Catholic Philadelphia and Religious Liberty in America

I am staying in Philadelphia, the city in which the United States of America was born. In the colonial period of our country and in many ways up until the end of World War II, Catholics were looked upon with suspicion in this country as people who had loyalty to a foreign power. This remained true despite the fact that many Catholics played a significant role in establishing America’s independence and were advocates of the freedoms on which it was founded.

Today, I visited Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was voted upon by representatives of the 13 British colonies. Behind the hall is a statue of John Barry, a Catholic born in Ireland who later emigrated to America and who is considered the father of the American Navy. He served as a captain in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War.

A couple of blocks from Independence Hall is Old St. Joseph’s Church, although a passerby could be excused from failing to recognize that it was there. From the outside it does not look like a church but like a townhouse alongside many other similar structures. The Catholics who founded the parish in 1733 were intentional in choosing this design. For while William Penn, who, when he founded Pennsylvania in 1701, guaranteed the religious liberty of all the colony’s residents, Catholics were still looked upon with suspicion and could not hold public office.

A year after the parish was founded, leaders in Philadelphia threatened to close it. A plaque at the parish gives part of the response to this threat by its pastor, Fr. Joseph Greaton. The Jesuit missionary priest noted in words reminiscent of the Declaration of Independence that the Catholics of Philadelphia “are and of right ought to be free and independent of all civil authority retarding, restricting or debarring religion. It is not toleration we claim. It is freedom we demand and will maintain.”

In 1908, the Knights of Columbus, at a time when Catholics were still held in suspicion in America, just years before members of the Ku Klux Klan persecuted members of the Church in Indiana, erected a plaque at Old St. Joseph’s “in memory of founders of the faith in Philadelphia and in gratitude for the triumph of religious liberty.”

In 1960, the election of the Catholic John F. Kennedy was seen by Catholics in America as the broader society here finally accepting them as true and faithful citizens. And today, Catholics hold positions of leadership in government, education, business and culture in numbers that often outstrip even the large number of the faithful who are Americans.

And yet the religious liberty of the Church as a whole, institutions connected to it such as hospitals and schools and of individual Catholics and their families are being threatened by governmental bodies, businesses and the broader culture for a number of reasons, including our beliefs regarding marriage and sexuality and our advocating for the dignity and rights of immigrants. The words of Fr. Greaton are sadly as relevant today as they were in 1734.

So there seems a mysterious paradox in the confluence of the pressure put at present on the religious liberty of Catholics and other people of faith in America and Pope Francis’ visit to the United States and the million or more Catholics from around the world who are expected to worship with him on Sunday on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

At the opening ceremony of the World Meeting of Families a few days ago, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput noted that only 11 people attended the first Mass that Fr. Greaton celebrated in the city in 1732. (One wonders what city leaders found so threatening in such small numbers that they considered closing the parish.) Clearly the Mass on Sunday will be a vibrant expression of just how much has changed for the Catholic Church in the United States since Old St. Joseph’s was founded in 1733.

But we would make a mistake to presume that the strides the Catholic faithful have made over that time and the freedom they enjoy are a permanent reality. With the numbers that we have now in the United States—some 70 million, almost a quarter of the population of the country—we can do much to foster and preserve religious liberty, the first freedom of all humanity, for us and all people of faith around the world.

May the Holy Spirit nurture a greater unity and communion among the Catholic faithful of this country, the vitality of which is so clearly on display during Pope Francis’ visit, so that we may never be held in suspicion as we were in the past in America and may instead be leaders in promoting the common good of all.