A July 4 remembrance of America’s Catholic Founding Father

Of the 56 Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence, the last survivor was the lone Catholic, Charles Carroll of Maryland, a cousin to the country's first Catholic bishop and a man who believed that religious freedom is a core element of the American experiment.



Charles Carroll of Maryland was the lone Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and is today seen as a "forgotten patriot." (Credit: The Washington Standard.)

Mark Zimmermann
July 4, 2016
NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT

On July 4, 1826 - the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence - one of the most amazing coincidences in U.S. history unfolded. On that day, Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration’s author, and John Adams, perhaps its greatest advocate, died within hours of each other.

David McCullough’s masterful biography John Adams tells the poignant story of how the two patriots he called “the pen” and “the voice” of the Declaration, who had helped forge liberty in their new nation later became bitter political rivals but in their old age corresponded as friends.

But their rivalry even extended to their dying moments, as McCullough noted that Adams on his deathbed in Massachusetts whispered, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Yet earlier that afternoon, Jefferson had died in Virginia.

And then there was one.

The deaths of those two Founding Fathers left just Charles Carroll of Carrollton - the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence - as the sole survivor of the 56 men who had boldly added their signatures to the charter dated July 4, 1776, and the Marylander used that national spotlight to promote religious freedom, which he said was a central message of the new nation’s founding document.

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2016/07/04/july-4-remembrance-americas-catholic-founding-father/