Anti-Catholicism in early America was imported from Europe, not locally generated

Evidence

By 1791, when the First Amendment was passed, twelve states required religious tests in order to hold public office and five paid salaries of Christian ministers from taxes. At the time, Catholics were under 1 percent of the population, evincing that anti-Catholicism was primarily an importation of European prejudices, not an outgrowth of local conditions. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 284

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the contrast between ideology-driven and demographics-driven prejudice found later in paragraph 287. — connects to: The word populism originated with American Midwest farmers, not Europe — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 58
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what exact mechanisms carried European anti-Catholic prejudice across the Atlantic — printed tracts, settlers, church correspondence?