In 1776, John Adams visited a Roman Catholic Church and wrote to his wife Abigail about his experience. It was not a miracle that the Protestant rebellion succeeded. It was a miracle it even started.
Many early European settlers were English Puritans. What is a Puritan? There is no clear answer. There were several different groups and their main doctrines changed every decade or so. Some groups followed French dominated Calvinist sects. Others not. However fickle their interpretation of God's laws, Puritan religious zeal remains famous.
Forced to flee England during the reign of Bloody Mary (souls sadly mislead in the Catholic's Blessed Mary Catholic version), one Puritan group fled to Switzerland. There, they published the Geneva Bible in 1560. Many of this group then migrated to Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Plymouth residents formed a compact, an agreement by which they agreed to live. They eventually banned the holiday Christmas, gambling, maypoles, and works of drama. Drinking alcohol was allowed in moderation; selling alcohol to natives encouraged; sex outside marriage forbidden.
Marital sex was encouraged. In fact, couples were disciplined for not performing their marital duties. Woman were granted some legal rights. They could divorce for good cause. One of every six divorce petitions alleged male impotence, many referencing some man named Limbaugh.
Like all true believers, Puritans disdained other religious sects, particularly hating Christian Quakers. In 1660, four Quakers were hung for entering Boston. In 1664, Massachusetts enacted an Act of Uniformity, which established government enforced worship rules.
England got involved. Or perhaps we should say the colonies followed events happening in England. In 1672, King Charles II finessed the Act by granting indulgences to any protestant sect. Indulgences had been made famous by Martin Luther, who protested about the Catholic Church selling them. Charles wanted to extend toleration to the Catholics; however, he was unable to pass that through Parliament. Catholics remained forbidden from English public office for another 140 years.
John Adams, a Founding Father and our second President, was born in 1735. By then, public religious killings had stopped; strict personal conduct rules relaxed. As in England following the end of Cromwell's commoners' reign, drama was again permitted.
A staunch Christian descended from Puritan stock, Adams was relatively open minded. Made famous by his defense of English soldiers tried for the Boston Massacre and for his writings urging the colonies break from English rule, Adams was elected to the Continental Congress and sent to Philadelphia. He filled his Sundays by visiting churches. Adams's wrote about his visit to the Catholic Church in a 1776 letter to his wife, Abigail.
“This afternoon, led by Curiosity and good Company I strolled away to Mother Church, or rather Grandmother Church, I mean the [Catholic’s] Roman Chapel.
“I heard a good, short, moral Essay upon the Duty of Parents to their Children, founded in justice and Charity, to take care of their Interests temporal and spiritual.
“This Afternoons Entertainment was to me, most awful and affecting. The poor Wretches, fingering their Beads, chanting Latin, not a Word of which they understood, their Pater Nosters and Ave Maria's. Their holy Water; their Crossing themselves perpetually; their Bowing to the Name of Jesus [when]ever they hear it; their Bowings, and kneelings, genuflections before the Altar.
“The Dress of the Priest was rich with lace. His Pulpit was Velvet and Gold. The Altar Piece was very rich. It had little Images and Crucifixes all about. The Church was well lit with [expensive] wax candles.
“[And] how shall I describe the Picture of our Saviour in a Frame of Marble over the Altar at full Length upon the Cross, in the Agonies, and the Blood dropping and streaming from his Wounds?
“The Music consisting of an organ and a choir of singers. They sang [almost all] the afternoon, excepting sermon time. And the Assembly chanted most sweetly and exquisitely.
“Here [I found] everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination. Everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
Adieu.
John Adams”