John Barbor Quotes

It was not until 1780 that Catholics were allowed to even be members of Town Corporations.

In April of 1689, Protestant William of Orange landed in England against Catholic King James I, in a Catholic-Protestant civil conflict which not only affected England but its colonies as well. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor of New York City were confused and wary as to taking immediate sides, but there was a strong anti-Catholic movement in New York City. This group, functioning as “The General Convention for the Province of New-York,” elected Leysler, its leader—later appointing him Lieutenant Governor of New York. Leysler’s forces seized the government and imprisoned the King James Appointed Officials who would not turn against James. Leysler actually governed New York for almost two years. The old guard of New York, after William had been crowned King, attempted to regain the status quo ante. Leysler and his extremist followers saw them as traitors and Papal supporters although they themselves were English Protestants. But their appointment, loyalty and wavering regarding James I made them traitors in the view of Leysler. When initial troops tried to regain power for the original governor and council Leysler, he simply dismissed them as Papists. Finally, in March of 1691 Governor Slaughter, arrived with more troops, and after a significant Battle for New York, captured Leysler and his major followers where were executed shortly thereafter. This incident, sometimes referred to as “Leysler's Rebellion,” represents these American “firsts.” First successful revolution in America; First military coup; First military dictator. First successful counter-revolution. There were some contemporary critics who thought Leysler as interested in custom duties as Papists.

In this extraordinary act, the people who are persecuted are made to pay extra taxes to facilitate their persecution

New Ross was under siege by Cromwell and his English Parliamentarian troops. After two days, the town tried to negotiate terms of surrender and one of the main things they asked for was freedom of religion to practice Roman Catholicism. This famous response set the stage for religious bigotry over the next years. Cromwell’s reasons for not allowing Catholicism to be practiced was not only one of religious zeal. At the time, the Roman Catholic Church was a major geopolitical power under a Pope who commonly supported or even dispatched troops for geopolitical and religious ends. The Vatican was particularly resentful of England for separating from the Church and asserting that the King of England was the head of the Church and not the Pope. Therefore Cromwell and many Englishmen had to deal with the reality that every practicing Catholic in the realm was a potential spy, traitor, and/or rebel. This fear of control of countries by the Pope strongly affected America, and was responsible for the defeat of the first Catholic Presidential Candidate, Al Smith. It was also a major factor in the election of John F. Kennedy so he dealt with it head on.

Orangemen were the ulta Protestant Nationalists of Northern Ireland. Both Protetants and Catholics had their extremists who publicly spewed their hate, desire for exclusivity, and insults with little moderation from moderates who always risked retaliation from the extremists even of their own religion, not unlike the situation of the beginning of the 21st century, where Muslim moderates were cowed and intimidated by the religious Islamic extremists.

It took only 10 days after the First Continental Congress met for religious bigotry to arise. After hundreds of years of Catholic/Protestant strife, each sect looked upon the other, not only as theologically wrong, but dangerous to the liberty of the other. Unfortunately, the organied religions had acted so badly towards other religions, that everyone was justified in fearing the other religions. This quotation illustrates a then typical attitude of many American Protestants that the Catholic Church was a threat to national security. Ironically, in modern times, anti-Catholic bigots use this quotation to demonstrate that the United States was founded as a Christian Protestant nation—not a general Christian nation. A small, vicious anti-Catholic sentiment still exists, usually by a minority of right wing Protestant religious fundamentalists. Protestant England had just repealed the laws making Catholicism illegal, but this was regarded at that time as intolerable for the new America. This was one of the disputes which that the Founding Fathers were faced with later and one of the reasons that they were so absolute in the need for the 1st Amendment.

In 1453 the Ottoman Turks shocked Christendom by capturing Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Eastern Christian Empire. It was always perceived as a religious conflict between Christians and Muslims but that is an over simplification of a very complex sociological, religious, and political historical period. As this quotation shows us there were many Christians aiding the Muslim side. There were also many Muslims fighting on the Christian side.

Newspaper of the Association

Michener had chaired a county campaign committee and discovered that most great amount of the virulent, anti-Catholic, messages and materials that impinged on the campaign were tax-exempt religious publications and church newsletters.

5th Earl of Montrose. The public reaction to a new prayer book issued by the King and created by the King’s religious appointees. Although Protestant in nature, it was created without the early Scottish Protestant tradition of consultation with many levels of clergy and society. It was seen as authoritarian and much like the Catholic mass which was proscribed by Rome. The National Covenant was a document of protest. It was first drafted by Alexander Henderson and Johnston of Wariston, and signed by others, but Montrose was the first signer and the acknowledged leader of the Covenanters.

Locke wrote the Charter of South Carolina in which any 7 people could assemble and form a church including:

In 1877 Wasburn was dropped from the List of Ministers by the Unitarian Church. He had become very critical of organized and orthodox religion of all kinds.

What the historian did not know was how similarly the Protestants would behave against the Catholics when they had the power. Since the Catholics were the established church, and the Protestants the new “heretics” the Protestants were on the receiving end of most of the atrocities at the beginning. However, as if they had been scholled by their horrible experiences, they repeated them just exchanging the perpetrators and the victims.

Henry of Navarre. The practice of kidnapping children from parents of the other faith and baptizing them was rampant.

He had been exiled to the United States.

A force of 4,000 Spaniards, aided by Irish Catholics attempted to thwart the English Protestant Reformation forces in Ireland. They were defeated in their war by Lord Mountjoy. This is one of the many wars in history that was described as “holy” by one or both of its participants.

This is a particularly interesting historical quotation because it succinctly gives a history of the various horrors of religious strife in British history—a history that was very well known to the American Founding Fathers and the general American Colonial population. This history was the major driver behind the public insistence for the Bill of Rights and the 1st Amendment which erected a wall of separation between church and state with government never favoring or abetting any particular religion.

Before the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther, there had been a schism of the Catholic Church into the Western Roman Empire—the Latins, headquartered in Rome; and the Orthodox Church—the Greeks, headquartered in Constantinople (Byzantium). One of the main issues of the schism was the Papacy itself. As this quotation shows, Luther was by no means the first to attack the Papacy. Saint Mark’s quotation here was more than 50 years before Luther was born.

The origins of the extreme religious intolerance of Spain occurred centuries before the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition. Before the Conference the Visigoths and their king had been converted to Christianity but not all cared for the new religion.