‘Americanism Heresy’: Myth or Fact?

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From the National Catholic Register:
On Jan. 22, 1899, Pope Leo XIII sent Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, leader of the American hierarchy, a document in the form of a letter whose opening words in Latin were Testem Benevolentiae (In Witness to Good Will). “It is clear, our beloved son,” Pope Leo wrote, “that those opinions that, taken as a whole, some designate as ‘Americanism’ cannot have our approval.”

Appalled, Cardinal Gibbons held up the document’s release in the United States for a week, until the publication of excerpts originating overseas forced his hand and moved him to give it to The Baltimore Sun. In a letter to a friend, the cardinal called it “very discouraging … that the American Church is not understood abroad.”

But the bishops of the Milwaukee province, a center of German-American Catholicism, said the errors condemned by Pope Leo were real.

(read on, at the link)
I found this to be an interesting piece by Russell Shaw. Worth the read.

If you haven’t read it before, a review of Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae is definitely worthwhile.

Interested in your thoughts on where we still see “Americanism” in the Church today…or did Pope Leo XIII’s letter to Cardinal Gibbons take care of it?
 
Just read the article. Very interesting. I also see that “americanists” are infected with the Puritanical spirit strong in early America. It leads to the independance that says not only can I “pull myself up with my own bootstraps” but I can also decide for myself what is true and what to believe. It also leads to the deformation of a “work ethic” to both say that inaction as contemplation is not worth much, and also to a lack of compassion for the “less than” in our society.

Off to read the Pope’s letter…
 
I would object to the title of this thread, which seems to imply that the heresy defined by a Pontiff might not actually be a real heresy.
 
Chatter163 said:
I would object to the title of this thread, which seems to imply that the heresy defined by a Pontiff might not actually be a real heresy.
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I just assumed he was using the convention from the News forums that the title of the thread has to match to title of the article.
 
Mrs_Sally said:
Just read the article. Very interesting. I also see that “americanists” are infected with the Puritanical spirit strong in early America. It leads to the independance that says not only can I “pull myself up with my own bootstraps” but I can also decide for myself what is true and what to believe.
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This notion is even older than this in fact. Alexis de Tocqueville calles this the “equality of conditions” a phemonena where 1=1=1=1 leads to a generalization that 1=1 in all aspects of potential expertise. So then people begin to say “What would he know better than me?” This is from Democracy in America first published 1835.

He also speaks of the tyranny of the majority which could resound rather well for any democracy (this is still almost certainly older. I want to say there are Roman works specifically on this mob rule but Tocqueville’s is more cultural than politcal.

I do have a question though, what exactly is Americanism? I’ve never heard about it before.
 
Elostirion said:
I do have a question though, what exactly is Americanism? I’ve never heard about it before.
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**AMERICANISM. **The movement propagated in the United States in the late nineteenth century which claimed that the Catholic Church should adjust its doctrines, especially in morality, to the culture of the people. Emphasizing the “active” virtues of social welfare and democratic equality, it underrated the “passive” virtues of humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority. Americanism was condemned by Pope Leo XIII in an apostolic letter, *Testem Benevolentiae *(January 22, 1899), addressed to Cardinal Gibbons

(From Fr. Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary)
 
What might be noted was that the Church was essentially under siege in France and the issue of democracy was not sitting well at all with Rome. Without knowing who it was who was proposing “that the Catholic Church should adjust its doctrines, especially in morality, to the culture of the people. Emphasizing the “active” virtues of social welfare and democratic equality, it underrated the “passive” virtues of humility and obedience to ecclesiastical authority.”

Nothing seems clear as to whether this was a group of Catholics, Catholics in general, individual (Catholic or otherwise) in academia, priests, bishops, protestants, or some other source. France was dealing with militant secularists pushing for a separation fo Church and state.

It would help to identify who the source of the issues in the United States was.
 
This is such a tough question and one that cannot be answered with out first defining terms. The fact that one poster responded that the title implied Americanism was not a heresy. That is not the point at all. “Phantom” does not mean that the Pope wrongly declared something a heresy that is not a heresy, but rather that the heresy he mentioned is not pervasive in the Catholic Church. No offense to the past Holy Father, but it should be expected that there is going to be a backlash (no, not us) if you name something after them. Think how the term papist hits people.

But if we get to the actual ways of wrong-thinkin that was defined in this term, I have to believe is is very prevalent today. How often do we still here people who brag about their pride, or that they “think for themselves?” Now while I know these things can be okay in some ways, I also know that people I know have these attitudes in a way contrary to Catholic thought.

Still, I think it more helpful to think in terms of the specific ways in which we view things askew to our Catholic faith instead of this label which fortunately has fallen into obscurity. Also, I think the “obstinate” part of heresy is missing as we often don’t even see this in ourselves.
 
It seems that this is still prevalent in fact, if not formally.
 
With this I am reminded of what another Pope said about modernism in America: It is the synthesis of all heresies.
 
There is a wonderful analysis of this by an Orthodox priest named Fr. Thomas Hopko, where he analyzed how the American state is a secular religion by nature. Is anyone interested in the podcast? I don’t think there is anything within those podcasts that would hurt your Catholic sensibilities, but it was an eyeopener for me to gain that perspective of how Americanism is at the very least parallel to a religion, if not a religion itself. He paints Lincoln and also Obama as somewhat of a Messiah-type, and he shows how the American buildings and monuments were meant to replace our churches, war heroes to replace our saints, etc.
 
A good book to read that will give someone an idea of the type of “attitude” that prompted the letter from Pope Leo is A Popular History of the Archdiocese of New York by Monsignor Florence Cohalan. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Off the top of my head I cannot recall the name of the priest, but he was the pastor of - well, dear me, I am getting old, I can’t even remember the name of the church now! :eek: Well, I simplified things and went and grabbed the book. 😃 Ah! Here he is - Fr. Edward McGlynn and he was the pastor of St. Stephen’s in Manhattan.

Actually, it was a biography Fr. Isaac Hecker, the founder of the Paulist Fathers, that sparked the whole thing.

Here is a portion from Monsignor Cohalan’s book:
The papal letter Testem Benevolentiae was issued on January 22, 1899 and sent through Cardinal Gibbons to the American hierarchy. It distinguished carefully between the Americanism which referred to the general characteristics of American society and institutions, which was not under discussion, and certain doctrinal errors and tendencies against which Rome wishes to warn the bishops. The basic principle of censurable Americanism was that the Church should modify her doctrines to suit modern civilization and to attract non-Catholics, passing over less attractive or important doctrines and adapting her teaching to popular theories and methods. Five points in particular were judged worthy of special mention: (1) the rejection of external spiritual direction as no longer necessary; (2) the extolling of natural over supernatural virtues; (3) the preference for active over passive virtues, a distinction the pope rejected because there are in fact no passive virtues; (4) the rejection of religious vows as incompatible with Christian liberty; (5) the adoption of new methods in apologetics and in the appeal to non-Catholics. Though these errors were censured, the pope did not say who held them, and he did not condemn the biography of Father Hecker.
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ConstantineTG said:
Ah, the founder of the Orthodox Church in America! 👍

What has he got to do with Americanism?
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He was condemned for it!

The reason he was against the Greek Catholics was they didn’t fit into his idea of an American church.
A bit to foreign looking!
 
UncleBill said:
He was condemned for it!

The reason he was against the Greek Catholics was they didn’t fit into his idea of an American church.
A bit to foreign looking!
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Interesting. I thought it was about Latinization.

I learned something new today 👍
 
ConstantineTG said:
Interesting. I thought it was about Latinization.

I learned something new today 👍
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He used Latinization as a means to attempt to achieve his dream of a homogenous American Church, where everyone said mass like the Irish. He wanted a Church with one set of customs, which was overly narrow, and it is a good thing his vision in the end was not fully realized.
 
I had never heard of that man or that plan. I also seemed to have missed the thread’s point entirely in my previous post.

That being said, Constantine mentioned an analysis where historical figures are essentially diefied. I would imagine this is easily extended to the founding fathers too. I always have a hard time looking at “The Apotheosis of George Washington” for these reasons. That is still a bit of a tangent.

And to respond to Lormar… Can’t say I’m surprised it was New York 😛
 
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