Newsletter

Welcome to the monthly newsletter of the Central Florida Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution (CFLSAR)! Our organization is dedicated to promoting patriotism, historical education, and the preservation of American freedom. In this newsletter, you will find updates on our chapter’s activities, information about upcoming events and programs, and articles related to American history and patriotism. We encourage you to get involved with our chapter and join us in our mission to honor and preserve the memory of the patriots who fought for our independence. Thank you for your interest in the CFLSAR!

October 2023

Compatriots,

Happy Fall! 

Although, here in Florida, that doesn’t signify much difference from the summer we just endured. Still, it’s a nice sentiment.

I’d like to invite you to the next monthly meeting of the Central Florida Chapter Sons of the American Revolution on Wednesday, October 11 at 6 PM. We meet at the Elks Lodge Winter Park, 4755 Howell Branch Road, Winter Park. 

Our Guest Speaker this month will be K. M. Waldvogel, author of Spies, Soldiers, Courier, and Sabateurs: Women of the American Revolution. Her book focuses on the courageous women who stepped out of the safety of their homes and risked their lives to help our country gain its independence. 

Dinner will be immediately after the opening this month. We are inviting the local Children of the American Revolution Societies to join in by zoom. Some of the children have early bedtimes.

The menu this month is Chianti braised beef, chicken cordon bleu, mashed potatoes with gravy, white rice, steamed broccoli, salad, rolls and dessert. Please RSVP to Phil Markoe at markoevikingsfan@aol.com or (407) 350-8143 so we can inform our incredible caterer how  many to expect. As usual, dinner is $25.00 per person, which covers our dinner costs and the room rental.

The Chapter has been approved to participate in the City of Orlando’s 2023 Veterans Day Parade. All Chapter members are encouraged to march with the Sons of Liberty Brigade color guard.. Wear something comfortable and patriotic and wave a smaller flag.

Michael Scroggins, the NSSAR Senior Director of Operations reports that the SAR Headquarters in Louisville will be going through a short term construction interruption that will delay us from responding for a period of time. Hopefully we will be able to answer questions or handle issues as we can during this period but understand there may be a delay in responses.  This will impact the Finance, Education, IT, Administrative, Genealogy, and Registrar functions.  This will impact both our email responses and telephone responses. The estimated window for this short term construction is starting today Monday, September 25th through November 30th provided everything goes according to plan. 

Don Lajoie reports that we are in the season for dues to be paid for the next year. If you would be so kind and fill out the attached form and along with your check mail it to the address provided. This year the SAR National Congress was held here in Orlando in July. The National staff presented a resolution to increase the National dues by $35, so now the National dues is $50. The dues for State and chapter are staying at $20 each. Please open the attachment and read the entire form than fill it out and mail with your check to the address provided (in the link below). If you have any questions please send me an email and I will respond quickly. The form that you are filling out is used to verify your contact information that we have on file. The deadline is Dec. 5th ’23 so that we can get our chapter files updated and send to the State chapter. Thank you for your timely submission of your form and dues.

Chaplain’s Corner
By
Michael J Meyer

As reported in my last article I will be writing a series on how religion shaped The United States of America. Last time we visited Martin Luther and the Reformation. Although Protestants made up between 95% to 97% of the New World population, Catholics made a much smaller showing but had a profound influence on our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. As we will see, their influence goes back as far as the Magna Carta.

I am going to include an excerpt from an article by Bradley J. Birzer, a Professor of History at Hillsdale College. This article was published by “The Catholic World Report”  July 3, 2023. Titled Catholicism and the American Founding

Republicanism, Libertarianism, and Catholicism

What’s ironic, of course, is that so much of what Americans—especially in the republican and patriotic tradition—have fought for, is deeply Catholic.

First, while Catholics and Protestants will almost certainly never cease to argue about the exact authority and role of Holy Scripture, they can agree that when the world was at its most dangerous, English monks preserved the Bible from invaders and the elements. Whatever its authorship, the Bible remains in the world because of the sacrifices of untold numbers of monks and priests of the Middle Ages.

Second, the common law of the German, Nordic, and Anglo-Saxon peoples is older than Christianity, but it was Catholicism and Catholics that sanctified it—whether by Alfred the Great and his Witan or the nobles and bishops at Runnymede in 1215, forcing the tyrant King John to sign the Magna Carta. Germanic medievals, broadly understood, recognized the common law—everything from a right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers to the right to be innocent until proven guilty—was older than the “memory of man,” thus being rooted in creation herself, revealed for the first time only when necessary.

Third, it was the very principle of subsidiarity as understood by every Catholic from Augustine through Aquinas through Bellarmine—that the American Protestants so cherished, not just in the religious realm but in the political realm as well. When the pilgrims appealed to it in their Mayflower Compact, they were appealing to a tradition that began in the earliest history of the Catholic Church, and was first and best explained by St. Augustine in his City of God.

Of the prominent American founders of the Revolution there were only two practicing Catholics, Charles Carroll of Carrollton and his cousin John “Jacky” Carroll. Though only two in number, they were mighty in influence. John, of course, would become the first archbishop in America, after the Vatican consulted, indirectly, with John’s close friend Benjamin Franklin. The other, Charles Carroll, was responsible not only for the independence of Maryland from Great Britain, but also a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the fountainhead behind the structure and purpose of the U.S. Senate as defined by the Constitution.

Portrait of Charles Carroll by Michael Laty (d. 1848); right: A map of the 13 colonies as they were in 1775. (Images: Wikipedia)

When Protestants challenged Charles Carroll’s patriotism, claiming he could not be loyal to both the American republic and to Rome, he answered with all honesty, piety, and intelligence—if one understands the essence of the American republic, he understands the essence of Catholicism. All were tied up together in the medieval history of the English people. “Not a single instance can be selected from our history of a law favourable to liberty obtained from government, but by the unanimous, steady, and spirited conduct of the people,” Carroll argued. “The great charter, the several confirmations of it, the petition of right, the bill of rights, were all the happy effects of force and necessity.” The Anglo-Saxon culture and constitution best manifested this spirit of liberty, Carroll believed, but the Norman conquest of 1066 destroyed it. “The liberties which the English under their Saxon kings, were wrested from them by the Norman conqueror; that invader intirely [sic] changed the ancient by introducing a new system of government, new laws, a new language and new manners.”

After all, Carroll must have wondered, especially after his Jesuit education, could one believe it pure coincidence that the Fourth Lateran Council, the Magna Carta, Thomas Aquinas, and Aquinas’s On Kingship, all appeared in the thirteenth century? Nowhere in any prior century could one see such a confluence of republican, libertarian, and Catholic ideas.

Natural Law, common law, Natural Rights, and localism—all so dear to the Founding—existed in 1776, simply put, because of the Catholic Church: its thinkers, its shepherds, and its adherents. Whatever the language used or misused, the “Spirit of ‘76” is the “Spirit of St. Thomas”.

In my recent “Florida Civics Seal of Excellence course” I learned that the terms “Natural Law and Natural Rights” are terms our founding fathers used, to mean “God Given”. They are not Laws and Rights bestowed on us by someone else to whom we would beholding, but by God Himself. Therefore, these Laws and Rights cannot be taken away by any mortal.  So when we hear the  words, “they are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable Rights….” we know these rights to be a gift from God.

Dear Lord,  we give thanks to our Catholic brethren and their contributions to the founding of this great nation. In your name. Amen.

September Minutes
Submitted by Phil Markoe

Program Minutes – Weds, September 13, 2023 

Central Florida Chapter, Florida Society SAR

Meeting Called to Order at 6:30pm.

Attendees:

Scott Cook (President) & Debbie Cook
Phil Markoe (Past President) & Kathy Markoe
Tyler Waddle & (2) Parents
Nakeem Blackmon & (2) Parents
John Meyer & Christopher Meyer (New Members) & (2) Parents
Harry Rinker (Vice President) & Linda Rinker
Gary Smith (Secretary)
Don Lajoie (Treasurer)
Michael Laliberte (New Member) & Patricia Laliberte
Andrew Sechler
Maynard Pittendreigh (Past President) 
Robin & Maria Preston
Reverend Jon Davis
Don Wise & Debbie Wise
Michael Meyer (Chaplin)
John Rose
Richard Branham
Charles M. Grist III & John M. Grist II (New Members)
David Esler (New Member)
Katie Campbell (President, DAR)


Daniel Morgan Camp #10 Color Guard: 
Compatriots Scott Cook, Harry Rinker, Robin Preston & Phil Markoe. 

Program Speaker: 
Harry Rinker – Your Family Heirloom Show & Tell.

Special Guests: 
Tyler Waddle & Parents (3rd Place Knights Essay Winner).
Nakeem Blackmon & Parents (Make-A-Wish Recipient).

Dinner Menu: 
Salad, Baked Chicken in Mushroom Sauce, Baked Ziti with Plain & Meat Sauces, Cheesy Potatoes, Garlic Bread, Rolls with Butter & Brownies.

Old Business:

New Business:

Meeting Adjourned at 8:15pm.