The Revolution Revisited 

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Concord Hymn”)

They came three thousand miles, and died,
To keep the Past upon its throne:
Unheard, beyond the ocean tide,
Their English mother made her moan.
(James Russell Lowell, “Lines Suggested By The Graves Of Two English Soldiers On The Concord Battle-Ground”)

This year, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will observe Patriots’ Day on Monday, April 21, in honor of events that took place on April 19: the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Menotomy (Arlington). These are generally considered the beginning of the American Revolution, the first civil war, which resulted in the formation of these United States. But this year, the festivities are very special, being the beginning of the Semiquincentennial (250th Anniversary) of the commencement of our national life in its current form. 

As might be expected, on April 18th the Old North Church will have its annual “Lantern Service” in honor of the signal from the church tower that launched Paul Revere on his famous ride. Both Boston’s Freedom Trail and Minuteman National Park have a host of special events planned, as do the Commonwealth and the city and town governments of Boston, Lexington (and a second one, just in case), Concord, and Arlington, as do many others. On offer are a large number of enjoyable and educational events. But something seems missing to me.

I remember very well the hoopla leading up to the Bicentennial in 1975. It had been an exciting decade preceding it; still reeling from the counterculture of the 1960s, the nation was only recently delivered from the Vietnam War when we embarked upon the Watergate fiasco. After teaching us—among other things—that he had a mouth like a dockworker, president Nixon resigned. On August 9, 1974, his erstwhile vice president, Gerald Ford, was sworn in as his successor. On that occasion, Ford declared:

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy. As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

Now, the country remained deeply divided—not least because of the collapse of the moral consensus under which the nation had functioned since Independence. This had underlain the Civic Religion that took the place of shared loyalty to the King as a national unifier. But infanticide had only been imposed upon the people by the Supreme Court three years before; and in that long ago time, the veneration of America as the “Shining City on the Hill” and the “Last Best Hope of Mankind” appeared not only to have retained its strength but underwent something of a revival. 

America celebrated itself in its Bicentennial in an orgy of self-congratulation. It was perhaps deeply needed psychologically, given everything that had happened. But there is none of that now. Back then, Confederate heroes could be honored alongside Black Civil Rights activists; today we are in a different world.

In 2016, President Obama appointed a Semiquincentennial Commission; wracked by scandal, it has accomplished little, although its website does provide a set of useful links to those State Commissions that have actually been set up. (The California Legislature, intent on blowing money on other matters, voted down the creation of such a commission.) On January 29, 2025, the newly-reelected President Trump issued an executive order revoking Biden’s executive orders revoking his efforts at celebration. It is obvious that there shall be three different efforts to mark the anniversary: 1.) Trump’s, which shall no doubt attempt to reaffirm the American exceptionalism which has been under attack for two decades; 2.) His opponents’ which will try to Wokerise the events; and 3.) still others, further Woke, who will try to attack the whole idea.

At this point, I must admit that my own view is very different, being shaped by both a Catholic and a Loyalist reading of the American Revolution. On the one hand, I am all too aware that George III had done nothing, nor had his successive governments, that would justify a revolution according to the Catholic Church’s teaching. Certainly, the Faith was illegal in ten of the colonies; but this was a situation the King inherited. And as he showed in his personal dealings at home—with the Quebec Act in 1774 and the First Emancipation Act in 1778—he was more concerned with his Catholic subjects than any of his predecessors since James II (which made him popular among the Catholic Irish).

The Quebec Act was one of the things for which he was attacked in the Declaration of Independence. Although wealthier Catholics like the Carrolls joined the revolutionaries, a great many remained loyal and fought in the King’s armies.

Ironically, while the entrance of France and Spain into the war forced the Continental Congress to rethink its anti-Catholicism, it left George III feeling betrayed by his brother monarchs and destroyed his interest in Catholic Emancipation. Benjamin Franklin and Fr. John Carroll had gone together to Canada to try to persuade the French Catholics to join the rebellion; unfortunately for their mission, however, Bishop Briand had copies of various anti-Catholic tracts the Congress had penned, in one of which those worthies declared of the Quebec Act, 

Nor can we suppress our astonishment, that a British Parliament should ever consent to establish in that country a Religion that has deluged your Island in blood, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion, through every part of the world.  

As bishop of that country, Briand excommunicated Fr. Carroll.

Britain’s defeat did not just mean the independence of the colonies: it was the end of George III’s attempts to regain some control of Great Britain from the Whig oligarchy, and it placed Britain and her remaining territories on the road to her present status. It must be said that when George Washington voluntarily surrendered power at the end of the war, the king’s response was “if this be true, then General Washington is the greatest man of the age.” Over 100,000 Loyalists had to flee—thus giving birth to Anglo-Canada, the Bahamas, and Sierra Leone. The war bankrupted France and paved the way for the French Revolution and the untold miseries that would envelop Europe and Latin America as a result.

Nevertheless, God brings good out of evil. Precisely because of what would prove the Pyrrhic French and Spanish victory, Catholic Americans were freed from the remaining penal laws. But even as the current government came into existence in 1789, a fateful choice was made. Pope Pius VI asked the new president, George Washington, for a candidate for the new diocese of Baltimore. He refused to recommend anyone, saying it was not the new government’s place to do so. 

The pope then turned to the most famous American of the day, Benjamin Franklin. He recommended Fr. John Carroll; when asked why, the old roué remarked that in all the time they spent together, Fr. Carroll had not once mentioned religion. The new nation gave us the constitutional ability to evangelize it; from that day to this, we have not. Instead, we were content to seek respectability, while muting the Faith that Orestes Brownson saw as early as 1845 was essential to maintaining our institutions in the long term.  

While we were growing institutionally in America over the 19th and 20th centuries, it was mass immigration rather than conversions that brought about the increase. The welfare of the Catholic Church in Latin America, the Spanish Empire, and Central Europe meant nothing to American Foreign Policy; and to the degree Catholics were aware of this, they were powerless to stop it—if they did not avidly agree with it. With the given historical foundations that we have and the lack of the Catholic Faith among most of our fellow Americans, it was inevitable that we would end up somewhere near where we are—a nation divided, with both sides devoted in varying degrees to infanticide and perversion. It was inevitable that we would end up somewhere near where we are—a nation divided, with both sides devoted in varying degrees to infanticide and perversion.Tweet This

Does this mean that believing Catholics should not take part in the upcoming celebrations, still less mounting those of their own? By no means! If our parents’ origins were illegitimate or spotty, they would still be our parents and deserving of our love. The actions that produced them may have been illicit, but produce them they did—and for that we must be grateful. The 250 years we Catholics have lived under the current government have been good ones for us—and that government, whatever its imperfections and failures, never prevented us from evangelizing. We did that. Moreover, our non-Catholic brethren, often in concert with ourselves, did produce a number of things in the arts and sciences worth celebrating.

So, what should we do? As a first step, we should enjoy the party and encourage it—or even throw it ourselves in places where the authorities are too weak to do so. Of course, we should study the Catholic element on both sides of the Revolution—and after. How many of us know there were crypto-Catholics when Jamestown was settled in 1607? That the first Catholic settlement in the country was established four decades earlier at St. Augustine, Florida? The 1976 Bicentennial actually gives some interesting clues as to going about: not only revolutionary history but that of every state, county, and city was celebrated by local groups.

In that spirit, let us dedicate ourselves—not just over the next year but until 2033—to exploring our own areas: their history; natural environment; cultural and other monuments; museums; historical and hereditary societies; reenactment groups; garden clubs; land trusts; preservation groups; ethnic associations; national, state, county, and city parks; and the like. See what they are doing—and see what can be found out about the history of your parish and diocese and how it fits into the local tapestry. Share what you find with your neighbors, and try to convince your bishop and pastor to participate in whatever celebrations and observances are underway. Certainly, requiem Masses for the Catholic explorers, pioneers, and settlers of your district can be occasions of great grace for all concerned—not least for non-Catholics interested in their local history.

Another way to observe the next eight years is to plan your travelling around the sorts of places earlier indicated, extending your vision to ever further parts of this great country of ours, keeping in mind historic roads and scenic byways. But also make a point of visiting our country’s shrines, basilicas, and other historic Catholic churches, as well as areas inhabited by Catholic ethnic groups, like southern Louisiana and northern New Mexico. In all of these places, we should pray for the conversion of our land.

Of course, Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, should loom large on our “to see” list. Obviously, one wants to see the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, Arlington National Cemetery, the Mall, the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson memorials and monuments, and of course, our collective national memory: the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian Institution. 

Let’s make a point not only of seeing St. Matthew’s Cathedral and perhaps even the Red Mass—at which the president and Supreme Court traditionally assist—but also the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, dedicated to our national patroness, which is perhaps the most important Catholic church in the entire nation. More than Independence Day, December 8 should be the real American national observance. There can be no more appropriate use of our prayer time than begging Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, in a place made sacred to her, that our country acknowledge her Queenship over it and the Divine Kingship of her son. If our prayers and our work to that end is found at all worthy, then one day the United States shall be incontestably a fit home for heroes.