In an era of global conflict, both Maryland?s atypical beginnings and Baltimore Archbishop William Cardinal Keeler?s Feb. 6 journey to the ecumenical conference Christian Churches Together, in Pasadena, Calif., are instructive.
“[And] there?s definitely no American bishop who is stronger in Catholic-Jewish relations than Cardinal Keeler,” said Mount St. Mary?s University and Seminary church historian the Rev. Michael Roach. Keeler?s ample ecumenical embrace reflects Maryland?s origins and the early activism of its first Catholic bishop, John Carroll.
Founded by Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, as a refuge for English Catholics suffering under restrictive Anglican penal laws, Maryland came into being under special sufferance when Cecil?s brother, Leonard, landed the ships Ark and Dove at St. Clement?s Island (now Blakistone) on March 25, 1634.
That sufferance was an unusual religious prescription from Cecil to his brother, the prospective governor of the province: “to preserve peace and unity amongst all the passengers … and to treat the Protestants with as much mildness and favour as justice will require.”
It was a proviso that would not only strengthen Maryland?s appeal and success in its early years ? and its role as the “cradle” not only of American Catholicism but of other faiths as well ? but also serve, when formalized as the landmark Act of Toleration in 1649, the basis for the U.S. Constitution?s religious liberty clause.
It also bore the seeds of its own undoing, as tolerance in an age of religious persecution invited immigration, and this ? combined with the English civil war ? led to a Puritan coup d?etat in Maryland in 1652 and the repeal of the act, effectively barring Catholics (and Anglicans) from public office.
Restored amid continuing colonial religious strife in 1657, the Act of Toleration was ultimately replaced with the Church of England-establishing Act of Religion in 1692, which later imposed ? until the American Revolution ? the full force of English penal laws on the colony.
The seeds of tolerance, however, had already been planted in Maryland, which eventually witnessed a Catholic ? Charles Carroll ? sign the Declaration of Independence; the incubation of Methodism, Presbyterianism, Judaism and other faiths in the Maryland.
“[It was the] first experiment in religious tolerance in the West.” said Tricia Pyne, archivist for the Baltimore Catholic Archdiocese.
