Dallas, Texas, Oct 12, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The founding of the United States by mostly Protestant Enlightenment-educated thinkers was subtly influenced by Catholic political thought, claims Scott McDermott of Vanderbilt University.
While colonial leaders did not consciously draw on Catholic political thought, "it is fair to say that they unwittingly reinvented the medieval ideas of popular sovereignty and the natural law tradition, and that they also structured their new governments in a way consistent with Catholic political thought," said McDermott during a recent conference at the University of Dallas.
In fact, McDermott claims that the only Catholic to sign the Declaration, Charles Carroll, brought this Catholic influence to the table, reported the University of Dallas news bulletin.
Since Catholic education was illegal in his home state of Maryland, Carroll received a Catholic education in France from the Jesuits, who influenced Carroll’s political thought in their teaching that man had a right to resist tyranny, McDermott pointed out.