A Historical Introspection
Was George Washington a Catholic?
There exists a curious but little-known story about the death of the first President of the United States that sometimes comes up in Catholic circles. I first heard it related on a classical theism forum, but it is found in many Catholic corners of the internet. It goes like this:
In December 1799, as Washington lay dying of quinsy in his bed, he sent his slaves across the Potomac to fetch Father Francis Neale SJ, a Priest of the first Catholic church in Washington D.C., who quickly returned to Mount Vernon and spent four hours with Washington before he died. After the old General passed and Fr. Neale prepared to leave, he remarked to those present that they needn’t worry about Washington, for his soul was secure.
Subsequently, rumors passed among Washington’s slaves that he had been baptized a Catholic on his deathbed. This story was passed down and became part of a broader oral tradition concerning Washington and his life. The African American communities adjacent to Mount Vernon were, according to historian Martin I. J. Griffin, still repeating it at the turn of the 20th century (Griffin, 126). Intriguingly, the same story also circulated among the early Maryland Jesuits (Griffin, 124).
What are we to make of this strange tale? Could George Washington, the Father of America, really have converted to Catholicism in his final hours?
The War for Washington’s Soul
It is not hyperbole to say Washington’s religious views have been the subject of vigorous debate from the moment he breathed his last. The debate persists today. There is already “Washington the deist”, “Washington the devout Christian”, and “Washington the enigma”. Now, according to our story, there is also “Washington the Catholic”.
It is little wonder that everyone wants Washington in their corner, for he is the central figure in the founding of America.
Who was more instrumental in securing independence?
Who left a bigger mark on the fledgling United States?
Whose influence is still felt so strongly today?
Hamilton was never President. Madison’s military career was brief and inconsequential. Both Jefferson and Adams missed the Constitutional Convention. Washington, on the other hand, checks every box. He waged the War for Independence, held the Continental Army together in its darkest days, presided over the creation of the Constitution, and served as the new United States’ first President, setting innumerable precedents that we moderns take for granted. Washington is the American paragon.
The war for Washington’s soul is about much more than his political and military contributions to the nation, though. Washington is the real prize. His moral character was unrivaled; he demanded universal respect and esteem. While other founders were quasi-deified decades after they passed on, Washington was already larger than life while he lived. He was, after all, the man who would not be king.
When Britain’s King George III heard that Washington had resigned his military command at the end of 1783, he is said to have remarked, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world”. This monumental decision led Washington’s contemporaries to refer to him as the “American Cincinnatus”. Historian Gordon S. Wood called it “the greatest act of his life”. A decade later Washington relinquished power again, this time refusing to seek a third term as President, retiring instead to his Virginia estate, Mount Vernon, and cementing forever his legacy as a classical hero.
Washington was not merely publicly virtuous, either. “He was desirous not to offend”, Wood writes, “and he shaped his remarks exquisitely to fit the person to whom he was writing”.
French politician Jacques Pierre Brissot remarked that “his modesty is astonishing… He speaks of the American War, and of his victories, as of things in which he had no direction”.
Abigail Adams, who had a famously sharp tongue, once said of Washington, “No man ever lived, more deservedly loved and respected… If we look through the whole tenor of his life, history will not produce to us a parallel”.
By all accounts, Washington was disciplined, patient, unselfish, and august. What’s more, he was also the only major founder to emancipate his slaves.
Given his historic stature and impeccable character, which are no less extraordinary now, more than two hundred years later, it is obvious why local Catholics might have whispered in the wake of Washington’s death that he had joined the Church. It is also not hard to imagine how such whispers could have blossomed into rumors, eventually spawning the deathbed conversion story. This begs the question: What did Washington believe? Was he even a Christian, or was he “an unbeliever” as Jefferson once charged?
Washington’s God
Valuable as it may be to count Washington the classical hero among our own, he is not free for the taking. We know, for instance, that Washington was not a Quaker or a Puritan. Nor can the Presbyterians, Methodists, or Baptists claim him (though the latter have tried). And while it is impossible to say definitively what Washington believed — hence the never-ending debate — the available evidence does suggest he was a faithful, albeit simple, Christian.
Washington was Anglican by birth and grew up in a household “steeped in piety” (Chernow, 131). As an adult, he regularly attended Sunday service at Pohick Church near Mount Vernon, where he also served as a vestryman for more than two decades, and where he would have often heard (and possibly recited aloud) the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed. Neither travel nor his Presidential responsibilities prevented his regular church attendance. Washington even made a point to attend non-Anglican services — including Catholic mass — ostensibly to set an example of religious toleration for a people whose patience for denominations other than their own, historically, had not been high.
As President, Washington swore his oath of office on the Bible, which was not required, then kissed it. Though he did so infrequently, Washington “insisted publicly that nations, as well as individuals, have duties to the Creator… and must give him public thanks and even publicly beg his pardon for the sins of citizens of all ranks” (Novak, 220).
In his private correspondence, Washington wrote often of God, using a variety of names, including “Providence”, “Almighty God”, and the “Great Disposer of Human Events”. He was godfather to eight young children, a role which would have required him to participate in their baptism and profess his belief in the Trinity. Moreover, most of those who knew Washington best “regarded him as a model Christian” (Novak, 214). John Marshall, a close friend of Washington’s, once wrote he was a “sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man” (Chernow, 131).
Though supporters of the “deist Washington” thesis point out that he rarely took communion at Sunday services or used the name of Jesus Christ (even in his private letters), refused to publicly declare his specific religious beliefs even when asked directly, and was consistently stoic about matters of faith, Michael and Jana Novak counter in their book, Washington’s God, that none of these things are inconsistent with “Washington’s being a serious Christian who believed that he had a public vocation that required some tact regarding his private confessional life” (Novak, 219).
Indeed, Washington was hyperconscious of how others perceived his actions and thought it inappropriate as the head of government to publicly favor one religion or denomination over another. This calculated reticence to publicly express his personal beliefs has been misinterpreted by some historians as evidence of apathy or irreligiousness, when in fact it demonstrates how serious was Washington’s belief in religious freedom, a principle he considered “the very first imperative of government” (Novak, 116).
Historian Ron Chernow reminds us that Washington was “temperate in all things” and “never wanted to make a spectacle of his faith or trade on it as a politician” (Chernow, 131–132). Both Chernow and the Novak note that Washington’s private and public behavior were consistent with Anglican attitudes of the day. Anglicans were, overall, far less taken by the evangelical spirit of Baptists, Methodists, and others. Simply put, outward displays of faith weren’t the Anglican way, and they would have gone against Washington’s personal style. Nevertheless, both Chernow and the Novaks conclude that Washington was a faithful Christian.
Washington the Catholic?
Astute readers will undoubtedly note that Washington’s virtue and private Christian faith are not themselves evidence of a deathbed conversion to Catholicism. They do help us set the table, however. An unvirtuous man, for instance, has little need or patience for religion, nor do we find many revolutionary-era deists running into the arms of the Church in their old age. A virtuous man, on the other hand, may admire from afar a demanding faith, which Catholicism surely is, and a great multitude of faithful Protestants have found their way to Rome over the centuries.
There is further circumstantial evidence to consider. Washington owned hundreds of paintings (many of which you can view in the Mount Vernon e-museum), but only two can be classified as “religious”. One depicts St. John the Evangelist; the other is a portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which hung in his dining room. Chernow writes that Washington “believed in the need for good works as well as faith” (Chernow, 133), an attitude anathema to most Protestants, and as General of the Continental Army he banned the celebration of the explicitly anti-Catholic Guy Fawkes Day.
More suggestive still is the testimony of one of Washington’s slaves, Juba, who professed that Washington “always” made the sign of the cross before eating (Griffin, 123). Washington also helped fund the construction of a Catholic Church in Baltimore, and he was close friends with Archbishop John Carroll, the first Catholic Bishop in the United States. There were other Catholics in Washington’s circle, including Captain John Fitzgerald, one of his aides de camp in the first years of the War for Independence, and Commodore John Barry, who Washington appointed the first commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy in 1797.
Skeptics will rightly attempt to slam the door on such anecdotal evidence by pointing to Tobias Lear’s description of Washington’s final hours. Lear, who was Washington’s personal secretary, makes no mention of any clergy attending to Washington, nor of a final crisis of faith. Then again, neither does Lear record any last loving moments between Washington and his wife, Martha, who Lear places at the General’s bedside. If Lear omitted such personal details from his account, is it such a stretch to imagine him also concealing Washington’s last-minute conversion?
Griffin runs with this idea, arguing that were the story of Washington’s deathbed conversion true, we should expect it to “have been suppressed by all who surrounded him” for fear “that his memory would be tarnished” (Pg. 125). One must remember that Catholicism was despised in colonial America, and especially in Virginia, where government officials were forced to take an oath renouncing the transubstantiation of the Eucharist to prove they weren’t Catholic, and priests were only legally allowed to remain in the colony for five days at a time — essentially just long enough to pass through. Though the First Amendment gave Catholics legal protection to openly practice their faith, the Church was still so unpopular at the time of Washington’s death that news of his conversion would likely have produced a minor national scandal. This reality coupled with Washington’s grave concern for his own reputation constitute a substantial motive for those closest to him to keep secret his conversion, had it occurred.
Skeptics also raise the issue of Washington’s Freemasonry. Membership in Masonry is, of course, forbidden by the Catholic Church, and Washington was a committed, lifelong member. He was even buried in a Masonic funeral ceremony. Were the claim that Washington had secretly become Catholic several months or years earlier, this would be a potentially damning objection. However, the story in question concerns Washington’s deathbed conversion. His baptism would have been an implicit rejection of Freemasonry, and the subsequent funeral arrangements were obviously out of his control.
The Novaks — themselves practicing Catholics — argue that had Washington converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, it is strange that Bishop Carroll, who was a close friend of Washington’s and eulogized him shortly after his passing, never made any mention of it. But as we have already seen, there were practical reasons to keep such a conversion secret.
There is also the matter of the priest. Some versions of the conversion story, including the one I related at the outset of this article, place Father Francis Neale, SJ., at Mount Vernon. Others substitute his brother, Father Leonard Neale, SJ., who was then President of Georgetown University. Another leaves the priest unnamed, merely offering that he was an old Jesuit from a mission in Maryland. All versions agree, however, that the priest in question was a Maryland Jesuit, and, as mentioned earlier, the story of Washington’s conversion circulated among the Maryland Jesuits for decades after his death.
A final anecdote of interest is this: When the priest, whoever he was, returned to Maryland, he sought out his superior and, though he refused to relate what exactly transpired at Mount Vernon, gave him a sealed packet containing a written account of the events. The priest’s expressed intent was that it should be opened at some distant future date, long after everyone involved had died, and its contents made public for posterity.
Tantalizing as this story is, Griffin, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, says that the Jesuit archives both in America and Europe “have of recent years been thoroughly gone over” yet nothing concerning Washington was discovered. If such a packet or paper existed, Griffin asks, “why withhold it from the public?” To date, no such record has been found.
The Verdict
Weighing the evidence, what are we to believe?
Is it possible George Washington died a Catholic? Yes. Other prominent men such as the Roman Emperor Constantine, King Charles II of England, and actor John Wayne were received into the Catholic Church shortly before their deaths, so this story would not be unique to Washington.
Is it plausible George Washington died a Catholic? Considering that Washington was a lifelong, faithful Christian, maintained close friendships with such prominent Catholics as Bishop John Carroll, and was friendly toward the Church — maybe even harboring more serious Catholic sympathies — it is, in my estimation, plausible that Washington converted in his final hours. The oral tradition among the local Jesuits and Washington’s slaves is quite suggestive, and there is enough circumstantial evidence, such as his prominent display of a painting of Mary, to raise eyebrows.
Is it probable George Washington died a Catholic? Though the oral traditions and circumstantial evidence are enthralling, the glaring absence of the conversion story from the historical record prevents us from saying it is probable. To account for this absence, one must believe that Washington’s attendant, Thomas Lear, intentionally omitted the story from his description of Washington’s final hours and that Washington’s family, including Martha, never spoke of it to anyone. As we have seen, though there may have been a good reason to do this, we are forced to accept such a coverup on faith alone.
Griffin draws the same conclusion, writing that “outside of the possibility of the ever-powerful grace of God coming to Washington in his last hours as it has to countless thousands of whom the world never knew of as converts to Catholicity I know of nothing in Washington’s life that would cover the probability of his desiring the presence of a Priest or that he became a Catholic on his deathbed” (Pg. 129).
In the end, the curious story of Washington’s deathbed conversion to Catholicism is one of those enticing historical anecdotes the veracity of which will likely never be known. Though Washington probably did not become Catholic, it is not unreasonable to hope that as a faithful Christian, a man of great virtue, and a friend of the Catholic Church in a time and place in which she had very few, he may, by the grace of God be among the elect.
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