Crown and Crozier
In Crown and Crozier, we invite leading thinkers to explore how the human experience is shaped by the interplay between Church and State, and what this means for tackling the great challenges of today. Join us as we examine what’s at stake for us as citizens and as a society in the dynamic engagement between civil and religious authority. The common good, basic freedoms, dignity of the person, administration of justice, self-government, the preservation of truth, goodness and beauty - all this and more hangs in the balance.
Crown and Crozier
How America’s First Catholics Walked the Church-State Tightrope ~ Michael Breidenbach
U.S. President Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that the First Amendment to the Constitution was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and state.”
It’s commonly asserted that the intellectual architecture underpinning Church-State separation and the First Amendment’s codification of religious freedom rested on a foundation of Protestant liberalism, coloured by the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment period.
But what if there’s more to the story? If we hold the magnifying glass a little closer, is it possible to examine the arc of religious freedom in colonial America and discover Catholic fingerprints?
In this episode, we aim to give a fair hearing to this idea.
Our guest is Dr. Michael Breidenbach, Associate Professor and Chair of History at Ave Maria University, and Senior Affiliate for Legal Humanities at the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. Author of Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America, Dr. Breidenbach is an historian of politics, religion, law and culture in early America and the Atlantic World.
Websites / resources referenced
Dr. Michael Breidenbach biography
Michael Breidenbach, Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America (2021)
“Conciliarism” (definition courtesy of Catholic Culture)
George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore
Inter Caetera (Pope Alexander VI, 1493)
Constitution of the United States, First Amendment
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Please note that this podcast has been edited for length and clarity.