Posted on 03/16/2015 1:40:04 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
I was recently given a fascinating little book called American History You Never Learned; it contains much information showing that the discovery of the New World, and the founding of our nation, occurred within a direct context of divine guidance and blessing. In particular, Our Lady (who, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, is still today our national patroness) played an important role in the establishment of the United States.
For instance: The earliest explorers of North America—sent by the Catholic king of Norway in the 14th century—left behind a carving in modern-day Minnesota in what became known as the Kensington Stone. Dated 1362, it read: “Hail Virgin Mary; save us from evil” (making it the oldest historical record found in the U. S.).
Christopher Columbus dedicated his voyage of discovery to Mary, changing the name of his flagship from Gallega to Santa Maria, and led the crews of all three vessels in hymns to Our Lady each evening. Upon discovering the island of San Salvador (named after the Savior), Columbus and his men went ashore and sang the Salve Regina in Our Lady’s honor; they taught the natives there the Ave Maria (“Hail Mary”) and other Catholic prayers.
Columbus’ three ships were named the Santa Maria (“Saint Mary”), the Pinta (“Paint”), and Nina (“Girl”)–which, put together in a sentence, reads “Holy Mary paints girl.” This refers to the miraculous event which occurred 49 years later, when Mary “painted” an image of herself as a young Indian maiden on St. Juan Diego’s tilma, or cloak—a scientifically-inexplicable image of Our Lady of Guadalupe which still exists in all its beauty today, and which prompted the conversion of nine million Mexican Indians to Catholicism in just one decade’s time.
The French explorer Fr. Jacques Marquette named the greatest river in North America the “River of the Immaculate Conception” (though its name was later changed to the Mississippi). The Spanish and French introduced Catholicism to many Native Americans, but the One True Faith wasn’t welcome in the English colonies. Catholic settlers established themselves in Maryland (the first colony to allow freedom of religion); they were able to name their colony after Our Lady only because they claimed to be honoring the English Queen Henrietta Maria.
It’s believed Our Lady’s intervention may have saved the life of General George Washington on several occasions; it’s also recorded that she encouraged him at the most trying time of the American Revolution, appearing to him at his headquarters in Valley Forge during the terrible winter of 1777-78. He later described her as a “woman of singular beauty,” and related how she said, “Son of the Republic, look and learn!” In the vision of the future he was then given, Washington saw the colonies take root and thrive, only to be fiercely attacked and dreadfully scourged on three different occasions—the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and a future conflict (World War III?) still to take place.
Has the United States remained true to its founding ideals? In particular, are Jesus and His Mother afforded a place of honor in our nation’s culture, politics, and economy? The answer to these questions is obviously a negative one—and so you and I are called to pray, fast, and sacrifice for the moral and spiritual renewal of the United States, and for the mitigation or prevention of any future war involving our country (a very appropriate theme for the remainder of Lent). America is still very dear to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart; our Heavenly Mother will gladly obtain her Son’s blessing and protection for our homeland, if only enough of us humbly beseech her for this grace.
Reverend Joseph M. Esper is a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit and pastor of Immaculate Conception parish in Anchorville, Michigan. He is the author of numerous books, including Saintly Solutions, More Saintly Solutions, After the Darkness, Lessons from the Lives of the Saints, and Why Is God Punishing Me? In addition to Amazon, many of his most recent books are available through Queenship Publishing. This article was first published on Catholic Journal.
Did you read any of the links about this?
Well, there are no admonitions in the Word to pray to Mary for anything; nor are there any indications she can do anything for us as catholics believe.
Catholics can claim they don't worship Mary, but their actions show otherwise as evidenced by this thread, and their prayers to Mary, the shrines to Mary, the writings about Mary, etc.
..to an extent rarely acknowledged anti-Catholicism helped fuel the American revolution. If that sounds harsh, consider the evidence (plucked from my new book, Founding Faith):
Only three of the 13 colonies allowed Catholics to vote. All new England colonies except Rhode island and the Carolinas prohibited Catholics form holding office; Virginia would have priests arrested for entering the colony; Catholic schools were banned in all states except Pennsylvania .
During the lead up to revolution, rebels seeking to stoke hatred of Great Britain routinely equated the practices of the Church of England with that of the Catholic Church. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, colonists celebrated anti-Pope Days, an anti-Catholic festival derived from the English Guy Fawkes day (named for a Catholic who attempted to assassinated King James I). “Orations, cartoons, and public hangings of effigies depicted royal ministers as in league alternately with the pope and the devil,” writes historian Ruth Bloch. Roger Sherman and other members of Continental Congress wanted to prohibit Catholics from serving in the Continental Army.
In 1774, Parliament passed the Quebec Act, taking the enlightened position that the Catholic Church could remain the official church of Quebec. This appalled and terrified many colonists, who assumed this to be a British attempt to subjugate them religiously by allowing the loathsome Catholics to expand into the colonies. Colonial newspapers railed against the Popish threat. The Pennsylvania Gazette said the legislation would now allow “these dogs of Hell” to “erect their Heads and triumph within our Borders.” The Boston Evening Post reported that the step was “for the execution of this hellish plan” to organize 4,000 Canadian Catholics for an attack on America. In Rhode Island, every single issue of the Newport Mercury from October 2, 1774 to March 20, 1775 contained “at least one invidious reference to the Catholic religion of the Canadians,” according to historian Charles Metzger.
Protestant clergy fanned the flames. Rev. John Lathrop of the Second Church in Boston said Catholics “had disgraced humanity” and “crimsoned a great part of the world with innocent blood.” Rev. Samuel West of Dartmouth declared the pope to be “the second beast” of Revelation while Joseph Perry warned his Connecticut neighbors that they would soon need to swap “the best religion in the world” for “all the barbarity, trumpery and superstition of popery; or burn at the stake, or submit to the tortures of the inquisition.” And, he reasoned, English lawmakers were being controlled by the devil; the Quebec Act “first sprang from that original wicked politician.”
Commenting on anti-Catholic fervor, historian Alan Heimert wrote that there was “a special and even frenetic urgency to their efforts to revive ancient prejudices by announcing that the Quebec Act—and it alone—confronted America with the possibility of the ‘scarlet whore’ soon riding ‘triumphant over the heads of true Protestants, making multitudes drunk with the wine of her fornications.'” The 1774 Pope Day was one of the grandest in years; in Newport, two large effigies of the pope were paraded. In New York, a group marched to the financial Exchange carrying a huge flag inscribed, “George III Rex, and the Liberties of America. No Popery.” Later that day, a pamphlet that had been distributed urging tolerance toward the Catholics of Canada was smeared with tar and feathers and nailed to the pillory.
These views were echoed even by some of our most respected founding fathers. Alexander Hamilton decried the Quebec Act as a diabolical threat. “Does not your blood run cold to think that an English Parliament should pass an Act for the establishment of arbitrary power and Popery in such an extensive country?…Your loves, your property, your religion are all at stake.” He warned that the Canadian tolerance in Quebec would draw, like a magnet, Catholics from throughout Europe who would eventually destroy America.
Sam Adams told a group of Mohawk Indians that the law “to establish the religion of the Pope in Canada” would mean that “some of your children may be induced instead of worshipping the only true God, to pay his dues to images made with their own hands.” The silversmith and engraver Paul Revere created a cartoon for the Royal American Magazine called “The Mitred Minuet.” It depicted four contented-looking mitred Anglican Bishops, dancing a minuet around a copy of the Quebec Act to show their “approbation and countenance of the Roman religion.” Standing nearby are the authors of the Quebec Act, while a Devil with bat ears and spiky wings hovers behind them, whispering instructions.
The Continental Congress took a stand against the Catholic menace. On October 21, 1774 it issued an address “to the People of Great Britain”, written by John Jay, Richard Henry Lee and William Livingston, which expressed shock that Parliament would promote a religion that “disbursed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder and rebellions through every part of the world.” It predicted that the measure would encourage Canadians to “act with hostility against the free Protestant colonies, whenever a wicked Ministry shall choose to direct them.” Once Americans were converted to Catholicism, they would be enlisted in a vast Popish army to enslave English Protestants.
Which attitude was not without warrant.
http://baltimore-catechism.com/lesson12.htm : Q. 549. How is the Church One?
A. The Church is One because all its members agree in one faith, are all in one communion, and are all under one head.
Q. 539. What do we mean by the "temporal power" of the Pope?
A. By the temporal power of the Pope we mean the right which the Pope has as a temporal or ordinary ruler to govern the states and manage the properties that have rightfully come into the possession of the Church.
Q. 540. How did the Pope acquire and how was he deprived of the temporal power?
A. The Pope acquired the temporal power in a just manner by the consent of those who had a right to bestow it. He was deprived of it in an unjust manner by political changes.
Some things from history:
78. “[It is error to believe that] Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.” -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852. Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors), Issued in 1864, Section X (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9syll.htm)
• Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors):
[It is error to believe that] Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.” (Section X, Errors Having Reference to Modern Liberalism, #78. http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM)
"....Constitutions can be changed, and non-Catholic sects may decline to such a point that the political proscription [ban] of them may become feasible and expedient. What protection would they have against a Catholic state? What protection would they then have against a Catholic State? The latter could logically tolerate only such religious activities as were confined to the members of the dissenting group. It could not permit them to carry on general propaganda nor accord their organization certain privileges that had formerly been extended to all religious corporations, for example, exemption from taxation. [But] the danger of religious intolerance toward non-Catholics in the United States is so improbable and so far in the future that it should not occupy their time or attention." — The State and the Church (1922), pp.38,39, by Monsignor (and professor) John Augustine Ryan (1869–1945), imprimatur of Cardinal Hayes (http://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/sac002.htm).
But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler’s vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp)
If it wasn’t to start with...your comment disqualified it. Congrats!
B I N G O
“Brothers: I am glad you have brought three of the Children of your principal Chiefs to be educated with us. I am sure Congress will open the Arms of love to them, and will look upon them as their own Children, and will have them educated accordingly. This is a great mark of your confidence and of your desire to preserve the friendship between the Two Nations to the end of time, and to become One people with your Brethren of the United States…. You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention; and to tie the knot of friendship and union so fast, that nothing shall ever be able to loose it…. And I pray God He may make your Nation wise and strong.”
Washington, George. May 12, 1779, from his “Address to Delaware Chiefs Indian Chiefs,” John Clement Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources: 1749-1799, 39 vols. (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1907), 1:64. John Clement Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, from the Original Manuscript Sources 1749-1799, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1931-1944), Vol. XV, p. 55. William Barclay Allen, ed., George Washington – A Collection (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, Liberty Fund, Inc., 7440 N. Shadeland, Indianapolis, Indiana 46250, 1988; based almost entirely on materials reproduced from The Writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799/John Clement Fitzpatrick, editor), pp. 132-133. Saxe Commins, ed., The Basic Writings of George Washington (NY: Random House, 1948), p. 356. Norman Cousins, In God We Trust – The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers (NY: Harper & Brothers, 1958), p. 51. Paul F. Boller, Jr., George Washington and Religion (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963), p. 68. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution – The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), p. 120. Gary DeMar, The Biblical Worldview (Atlanta, GA: An American Vision Publication – American Vision, Inc., 1992), Vol. 8, No. 12, p. 8. Gary DeMar, America’s Christian History: The Untold Story (Atlanta, GA: American Vision Publishers, Inc., 1993), p. 76. Stephen McDowell and Mark Beliles, “The Providential Perspective” (Charlottesville, VA: The Providence Foundation, P.O. Box 6759, Charlottesville, Va. 22906, January 1994), Vol. 9, No. 1, p. 8.Washington’s Prayer for the United States of America appears on a plaque in St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City and at Pohick Church, Fairfax County, Virginia, where Washington was a vestryman, 1762-84:
“Almighty God; We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection; and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field. And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Washington, George. June 8, 1783, original source of prayer is the concluding paragraph in Washington’s farewell circular letter sent to the governors of the thirteen states from his headquarters in Newburgh, New York. This version is used at Pohick Church, Fairfax County, Virginia, where Washington was a vestryman from 1762-1784. It also appears on a plaque in St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City. Tim LaHaye, Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Publishers, Inc., 1987), pp. xi-xii. John F. Schroeder, ed., Maxims of Washington (Mt. Vernon: Mt. Vernon Ladies’ Associations, 1942), p. 299. Tim LaHaye, Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1987), pp. 108-109. George Otis, The Solution to the Crisis in America, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Van Nuys, CA.: Fleming H. Revell Company; Bible Voice, Inc., 1970, 1972, foreword by Pat Boone), p. 55.
Answering The Charge That George Washington Was A Deist
Cordially,
If he had been validly baptized, regardless of where, or when, or by who, he was already a Catholic....just not a practicing one.
And last but not least:Calvin's 500th Birthday Celebrated: Critics and Supporters Agree He was America's Founding Father
Some quotes form the last linked article:Jean Jacques Rousseau, a fellow Genevan who was no friend to Christianity, observed: 'Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which he had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes. . . . [S]o long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct amongst us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence.'
German historian Leopold von Ranke observed that 'Calvin was virtually the founder of America.' Harvard historian George Bancroft was no less direct with this remark: 'He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.'
"As we celebrate America's Independence this July 4, we would do well to heed John Adams' admonition and show due respect to the memory of John Calvin whose 500th birthday fall six days later," Phillips stated.
Amen!
According to David McCullough, Washington attended Mass with John Adams.
Yeah because in the entire history of the human race, it is unthinkable that the infinite God would appear in female form to help or teach anyone.
Sheesh.
I’m talking about being a member of the Roman Catholic Church, which he probably was not.
Although I tend not to believe he didn’t convert to Catholicism, there are some that think he did.
http://catholicism.org/washington-slaves.html
LOL, not hardly, since ALL incorporation, to this day, traces back directly to the Vatican, including the incorporation of human beings. That's about as opposite of natural law as you can get. The only reason the Church invokes natural law is to claim authority to mitigate it through the mechanism of incorporation under the authority of Canon Law.
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