Catholic Martyr for Interracial Marriage

A Sacrament of Love

The US Census really messes with racism in trying to classify people into ethnic groups. The mainstream media cites the US Census with authority without any sense of the contortionist use of language.

Too often the word "Hispanic" is used in a veiled way of saying "strangers among us" instead of Spanish speakers. The same is true with the use of "non-Hispanic white" which merely refers to English speakers, more specifically of European descent.

But here is the problem. Hispanic is European and American at the same time. Ever since Florida, which was part of Spain, became a US Territory in 1819, Hispanic culture is USA culture. Also, while Louisiana was mostly in possession of the French, Spain also ruled the area. The US acquired Louisiana in 1803. Los Adaes in Louisiana was once the capital of Spanish Texas (https://www.lastateparks.com/historic-sites/los-adaes-state-historic-site). Nebraska was visited by the Spanish military in 1720 (https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=53143). Yet much of this history gets left behind in text books. Yes, you can mention Irish and German Catholics as immigrants. But French Catholics and Spanish Catholics brought institutions which are often forgotten.

The Spanish and French brought Catholicism to the Americas. Secular academics largely ignore the impact of Christianity in the Age of Discovery and instead focus on racism, slavery, and colonialism. When Christianity is mentioned, the emphasis is on the rise of Protestant denominations and the Age of Enlightenment. However, Catholic missionaries, institutions, and the beliefs of Catholics influenced how many Americans interacted.

For example, Catholics view marriage as a sacred sacrament between a man and a woman, not merely a union of two people. This is why Catholics were instrumental in evading and opposing anti-miscegenation laws, the laws against interracial marriages.

Father James Edwin Coyle, of Irish ancestry, performed a marriage between two Catholics, a white woman and a Puerto Rican man in Alabama. For this, the Ku Klux Klan murdered him in 1921, and yet the murderer was exonerated at trial (https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/james-edwin-coyle/). Dare I mention the murderer was a Methodist?

And it does not end there. In a California case, Perez vs Sharp, a Catholic Caucasian woman, and Catholic Negro petitioned the Court to allow them to marry, as the state was forbidding it (https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/perez-v-sharp-26107). The year was 1947.

To quote, "Petitioners contend that the statutes in question are unconstitutional on the grounds that they prohibit the free exercise of their religion and deny to them the right to participate fully in the sacraments of that religion. They are members of the Roman Catholic Church. They maintain that since the church has no rule forbidding marriages between Negroes and Caucasians, they are entitled to receive the sacrament of matrimony." The petitioners prevailed and they were allowed to marry.

There are other examples of Catholics engaged in interracial marriage. If you look at the US Sacagawea dollar, you will notice this Native American woman is shown with a child. The child's father is French Catholic Toussaint Charbonneau, and his son Jean Baptiste was baptized Catholic in 1809 in Saint Louis (https://lewis-clark.org/people/jean-baptiste-charbonneau/charbonneaus-in-st-louis/). Missouri was not even a territory yet. Saint Louis was founded by French Catholic fur traders in 1764.

So, again, what is meant by “Hispanic”? What is meant by “non-Hispanic white”?