Catholic News Agency’s article “Was Squanto Catholic? What we know about this hero of the first Thanksgiving” (November 27, 2025) presents a naturalized account of Tisquantum’s life that obscures essential Catholic truths while promoting dangerous historical revisionism. The narrative centers on speculative claims about Squanto’s baptism by Spanish Franciscans while ignoring the Church’s divine mandate for the conversion of nations. The article states:
“It is apparently from these Franciscans that he received baptism and became Catholic, though it is not clear to what extent he was catechized and practiced his new faith.”
This equivocation reduces the sacrament of baptism to a cultural artifact rather than the supernatural regeneration described in De Baptismo (Council of Trent, Session VII). The article’s admission that “Native American culture was very spiritual” dangerously equates pagan animism with sanctifying grace, violating the Church’s constant teaching that “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” (outside the Church there is no salvation) as defined by Pope Boniface VIII in Unam Sanctam (1302).
