FORT WAYNE, Ind. — When former White House strategist Steve Bannon
criticized the Catholic Church and the U.S. bishops for their views on
immigration, he resurrected widespread 19th-century anti-Catholic nativist
charges against the church and immigrants to the United States.
In an interview Sept. 10 on the CBS-TV program "60
Minutes," Bannon said that the bishops of the United States had "an
economic interest in illegal immigration" as "they need illegal
aliens to fill the pews."
Bannon, a Catholic, was responding to the bishops' defense of
young people, called "Dreamers," and support for the Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA, that protected them from arbitrary
deportation.
DACA is currently under legislative review and the bishops'
concern is that it will be abandoned.
Bannon's complaint of a political and economic ulterior motive
for the U.S. Catholic Church's traditional support of immigrants is one the
most persistent anti-Catholic legends of American politics.
The charge has been that Catholic immigrants represent an
unthinking electorate that will vote in lockstep according to the dictates of
the pope and the hierarchy. The pope and the U.S. bishops will control this
massive Catholic electorate and will wield their power to undermine American
democracy for their own benefit.
That argument was made a hundred times over in American history.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams waged political warfare over the Naturalization
Act of 1798 aimed at limiting newly arrived European "aliens" from
voting.
Rising on a tide of anti-immigrant fears, Lyman Beecher, father
of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" author Harriet Beecher Stowe, published
"The Plea for the West" in 1836. He argued that Catholic immigration
was a papal conspiracy to take over the Mississippi Valley.
The inventor of the wireless, Samuel F. B. Morse, claimed in 1835
that European Catholic royalty were flooding America with immigrants who would
soon coalesce as an army under the pope's direction.
The pre-Civil War, anti-Catholic nativist movement reached a
crescendo with the Know-Nothing party that was built on the fear of a Catholic
takeover of America through domination of the ballot box.
A centerpiece of the Know-Nothing movement was the call to deny
Irish immigrant Catholics access to the ballot box by requiring a minimum of 25
years residency before citizenship was granted. Other Know-Nothing proposals
included anti-papal test acts before taking political office. Catholics would
be specifically required to reject foreign — papal — influence.
After the Civil War, the nativist fear was that Catholic
immigrant voters egged on by their bishops would force state subsidies for
parochial schools to undermine the public school system.
In the midst of passing convent inspection laws and other
anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant nuisance legislation, numerous states would enact
so-called Blaine amendments to their state constitutions to prevent state
subsidies to Catholic schools no matter how "powerful" the Catholic
immigrant voting bloc became. Such 19th-century Blaine amendments remain in
place today in 37 state constitutions.
The American Protective Association — while conjuring up fears of
an armed Catholic uprising — argued in the late 19th century through the early
20th century for restrictions on Catholic immigration and for the closing of
Catholic schools as un-American entities brainwashing the young.
The "goo-goo" movement of political reform in the late
19th century and early 20th century, aimed at breaking the power of urban
political machines, was often a thinly disguised attack on the power of the
Catholic immigrant city voters allegedly controlled by local priests and
bishops.
Bannon's critique of the Catholic Church and its support of
immigrants is nothing new in the American experience. Yet at no point has it
ever been shown that the church has economically benefited from its position on
immigration or used its position politically.
In fact, the U.S. bishops have made a point of not interfering in
any way in the voting process. When the Trump administration announced earlier
this year that it would move to lift restrictions on the political involvement
of churches, the bishops were quick to point out that the Catholic Church in
the United States has never been involved in such activities and would continue
such a policy in the future no matter the legal status.
Lockwood is a columnist for Our Sunday Visitor, a
national Catholic newsweekly based in Huntington, Indiana. He is former
president of OSV.