The Burning of Nottoway and the New Pope: American Identity and the Future of Catholicism, by Charles Coulombe

By Charles Coulombe, Crisis Magazine, May 30, 2025

Charles A. Coulombe is a contributing editor at Crisis and the magazine’s European correspondent. He previously served as a columnist for the Catholic Herald of London and a film critic for the National Catholic Register. A celebrated historian, his books include Puritan’s Empire and Star-Spangled Crown. He resides in Vienna, Austria and Los Angeles, California.

The secularizing Protestant institutions that kept Catholics in the background of American life since its founding are being razed. It is time for Catholics to gather the lost sheep.

The past six weeks have been filled with news in both the United States and the world at large. April 19 was the 250th anniversary of the battles of Lexington, Concord, and Menotomy, which opened the American Revolution, resulting in our independence in 1783. This semiquincentennial has received much less attention—outside the particular localities directly involved—than the bicentennial did 50 years ago. In addition, this year, the Triduum and Easter fell on the very weekend when the festivities began—Good Friday rather clashes in theme with remembrance of Paul Revere’s Ride.

Then, after record conversions recorded in many countries at the Holy Saturday vigil, Pope Francis died on Easter Monday; a frankly unpleasant and divisive pontificate came to an end. On May 8, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected pope as Leo XIV. Eight days later, in White Castle, Louisiana, Nottoway, the largest antebellum plantation home in the southern United States, burned to the ground. May 20 was the 1,700th anniversary of the opening of the Council of Nicaea. Disparate as all these events are, they each have a significance that is not unrelated to the others. …

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