DuBourg's Defense of St. Mary's College: Apologetics and the Creation of a Catholic Identity in the Early American Republic

Abstract

When the Baltimore Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church issued a pastoral letter critical of St. Mary's College in 1811 it provided an opportunity for Louis DuBourg, the college's president, to respond with an apologetic defense of the college and of Catholicism more generally. In doing so he synthesized several strands of Catholic apologetics, including the via notarum, the utilitarianism that came to dominate French Catholic apologetics in the eighteenth century, the emphasis upon beauty and emotion that characterized Chateaubriand's Genuius of Christianity, and the earlier work of Bishop Bossuet critical of the doctrinal instability of protestantism. Aimed at a popular audience, DuBourg's apologetics created an identity for the American Catholic Church that emphasized its place within the largest part of worldwide Christianity, its role as educator of the best minds of Western civilization, and the beauty of its worship.