[250 years ago this week, Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in New York City. The first US-born Saint, Seton is one of the most famous individual examples of an American Catholic, so this week I’ll analyze her and other American Catholic histories!]
On the frustratingly
long reach of conspiracy theories.
My first-ever
conference paper, way back in 2001, focused on Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s
unique and compelling historical novel Hope
Leslie, or, Early Times in the Massachusetts (1827); I’ve also written
about the book multiple
times in this space (including for one of my earliest posts
back in November 2010), and would still argue a quarter-century after that
conference and a decade and a half after that post that Sedgwick’s book is one
of the greatest 19th century American novels. But of course it’s not
perfect, and one of its most glaring failings lies in both the intentions and
the identity of its central villain, Sir Philip Gardiner (SPOILERS
for this 200-year-old novel in what follows). Sir Philip presents himself as a new
and important Puritan arrival to Massachusetts (the novel is set in the “early
times” of the late 1630s, just after the
Pequot War), but is gradually revealed to be a secret agent of the Vatican,
working to infiltrate this Puritan colony and take it over on behalf of his
evil Catholic masters. He and his youthful page (and secret lover) are also
revealed to be cross-dressers, connecting this overarching anti-Catholic
plotline to stereotypical images of Catholics as both morally and sexually
transgressive among other sins.
It's also noteworthy
that Sir Philip is both a secret Catholic and a new immigrant, as it has been
through discriminatory narratives about both of those communities (in direct
conjunction with one another) that anti-Catholic prejudices have manifested themselves
most consistently in American history. That combination was at the heart of much
of the anti-Irish xenophobia of the 1840s and the
Know Nothing Party; played a significant role in the late 19th century’s
virulent and violent anti-Italian
xenophobia; and was likewise central to the rise and anti-immigrant
emphasis of the 1910s and 1920s Second
Ku Klux Klan (and that period’s much broader immigration restrictions
as well). At the core of each of those distinct but parallel anti-Catholic
movements have been what I can only describe as conspiracy
theories, visions of American Catholics as entirely under the sway of a
manipulative and malignant Vatican (or Pope, or Cardinals, or priests, or whatever)
and thus as owing
allegiance to a foreign power in direct opposition to the U.S. Constitution
(rather than, y’know, as protected in their religious practices and beliefs by
that same Constitution, like every other person in the country).
Those
conspiracy theories about American Catholic allegiance were never simply a
fringe belief, even when they did not dominate national politics as they did in
those particular and certainly extreme moments. But they reached a new level of
prominence and potency with the
1960 presidential election and the very much mainstream
fears that if elected president, the practicing Catholic John F. Kennedy would
owe his first allegiance to the Vatican rather than the country he’d be
leading. It’s certainly ironic that in our own moment, some of the most extreme
political figures use their Catholic faith as a rationale for taking those profoundly
reactionary positions (I’m looking at you, Catholics
on the Supreme Court, and not
just about abortion or birth control either). But while we can and should
criticize that use of religion as a shield for hateful and hurtful views, we
also have to make sure to resist any implication that Catholicism is in any way
in conflict with American laws or ideals—an entirely inaccurate perspective that
has been much too central for far too long in American history.
Next
CatholicAmericanStudying tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Catholic histories or contexts you’d highlight?
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