I have a Maryland Carroll for an ancestor, KC_Lion. Spare me the didactic gymnastics.
I assume you also know that the Tolerance Acts were repealed and the Catholic origin of Maryland was by virtue of a very recent convert, Calvert, who improbably secured his haven for persecuted Catholics in England from a decidedly un-Catholic king, at a time when the pendulum had swung in the opposite direction, as it tended to do with some frequency, back and forth for over a century between Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the English Civil War.
In an overwhelmingly Protestant nation aborning, of *course* the one former colony with any significant Catholic population is going to back the religious freedom afforded by disestablishment of the State Church. They’d been persecuted by such just as the diverse Protestant groups such as Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, Baptists and Lutherans had. It was in their interest to do so.
Now, if the good author Keown would just adjust to this historic reality himself. He seems to be rather heavily afflicted with the “not invented here” syndrome.
Yes many Catholics did come to this country for religious freedom, and of course they would fight for it. So why do you try to diminish the Catholic Contributions?
And yes I don't understand why this author is try to justify to English, you could say to understand it, but you can understand where they other guy if coming from and NOT agree with him. (Something that Liberals Don't know how to do)