With Glenn Beck and the Tea Party crowd constantly invoking the
Founders, it would be nice to see then discuss the role that
virulent anti-Catholicism played in the lead up to the American
Revolution. In the event, the Founders were able to transcend
their anti-Catholic bigotry, but the bigotry of the Tea Party
crowd seen in the anti-mosque effort and their hysteria about
the imminent threat to American liberties posed by sharia, to
say nothing of the racist bigotry of the anti-immigrant
advocates (are these the same groups?), remains among the grass
roots of the movement – you will pardon the expression – a point
of honor. Last week, I called attention John Adams' 1765 opus “A
Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law.” It is filled with
anti-Catholic animus. He was not alone. The pastor of Old West
Church in Boston, Jonathan Mayhew, was renowned for his fear
that the Church of England, which he thought still infected with
Romish tendencies, was trying to make inroads into the true
believing, Congregation