In a virtual address, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told participants in a recent conference that “the Catholic faith has always been part of the American story.”
“The first Christian service on our soil was a Catholic Mass,” said Secretary of State Rubio. “The oldest permanent settlement in the United States is the town of St. Augustine planted by Spanish Catholics on the coastal sands of my home state of Florida. Catholic saints were martyred on American soil well over a century before the revolution began.”
Secretary Rubio addressed the conference at the Catholic University of America on April 9; the National Catholic Register published the transcript yesterday.