George J. Marlin took a break from complaining about Zohran Mamdani to write in his June 30 Newsmax column:
The Declaration of Independence gave this conviction unforgettable expression when it affirmed that all men are created equal and “endowed by their Creator” with unalienable rights.
The Constitution, later framed to “secure the Blessings of Liberty,” sought to give durable political form to that principle.
And the Bill of Rights placed special protection around freedoms of conscience, religion, speech, assembly, and petition — freedoms that remain essential to human dignity and civic peace.
For Catholics, this language is not merely political.
It resonates deeply with Catholic social teaching.
The church teaches that every human person possesses an inviolable dignity because each person is made in the image and likeness of God.
[…]Many Christians globally do not enjoy the freedoms Americans often take for granted.
In many countries, believers face harassment, discrimination, violence, imprisonment, forced displacement, or even death because of their faith.
Churches are attacked, clergy and religious are threatened, families are uprooted, and communities that have worshiped for centuries are placed under severe pressure.
For Catholics, this reality is not abstract.
It is the daily experience of the suffering church.
But Marlin omits the fact that one country where Catholicism was not well tolerated was … the early United States. As one observer points out:
With the exception of Maryland—but only for a bit—each of the English colonies along the North American coastline despised and feared Roman Catholics as well as Catholicism. For most English Protestants, whether Reformed and Presbyterian or low-Church Anglican, Catholicism represented the corruption of the Christian faith. Catholics, far from being the brethren of Protestants, were the worst enemies—far worse than pagans or even Muslims. Why? Because Catholics, in the eyes of those Protestants, should have known better; that is, they should have seen the errors of their Catholic ways.
[…]When it came to Catholics, most American Protestants could not decide if Catholics were brilliant or indolent. Supporting brilliance, they saw the Jesuits. Although one might hate a Jesuit, one never underestimated him. Yet, supporting indolence—at least by the lights of the Protestant work ethic—French men freely married native women. This, to good Englishmen, seemed an abomination. One might partake of such a relationship privately, but never in public.
[…]The very first resolutions passed by the first Congress—meeting in the fall of 1774 and calling itself the First Continental Congress—were complaints against British tolerance toward and of Canadian Roman Catholics. In particular, Americans feared what the British called the “Quebec Act,” passed in June 1774. John Adams, never pro-Catholic (though he very much liked Charles Carroll of Carrollton), claimed that the Quebec Act was “a frightful system, as would have terrified any people who did not prefer liberty to life.”
[…]However much anti-Catholicism decreased during the early days of the Republic, it resurfaced with a wicked vengeance during the so-called “Second Great Awakening” of 1795-1844. The worst outbreak came in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1834, when a group of men—inspired by a sermon delivered by Lyman Beecher titled “The Devil and the Pope of Rome”—burned down an Ursuline nunnery.
Still, Marlin insisted that Catholics should pay homage to America:
The 250th anniversary offers American Catholics a providential moment: to give thanks for religious freedom, to recommit ourselves to the common good, and to extend America’s generous heart to the suffering church globally.
The defense of God-given rights begins with gratitude.
Shouldn’t it also involve full acknowledgement of the truth, Mr. Marlin?