Also known as the American Protestant
Association) . . .
Although not well remembered today,
the great American popular movement of the late nineteenth century was
the American Protective Association, which preached
radical anti-Catholicism, and prepared to resist a feared Catholic coup d’état.
Founded in 1887, the movement’s support ran into the hundreds of thousands at
least, chiefly in the Midwest. Its founder was Henry F. Bowers, a Freemason, who
structured the movement on Masonic lines, with regalia, oaths and initiations.
The APA oath
specified that,
I do most solemnly promise
and swear that I will always, to the utmost of my ability, labor, plead and
wage a continuous warfare against ignorance and fanaticism; that I will use my
utmost power to strike the shackles and chains of blind obedience to the Roman
Catholic church from the hampered and bound consciences of a priest-ridden and
church-oppressed people; that I will never allow any one, a member of the Roman
Catholic church, to become a member of this order, I knowing him to be such;
that I will use my influence to promote the interest of all Protestants
everywhere in the world that I may be; that I will not employ a Roman Catholic
in any capacity if I can procure the services of a Protestant.
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