Maryland was indeed established as a Catholic Palitinate.
The remaining Catholics in England had some place to flee from persecution.
“However, during the protenstant expansion laws were written to strip Catholics of rights to hold office and own property.
Even in the supposedly tolerant Maryland, the tables had turned against Catholics by the 1700s. By this time the penal code against Catholics included test oaths administered to keep Catholics out of office, legislation that barred Catholics from entering certain professions (such as Law), and measures had been enacted to make them incapable of inheriting or purchasing land. By 1718 the ballot had been denied to Catholics in Maryland, following the example of the other colonies, and parents could even be fined for sending children abroad to be educated as Catholics.”
http://www.traditioninaction.org/History/B_001_Colonies.html
And that was in response to similar actions on the continent and in the British Isles themselves. The tables turned, so to speak, numerous times, with the persecution coming at the hands of Catholics, then Protestants, and in England and France, Catholic again then Protestant again.
It’s not as if either side had clean hands in the matter. The repercussions of corruption in the Catholic Church reverberate from the fourteenth century down to today. Early Protestants felt they had no choice but to break away, and it wasn’t a decision taken lightly. There was a great price to pay in blood and treasure. Leaders such as Luther had no desire for this break, but happen it did, due to incalcitrance on the part of the Vatican hierarchy.
To the shame of some of these Reformers, they turned around and behaved just as badly once they’d established themselves in their various nations as the State Church.
That’s why it was a very wise thing for our Founders to have disestablished State churches, and that is why the Catholic Church has been viewed with suspicion, since it’s a State Church by it’s very nature. What other church is literally a foreign nation? None.