Charles Carroll, the Catholic Founder: An Interview with Dr. Bradley J. Birzer

by Carl Olson

Dr. Bradley J. Birzer is the author of Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson and J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth. In this interview he talks with Carl E. Olson, editor of Ignatius Insight, about his most recent book, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll.

Ignatius Insight: Why a book about Charles Carroll? How did it come about?

Dr. Birzer: Thank you very much, Carl, for wanting to talk about American Cicero. I'm especially happy to talk about Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a man I have come to admire deeply in my study of him, the American Roman Catholic Church, and the American founding.

Congratulations to Brad Birzer and "American Cicero"

Our co-editor of the The Imaginative Conservative, Brad Birzer, has written an excellent new biography entitled American Cicero: The life of Charles Carroll.  From the book jacket: "Before his death in 1832, Charles Carroll of Carrollton--the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence--was widely regarded as one of the most important Founders.  Drawing on his considerable study of Carroll's published and unpublished writing, historian Bradley J. Birzer masterfully captures a man of supreme intellect, imagination, integrity, and accomplishment."

The book is the Knights of Columbus Book Club selection for August 2010.  Below is the Knights of Columbus announcement.  Congratulations Brad.

The Knights of Columbus is proud to feature historian Bradley Birzer’s new book, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll, for the August Book Club. In American Cicero, Birzer, a professor at Hillsdale College, resurrects the accomplishments and legacy of Charles Carroll, a leading Founding Father who overcame intense religious prejudice to become the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and an intellectual force in the creation of the new American Republic.