Keeping Alive the Memory

GLEN COVE, NY—Revolutionaries and totalitarians
always try to erase the people’s
link to the past. Hitler discontinued the teaching of Latin in the
German schools. Stalin renamed the second largest city in Russia because
it was named for Saint Peter. Henry VIII despoiled the English churches
of their relics, including the incorrupt bodies of saints, and Cromwell
whitewashed over all the murals in the churches. During the Spanish
Civil War, the communists destroyed the body of Saint Louis Bertrand,
which had been miraculously uncorrupted after over 350 years. The French
were particularly malicious in their determination to erase all public
signs that France is a Catholic country. It is still illegal in France
for civil servants to wear small crosses on chains around their necks
at work.

In recent years, the youth of America have been bombarded with lies
designed to deprive them of true knowledge of our country’s past.
Most Americans today falsely believe that the Constitution says that
there shall be separation of church and state. Few realize that the
prohibitions on such things as school prayer only came about recently
and that religion used to be an important part of public life. A replacement
of history by politically correct propaganda is made easier by our
dismal system of education. Ignorance and stupidity are no longer bars
to a college education, and few college graduates can say 50 intelligent
words about the history of religion in America. We need to correct
this situation.

The United States were created out of 13 very different colonies.
The largest of these, Virginia, was the most important in the Southern
region, a heavily Protestant region that was also home to significant
and influential pockets of Catholicism and Judaism. The new state with
the largest non-slave population — Massachusetts — was the most important
in the four New England states. Three of these states had anti-Catholic
laws, and two had established state churches and legal systems quite
hostile to all other churches, even the Church of England. Between
New England and Virginia, the Middle Atlantic states were home to many
different denominations of Protestants, as well as Catholics, Quakers,
and Jews. One of these states was founded by Catholics and another
by Quakers.

Part of the genius of our Constitution is that it was able to accommodate
these diverse states and religions. The Bill of Rights forbade Congress
to get involved. Congress could not abolish the government churches
of Massachusetts and Connecticut, or tell any state how many churches
it might recognize. Above all, Congress could not chose a national
church or group of national churches.

See his biographical sketch and additional columns here.