Taft, a Unitarian, was a leader in the early 20th century of the favorable reappraisal of Catholicism's historic role. It tended to neutralize anti-Catholic sentiments, especially in the Far West where Protestantism was a weak force. Taft gave a speech at the Catholic University of Notre Dame in Indiana in 1904, praising the, "enterprise, courage, and fidelity to duty that distinguished those heroes of Spain who braved the then frightful dangers of the deep to carry Christianity and European civilization into" the Philippines. He in 1909 praised Junípero Serra as an "apostle, legislator, builder" who advanced "the beginning of civilization in California."