# America remains Catholics’ greatest home

**By:** Christopher Ruddy  
**Published:** 2026-07-04T10:00:00.000Z  
**Source:** [The Catholic Herald](https://thecatholicherald.com/article/america-remains-catholics-greatest-home)

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 The election of the first American pope last year is a remarkable moment in the history of both the Catholic Church and the United States. But it symbolised something far deeper than national pride. It reflects a relationship between America and Catholicism that has been developing since the birth of our republic.
For Catholics around the world, the selection of an American pope underscores the vitality of the Church in the United States. For Americans, it is a reminder that the Catholic faith – once viewed with suspicion in this country – has become inseparable from the American story.
I have often reflected on that remarkable history. Around 1990, I had the privilege of meeting former Congressman Hamilton Fish, then close to 100 years of age, who was one of the last living links to America’s earliest generations. Fish came from one of New York’s most distinguished political families. His father had served as a congressman. His grandfather, Hamilton Fish Sr., had been governor of New York, US senator and secretary of state under President Ulysses S. Grant.
Even more remarkable was what Congressman Fish told me about his own family history. His great-grandfather, Nicholas Fish, had personally known George Washington, serving as a young officer during the Revolutionary War before later becoming the first US Supervisor of the Port of New York under Washington’s administration.
The realisation struck me immediately. Here I was, speaking with someone whose own great-grandfather had personally known George Washington. History suddenly felt incredibly close.
Congressman Fish shared with me one story that has stayed with me ever since. When George Washington triumphantly entered New York City after the British evacuation in 1783, one of his earliest acts was to restore religious freedom by ordering Catholic churches reopened after years of restrictions under British occupation.
Whether one is Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or of another faith entirely, the symbolism is unmistakable. At the birth of our nation, America’s first president understood that genuine liberty required freedom of conscience for all believers. That commitment was especially meaningful because Catholics had not always been welcomed in the English colonies.
Anti-Catholic laws were common throughout much of colonial America. In several colonies Catholics were barred from holding office, practising openly or even worshipping publicly. The Revolution began changing that. Catholics played a vital role in Washington’s victory.
The Marquis de Lafayette, the young French Catholic aristocrat, became one of Washington’s closest military advisers and helped secure the decisive alliance with Catholic France that ultimately defeated Britain. Thousands of French soldiers and sailors – overwhelmingly Catholic – joined the American cause. Irish and German Catholics also served throughout the Continental Army despite often facing discrimination in civilian life. Men like Commodore John Barry, widely regarded as the father of the American Navy, became indispensable leaders in securing independence.
Washington understood their sacrifices. He recognised that America could never become a truly free nation while excluding citizens because of their religion. That insight became one of the defining characteristics of the American experiment.
Over the next century, millions of Catholic immigrants – especially from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland and Eastern Europe – arrived seeking precisely what America uniquely offered: the opportunity to practise their faith freely while building better lives for their families.
They transformed America. Catholics built schools, hospitals, charities, orphanages, universities and churches in every major city. They became police officers (my father was one), firefighters, factory workers, entrepreneurs, teachers and public servants.
They also fought America’s wars. During the Civil War, Catholics occupied important leadership positions on both sides, although the Union particularly benefited from outstanding Catholic officers. General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose family had been raised Catholic after his father’s death, became one of the Union’s most successful commanders. Admiral David Farragut, another Catholic, became the first admiral in US history and secured critical naval victories for the Union.
Generation after generation, Catholics continued serving with distinction through World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other conflicts. Their patriotism was never in doubt. By the twentieth century, the old prejudice against Catholics steadily gave way to acceptance. The election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 demonstrated that an American could faithfully serve both Church and country without conflict.
Today, Catholics remain one of America’s largest and most influential religious communities. Their political importance has only grown. In the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump carried the Catholic vote nationally, an achievement that reflected broader shifts among working-class, Hispanic and traditional Catholic voters. Once again, Catholics proved to be one of the country’s decisive swing constituencies. That should surprise no one.
Catholic social teaching has always emphasised the dignity of work, the importance of family, religious liberty, human life, personal responsibility and the common good. Those principles naturally resonate across party lines while encouraging Catholics to evaluate public life through moral rather than purely ideological lenses.
More fundamentally, Catholicism and the American founding share a profound philosophical compatibility. America’s Declaration of Independence proclaims that human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” Those rights do not come from government. They come from God.
That belief aligns closely with the Catholic understanding of natural law: that every person possesses inherent dignity because every human being is created in the image of God. The Constitution protects liberty not because government is supreme, but because government itself is limited.
The Catholic tradition likewise teaches that no earthly authority is absolute. Human rulers remain accountable to higher moral truths. Both traditions reject tyranny. Both affirm human dignity. Both recognise that freedom carries moral responsibility.
As members of the universal Church, Catholics also possess a unique global outlook. The Church welcomes believers from every race, language, nation and culture while remaining rooted in the timeless moral principles set down by Jesus and his apostles. That universal vision complements America’s own aspiration to become not merely a nation of one ethnicity or background, but a republic united by shared ideals and equal citizenship.
America has never been perfect. Neither has the Church. Both have struggled to live fully according to their highest principles. Yet together they have produced something extraordinary: perhaps the greatest experiment in religious liberty the world has ever known. The election of an American pope reminds us just how far both America and the Catholic Church have travelled together.
From Washington reopening Catholic churches after independence, to generations of immigrant families building parishes across the continent, to Catholic soldiers defending freedom, to today’s vibrant Catholic communities influencing every aspect of American life, the partnership has strengthened both institutions.
The United States remains the greatest home for Catholics not because it established one religion, but because it protected the freedom of all religions. That was George Washington’s vision. It remains America’s greatest strength. And it remains one of our greatest gifts to the world.

 Christopher Ruddy is CEO of Newsmax Inc., which broadcasts the Newsmax channel. He is a practising Catholic.

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