Gondring, I'm an aussie, I have no idea what kind of comments were made against catholics in the US in the past. There might be a few FReepers who have no idea either, perhaps you could enlighten all of us? (Mind you, what this has to do with 'planes flying into buildings, cyclists being bashed with baseball bats and different 'brands' of clerics, beats me.)
"...viewed with distrust the strong allegiance of Roman Catholics to the Pope; many Protestants saw this allegiance to the Pope as an allegiance to a foreign prince (especially since the Pope was also head of state of the Papal States), and thus dangerous to American independence and possibly even treasonous.The kind of anti-Catholic hysteria of then is pretty similar to the anti-Muslim hysteria of today. I'm not saying that caution is unwarranted with some Muslims--it IS. But it's important to note that accusations that a group (now "Muslims") is more tied to their religion than our country is not a new complaint.
"These concerns spawned widely-held conspiracy theories regarding the Pope's purported plans to subjugate the United States through a continuing influx of his followers. The fact that Popes in the past had in fact wielded significant power and entangled themselves in wars and political disputes was frequently pointed to as evidence that the Pope was simply waiting for the right time to regain his lost temporal power, and served to further cement this notion in the minds of many Americans."