Michael Breidenbach | Ave Maria University (original) (raw)

Books by Michael Breidenbach

How early American Catholics justified secularism and overcame suspicions of disloyalty, transfor... more How early American Catholics justified secularism and overcame suspicions of disloyalty, transforming ideas of religious liberty in the process.

In colonial America, Catholics were presumed dangerous until proven loyal. Yet Catholics went on to sign the Declaration of Independence and helped to finalize the First Amendment to the Constitution. What explains this remarkable transformation? Michael Breidenbach shows how Catholic leaders emphasized their church’s own traditions—rather than Enlightenment liberalism—to secure the religious liberty that enabled their incorporation in American life.

Catholics responded to charges of disloyalty by denying papal infallibility and the pope’s authority to intervene in civil affairs. Rome staunchly rejected such dissent, but reform-minded Catholics justified their stance by looking to conciliarism, an intellectual tradition rooted in medieval Catholic thought yet compatible with a republican view of temporal independence and church-state separation. Drawing on new archival material, Breidenbach finds that early American Catholic leaders, including Maryland founder Cecil Calvert and members of the prominent Carroll family, relied on the conciliarist tradition to help institute religious toleration, including the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649.

The critical role of Catholics in establishing American church–state separation enjoins us to revise not only our sense of who the American founders were, but also our understanding of the sources of secularism. Church–state separation in America, generally understood as the product of a Protestant-driven Enlightenment, was in key respects derived from Catholic thinking. Our Dear-Bought Liberty therefore offers a dramatic departure from received wisdom, suggesting that religious liberty in America was not bestowed by liberal consensus but partly defined through the ingenuity of a persecuted minority.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Michael Breidenbach

The Cambridge Companion to the First Amendment and Religious Liberty, 2020

This chapter investigates the two non-establishment clauses in the U.S. Constitution: the no-reli... more This chapter investigates the two non-establishment clauses in the U.S. Constitution: the no-religious-test clause in Article VI, and the no-establishment-of-religion clause in the First Amendment. Since religious tests were the clearest manifestation of state sovereignty over religion, their prohibition in Article VI elided any notion of a “Church of the United States” even before the First Amendment. The federal oath-Congress’s first act-no longer required a denial of Catholic beliefs as previous oaths had, yet loyalty remained a prerequisite to securing religious liberty. The chapter then contends that the First Amendment establishment clause was based on what Congress had stated in 1783: that powers in “purely spiritual” matters were “reserved to the several States, individually.” Congress had declared this principle in response to the Holy See’s request for it to approve a Catholic bishop, and had thus renounced one of the rights of patronage that governments traditionally held over ecclesiastical affairs. This context adds to the original meaning of the establishment clause, for simply prohibiting a national church did not necessarily forbid this right of patronage.

Conventional understandings of Catholicism, especially the claim that the pope held temporal powe... more Conventional understandings of Catholicism, especially the claim that the pope held temporal power over all civil rulers, presented a signal challenge to early American Catholics’ civil and religious liberty. Yet reform-minded Catholics in the North Atlantic world asserted their independence from the temporal powers of external authorities, including the pope. Catholics who participated in the American founding, such as Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Carroll, drew from an intellectual tradition of conciliarism that was rooted in Catholic thought yet compatible with republicanism. The Carrolls’ public support of the nation’s foundational documents and their development of the American Catholic Church presented to the broader political and religious public a Catholic tradition that advocated not only a republican view of temporal independence but also a juridical, nonhierarchical understanding of church and state. Catholics of this sort were not a foil to American religious and political arrangements; instead, they fit their beliefs within the ideologies of the American founding and thereby answered Protestant charges that Catholics should be legally penalized. These conclusions offer compelling reasons to include the conciliarist tradition within the “multiple traditions approach” of American founding historiography.

This study argues that Aquinas’ account of tyranny grants citizens a surprisingly wide ambit for ... more This study argues that Aquinas’ account of tyranny grants citizens a surprisingly wide ambit for resistance to tyrants but that such actions demand a tall order for even the most virtuous citizens: knowledge of the hierarchy of ends in politics and the prudence to apply it under the pressure of a tyrannical government. We consider sections of the Summa Theologiae and De Regno, Aquinas’ most sustained discussion of tyranny, to demonstrate the theoretical illumination that the former provides of the latter. De Regno, we argue, presents a negative teaching of the best regime and citizen, one in which citizens are shown the need for their own virtue in discerning the roots of tyranny and their remedy. With the Summa, we show how such prudential decisions fit within the orders of charity and piety: the citizen must come to see love of country as intrinsically ordered to love of family and God. Ultimately, Aquinas’ resistance theory rests on a hierarchy of ends for civil government that orders both ruler and citizen to God.

A Dialogue on Presidential Challenges and Leadership: Papers of the 2007-2008 Center Fellows, ed. Julie E. Manus, 2008

This paper argues that the two warnings against internal factions and external alliances in Georg... more This paper argues that the two warnings against internal factions and external alliances in George Washington’s Farewell Address—often considered separate admonitions—are instead a unified rhetorical strategy to imagine a nation. In both his text and context, Washington constructs an “imagined community” specifically though his discourse on patriotism. While Washington’s stark contrasts between “true” and “false” patriotism would only widen the division of current U.S.
politics, Washington’s conception of patriotism ought to be emulated in the modern Presidency in order to advance a transcendent form of patriotism.

Other Publications by Michael Breidenbach

Washington Post, Sep 6, 2018

First Things, Apr 12, 2018

Arc of the Universe, Jan 10, 2018

Uncommon Sense, Sep 7, 2016

An unavoidable task in historical writing is beginning and ending within particular time periods,... more An unavoidable task in historical writing is beginning and ending within particular time periods, dates, or moments. But while a published article denotes its end—the publication date—historical writing often does not admit of a beginning. The genesis of an article, like the history that it tells, is multifaceted, yet can reveal the complex relationship between history and historian.

Book Reviews by Michael Breidenbach

William and Mary Quarterly, 2022

In her gracefully written and impressively researched Elizabeth Seton: American Saint, Catherine ... more In her gracefully written and impressively researched Elizabeth Seton: American Saint, Catherine O'Donnell exhumes the life of an American saint from the shallow grave of hagiography and places her within the rich context of the Atlantic world. In five parts, O'Donnell narrates the life of Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), the first American-born Catholic saint. This biography casts a spotlight on a Catholic woman-wife and widow, mother and Mother-whose story complicates American republican notions of freedom and authority. As a story of the currents influencing Seton's faith, moreover, Elizabeth Seton also demonstrates the importance of religion and belief for understanding the development of the Atlantic world. The book begins in part 1 with Seton's early life in late eighteenth-century New York, where she experienced a precarious prosperity in a commercial republic that harbored new ideas, goods, and diseases. She wed William Magee Seton, a Manhattan merchant whose business knitted their family to an Italian trading house, the Filicchis, who sought to convert Seton to their Catholic faith. When William died during a fateful journey to Italy in 1803, Seton, aged 29, was left a widow with five young children. The second part of the biography relates her spiritual turmoil after that tragedy, turmoil that was both soothed and stirred by the counsel of high-profile Episcopalian and Catholic clerics. In part 3, O'Donnell details Seton's conversion to Catholicism and its ambivalent effects on her personal relationships, social standing, and economic stability, while part 4 concerns the founding of her religious order, the Sisters of Charity of Saint Joseph. The final section of the biography presents a portrait of Mother Seton: her life as a religious superior, the development of her sisterhood, and the continual reinterpretation of her legacy. Though previous biographers have traced the broad contours of Seton's life, O'Donnell's analysis-based on an extensive archive of primary sources and enlivened by lyrical prose-renders Elizabeth Seton the definitive biography. The genre of biography presents certain challenges, especially when concerning the lives of saints. Its religious counterpart, the hagiography, does not let modern standards of historical evidence hinder its goal of increasing readers' piety. Recognizing this challenge, O'Donnell makes explicit how previous hagiographies have shaped Seton's story. For example, she notes that an unauthorized 1817 reproduction of one of Seton's private diaries by a sympathetic Presbyterian printer nearly led Seton to burn her writings, but her confessor, Reverend Simon William Gabriel Bruté de Rémur, mercifully prevented her

Pedagogy by Michael Breidenbach

College students often ask, "What should I major in?" These are some tips for students on choosin... more College students often ask, "What should I major in?" These are some tips for students on choosing a major in college from the perspective of a professor, mentor, and former undergraduate.

Review of Work by Michael Breidenbach

Law and Religion Forum, Jan 5, 2018

Arc of the Universe: Ethics and Global Justice, Sep 27, 2017

With the baseball post-season upon us, I think there's still time to work in a line to lead off-r... more With the baseball post-season upon us, I think there's still time to work in a line to lead off-readers may enjoy the religious history "double" in the July issue of the William and Mary Quarterly (paywalled, but abstracts here). Although this might seemed delayed analysis, it's still worth taking stock of. Keeping up the theme from last month of finding religion in the era of the American Revolution, the WMQ had two very interesting, religious history articles that deserve notice. Further, applause is deserved for WMQ publishing two fine pieces of scholarship. The first article comes from Michael Breidenbach (Ave Maria University) and is entitled "Conciliarism and the American Founding." Breidenbach reexamines Catholic political thought in America in the era of the American Revolution. This is useful for consideration, since many American patriots nourished a Protestantinspired anti-Catholicism that viewed Catholicism as hostile to liberty. Yet, alongside that rhetorical reality, actual Catholic leaders like John and Charles Carroll of Maryland functioned quite well, supported the Revolution, and were accepted as full American patriots. How might this occur? Breidenbach's answer is to recover the conciliarist theory as undergirding the Carrolls' efforts. Breidenbach reaches back into early modern European theological debates to trace Catholic voices that questioned papal infallibility and denied the popes had any temporal power outside of Rome. In the later 18th century, these positions were defended by English Jesuits and people like Rev. Joseph Berington at the Jesuit college in Liege. When the Carrolls advocated for these ideas, they took a transatlantic journey to root themselves in revolutionary America. By advocating against the temporal power of the pope, American conciliarists defused the chief suspicion held by many republicans. In telling this story, Breidenbach sheds light on American Catholicism in the revolutionary era. He demonstrates a path for American Catholics to make their way in an independent, Protestant-dominated America. To further that, the Carrolls also came to advocate full religious liberty in Maryland, the better to guarantee the full exercise of their faith. Breidenbach sees those two points as related: that conciliarist principles fully supported full religious liberty. Finally, Breidenbach helpfully brings in yet another stream of thought informing the American Revolution. In contrast to reductionistic accounts of the Revolution that privilege one viewpoint over all others (say, Lockean liberalism), Breidenbach is right to point out how revolutionaries drew on multiple intellectual and even religious streams to pull for independence. And that, it seems to me, is a helpful reminder for our general understanding of the Revolution. As if that weren't enough, turning one more page gives us yet another religious history article, this time by Kirsten Fischer (University of Minnesota). Fischer's article is on "Vitalism in America: Elihu Palmer's Radical Religion in the Early Republic." Fischer makes an interesting investigation into Palmer, who was regarded as one of the chief free-thinkers ("infidels") in the early republic-he was occasionally named as their "high priest." Palmer was thus, from one perspective, in the same camp as Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, and other Deists and Skeptics. Yet,

Ph.D. Dissertation by Michael Breidenbach

This dissertation identifies, traces, and examines a constellation of eighteenth-century Roman Ca... more This dissertation identifies, traces, and examines a constellation of eighteenth-century Roman Catholic discourses in the Atlantic World that were influenced by conciliarist constitutional theory. These political, apologetic, and theological texts primarily concerned the nature of papal temporal and spiritual power, the relationship between church and state, and the content and parameters of religious liberty. Among the influential figures in the political and religious landscape of the early American republic, European-educated Roman Catholic clerics and laymen appropriated the central theses of conciliarist thought, previously adumbrated by their coreligionists in diverse national ecclesiological movements like French Gallicanism and English Cisalpinism. Although most republican, liberal, and Protestant interpretations of early American political thought have neglected the importance of Roman Catholicism and conciliarism in particular, these American conciliarists were well within the Atlantic republican tradition, and they shared with most of their Protestant and Deist compatriots a rejection of papal temporal power, a commitment to constitutional republicanism, and an insistence on the rights of individual conscience and resistance. The adherence to conciliarist principles, especially the autonomous temporal power and jurisdiction of civil sovereigns, allowed Roman Catholics to be considered loyal citizens and therefore included in the constitutional protections of civil and religious liberty.

The most influential Roman Catholics in the early American republic were Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832) and John Carroll (1735-1815). They were inheritors of the Maryland tradition, whose 1632 founding by Lord Baltimore promised religious toleration based on conciliarist principles, as well as the eighteenth-century conciliarist debates in which they were immersed as students in France, modern-day Belgium, and England. This political and intellectual history provides an unexplored context for American Catholic political and religious thought, and illuminates Catholic support of American religious and civil liberty, despite the anti-Catholic political culture in which they were situated. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a member of the Continental Congress, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and senator of the Maryland and U.S. senates, where he drafted and contributed to America’s most consequential laws on religious liberty. Carrollton’s political contributions, as well as those of other American and British Catholics who helped to codify civil and religious liberty, challenge preconceived accounts of Catholic loyalty and British liberty, and offer new context for understanding the original meanings of the First Amendment. John Carroll, a Jesuit priest, also wrote in public support of American independence and religious liberty, and joined Carrollton in a congressional mission to Canada to seek Roman Catholic assistance in the revolutionary cause. As America’s first Roman Catholic bishop, John Carroll was the principal architect of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. His arguments against temporal interference from Rome ensured the institution of conciliarist practices, such as episcopal elections by national clergy, which would be consonant with American republicanism. The mark of the Carrolls’ imprimatur on this Catholic republicanism was evident in Tocqueville’s 1835 observation that American settlers had “escap[ed] from the authority of the Pope’, whose princely power was removed to create ‘conditions...more equal than in republics’. The legacy of the American conciliarist tradition continued through the twentieth century, when another American Jesuit, John Courtney Murray, invoked conciliarist principles in his defense of the Catholic Church’s modern declaration on religious liberty.