By Mr. C. Joseph Doyle

Theme: Right and Freedom: Catholic Considerations on Misused Concepts

Title:Considering Two Ideas of 'Right': Catholic and American

The subject of C.J. Doyle’s talk was the issue of 'rights' from the Catholic and the American perspective. Mr. Doyle begins his presentation with a look at the condition of Catholics in the thirteen colonies just prior to and shortly after the Revolutionary War, when Catholics were a mere 1% of the population. That figure would have risen above the 22% that it is today had not the Church lost four million Catholic immigrants in one hundred years to the allure of an easier and more prosperous life as Protestants and/or masons. With his rapid-fire delivery, Doyle provides a succession of facts to demonstrate, with few exceptions, how strong was the anti-Catholic sentiment among the founding fathers. If, as a Catholic, you think you know American history and you do not know, for example, what the Quebec Act was, this talk would be worth hearing. The big problem for American Catholics? Americanism, which never went away, but dissolved into a worse state of supine indifferentism. This affliction was not due to the machinations of the Church’s usual enemies, but to American Catholics themselves who sold out as cultural conformists. The solution, said Doyle, is to confront the opposition with an informed Catholic militancy and convert America to the true religion.

From 2011 SBC Conference

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