One of motives behind Benedict Arnold’s betrayal of the American army in our War of Independence was his hatred for the Catholic religion espoused by our French allies. He stated that the American Congress had betrayed the “cause” of the “Reformation” by attending a Mass offered for the souls of the deceased French soldiers who were killed in battle. He lamented that, to use his own words, “he had seen their mean and profligate Congress at Mass for the soul of a Roman Catholic in purgatory, and participating in the rites of a Church against whose anti-Christian corruptions their pious ancestors would have witnessed in their blood.”
