George Washington: Letter to the Roman Catholics

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.

There is one interesting chapter between the Catholic Church and George Washington.

To get the Abenaki Tribe of Maine to join the Revolutionary Army, the Colonists promised to get the Indians a Blackrobe. On August 23, 1724, there Blackrobe (Father Sebastion Rale) was killed by Mohawks and the British.

A group of Abenaki Indians from Maine traveled to see George Washington after the Revolutionary to see that the promise was followed up. They carried with the crucifix that Father Rale wore when he was martyred.

Priests in such short supply that the Catholics of the United States had troubled getting priests, let alone one for the Indians of Maine.

Another interesting story is how the stolen dictionary of the language of the Abenaki Indians ended up at Harvard. An English version was published in 1833.

The Original copy of the dictionary was in the Harvard Museum of Antropology. But a few years ago I enquired about the dictionary, and they claimed was written by a Father "Kale", as they did not realize they had mispelled this famous priest's name.

Father Sebastion Rale was significant to the point that both the first and second Bishops' of Boston made a pilgrimmage to Maine to see where he was buried. The second Bishop, in 1833, had an altar built in honor of Father Rale.

But nothing has been done to advance the Beatification/Canonization of this American Martyr -- partly because he was not only killed by Mohawks, but British were part of this raiding. Additionally, the British made a number of unjust claims that has prevented the effort for the Canonziation to go forward (additionally, at the time that there was focus onf Father Rale, there were problems with the Jesuit order).

“”religious liberalism has always meant what it does today.””

Liberty is what got Adam and Eve in trouble-Luther expanded upon it and those who tried to desperate the Catholic Church from the state all fail as well

POPE GREGORY XVI exposed this well In his encyclical MIRARI VOS
ON LIBERALISM AND RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENTISM
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Greg16/g16mirar.htm#par14

Excerpt...
St. Mauritius, the unconquered martyr and leader of the Theban legion had this in mind when, as St. Eucharius reports, he answered the emperor in these words: “We are your soldiers, Emperor, but also servants of God, and this we confess freely . . . and now this final necessity of life has not driven us into rebellion: I see, we are armed and we do not resist, because we wish rather to die than to be killed.”[29] Indeed the faith of the early Christians shines more brightly, if with Tertullian we consider that since the Christians were not lacking in numbers and in troops, they could have acted as foreign enemies. “We are but of yesterday,” he says, “yet we have filled all your cities, islands, fortresses, municipalities, assembly places, the camps themselves, the tribes, the divisions, the palace, the senate, the forum....For what war should we not have been fit and ready even if unequal in forces — we who are so glad to be cut to pieces — were it not, of course, that in our doctrine we would have been permitted more to be killed rather than to kill?...If so great a multitude of people should have deserted to some remote spot on earth, it would surely have covered your domination with shame because of the loss of so many citizens, and it would even have punished you by this very desertion. Without a doubt you would have been terrified at your solitude.... You would have sought whom you might rule; more enemies than citizens would have remained for you. Now however you have fewer enemies because of the multitude of Christians.”[30]

19. These beautiful examples of the unchanging subjection to the princes necessarily proceeded from the most holy precepts of the Christian religion. They condemn the detestable insolence and improbity of those who, consumed with the unbridled lust for freedom, are entirely devoted to impairing and destroying all rights of dominion while bringing servitude to the people under the slogan of liberty. Here surely belong the infamous and wild plans of the Waldensians, the Beghards, the Wycliffites, and other such sons of Belial, who were the sores and disgrace of the human race; they often received a richly deserved anathema from the Holy See. For no other reason do experienced deceivers devote their efforts, except so that they, along with Luther, might joyfully deem themselves “free of all.” To attain this end more easily and quickly, they undertake with audacity any infamous plan whatever.

20. Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.

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