Paul Beecher Blanshard (August 27, 1892 - January 27, 1980) was a controversial author, lawyer, Humanist, and outspoken critic of Catholicism. Paul and his twin brother Brand Blanshard were born in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Their parents were from Weston, Ontario. Orphaned at a young age, they were raised by their paternal grandmother. She moved to Detroit when the boys were teens. After graduation from Detroit Central High School, both youths attended the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1914.

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  • Paul Beecher Blanshard (August 27, 1892 - January 27, 1980) was a controversial author, lawyer, Humanist, and outspoken critic of Catholicism. Paul and his twin brother Brand Blanshard were born in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Their parents were from Weston, Ontario. Orphaned at a young age, they were raised by their paternal grandmother. She moved to Detroit when the boys were teens. After graduation from Detroit Central High School, both youths attended the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1914. Descended from three generations of Protestant clergymen, Blanshard followed university by attending seminary. His theological instruction, however, produced an intellectual reaction. Paul submitted to ordination having already quietly experienced apostasy. Within one or two years he made public his renunciation of Christianity. Blanshard's humanistic and socialist political values started him off in a career with labor relations and union organizing. By nature and personality he was a reformer and muckraker. Blanshard decided to pursue credentials in Law, completing much of his studies in night school, and graduating LLB in 1937 from Brooklyn Law School. Paul Blanshard brought his credentials and experience to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who appointed him head of the New York City Department of Investigations and Accounts. Blanshard's exposures of graft and corruption attracted national attention. These efforts were not possible without learning the complex role in power politics played by the occupant of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. This admixture of and contests of church and state provoked his curiosity. Fifty years old by the onset of World War Two, Blanshard served the State Department as an official in Washington and the Caribbean. As an intellectual atheist, he observed the role of religion in these settings generally, but began to focus more upon the specifics and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Blanshard was an associate editor of The Nation and served during the 1950s as that magazine's special correspondent in Uzbekistan. He is noted for writing American Freedom and Catholic Power. It is often overlooked that Paul Beecher Blanshard received a personal invitation from Pope John XXIII to attend Vatican II as a witness and reporter. Blanshard accepted the pope's kind offer and wrote a book about his experience and concerns about Roman Catholicism. It is overlooked by history that Paul Blanshard was invited to attend the famous Houston Ministers Conference and spearhead the questioning of Catholic Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy. Senator Kennedy presumed Blanshard would be there and studied the 1958 second edition of American Freedom and Catholic Power in preparation. But Paul Blanshard deigned to go to Houston. In his autobiography Blanshard explained his respect and admiration for John F. Kennedy. One week after the inauguration of President Kennedy, Paul Blanshard spoke to a crowd of 3,000 at Constitution Hall in Washington, on the subject of a Catholic President. Blanshard then represented Protestants and Others United for Separation of Church and State,now called Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The text of that speech was published in pamphlet form, and a speech audiotape is retained by Wheaton College. Paul Blanshard died in Florida at the age of 87.
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  • Paul Beecher Blanshard (August 27, 1892 - January 27, 1980) was a controversial author, lawyer, Humanist, and outspoken critic of Catholicism. Paul and his twin brother Brand Blanshard were born in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Their parents were from Weston, Ontario. Orphaned at a young age, they were raised by their paternal grandmother. She moved to Detroit when the boys were teens. After graduation from Detroit Central High School, both youths attended the University of Michigan from 1910 to 1914.
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  • Paul Blanshard
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