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#Being First Doesn't Always Matter | The Vortex

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Two geographic centers for Catholics in the New World.

I'm Michael Voris coming to you from on board our fall Retreat at Sea, trekking along the New England Coast and focusing on the very beginnings of Catholicism here in the United States.

There really are two geographical centers of Catholic introduction to the New World. One was the Deep South, meaning the Gulf Coast area and extending further south into the Caribbean, Mexico and so forth.

Then there is the Atlantic Seaboard area. What may perhaps be a little note many Catholics don't know is this — neither area was especially "Catholic" in the way we might first think of it. For example, almost 200 years after Columbus landed in the modern-day Bahamas in 1492, the Catholic population of the New World was pretty tiny.

And especially in the English colonies (with their noted hatred for Catholics), the population was beyond meager in terms of numbers.

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The southern colonies of Maryland, Virginia, Carolina and Georgia all had the established Church of England as the State religion. Only in Maryland was there breathing space for Catholics.

Maryland was founded in 1634 as a colony by Lord Baltimore for Catholics in England seeking refuge from persecution. So religious tolerance was granted, but it was a tolerance that permitted huge numbers of Protestants to flow in.

Eventually, they captured the House of Delegates in 1649, and tolerance for Catholics was brought to an end. Catholics were despised, persecuted and had laws erected against them in the colonial days.

For example, in Virginia, if a Catholic sought public office, he could be arrested, charged and fined 1,000 pounds of tobacco. In Maryland, it was illegal for a couple to be married by a Catholic priest. And so the list goes on, up and down the colonies.

In 11 of the 13 original colonies, Catholics were legally maltreated. And on a point of order here, it was not largely owing to dogma and doctrinal differences. It was the idea that the pope was a sovereign ruler as well, and the belief he would try to extend his rule to them as well.

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