tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post4982722135950305254..comments2024-03-28T04:26:30.557-05:00Comments on Boston 1775: A Fifth of November Wagon Rolls AgainUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-85203526959758126122017-11-07T21:01:44.105-05:002017-11-07T21:01:44.105-05:00In this past weekend's reenactment of 5 Nov 17...In this past weekend's reenactment of 5 Nov 1767, the organizers chose to downplay the anti-Catholic imagery by not including a “Pope” among the effigies and referring to the event as the Fifth of November rather than Pope Night. <br /><br />However, the informational brochure that I drafted included paragraphs acknowledging that Boston’s Fifth of November tradition was anti-Catholic. That reflected not only New England’s Puritan heritage but also how patriotism was defined in the eighteenth-century British Empire as opposed to the Catholic powers of France and Spain, opposed to the Catholic Stuarts, and opposed to British Catholics having political rights.<br /><br />That brochure also pointed out that within ten years Boston went from celebrating Pope Night as usual to welcoming thousands of French soldiers and sailors to having a Catholic church in the town. That didn’t spell the end of anti-Catholicism in Massachusetts by any means, but it was a remarkable and unplanned effect of the American Revolution. J. L. Bellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15405157000473731801noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28102666.post-21983005011233880602017-11-07T14:08:10.729-05:002017-11-07T14:08:10.729-05:00One thing that I think gets forgotten about Pope N...One thing that I think gets forgotten about Pope Night/Guy Fawkes Day, is the anti-Catholic origins of these celebrations. Hatred against all things Catholic in early America was vitriolic and later led to extreme violence against Catholics. This distrust and hatred/fear was strong until not very long ago. Remember how much people questioned the legitimacy of a JFK administration all due to his faith? That was just over 50 years ago. I experienced it in the early 1970s in the form of teasing and bullying as I was the only Protestant kid living in a Catholic neighborhood in NE Philadelphia. Sometimes it bothers me when I see films like "V for Vendetta" that seem to forget/ignore that Guy Fawkes, the Gun Powder Plot, and it's aftermath were more about religion than politics. All in all, many of America's founders understood how religious differences could tear a nation apart, because they saw it with their own eyes. And it wasn't just Catholics that suffered extreme violence. For example, Baptists suffered much in Virginia. The elimination of religious tests and the First Amendment were born of the knowledge of how decisive religion can be. Unfortunately, then and now, Americans often ignore the wisdom of the founders and the spirit of the Constitution and engage in violence and hate speech against people of different faiths. One does not have to look around to hard today to see how true this is. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com