Reconstructing American History
A CHAIR of American secular history is to be established in the Catholic University at Washington. To this end a donation of fifty thousand dollars was recently made to the university by a Catholic organization—the Knights of Columbus. The purpose of this new chair will be to reconstruct American history in the interests of the Catholic Church. It will be, says the Catholic Mirror, to undo the work of Protestant historians, who “have been at work for generations misrepresenting the church and the part her sons have taken in advancing the cause of our country.” The works of these Protestant historians are, says the Mirror, full of “misrepresentations” and “malicious fabrications.” The nature of this reconstructive process which will be undertaken may be inferred from the statement made in Washington not long ago by a Catholic orator that “the American government is not only the most, but the first real Catholic government in history.” A good deal of reconstruction will be necessary to establish such assertions as this, and the process will necessarily involve the task of eliminating the great truth that the American government was founded on the Protestant principle of the separation of church and state.