At Peace with All Their Neighbors: Catholics and Catholicism in the National Capital, 1787-1860In 1790, two events marked important points in the development of two young American institutions—Congress decided that the new nation's seat of government would be on the banks of the Potomac, and John Carroll of Maryland was consecrated as America's first Catholic bishop. This coincidence of events signalled the unexpectedly important role that Maryland's Catholics, many of them by then fifth- and sixth-generation Americans, were to play in the growth and early government of the national capital. In this book, William W. Warner explores how Maryland's Catholics drew upon their long-standing traditions—advocacy of separation of church and state, a sense of civic duty, and a determination "to live at peace with all their neighbors," in Bishop Carroll's phrase—to take a leading role in the early government, financing, and building of the new capital. Beginning with brief histories of the area's first Catholic churches and the establishment of Georgetown College, At Peace with All Their Neighbors explains the many reasons behind the Protestant majority's acceptance of Catholicism in the national capital in an age often marked by religious intolerance. Shortly after the capital moved from Philadelphia in 1800, Catholics held the principal positions in the city government and were also major landowners, property investors, and bankers. In the decade before the 1844 riots over religious education erupted in Philadelphia, the municipal government of Georgetown gave public funds for a Catholic school and Congress granted land in Washington for a Catholic orphanage. The book closes with a remarkable account of how the Washington community, Protestants and Catholics alike, withstood the concentrated efforts of the virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic American nativists and the Know-Nothing Party in the last two decades before the Civil War. This chronicle of Washington's Catholic community and its major contributions to the growth of the nations's capital will be of value for everyone interested in the history of Washington, D.C., Catholic history, and the history of religious toleration in America. |
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... common to the new republic . At Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia , the citizen trustees of the German congregation had engaged a German - born priest of their own choosing in the first of many independent trustee actions that would ...
... common heritage . They had all come from another part of Maryland and they were all members of old Catholic families . As such they represented an element not to be found in urban parishes outside of Maryland , for the simple reason ...
... common with Thomas Cornwallis , one of the colony's leading in- vestors , than with the Calverts he served . For Cornwallis and some other of the Catholic gentlemen adventurers , the free exercise of their religion was the cor- nerstone ...
... common among Maryland Catholics , Robert Brent of Woodstock , great - grand- son of Captain George and a cousin of William of Richland , married Ann , another sister of Bishop Carroll , in what proved to be the second of three inter ...
... common experi- ence of the many Marylanders who sent approximately 130 sons to the English Jesuit colleges at St. Omers , Bruges , and Liege from 1681 to the time of Ameri- can independence . Smaller numbers attended various Dominican ...
Contents
3 | |
15 | |
33 | |
For Nation and Town | 55 |
The Church | 79 |
A Church So Crowded | 81 |
St Patricks St Peters St Marys and More | 100 |
The Nations Capital | 121 |
Daniel Carroll of Duddington | 166 |
The Passing Storm | 189 |
Time of Wonder Time of Trial | 191 |
A Final Test | 213 |
Acknowledgments | 231 |
Abbreviations | 233 |
Notes | 234 |
Bibliography | 289 |