Orestes Brownson: The "American" G.K. Chesterton

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Any fans of Orestes Brownson here?

He has been called the “American” Chesterton. I only found out about him a few months ago, and have been amazed at his writings. I like him a lot better than GK Chesterton actually. It is strange that he is American yet you never hear about him!

He lived from 1803-1876. He was American and a Protestant convert to the faith.
It would be cool if Catholic Answers promoted his stuff. He is a great example of an American, a Catholic convert, a married man, and a lay apostle.

Here is an article about him from the Catholic Encyclopedia:’

http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Brownson

Here is a website with his writings: orestesbrownson.com

Many of his books, since they are so old are available for free on Google Books:
books.google.com/books?id=Mg5IAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Orestes+Brownson
 
I am somewhat familiar with him, and I agree. He is worth getting to know!

I did not realize how prolific an author he actually was until now. I first encountered his writing after reading about the life of Isaac Hecker, a man I have ever since admired.

If Brownson was an American Chesterton, Hecker was an American Newman. These two blazed a path from American Protestantism and free thinking right into the heart of the church. 🙂

A rich legacy they have left us, still waiting to be discovered under a layer of dust. Thank you so much for the links! 👍 I may be the very next fan 😉

Pax et Bonum,
 
I know him b/c of his connections with the Transcendentalists and with the Venerable John Henry Newman. It’s been several years since I studied the former so don’t recall the details except that he was appalled at where too much free judgement would take you. For the latter, Brownson caused Newman some trouble b/c of his concerns with the Cardinal’s “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” but later he said he’d misunderstood it.

When Newman was establishing the Catholic University in Ireland, he offered Brownson a position for Philosophy of Religion; he accepted. However this was about the time his articles on the Church being over the State caused quite a backlash in the U.S. and the Cardinal was strongly advised not to bring him aboard. So he wrote back, asked Brownson to hold off coming, telling him why.

I was also interested to find out he’s buried at the University of Notre Dame; I asked him to help the school with his prayers. It’s nice to know his works make good reading – I will add him to my reading list! And I’ll look into Fr. Hecker’s life as well, thanks for the tip!
 
I have only recently come into reading some of his works - what an intelligent man!
I was seeking arguments against the popular belief that extra ecclesiam nulla salus(e.g. No Salvation Outside the Church) can be essentially “gamed” through Invincible Ignorance. He shot that one to shreds centuries ago - telling us that Invincible Ignorance while mitigating culpability for sin has no means to imparts supernatural grace necessary for salvation. In other words Invincible Ignorance can NOT in and of itself substitute as a sacrament. The implication is we should net get at all comfortable in our pandering modern beliefs that “many” Protestants can be saved merely through ignorance of the necessity to be formal members of The Catholic Church. It puts the compulsion of evangelizing back to the forefront as a priority OVER the current focus on ecumenicalism.

An absolutely amazing man with an incredible range of vocabulary and languages.

👍

James
 
Those who advocate a rigorous position on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus ("outside the Church, there is no salvation) often encounter the argument that this is a heresy.

Brownson’s very public and prominent championing of this dogma, though later in his life, gives lie to this heresy argument. As the most prominent Catholic layman in America in the nineteenth century, he certainly would have been slapped down by official church sources if he had been promoting heresy.
 
rfpapcun said:
Those who advocate a rigorous position on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus ("outside the Church, there is no salvation) often encounter the argument that this is a heresy.

Brownson’s very public and prominent championing of this dogma, though later in his life, gives lie to this heresy argument. As the most prominent Catholic layman in America in the nineteenth century, he certainly would have been slapped down by official church sources if he had been promoting heresy.
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Reading the man I can see evidence of where the early roots of complacency developed in the early American Catholic Church. The east-coast big-city Catholic bishops like those overseeing the Boston dioceses publicly chastised him for his outspokenness that implicated them in their eagerness to embrace an early ecumenicalism. After reading some of his writings and iron-clad reason formed around Catholic Teachings it is very clear that American Catholic Bishops as pious as they were then relative to current standards were all too eager to accept the rapid growth and social uptake of The Church won through the material fruits of capitalist society - an all new phenomena to the Catholic history at that time. It looks to me like Brownson was forcing their hands on the wisdom of too much pandering to “Americana” and even collaborative ecumenical coexistence with non-Catholics in exchange for growth of the Church. Yet the man was very much a patriotic American as well who thought America would lead the world in virtue and freedom.

Frankly, it looks to me like the American Catholic Church started selling its soul way back then in the 1800’s when the bishops deliberately distanced themselves from thought-provoking men like Orestes Brownson - a man who clearly believed in ALL the Catholic teachings and was not shy about using the printing press to force the bishops to give an accounting for their attested faith and what they were actually doing at the time.

I love this man’s razor sharp mind and his inescapable logic and reasoning as well as his constant pointing to actual dogmatic teaching and scriptural support he used. He spoke with the conviction and clarity of an apostle.

James
 
CentralFLJames said:
Reading the man I can see evidence of where the early roots of complacency developed in the early American Catholic Church. The east-coast big-city Catholic bishops like those overseeing the Boston dioceses publicly chastised him for his outspokenness that implicated them in their eagerness to embrace an early ecumenicalism. After reading some of his writings and iron-clad reason formed around Catholic Teachings it is very clear that American Catholic Bishops as pious as they were then relative to current standards were all too eager to accept the rapid growth and social uptake of The Church won through the material fruits of capitalist society - an all new phenomena to the Catholic history at that time. It looks to me like Brownson was forcing their hands on the wisdom of too much pandering to “Americana” and even collaborative ecumenical coexistence with non-Catholics in exchange for growth of the Church. Yet the man was very much a patriotic American as well who thought America would lead the world in virtue and freedom.

Frankly, it looks to me like the American Catholic Church started selling its soul way back then in the 1800’s when the bishops deliberately distanced themselves from thought-provoking men like Orestes Brownson - a man who clearly believed in ALL the Catholic teachings and was not shy about using the printing press to force the bishops to give an accounting for their attested faith and what they were actually doing at the time.

I love this man’s razor sharp mind and his inescapable logic and reasoning as well as his constant pointing to actual dogmatic teaching and scriptural support he used. He spoke with the conviction and clarity of an apostle.

James
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Yes, they were Americanists going all the way back to Bishop John Carroll – surely a sad commentary on the Catholic Church in America.
 
Hesychios said:
I am somewhat familiar with him, and I agree. He is worth getting to know!

I did not realize how prolific an author he actually was until now. I first encountered his writing after reading about the life of Isaac Hecker, a man I have ever since admired.

If Brownson was an American Chesterton, Hecker was an American Newman. These two blazed a path from American Protestantism and free thinking right into the heart of the church. 🙂

A rich legacy they have left us, still waiting to be discovered under a layer of dust. Thank you so much for the links! 👍 I may be the very next fan 😉

Pax et Bonum,
Click to expand...
Hecker was a friend of Brownson but they had a falling out because of Hecker’s heretical opinions. Hecker was one of the founders of Paulist Fathers who were the first order to really promote Salvation outside the Church. The Paulist were in debates with Fr. Mueller a Redemptorist ( and the best religious orders in the 1800’s in USA-- 2 American saints) about he issue of salvation outside the Church.

Hecker’s Autobiography was translated into French and the French Bishops said it was one of the main causes of the Heresy of Americanism, later to evolve into Modernism. Leo XIII condemned Americanism and took the Primacy of the Baltimore See from the USA because of the denial of the Bishop of Baltimore that the heresy existed in the USA.

Orestes Brownson was given an award by Leo XIII for defender of the faith. He was buried at Notra Dame University main Church
 
notekris said:
I, too, just heard of him and found the society website but in the few days since the site has been taken down. Does anyone know if a new web presence is in the works?

http://www.orestesbrownson.com/
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Wow - that is too weird.
I would like to know what happened here. They were a small society of volunteers keeping his writings in the public domain. I hope they can bring it back online. There was not all that much material in terms of raw storage and documents so it would be a simple matter to rehost it all but I don’t know where to find the original writings that they scanned in.

James
 
I did some Intenet Domain ownership research through my providers “whois” service and found the site status record and the site administrator point of contact.

I have left voice mail and sent e-mail and am hoping to hear back soon.

Apparently the site name registration expired on 3 July 2009. They probably just forgot to renew the domain name (a minor $12 fee or so) and my fear is that domain-name sharks who patrol for these expiration’s may have grabbed the name and are going to start a bidding war to make the original owners buy it back at an exorbitant fee (how these parasites make a living over other’s mistakes). It can cost thousands of dollars sometimes to get back so they can go live again on the net and might just say “to heck with it then”. The site was run by a small volunteer society of Brownson enthusiasts and I doubt they have much financial funds to get their domain name back if they did lose it. Or they might be rehosting already and just need to be patient.

I should be able to find out what happened soon. I requested the admin if we might be able to get the materials for archive if he does not plan to go live with the site again under the same name or a new name (if somone did manage to steal his domain name after it expired). This way we might might be able to get CAF to agree archive the material here or else one of us can host the materials on another site for a minor fee.

Let’s see what comes out of my information request.

James
 
Great Internet sleuthing, CentralFLJames! I did download material from Google Books as well, but the site was so well done especially for a small group of volunteers.

I’m waiting for hopefully good news…
 
For all of those OAB fans out there - and for the ones who fear the catholicity is dwindling at the University of Notre dame - there is a wonderful student organization on campus called the Orestes Brownson Council on Catholicism and American Politics. It was founded a few years ago by a now student brother for the Eastern Province of the Dominicans and it is quite active on campus when it comes to promoting true Catholicism. Last year they spent a semester reading the documents of Vatican II to see what they really said and they have also read The Idea of a University, The Intellectual Life, Third Ways, and The American Republic by Brownson himself. The website, while outdated, is here: nd.edu/~obcnd/.

I must say I’m a bit partial to the whole thing as I was involved myself for a few years but honestly, it is a very good organization with a very high reputation among the greats at ND.
 
Thanks for the ND link - its good to see that there is still some few conservatives at that institution. It looked to me like Obama was essentially showing up to declare that the liberal secularists had a defacto fait accompli in claiming ND as another fallen Catholic institution and a new victory of annexed Catholic turf to thumb their noses at the Catholic Church.

As for the original site - I am starting to worry - the administrator of record for the old domain name has not responded. It might be worth while now looking for forensic evidence on the net at large for their society that may have made it into secondary linked sites or white-paper or club articles etc. I need another point of contact to see if we can get to all that scanned in material.

James
 
v1gilbert said:
I can’t get access to it. Is anyone else having issues? Orestes Brownson is great!
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I was just trying to use the site yesterday but its all locked out "forbidden’ again. I send another email to the site contact and no response. I don’t have a clue what is going on but I am getting tad paranoid since it seems like NO website on the Internet have any content of Orestes Brownson available anymore. Even the references in Wikipedia and New Advent are not resolving to active web pages in most cases. It really looks like his writings are almost being suppressed. Very weird.

James
 
That is strange. If you can let us know if anything new develops.
 
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