Anti-Catholicism in the United Kingdom nor was a Protestant heir any longer empowered to enter and enjoy the estate of his Catholic kinsman. However, the passing of this act was the occasion of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots (1780) in which the violence of the mob was especially directed against Lord Mansfield who had balked at various prosecutions under the statutes now repealed. The anti-clerical excesses of the French Revolution and the consequent emigration to England of Catholic priests from France led to a softening of opinion towards Catholics on the part of the English Anglican establishment, resulting in the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 which
Anti-Catholicism in the United States Anti-Catholicism in the United States Anti-Catholicism in the United States is historically deeply rooted in the anti-Catholic attitudes brought by British Protestants to the American colonies. Two types of anti-Catholic rhetoric existed in colonial society and continued into the following centuries. The first, derived from the theological heritage of the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars of the sixteenth century, consisted of the Biblical Anti-Christ and the Whore of Babylon variety and dominated anti-Catholic thought until the late seventeenth century. The second type was a secular variety which derived in part from xenophobic and ethnocentric nativist sentiments and distrust towards