Paul Blanshard
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| Paul Blanshard | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 27, 1892 Fredericksburg, Ohio |
| Died | January 27, 1980 (aged 87) Florida |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Author, lawyer |
Paul Beecher Blanshard (August 27, 1892 – January 27, 1980) was a controversial author, lawyer, atheist, secular humanist, and outspoken critic of Catholicism. Paul and his twin brother Brand Blanshard were born in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Their parents were from Weston, Ontario. Orphaned at a young age, they were raised by their paternal grandmother. She moved to Detroit when the boys were teens. After graduation from Detroit Central High School, both youths attended the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1914.
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[edit] Education
Descended from three generations of Protestant ministers, Blanshard followed university by attending seminary. His theological instruction, however, produced an intellectual reaction. Paul submitted to ordination having already quietly lost his faith. Within one or two years he made public his renunciation of Christianity. Blanshard's humanistic and socialist political values started him off in a career with labor relations and union organizing. By nature and personality he was a reformer and muckraker. Blanshard decided to pursue credentials in Law, completing much of his studies in night school, and graduating LLB in 1937 from Brooklyn Law School.
[edit] Public office
Paul Blanshard brought his credentials and experience to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who appointed him head of the New York City Department of Investigations and Accounts. Blanshard's exposures of graft and corruption attracted national attention. These efforts were not possible without learning the complex role in power politics played by the occupant of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. This admixture of and contests of church and state provoked his curiosity. Fifty years old by the onset of World War Two, Blanshard served the State Department as an official in Washington and the Caribbean. As an intellectual atheist, he observed the role of religion in these settings generally, but began to focus more upon the specifics and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.
Blanshard was an associate editor of The Nation and served during the 1950s as that magazine's special correspondent in Uzbekistan. He is noted for writing American Freedom and Catholic Power.
Blanshard received a personal invitation from Pope John XXIII to attend Vatican II as a witness and reporter. He accepted the pope's offer and wrote a book about his experience and concerns about Roman Catholicism.
He was invited to attend the famous Houston Ministers Conference and spearhead the questioning of Catholic Presidential candidate Senator John F. Kennedy. Kennedy presumed that Blanshard would be there and studied the 1958 second edition of American Freedom and Catholic Power in preparation. Blanshard did not go to Houston. In his autobiography Blanshard explained his respect and admiration for John F. Kennedy.
One week after the inauguration of President Kennedy, Blanshard spoke to a crowd of three thousand at Constitution Hall in Washington on the subject of a Catholic President. Blanshard then represented Protestants and Others United for Separation of Church and State, now called Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The text of that speech was published in pamphlet form, and a speech audiotape is retained by Wheaton College.
[edit] Death
Paul Blanshard died in Florida at the age of 87.
[edit] Bibliography
Primary:
- 1923. An Outline of the British Labour Movement. G.H. Doran.
- 1927. Labor in southern cotton mills. New Republic.
- 1932. What's the Matter with New York. -with Norman Thomas, Macmillan Co.
- 1947. Democracy and Empire in the Caribbean. Macmillan Co.
- 1949. American Freedom and Catholic Power. Beacon Press.
- 1951. Communism, Democracy, and Catholic Power. Beacon Press.
- 1952. My Catholic Critics. Pamphlet, 52pp. Beacon Press.
- 1954. The Irish and Catholic Power. Beacon Press
- 1955. The Right to Read: The Battle Against Censorship. Beacon Press.
- 1958. American Freedom and Catholic Power, Revised 2nd Ed., Beacon Press.
- 1960. God and Man in Washington. Beacon Press.
- 1961. The Future of Catholic Power Speech to DAR, Am. United Sep. C & S
- 1962. Freedom and Catholic Power in Spain and Portugal. Beacon Press.
- 1963. Religion and the Schools -the great controversy. Beacon Press.
- 1966. Paul Blanshard on Vatican II. Beacon Press.
- 1973. Personal and Controversial -an Autobiography. Beacon Press.
- 1974. Some of my Best Friends are Christian. Open Court.
- 1977. Classics of Free Thought. Paul Blanshard, Editor. Prometheus.
Secondary:
- John Courtnay Murray, "Paul Blanshard and the New Nativism" (1951) short essay by leading Catholic theologian.
- Brand Blanshard, "My Brother Paul." Church and State, vol. XXXIII, no. 3 (March, 1980): 12-14.
- Barbara Welter, "From Maria Monk to Paul Blanshard: A Century of Protestant Anti-Catholicism." In Uncivil Religion: Interreligious Hostility in America, Robert N. Bellah and Frederick E. Greenspan, eds., 43-71. New York: Crossroad, 1987. Scholarly overview.
- James M. O'Neill, Catholicism and American Freedom, New York, Harper & Brothers, 1952.
