The New York Times is running a story today about the efforts by one Catholic priest in New York City to draw parallels between the Park51 Islamic Community Center project and the uproar 225 years ago, when Roman Catholics were beginning plans and construction for the first Catholic church in New York City. It's really an amazing insight into how little has really changed in this country, when it comes to sectarian parochialism and xenophobia.
The New York Times' article, "200-Year-Old Echoes in Muslim Center Uproar," discusses how Rev. Kevin Madigan had been studying the history of the founding of St. Peter's Church as he prepared to celebrate the building's 225th anniversary. Because there was no controversy during the initial positive reaction in the community welcoming the planned Islamic center, he didn't make the connection. However, as the debate swirled this summer, he couldn't help but see the obvious parallels, and he addressed his congregation about the historical lessons.
It seems that when New Yorkers first heard of the planned Catholic Church in the late 18th Century, they staged protest demonstrations and pressured the project organizers to move the planned building away from what was then the city center. Much like the Park51 protesters of today, those protesting the church also feared the symbolism and corrosive impact of building such a facility for congregants of the alien and decidedly un-democratic Papist faith. This was an affront to New Yorkers who had so recently fought and won their freedom from the monarchical system that had governed the colonies only a decade earlier.
As the Times' writer puts it
"many early-American Protestants saw the pope as the sworn enemy of democracy, and feared that his followers’ little church would be the bridgehead of a papal assault on the new United States government."
Just like the malicious, manufactured controversy of supposed Saudi financing for the Park51 building, there was a lot of talk about financing from suspicious foreign potentates. Indeed, the church was being financed by outsiders, and would not have been built without a large contribution from the Spanish king, in the then princely amount of $1,000. The church was built, with the foreign financing, but the project was moved to accommodate some of the concerns of the protesters.
The article also notes the church's biggest crisis, which came two decades later. Apparently, on December 24, 1806, irate Protestants surrounded the building and tried to disrupt the service inside -- a ceremony they deemed "popish superstition." A bit of a riot developed, leaving dozens hurt and one policeman dead.
Holy "War on Christmas", Batman!!!!! Next time, Pap Bear brings up such nonsense, someone should let him know that founding Americans knew the holiday was un-American, foreign, and just a symbol of a superstitious, dictatorial, anti-Democratic, superstitious religious idolatry.
Or, perhaps a different lesson could be learned. As the Pastor wrote in a letter to his Catholic brethren/congregants:
"Many of the charges being leveled at Muslim-Americans today are the same as those once leveled at our forebears."
Two historical maxims come to mind --
First: The more things change, the more they remain the same; and Second: Those who do not learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it. If more Americans knew about the history of St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in lower Manhattan, maybe, as a country, we could do better.