During the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., and conservative commentator Micheal Knowles spoke out against anti-Catholic bias and how it undermines America as “one nation under God.”
In his keynote address, Knowles argued that while American Catholics are no strangers to bigotry, he sees troubling clouds gathering on the horizon.
“Arthur Schlesinger Sr. famously regarded anti-Catholicism as the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” Knowles stated in his keynote address. “This nation was after all founded by people who thought Henry the Eighth didn’t go far enough,” Knowles said half-joking.
As a result of the anti-Catholic bias, Knowles continued by saying that “over the course of our history, legislators have banned Catholics from holding public office, the Know Nothings took over state houses and the leadership of Congress, Al Smith lost, and Kennedy barely won.”
“Our early American forbearers wrote constantly of their faith in providence,” Knowles added. “The Declaration of Independence concludes by professing a firm reliance of the protection of divine providence. Yet, here we find ourselves.”
Johnson mirrored Knowles remarks and reminded the over 1,500 attendees the importance the Christian faith has played throughout American history.
“Today we reflect on the essential role faith has always played in our lives. It is from the very birth of our nation that America has been sustained by prayer, and we rely upon our foundation of religion and morality,” Johnson stated. “It is in the DNA of who we are.”
Part of the anti-Catholic bias that has been seen in the United States throughout history, Johnson added, stems from the “misunderstood” notion that there must be a separation of church and state, which critics of the Catholic church have invoked to deter state and federal governments from adopting Catholic and Christian principles.
“That phrase derives from not the constitution but a personal letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association that says that religion lies solely between a man and his God,” he stated. “The First Amendment is a vital safeguard for our rights.”
Johnson elaborated by explaining that the country’s founders, specifically Jefferson and John Adams, “wanted to protect the church and the religious practice of citizens from an encroaching state, not the other way around.”
“Jefferson wrote that he revered that act of the American people which declared that legislature should make no law against the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation of church and state,” the speaker stated. “And they take that phrase, and they turn it around. Jefferson clearly did not mean that wall to keep religion from influencing our government and public life. To the contrary.”
“Our founders understood that a free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue,” Johnson added. Johnson quoted President George Washington, who said in his farewell address that “religious and morality are indispensable,” and Adams, who claimed “our Constitution is made only for moral and religious people.”
“The Founders wanted the flourishing of faith,” Johnson continued. “They knew that religion and moral virtue strengthen our nation by encouraging and inspiring things like individual responsibility, self-sacrifice, stability, family, community, the dignity of work and the rule of law.”
President Donald Trump, who could not attend the event, issued remarks read that were read at the event, which reminded the attendees that the Catholic “devotion to God and love of country, can transform our culture, inspire our government, and uplift our nation.”
The president reaffirmed his commitment to “defending the right of every Catholic to worship God freely and without fear.”