. His contributions to the assembly’s debates were limited, for he did not speak French. He sat with the Girondins and Robespierre, in a rare flash of wit, remarked that he looked forward to hearing Paine’s speech from the scaffold.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, June 28, AD 2014 7:40am

Donald R McClarey wrote, “Paine barely escaped from execution due to Thermidor”

It is said that, the night before he was ordered for execution, a gaoler, who had dined well rather than wisely, put the usual chalk-mark on the inside of his door, open because he had official visitors, instead of the inside.

His enthusiasm for the French Revolution he shared with Jefferson, who said of the September Massacres in Paris in the summer of 1792 “Many guilty persons fell without the forms of trial, and with them some innocent. These I deplore as much as anybody. But—it was necessary to use the arm of the people, a machine not quite so blind as balls and bombs, but blind to a certain degree—was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?”

Lord Acton was shocked by this “disinterested enthusiasm for murder”

Samuel L. Edwards
Saturday, June 28, AD 2014 12:45pm

” … my feelings for Jefferson can best be described as ambiguous.” Ditto, Donald — and mine for Paine as well. I tend to explain both of them when they are at their genuine best as examples of the adage that “even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

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