More on Maryland's post Vatican II heritage even before Vatican II

Pius VI who was Pope at the time
of the American Revolution and
later named John Carroll as the
first Catholic Bishop for the new
Republic

I had mentioned in an earlier blog that colonial and early American Maryland Catholicism bore more resemblance to contemporary Catholicism than to the pre-Conciliar Church in which many of us grew up.  While the Mass was in Latin and celebrated with the priest’s back to the people in eighteenth century Maryland and the liturgy—in general—was the same liturgy (for the most part) we all knew up until the 1964 changes began to introduce a thorough revision of the Mass, there was still much with which we would feel comfortable today.  Priests, on their own, had put some of the sacraments—especially Matrimony, Baptism, and Penance into English, either in whole or in part.  Many of the funeral rites were celebrated in English.  It went so far as that in order to have some uniformity in rites a “Baltimore Ceremonial” was drawn up and that was done without any reference to Rome.  Unlike today when any perceived variation in the liturgical text or form is reported to Rome, this was not a problem in an American Church that recognized its own maturity to deal with the pastoral needs of its people without constant reference to purpled desk-jockeys from a foreign culture who had themselves never undertaken a pastoral ministry much less one in what was then a missionary land.  The first American bishop (and first Archbishop), John Carroll, fostered loyalty to the Holy See among American Catholics, but according to the website of what was his archdiocese, Baltimore,” he was not overly generous in the information he supplied the Roman authorities nor overly conscientious in following their directives.”   (The website is new—Carroll was pretty modern but not that modern.)  During much of Carroll’s episcopacy the popes—Pius VI and Pius VII—were kept by Napoleon in exile from Rome which somewhat naturally separated papal loyalty from curial obedience, a healthy distinction.  
      When Carroll built his Cathedral in Baltimore, now known as the Basilica of the Assumption, he hired Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect who built the United States Capitol despite the fact the Latrobe was not a Catholic.  Carroll wanted a Cathedral that did not reflect European heritage but the ideals of the new American Republic.  The consequent church, like the public buildings of the republic, embodied reason, order, discipline, and harmony.  It’s crisp clean lines, not in gothic or baroque but in American Federal style speak of the American faith experience: enlightened, rational, discreet, and hopeful.  But Carroll, for some reason, never thought to put a single statue in his basilica—that would only come with Archbishop Maréchal, Carroll’s second successor who was Archbishop from 1817 until 1828.   The basilica recently underwent a restoration and has proved itself to be suitable for the current liturgy without doing violence to the original design. 

More Notes on Maryland Catholicism

The rebuilt Catholic "Chapel" on the site of
Saint Mary's City in Maryland

I mentioned yesterday that the traditional American Catholicism that is rooted in the Catholic experience of the Maryland colony is more like the post-conciliar Catholicism of today while our memories of the Church before Vatican II reflect the faith and practice of the immigrants that flooded the United States from 1840 until World War I.  I had a number of emails asking me to clarify.  “Surely,” one asked, “the Mass in colonical Maryland was in Latin, was it not?”   Another wrote: “In the picture of the Church in Saint Mary’s City that you posted on the web page, there was an altar rail and the altar seems to face the wall.”  So what do I mean when I maintain  that colonial and early United States Catholicism had  more in common with the Catholicism that we practice today than with the Church that those of us who grew up before Vatican II remember?  
      In the first place.  Yes, the Mass was celebrated in Latin in 1632 when The Ark and The Dove brought the first Catholic settlers.  And the Mass was in Latin in 1776 when Charles Carroll went up to Philadelphia to sign the Declaration of Independence.  Father John Carroll who was to be our first bishop and other priests discussed Mass in English, but had no permission from Rome to implement their plan.  Without such permission, however, they did (on their own authority) put the Marriage Rite, the Baptism Rite, and parts of the funeral rite (though not the Requiem Mass) in English.  Some of the prayers for Confession were also put into English though not the formula of absolution.  And yes, the altars in the churches invariably faced the rear wall of the church as they did everywhere else except for some of the churches in Rome, most notably the papal basilicas, where they have always faced the people.  So what do I mean in comparing the recusant Catholicism of colonial Maryland with our Vatican II Catholicism today?
      Well there are several points.  Before we get to liturgical issues, I would like to look at ecumenism.  Two and a half centuries ago the Catholic Church was mortally opposed to what today we call ecumenism.  To put this in context we must remember that first of all the Catholic Church was opposed to democracy and taught that monarchy was the form of government most consistent with the law of God because it reflects the Divine Order of the Universe.  God has not established that his laws are determined by the consent of the governed and nations too should be ruled by monarchs who shape laws by decree so that the earthly realm will most resemble the heavenly realm.  (Believe it or not, there are still crackpots in the Church who agree with this.  Michael Voris of “Real Catholic TV” advocated this some time back on his internet-based television network.  The internet also has various blogs and webpages on the subject of Catholicism and Monarchy, and the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was not only a maintainer of the Traditional Pre-Conciliar Liturgy but politically an ardent Monarchist.      
      The Catholic Church not only supported Monarchy as the ideal form of government (thought it “tolerated” democratic republics such as the New United States) but also maintained as a matter of doctrine that although every political society was morally bound to permit the Catholic Church freedom of worship and unhindered participation in public life, that when Catholics became the political majority in a country they had to establish the Catholic Church as the official religion of the State and to put limitations on the practice of non-Catholic “cults” whether Christian or otherwise.   Furthermore the State was obligated to shape its laws according to Catholic morals and doctrines.  Divorce, for example, should not be legal, nor contraception in a Catholic State. The American principle of Separation of Church and State and its corollary of Freedom of Worship was something that could be tolerated until Catholics became the political majority in the United States.  As late as the mid 1950’s the Vatican silenced an American theologian, a Jesuit (who else?) at Catholic University in Washington DC and forbad him (his name, by the way, was John Courtney Murray) to teach, speak, or publish on the issue of Separation of Church and State.  At the Second Vatican Council, the Council did a 180 degree about-face with the decree Dignitatis Humanae asserting that every person was to be given the freedom of conscience in matters of religion.  Similarly until Vatican II, the Holy See had repeatedly condemned the Ecumenical Movement, most notably in the 1928 Encyclical of Pius XI, Mortalium Animos. 
      Interreligious cooperation of sort was prohibited and Catholics were not so much allowed as to say the Lord’s Prayer with Protestants.  As for cooperation with Jews—or Muslims—well, it was not even in the realm of possibility. 
But the American tradition was very different.   Catholics in the former English colonies knew what religious persecution was.  Even in Maryland—founded to be a refuge for Catholics from persecution in England, Catholics had been denied voting or public office since the beginning of the eighteenth century.  American Catholics universally supported the Revolution in hopes of attaining full rights as citizens.  Charles Carroll, the most politically prominent (and the wealthiest) of American Catholics spoke of the “rights of conscience,” to be among the “common rights of nature” granted not by government but inherent in human freedom and dignity.   Carroll’s cousin, Father John Carroll who was to become the first Catholic Bishop in the new nation, ardently supported the cause of Independence and, according to the website of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, defended the American principle of religious toleration despite its variance from traditional Catholic doctrine.  Moreover, Carroll was cordial and collaborative with the clergy of other denominations, respected by all and respecting all.  It was not uncommon in colonial and newly independent America for Protestant and Catholic clergy to cover the pastoral needs of each other’s widely scattered flocks.  Funerals in particular were handled by whatever clergy were available.  Father Gabriel Richard, a French émigré priest serving in Michigan territory before the War of 1812 even served for a time as the pastor of a Protestant congregation in addition to the pastoral work in his own parish.  Catholics and Protestants generally lived together not only peacefully but in mutual respect and cooperation.  Episcopalian George and Martha Washington were friends with such Catholic families as the Lees (the Maryland Lees, not the Virginia Lees—though themselves related, the Maryland Lees had become Catholic at some point) and the Digges.  As I mentioned in an earlier post (January 2, 2012), Washington supposedly gave the first contribution to the building of Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Alexandria Virginia through the agency of his friend Col John Fitzgerald.  It was a world of civility and good relations that cut across religious lines two centuries before John XXIII saw Protestants not as heretics but as “separated brethren.” 

Some Notes on Maryland Catholicism

A reconstruction of the Catholic Church
in Saint Mary's City, Maryland, as it
would have appeared c. 1680

Yesterday I made a reference to recusant Catholicism in regard to the Maryland Catholic experience and I have received a number of inquiries asking me to explain that further.  

      As we have mentioned in a number of blogs, Henry VIII broke the Church of England from communion with the Roman Papacy in 1536 (well, truthfully,  in a series of gradual steps from 1528 until 1536) but he changed neither doctrine nor liturgy, keeping the Anglican Church a sort of non-papal Catholicism.  It was his son Edward VI (1547-1553)—or actually Edward’s Regency Council—and his (Henry’s) daughter, Elizabeth (reigned 1558-1603) who made the Church of England Protestant.  Henry’s senior daughter Mary, (reigned 1553-1558) was a Catholic, restored Catholicism, and bitterly persecuted “the heretics” (aka Protestants).  Henry had also persecuted Protestants (even after his break with Rome) and also quite brutally, far more brutally than he executed several dozen Catholics who were beheaded for treason (i.e. denying his royal authority over the Church) rather than for religious reasons (where the punishment was burning at the stake which is what he usually did to Protestants).  Edward and Elizabeth were reluctant to use religion as a reason for execution, which is not to say that they were reluctant to execute, only that they wanted another reason than matters of conscience.  Their reigns were not particularly bloody, at least as far as religion went, and Elizabeth in particular was not anxious to interfere in the conscience issues of individuals.  That is not to say she didn’t do away with a number—and not a particularly small number—of Catholics, in the hundreds. It is only that they were imprisoned, tried, and put to death for treason.  You see, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570 (fair enough and about time for that matter) and he also absolved her subjects of their loyalty to her.  In other words, Catholics were told that they didn’t have to support Elizabeth as Queen.  This is because Elizabeth’s nearest kinsperson and heir to her throne, Mary  Queen of Scots, was a Catholic.  If the Catholics rose up and overthrew Elizabeth, England would have a Catholic Monarch again.  Pius liked that Reformation over.  But this put English Catholics in a terrible bind.  They could not be trusted to support the government.  You can imagine if Pope Benedict told modern American Catholics—“go ahead, overthrow your government,” what the outcome would be.  There were fears in American history, especially during the Know Nothing crisis of the 1850’s when many Americans believed precisely that: the Catholics would, as they grew in numbers, replace our Republican Government with a Catholic monarchy where Protestants would be persecuted.  (Check out blog entries for January 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, February 1, March 7—all 2011.) There are people today who believe that Muslims will take over and impose sharia law on the United States.  They want Islam to be illegal in our country.  They want Muslims deported.  They insist that all Muslims are anti-American terrorists.  This is the exact sort of paranoia that gripped England in the years after 1570.  It was complicated by the fact that French and especially Spanish diplomats were encouraging rebellion and providing funds to anti-Elizabeth cabals.  Could you trust Catholics?  Maybe you had Catholic friends.  They seemed like nice people, but could you trust them?  Elizabeth, to her credit didn’t over react despite much pressure from much of her Council.  Elizabeth herself had Catholics among her friends and confidants and she was no fanatic.  Priests—as agents of a foreign power (the Pope and the King of Spain) and those who sheltered priests were hunted out, imprisoned, most often tried and executed.  They were normally executed by hanging until almost dead, then being cut down and gutted while still (barely) alive and then—for good measure—dismembered.  This was the punishment for treason.  Ordinary lay Catholics were usually left alone except for those who sheltered or aided priests. 

       Most of the towns in England, and London in particular, had converted early to Protestantism but much of the rural population had remained Catholic.  In some very rural places, especially in the west and in the far north, Mass was still being said in the parish churches with neglectful sheriffs turning their heads.  Also while the middle class and the “new nobility” (those families raised to nobility by the Tudors in reward for service) were ardently Protestant, many of the “old nobility” (who tended to be anti-monarchy as they saw the London Government taking away many of their hereditary rights) remained Catholic.

      Thus English society under Elizabeth and then under the Stuarts, James I and Charles I, had considerable pockets of Catholicism.  Some wealthy families were even able to retain a Catholic chaplain under the guise of being a tutor to the family children.  As the years passed and especially after the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587, the laws were enforced less vigilantly and priests, if they were careful and especially if they were far from London, could discreetly minister to the great Catholic families and the tenants on their estates.   This isn’t to say that the persecution was over but only that the laws were not always enforced with vigor.  Nevertheless, Catholics could not have churches.  Mass was said in private homes—usually those of the wealthier upper classes who could pay the fines if caught and who had enough political pull to guarantee they were left alone.  Gone were the days when there could be processions in the streets or public devotions.  Catholic devotional life was centered in the family with prayers like the rosary.  There weren’t many statues and crosses—they were hard to come by and dead giveaways that the family was Catholic.   Devotional books of private prayers were popular and the writing of English monks and nuns on the Continent such as Dom Augustin Baker and Dame Gertrude More stressed deep personal prayer—even a tradition of contemplative prayer.  Thus English Catholicism in the seventeenth century became very different than Continental Catholicism.  It was far more restrained in its devotional life, more literate than emotional, Christocentric rather than focusing on saints and miracles.  This was the Catholicism brought to Maryland by the English colonists.  Priests usually wore lay clothes in subdued colors.  The liturgy was simple and without ornamentation as it would be celebrated in private homes.  Statues and devotional objects were rare.  (Bishop John Carroll put no statues in his Cathedral, the Basilica of the Assumption, when it was built.  It was only his French successor but two, Archbishop Ambrose Maréchal, that imported statues of Mary and Jesus from Europe.) The more exotic Catholicism that many of us who grew up before Vatican II remember came to America with the waves of immigrants from Germany and Italy in the mid and late nineteenth-century, but traditional American Catholicism bears greater resemblance to the post-Vatican II practices we know today

Catholics on the Courthouse Lawn

Charles Carroll
only Catholic signer
of the Declaration
of Independence

Well, as to our being a “Christian Nation” we have looked at a New England Congregationalist and a Unitarian, a Pennsylvania Deist usually mistaken for a Quaker, a Virginia Episcopalian (one of them; there are more and we will look at them), and a Virginia Deist.  What’s the tally?  John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington would probably not support the idea of an officially religious society.  Sam Adams, the only evangelical in the group we have looked at, well might have.  Now on to our fellow Catholics.  There were few Catholic in the New Republic at the time of our Independence and they were centered primarily in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  Maryland had been founded as a colony where Catholics could openly practice their faith, but in 1655, during Cromwell’s Puritan interregnum in England, a Puritan Army defeated Governor William Stone at the Battle of the Severn, and ended the control of the Lords Baltimore over the colony.  With the Puritans in charge, Catholicism was outlawed and the Catholic churches were burned.  In 1658 the 2^nd Lord Baltimore regained control and re-enacted the Toleration Act guaranteeing religious freedom in the colony.  Peace was somewhat short lived, however.  In 1689, after the defeat of Catholic King James II by his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange (the “better-half” of William and Mary), Maryland Puritans again rebelled against proprietary Government in Maryland and the Calvert family (the Lords Baltimore) lost power. With their fall Catholicism was again outlawed.  In 1704 the legislature passed “An Act to prevent the growth of Popery in this Province” which barred Catholics from public office.  It wasn’t as bad as it might have been, however, and Catholics (including the clergy who were all Jesuits) were tacitly permitted private chapels on their estates where they could worship discreetly.  In 1776 Charles Carroll, the patriarch of the vastly networked Carroll Family, was a Maryland Delegate to the Continental Congress and has the distinction of being the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Catholics understood from their experience in Britain, Ireland, and the colonies, how important it was for there to be religious freedom.  After 1689 Pennsylvania was the only colony where Catholics were given freedom to worship openly and Catholicism was actually illegal in most colonies including Virginia (where being a priest was a capital crime), New York, and Massachusetts.  In signing the Declaration of Independence, Carroll claimed that he was seeking: “not only our independence of England but the toleration of all sects professing the Christian religion and communicating to them all equal rights.”   Carroll, in the Recusant Tradition of English Catholicism, was not a man given to external pieties however.  In speaking of religion he also said: “I detest screwed up devotion, distorted faces, and grimace.”  But he added: “I equally abhor those, who laugh at all devotion, look upon our religion as a fiction, and its holy mysteries as the greatest absurdities.”  How would he feel about the brouhaha on the Leesburg Courthouse Lawn?   I think that final statement would be a strong indication that he would not support displays that attack religion but at the same time as a Marylander he would have seen no purpose in a public display of religious symbols either.  In colonial and Revolutionary War days in America, Catholics would have been the only religious groups displaying something such as a crèche or nativity scene.  We have seen in our earlier blogs about Anglicans that eighteenth-century Anglicans (and their American branch, Episcopalians) did not so much as display a cross on the communion table much less statutes on the lawn. Congregationalists (who once had made Christmas illegal), Reformed, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Baptists, and those new-fangled Methodists (who were just coming on the scene) would be even more appalled at such “popish” displays.  Lutherans had known some such customs in Germany and Scandinavia—though I don’t think crèches were common—but the trip across the Atlantic had pretty much purified them of what Catholic heritage had survived among European Lutherans.  Maryland Catholics, with their recusant traditions, were used to keeping religious practice out of the public square and confining it to chapel and home.  Personally, I would be pretty much in that Maryland Catholic tradition.  In the Church, in the home (and on their lawns)—let there be nativity scenes.  In the public square—well, I think trees and other symbols of the Winter Solstice festival are fine, but not religious symbols. 

Two Remarks on George Washington

Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting of Washington

Crossing the Delaware--the surprise attack on British

forces at the Battle of Trenton, Christmas night 1776.

Permit me just two more remarks about George Washington before we move on.  George Washington wore  his Masonic Apron and other lodge insignia for the laying of the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in 1793.  If an American President today appeared in Masonic insignia there would be a huge outcry from Catholics on the right and secularists on the left.  I think we need to pay attention however to the significance of his wearing these symbols of a private affiliation for the performance of a public act.  While I don’t think one could say—given the earlier entries in this series of blogs—that Washington conceived of this Republic as a “Christian Nation” or a “Judeo-Christian Nation” as some of the advocates of keeping atheistic displays off the Leesburg Courthouse Lawn, Washington certainly did not believe that one’s religious biases should be kept out of public life.   Freemasonry is not a religion but its insignia, rituals, and symbols stand for a belief system and Washington himself displayed those symbols of the Masonic belief system at one of the most important events in the history of the Republic. 
     Now, on for another remark about Washington though having nothing apropos of the religious debate.  We all have in our mind the image of Washington crossing the Delaware, standing in the prow of a boat and looking noble.  According to one of his chief officers, General Henry Knox—who weighted over 300 lbs—Washington was seated in the boat and wanted to make sure that Knox was seated too, declaring:  "Shift your fat ass, Henry, but slowly, or you'll swamp the damn boat!"  Sort of makes us shift our image of ol'George, doesn't it?

The Christian Faith of George Washington IV (and final)

George Washington wearing his Masonic Apron

while laying the cornerstone of the United States

Capitol

Well back to the Christian faith—or lack thereof—of George Washington, the most important of our Founding Fathers. Washington was, as we have said, an Anglican (before the American Revolution) Episcopalian (after American independence when the Episcopal Church in America separated from the Church of England.)  He attended church with a respectable regularity (though far from every week) and even served as vestryman and warden of his parish for about twelve years before the American Revolution.  There is debate as to whether or not Washington participated in The Holy Communion in the Episcopal Church but it seems as though he did not.  Given his undisputed integrity in public and private life, this abstinence from the Lord’s Table might be an important indication of how he understood Christian faith. 
      In addition to Washington’s being an active member of the Episcopal Church he was also a Freemason.   He was initiated in Freemason Lodge no.4 at Fredericksburg in 1752 at age 20.  Freemasonry was not simply a social activity for Washington.  With the same or even greater regularity as Washington attended church, he attended Lodge Meetings both while at Mount Vernon and while away, including the years spent away commanding the American forces during the Revolution.  Many of the senior officers in Washington’s command were also Freemasons, including his favorites, the Marquis de Lafayette and Henry Knox.  When Washington was sworn in as President in 1789 he took the oath of office on the Bible belonging to Saint John’s Lodge in New York City,  and when he laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol in 1793 he wore his masonic apron, a sign of his membership and status in the Freemasons.      
       Today many devout Protestants are members of the Masons—and even, despite Church Law, Catholics.  Traditionally, however Lutherans and Catholics, the two most doctrinally minded Churches in the spectrum of Christian denominations, have refrained from affiliating to the Masons because historically Masons have offered a questionable (from an orthodox point of view) theology that differs substantially from Christian faith.  Classic freemasonry does not embrace the Father-God revealed in the Christian scriptures whose personal oversight extends into the lives of each of his children but rather offers the rationalist deity who is the Master Mason of the universe, the great designer of the laws of nature and embodiment of a rational justice whose moral laws are written on the human heart not by divine revelation but by absolute reason.  Such religion has a positivist understanding of the human person as guided by reason, not by grace, to goodness and sees sin not as the violation of Divine Command but a failure of reasonable judgment on the part of the individual.  Such “sin” does not need atonement and Christ is no longer Savior of the World but moral guide whose teachings are founded in reason rather than in revelation.  Such a savior has no need of being divinity incarnate but an enlightened human person whose godliness is a measure of his reason and not a divine nature.  As we saw in previous postings this allows the thinker to move from Christianity to Deism, from faith in Jesus to an admiration of Jesus, from Trinitarianism to Unitarianism or Deism (or Agnosticism) and from a personal God whose immanence is apprehended by faith to a Supreme Being whose Transcendence renders the believer significant only to the extent of his reasonable choices in life.  Now, I am not saying that all Masons, and in particular contemporary Masons, have moved this far from orthodox Christianity but it was typical of the Masons of the late seventeenth and of the eighteenth centuries.  Did Washington embrace such a rationalist “faith” rather than Christian orthodoxy?  We cannot say for sure but it is interesting that when Washington wrote of God he used such terms as “Providence,” “The Great Architect of the Universe,” "that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be"and “The Blessings of Heaven.”  When he wrote about Jesus it was as a moral teacher, not as a Redeemer.   All in all, one would have to say that viewed from today’s perspective Washington was more the Mason than the Episcopalian; more the Deist than the Christian.   Yet, unlike Jefferson or Franklin, I don’t think one could say about Washington that he wasn’t a Christian, at least of some sort.  In religion, as in politics, Washington was not a theoretician but a doer.  I suspect that for him Christianity was not about affirming doctrinal faith in Jesus Christ but living according to one’s best ability to follow the practical ethics found in the New Testament.  Even here, however, I think modern Christians would find Washington wanting.  Most seriously he maintained slaves.  He supported the American rebellion against constituted legitimate authority and he did so, in great part, because it was to his personal economic advantage.  But again when it came to morality, I think Washington was a man of practical judgments not abstract theory.  He did provide in his will that his slaves (not Martha’s) should be freed upon Martha’s death.  Even though Anglicans, like most Christians (including Catholics) other than Quakers did not object to slavery, Washington’s own moral compass told him that slavery was morally unsupportable but he knew that he could not maintain his public responsibilities without the benefits of a slave economy, nor was he willing to leave his widow without the practical support she needed to maintain their standard of livelihood once he was dead.  (And actually the majority of slaves on their estates were Martha’s, not George's.  He had no right in law, of course, to free her slaves.) I think for Washington public responsibilities took moral precedence over the freedom of one’s slaves.  This is a curious perspective, indeed troubling to the modern mind, but where would our Republic be had he chosen otherwise?  Similarly, Washington had no qualms about violating the oaths of loyalty to the King he had taken as a member of the militia, as a member of his church vestry, and as a member of the House of Burgesses.  I think Thomas Jefferson made it clear in the Declaration of Independence that the King’s failure to maintain the welfare of his American subjects justified the colonists in turning away from his “protection,” but it must be noted that severing the political subordination to Great Britain was of immense financial benefit to Washington and other Virginia Planters.  All of this is a way to say that Washington seems to have been guided not by Christian moral teaching but practical ethics symptomatic of Deist thought.  On the other hand, I think it is noteworthy that Washington has never been accused of marital infidelity with either a slave nor a social peer, despite his well-known love for Sally Fairfax, the wife of a friend and neighbor.  This is only one example of Washington being a person of exceptional ethical fiber. For Washington it would seem that moral integrity was more a matter of personal honesty rather than what we would call today “social justice.”  I don’t think that was atypical, however, of eighteenth-century men of his social position whether or not religious. 
     Finally, let us note that when Washington was dying no clergy were summoned to attend him.  His funeral at Mount Vernon comprised both the traditional Episcopalian (formerly Anglican) Prayerbook rite and Masonic rituals. 
     All in all, I think Washington might be categorized with the oxymoron of a “Christian Deist.”  Unlike Jefferson or Franklin, Washington’s practical mind permitted him a dual allegiance to a vague Christianity and the religious indifferentism of Enlightenment Freemasonry. Unlike the more militant (and mostly European) masons, Washington was not hostile to religion and he never tried to exclude it from public life.  In addition to Sunday Worship he attended various services organized for the Continental Congress.  He was not only a generous financial supporter of the Episcopal Churches to which he belonged, but local legend maintains that through the agency of his friend and former aide, Colonel John Fitzgerald, Washington was one of the first contributors to the building of Saint Mary’s Church, Alexandria, the first Catholic Church in Virginia.  On the other hand, religious principles cannot be said to have guided his public or private life.  One would have to lump him with Jefferson, Franklin, and John Adams in embracing a public life guided not by Christian principles but by what we might today call humanist ethics.       

    

The Christian Faith of George Washington III

Pohick Church, one of the churches that Washington

attended regularly.  This picture is taken from the

website.  Notice the centrality of the pulpit and how

the commuion table is placed in a more subordinate

position.  This arrangement was not unusual in 

Episcopalian Churches before the Oxford Movement

of the nineteenth century 

  So what about George Washington and his religious beliefs?  Was he a Christian?  Did he believe that this new Republic which he was so instrumental in creating was to be a Christian nation?  Remember we are looking at this in the context of the controversy of atheist displays on the Courthouse lawn at beautiful Virginia Horse Country Leesburg (the Home Town of Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum) Virginia and the claims of Loudon County Maven Barbara Curtis whose Blog Mommy Life is filled with information (and misinformation) of all sorts.  In the debate over the Leesburg Courthouse lawn Ms. Curtis asserted that “There is also the fact that our nation is indeed a Judeo-Christian nation - there's no disputing that.”  Is there no disputing that?  I am not so sure.  We have been looking at American History, first in the colonial period and then in the time of the creation of the American Republic, to see whether or not the United States was meant to be a Christian, or a Judeo-Christian, nation.  Massachusetts history would support Ms. Curtis’ claim, but the Founding Fathers of the Republic are not so univocal.  We have looked at the religious opinions of Jefferson, Franklin, and the Adams cousins and it would appear that the three responsible for the Declaration of Independence would not support the claim that we should be “A Christian Nation,” at least not as that claim is put forth by modern political “conservatives.”  (I put “conservatives” in quotation marks because I think they deviate from our American political heritage in any number of matters.)  Sam Adams who was somewhat of what we might call today an “evangelical” may have supported the Christian Nation idea.  So now we have moved on to George Washington—the single most significant—though not the most influential—of the Founding Fathers.  I make that distinction because Washington was extremely proactive in the practical matters of establishing the new nation  but not in shaping the political theory behind it.  He was a member of the Continental Congress and an advocate for Independence.  He was given command of the American forces fighting for Independence.  I chaired the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  And he served as the First President under the Constitution.  Yet other than being an advocate for Independence in the Continental Congress and an advocate for a (relatively) strong Federal Government in the Constitutional Convention he was not given to participating in the debates that shaped the new nation.  Washington was never much of a talker but more of a doer.  And it is precisely for that reason that the religious opinions of George Washington comprise a tricky subject.  Our last two entries painted a picture of eighteenth century Anglicanism (and its American expression, The Episcopal Church), the denomination to which Washington was formally affiliated. We have seen that Episcopalianism in the eighteenth century was not easily or narrowly defined and that an Episcopalian might be anything from an agnostic to an evangelical.  So what about George?  
      Well, in the first place George was an Anglican/Episcopalian not just in name but in practice.  He was affiliated to several Episcopalian parishes relatively near to Mount Vernon, most especially Pohick Church and Christ Church, Alexandria.  He worshipped at each of these Churches though with some irregularity.  Washington kept a meticulous journal of his daily activities and they indicate that he went to church about one Sunday in four while at Mount Vernon.  This is not a bad record for eighteenth-century Virginia gentry; after all it was not easy going to Church in eighteenth-century Virginia plantation society.  New England townsfolk could be religious without much inconvenience.  Pohick Church was about seven miles distant and would have been about an hour and a half by horseback or two hours by carriage each way from Mount Vernon. Given that George invariably went to Church in Martha’s company he probably went by carriage but, usually leaving church after first service (Morning Prayer) while Martha remained for Holy Communion at the second service, he may have returned by horseback.  Such a schedule probably meant leaving Mount Vernon before six a.m. and returning between eleven and noon.  Christ Church was three miles further from Mount Vernon than Pohick Church and in another direction, making the round trip perhaps an hour longer each way.  Weather would be one deterrent to Church attendance with rain making the roads difficult and snow making them impassable. However, Washington’s diary mentions Sundays where he went Fox-hunting rather than to Church so it was not always a weather related skip.  Sometimes too he stayed home to catch up on correspondence or to meet with his farm manager. 

Pohick Church where Washington most frequently attended was the seat of Truro Parish which had been divided from Hamilton Parish by the Virginia General Assembly in 1732.  Pohick Church itself, originally known as the Occoquan Church (because of a local creek), had been founded in 1695 when it still was part of Hamilton Parish.   Washington served on the vestry of Truro parish from 1762 until 1774 and several times was one of the two Wardens.  It was during his time on the Truro Vestry that the Falls Church was built and Washington briefly served on the vestry at the Falls Church as well.  However as it was contrary to law for one to sit on two vestries simultaneously he did not stay with the Falls Church. (Before the Revolution when the Church of England was the Established Church, civil law governed matters spiritual as well as civic.)   Given the distance from Mount Vernon to the Falls Church it is unlikely that he attended services there with any regularity.  Modern day The Falls Church and also Truro Church have separated themselves from the Episcopal Church while Pohick Church is still Episcopalian.  We might talk about that in some upcoming blogs. 

     Before the American Revolution public office in Virginia was restricted to members of the Established Church, i.e. the Anglican Church and Washington’s dedication to public life would have required of him membership in the Established Church. He could not have served either in  the militia or held any public office unless he were a member of the Anglican Church.   

Ironically Washington’s church attendance was better when he was away from Mount Vernon than when he was there.  Stories that he only attended divine service when Martha was with him seem not to bear out the facts and all those Sundays at Mount Vernon when he skipped church indicate that Martha probably played little influence on his worship patterns.  During the periods of time that he lived in Philadelphia and New York attendance at church services was much more convenient as the churches were right in town—a walk from where he lived.  In Philadelphia he worshipped at Saint Peter’s Church; in New York at Saint Paul’s Chapel.  During his time in Philadelphia he also attended a Quaker service and, on one occasion, a service (I believe it was a Te Deum, not a Mass) at Saint Joseph’s, the Jesuit Church, which is Pennsylvania’s oldest Catholic Church.   

      While George was a Church-goer there is a dispute about whether or not Washington received Holy Communion at Anglican or Episcopal services.  This would be a significant indication as to what his faith—and the Christian religion—meant to him.  In Washington’s time, as mentioned in the previous blog, Anglican theology held for a Calvinistic approach to the Eucharist that Christ was truly present but in a spiritual (as opposed to physical) manner.  Some Anglicans/Episcopalians would have emphasized the idea that Christ was Truly present and considered the difference between spiritual and physical presence to be inconsequential.  Others would have gone for a more Zwinglian understanding that Christ’s presence was purely by “remembrance”—a sort of “present in my heart” approach.  The Anglican liturgy itself was (and to some extent still is) ambiguous so as to be as inclusive as possible.  Washington never commented on Eucharistic theology so we do not know what he believed.  Various family remembrances, primarily from a generation or two after Washington’s death, claim that he frequently attended Holy Communion.  Several of the rectors of the Episcopal Churches which Washington attended claimed, however, that he never took the Sacrament and one of them, the Reverend Doctor James Abercrombie of Saint Peter’s—the Philadelphia Church Washington attended during the Continental Congress—explicitly said that Washington was a Deist.   Abercrombie had, in a Sunday Sermon, criticized Washington and other public figures who refrained from receiving communion for setting a bad example by not remaining in church for the Sacrament.  Historians generally concur that the clergy records are more reliable than the family stories in this matter and take it that Washington attended Morning Prayer—a service  of psalms, prayers, and a sermon, but not Holy Communion. 

Washington’s devotional practices reflect his moral integrity.  If there is one thing one can say about Washington is that, despite Parson Weems’ story of the cherry tree being a fabrication, he was a man of superior integrity.  He was certainly a gentleman and respectful of the opinions of others but he was extremely discreet regarding his own religious beliefs.  Martha, his wife, was a very devout Episcopalian who received the Sacrament often.  Washington normally accompanied her to church, both attending the Morning Prayer.   George would usually then leave while Martha remained for the second service of Holy Communion.  Washington never said why, but obviously the Holy Communion was not important to him.  Or perhaps it was too important to him to participate in a rite whose basic significance differed from his personal “faith.”  Perhaps when we look at the various other rituals which Washington did practice we can understand his rather unique Christianity.