Some "commentators" like to mention that the American Revolution was less violent, particularly toward the Church, owing perhaps to some idea that the principles enshrined in the American Constitution guarantee "Liberty". We have a different view in the US about these things regarding our own history, preferring to remark upon our inevitable steps of progress from Republic to Empire in the 19th Century and our present "desirable" situation, we tend to forget (or never knew about) the slaughter of Catholic Indians and Mexicans during the Mexican-American War, and of course, we forget the slaughter of fellow Americans which also took place in the revolutionary furor launched by a man who has a stronger resemblance to Joseph Stalin, Oliver Cromwell and Fidel Castro, than he does to the mythical and paternal Abraham Lincoln.
If the American Government didn't massacre any Catholics in the wake of its revolution as the French did, it is only because they didn't have many to slaughter; there was still plenty of time for the United States to accomplish that as it finally did in the Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars, which were as bloody and full of anti-Catholicism as would please any erstwhile Jacobin of the French Revolution allied to Robespierre on the march to the Vendee.
All the same, we pray for a country which at least permits its Bishops to be Catholic without too much meddling. So few American Bishops have been worthy of imitation, but there is still time for our present Bishops to mend their ways and abolish the Americanism which they continue to foment and promote at the expense of souls which must surely go to Hell without the benefit of the Sacraments. Really, what we need are more saints and fewer bank managers and episcopal salesmen.
[Politics Daily] In 1790, most of the world was congratulating France for what seemed like a successfully completed revolution. The hated King had been brought to heel, and change had swept through an oppressed nation, offering hope for a brighter future under better government.
Newspapers, then coming into their own, proclaimed the dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity while proto-pundits compared the change of rule to England's Glorious Revolution of 1688.
One observer however, English statesman Edmund Burke, wasn't fooled by the triumphant images produced by revolutionary PR teams; he saw gathering clouds for the darkest storm yet. His first clue that the Revolution had yet to run its course? The sustained hostile attacks on the Catholic clergy.
In Defense of the Catholic Clergy (Or Do We Want Another Reign of Terror?) -- Politics Daily
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