Catholicism and the Gift of Liberty

Editor’s note: The following address was given at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast early today.

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Dedicated to my friend, Barbara Elliott, who passed away suddenly on March 8, 2026.

During the famous and weighty 1773 Antilon-First Citizen debates of Maryland, Antilon, a radical Protestant by the name of Daniel Dulaney, challenged First Citizen, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, not for his republican views but for his faith, his profound and deeply held Roman Catholicism. Indeed, Maryland law at the time—dating back to 1689—forbade a Roman Catholic from serving in politics, forbade him from appearing in a court of law, forbade him from practicing his faith openly, and forbade him from raising his children in a “Catholic fashion.” The only thing a Catholic could legally do was own property, and that was double taxed and subject to immediate confiscation by the colonial government. For the Protestant Dulaney, then, the Catholic Carroll was anathema and an unworthy opponent.

“I don’t believe you are [a womanizer],” Dulany wrote, “any more than I believe you to be a man of honour, or veracity.” You are merely “an unhappy wretch” who is “haunted by envy, and malice.” Perhaps most importantly, Carroll could not possibly espouse the cause of English liberty and patriotism on the one hand and Roman Catholicism on the other hand. He was, after all, “a papist by profession.” This would be the equivalent of him holding “one candle to St. Michael, and another to the dragon,” Antilon wrote. One must, Dulany warned the colony, take into account Carroll’s Catholicism when considering his political ideals.

“But we are taught otherwise and put upon our guard by our laws, and constitution, which have laid him under disabilities, because he is a papist,” Antilon claimed, “and his religious principles are suspected to have so great influence, as to make it unsafe to permit his interference, in any degree, when the interests of the established religion, or the civil government, may be concerned.” In other words, the very English liberty and principles of the English Constitution that Carroll so much admired are rooted in a fear and a rejection of Roman Catholicism, Antilon proclaimed. If one supported liberty, he must by necessity reject Roman Catholicism.

Yet, it would be Charles Carroll who would have the last laugh and offer the best analysis of Catholicism’s role in the history of Western civilization. Here are three critical ways in which Carroll could support both Catholicism and the history of liberty.

First: Though Common Law—or at least some of its strains and manifestations—is actually rooted in ancient and pagan Anglo-Saxon Germanic culture, Catholic evangelists adopted and baptized it immediately after encountering it. These laws emerged from the experience of the people and from the ground up, rather than being imposed by the top down. They are, to be sure, some of the greatest safeguards against tyranny—the right to a trial by jury, the right to Habeas Corpus, and the right to be innocent until proven guilty, all fundamental to our liberties.

One of the greatest of English kings, Alfred the Great, who was not only a devout Catholic but who witnessed an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, met with his Witan (his parliament or Congress) and codified the Common Laws of his day. Critically, he argued, as king he had no right to create new laws, only to pass judgement—with his counselors—on those that he had inherited. Again, brilliantly, his kingship did not allow for the creation of new laws, but only judgment on those that came before him. “For I dared not presume to set in writing at all, many of my own,” King Alfred revealed, “because it was unknown to me what would please those who should come after me.” Truly, Catholicism, humility, and liberty go together.

Second: One can also turn to that most Medieval of Medieval documents, England’s Magna Carta of 1215. In it, as the nobles and clergy of England restrained the renegade King John, they insisted, first and foremost, that the English (that is, Roman Catholic) Church remain completely and utterly free from the political sphere. “By this present charter [we] have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished and its liberties unimpaired.” Further, each town, city, village, and association shall enjoy its protected rights. Further still, the rights of Englishmen applied not only to the English but to all who entered within the borders of England. Finally, in addition to once again reminding the king that the English church was free of all political interference, it reminded its hearers that all classes of men must honor the rights of those below them. While this isn’t as perfect as the universal claims of the Declaration, it’s a mighty step in the right direction.

Third: Though many of Catholicism’s greatest achievements came through the Anglo-Saxon and English traditions, there is also the incredibly tolerant and insightful tradition of the Thomists, the early seventeenth-century Jesuits—Robert Bellarmine, Francisco Suarez, and Juan de Mariana—who discussed not only Natural Law and hypothesized a state of nature, but who also formulated a concept of Natural Rights. Fighting the trends of their day, they denied the Divine Right of Kings and the growing absolutism of monarchy. For these men, the will of the people was critical, itself a manifestation of God’s will. They also envisioned ways in which the people might resist unjust government and governance and even excessive taxation.

Not surprisingly, once Henry VIII and Parliament issued the 1534 Act of Supremacy, an abomination that overturned the Magna Carta and placed the king as head of the English church, Catholic thinkers fell out of favor in the English tradition. Still, Bellarmine, especially, deeply influenced one of the most radical and interesting Englishmen of the seventeenth century, Algernon Sidney. A radical Calvinist, Sidney died a martyr’s death, but also wrote the Discourses, a treatise on resistance to tyranny, going so far as to call for regicide. In sum, Sidney had Protestantized the works of the Jesuits, making them palatable, especially for an American colonial audience. While Sidney was wildly popular here in America, he was most revered by Thomas Jefferson.

When Thomas Jefferson was asked, in 1825, what were the sources of inspiration for the Declaration of Independence, he did not hesitate. They were, he claimed, the common sense of the subject, an expression of the American mind, the ideas of Aristotle, Cicero, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney. Thus, in a bit of irony, the extremely anti-Jesuitic Thomas Jefferson came to many of his most important ideas from the Thomists through a radical Calvinist.

Let us return, however, to Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the two most prominent Catholics of the Revolutionary period, along with his cousin and best friend, Jacky Carroll, better remembered as Archbishop John Carroll. On August 2, 1776, he joyously signed the Declaration of Independence, noting profoundly:

When I signed the Declaration of Independence, I had in view not only our independence from England, but the toleration of all Sects, profession the Christian religion, and communicating to them all great rights . . . . Happily this wise and salutary measure has taken place for eradicating religious feuds and persecution. . . . [When one considers] the proscriptions of the Roman Catholics in Maryland, you will not be surprised that I had much at heart this grand design founded on mutual charity, the basis of our holy religion.

Ladies and gentlemen, far from being a religion that is dark, regressive, and superstitious, as many during the Reformation claimed, Roman Catholicism baptized common law, professed liberty through the Magna Carta, advanced Natural Law and Natural Rights through the Jesuits, helped inspire the Declaration of Independence, and gave us a truly great American patriot, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Far from being embarrassed, we should celebrate all that we’ve given to America on her 250th birthday.