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Americanism (heresy)
Encyclopedia
Coined in the nineteenth century, in Roman Catholic use the term Americanism referred to a group of related heresies which were defined as the endorsement of the separation of church and state
. It was thought that these doctrines were held by and taught by many members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States of America in the 1890s.
The Americanist heresy is characterized as an insistence upon individual initiative which the Vatican judged to be incompatible with what was considered to be a fundamental principle of Catholicism: obedience to authority. Moreover, the conservatives were anti-republicans who distrusted and disliked the democratic ideas that were dominant in America.
Pope Leo XIII wrote against these ideas in his encyclical (Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae) to Cardinal James Gibbons. In 1898 Leo XIII lamented an America where church and state are "dissevered and divorced," and wrote of his preference for a closer relationship between the Catholic Church and the State, along European lines.
The Irish American
s, although outnumbered by the German Americans, controlled most of the Catholic colleges and seminaries in America, and comprised most of the bishops, beginning in the 1840s. The bishops largely shared the view that freedom of religion is a nobler idea than simple religious tolerance. Catholics in America were much freer than in British-run Ireland which had an established, analogous Anglican church (the Church of Ireland
).
Progressive Catholics in America advocated greater Catholic involvement in American culture, which some understood to mean that Roman Catholics should adapt its teachings to modern civilization.
This kind of pioneer-inspired reinvention alarmed Rome. Rumors spread among Europeans that an "Americanist" movement was sweeping the Catholic churches in the United States and would allegedly soon lead to the American Church claiming independence for itself.
(which began in 1870), the power and influence of French Catholicism steadily declined. The French government passed laws bearing more and more stringently on the Church, and the majority of French citizens did not object. Indeed, they began to look toward legislators and not to the clergy for guidance.
Observing this, and encouraged by the action of Pope Leo XIII
, who, in 1892 called on French Catholics loyally to accept the Republic, several young French priests set themselves to stop the decline in Church power. They determined that because the Church was predominantly sympathetic to the monarchists and hostile to the Republic, and because it held itself aloof from modern philosophies and practices, people had turned away from it. The progressive priests believed that the Church did too little to cultivate individual character, and put too much emphasis on the routine side of religious observance. They also noted that Catholicism was not making much use of modern means of propaganda, such as social movements, the organization of clubs, or the establishing of settlements. In short, the Church had not adapted to modern needs, and these priests endeavored to correct this. They began a domestic apostolate which had for one of its rallying cries, "Allons au peuple." ("Let us go to the people.") They agitated for social and philanthropic projects, for a closer relationship between priests and parishioners, and for general cultivation of personal initiative, both in clergy and in laity. Not unnaturally, they looked for inspiration to America. There they saw a vigorous Church among a free people, with priests publicly respected, and with a note of aggressive zeal in every project of Catholic enterprise.
In the 1890s this issue was brought forcefully to the attention of European Catholics by Comptesse de Ravilliax's translation of a biography of Isaac Thomas Hecker by Paulist father Walter Elliott, with the introduction by Abbé Felix Klein drawing the most ire from the Vatican. His biography, written in English by the Paulist Father Elliott in 1891, was translated into French six years later and proved an inspiration to the French.
Father Hecker had been dead for years at this point and had never been viewed by the Pope with disfavor. However this translation of Hecker's biography and Abbé Klein's introduction to the book made him appear to have been much more of a radical than he in fact was.
Hecker had sought to reach out to Protestant Americans by stressing certain points of Catholic teaching, but Leo understood this effort as a watering down of Catholic doctrine. Hecker also had used terms such as “natural virtue,” which to the pope suggested the Pelagian heresy. Because members of the Paulists took promises but not the vows of religious orders, many concluded that Hecker denied the need for external authority.
The French liberals particularly admired Father Hecker for his love of modern times and modern liberty and his devotion to liberal Catholicism. Indeed, they took him as a kind of patron saint. Inspired by Father Hecker's life and character, the activist French priests undertook the task of persuading their fellow-priests to accept the political system, and then to break out of their isolation, put themselves in touch with the intellectual life of the country, and take an active part in the work of social amelioration. In 1897 the movement received an impetus when Monsignor O'Connell, former Rector of the Pontifical North American College
in Rome, spoke in behalf of Father Hecker's ideas at the Catholic Congress in Fribourg
.
Many powerful Vatican authorities also detested the "Americanist" tendency, and whilst Pope Leo XIII was reluctant to chastise the American Catholics, whom he had often praised for their loyalty and faith, he eventually made concessions to the pressures upon him.
In the encyclical Longinqua oceani (1895; “Wide Expanse of the Ocean”), Leo indicated a generally positive view of the American Church, commenting mostly on the success of Catholicism in the US but also noting the view that the Church "would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority." Leo warned the American church hierarchy not to export their unique system of separation of church and state.
In 1898 Leo lamented an America where church and state are "dissevered and divorced," and wrote of his preference for a closer relationship between the Catholic Church and the State, along European lines.
Finally, in his pastoral letter Testem benevolentiae
(January 22, 1899; “Witness to Our Benevolence”) addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Leo condemned other forms of Americanism. Catholicism had long allowed nations to tolerate other religions, but the Church believes that the Catholic Faith must be favored, to the exclusion of other religions, when possible.
More relevant to this controversy, Pope Leo XIII expressed concerns about the liberalism
of some American Catholics: he pointed out that the faithful could not decide doctrine for themselves (see Cafeteria Catholic). He also emphasized that Catholics should obey the magisterial teaching authority
of the Church, which, according to Catholic doctrine, is infallible in matters of faith and morals. In general, he deemed exposing children to public schools as something to be avoided when possible. The Pope derided the idea that all opinions should be aired publicly, as he felt certain speech could harm general morality. He condemned the biography of Hecker and Americanism.
This document condemned the following doctrines or tendencies:
The brief did not assert that Hecker and the Americans had held any unsound doctrine on the above points. Instead, it merely stated that if such opinions did exist, the Pope called upon the hierarchy to eradicate them.
In response to Testem benevolentiae, Cardinal Gibbons and many other American prelates replied to Rome with a near-unanimous voice, denying that American Catholics held any of the condemned views. They asserted that Hecker had never countenanced the slightest departure from Catholic principles in their fullest and most strict application.
The disturbance caused by the condemnation was slight; almost the entire laity and a considerable part of the clergy were unaware of this affair. However, the pope's brief did end up strengthening the position of the conservatives in France. American Catholics claim that Leo's pronouncements effectively ended the Americanist movement and curtailed the activities of American progressive Catholics.
Separation of church and state
The concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
. It was thought that these doctrines were held by and taught by many members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States of America in the 1890s.
The Americanist heresy is characterized as an insistence upon individual initiative which the Vatican judged to be incompatible with what was considered to be a fundamental principle of Catholicism: obedience to authority. Moreover, the conservatives were anti-republicans who distrusted and disliked the democratic ideas that were dominant in America.
Pope Leo XIII wrote against these ideas in his encyclical (Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae) to Cardinal James Gibbons. In 1898 Leo XIII lamented an America where church and state are "dissevered and divorced," and wrote of his preference for a closer relationship between the Catholic Church and the State, along European lines.
Background
The Whitemarsh Constitutions in 1784 called for congregational election of pastors and lay control of parochial finances. Bishop John England in Charleston set up a Diocesan Constitution calling for popularly elected delegates in the dioceses.The Irish American
Irish American
Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau...
s, although outnumbered by the German Americans, controlled most of the Catholic colleges and seminaries in America, and comprised most of the bishops, beginning in the 1840s. The bishops largely shared the view that freedom of religion is a nobler idea than simple religious tolerance. Catholics in America were much freer than in British-run Ireland which had an established, analogous Anglican church (the Church of Ireland
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
).
Progressive Catholics in America advocated greater Catholic involvement in American culture, which some understood to mean that Roman Catholics should adapt its teachings to modern civilization.
This kind of pioneer-inspired reinvention alarmed Rome. Rumors spread among Europeans that an "Americanist" movement was sweeping the Catholic churches in the United States and would allegedly soon lead to the American Church claiming independence for itself.
Americanism in Europe
During the French Third RepublicFrench Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
(which began in 1870), the power and influence of French Catholicism steadily declined. The French government passed laws bearing more and more stringently on the Church, and the majority of French citizens did not object. Indeed, they began to look toward legislators and not to the clergy for guidance.
Observing this, and encouraged by the action of Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII , born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903...
, who, in 1892 called on French Catholics loyally to accept the Republic, several young French priests set themselves to stop the decline in Church power. They determined that because the Church was predominantly sympathetic to the monarchists and hostile to the Republic, and because it held itself aloof from modern philosophies and practices, people had turned away from it. The progressive priests believed that the Church did too little to cultivate individual character, and put too much emphasis on the routine side of religious observance. They also noted that Catholicism was not making much use of modern means of propaganda, such as social movements, the organization of clubs, or the establishing of settlements. In short, the Church had not adapted to modern needs, and these priests endeavored to correct this. They began a domestic apostolate which had for one of its rallying cries, "Allons au peuple." ("Let us go to the people.") They agitated for social and philanthropic projects, for a closer relationship between priests and parishioners, and for general cultivation of personal initiative, both in clergy and in laity. Not unnaturally, they looked for inspiration to America. There they saw a vigorous Church among a free people, with priests publicly respected, and with a note of aggressive zeal in every project of Catholic enterprise.
Isaac Hecker
Father Hecker had been dead for years at this point and had never been viewed by the Pope with disfavor. However this translation of Hecker's biography and Abbé Klein's introduction to the book made him appear to have been much more of a radical than he in fact was.
Hecker had sought to reach out to Protestant Americans by stressing certain points of Catholic teaching, but Leo understood this effort as a watering down of Catholic doctrine. Hecker also had used terms such as “natural virtue,” which to the pope suggested the Pelagian heresy. Because members of the Paulists took promises but not the vows of religious orders, many concluded that Hecker denied the need for external authority.
The French liberals particularly admired Father Hecker for his love of modern times and modern liberty and his devotion to liberal Catholicism. Indeed, they took him as a kind of patron saint. Inspired by Father Hecker's life and character, the activist French priests undertook the task of persuading their fellow-priests to accept the political system, and then to break out of their isolation, put themselves in touch with the intellectual life of the country, and take an active part in the work of social amelioration. In 1897 the movement received an impetus when Monsignor O'Connell, former Rector of the Pontifical North American College
Pontifical North American College
The Pontifical North American College is a Roman Catholic educational institution in Rome, Italy educating seminarians for the dioceses in the United States and providing a residence for American priests studying in Rome. It was founded in 1859 by Blessed Pope Pius IX and was granted pontifical...
in Rome, spoke in behalf of Father Hecker's ideas at the Catholic Congress in Fribourg
Fribourg
Fribourg is the capital of the Swiss canton of Fribourg and the district of Sarine. It is located on both sides of the river Saane/Sarine, on the Swiss plateau, and is an important economic, administrative and educational center on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland...
.
Opposition to Americanism
Conservative Catholics took alarm at what they considered to be symptoms of pernicious modernism or "Liberalism." They thought the "Allons au peuple" catchphrase had a ring of heresy, breaking down the divinely established distinction between the priest and the layman, and giving lay people too much power in Church affairs. The insistence upon individual initiative was judged to be incompatible with the obedience to the authority of the Church (due to the authority invested in the Bishops, and their successors, by Christ), that forms a fundamental principle of Catholicism. Moreover, the conservatives were, almost to a man, anti-republicans who distrusted and disliked the democratic abbés. They complained to the Pope, and in 1898, Abbé Maignan wrote an ardent polemic against the new movement called Le Père Hecker, est-il un saint? ("Is Father Hecker a Saint?").Many powerful Vatican authorities also detested the "Americanist" tendency, and whilst Pope Leo XIII was reluctant to chastise the American Catholics, whom he had often praised for their loyalty and faith, he eventually made concessions to the pressures upon him.
Suppression of Americanism
In 1898 Leo lamented an America where church and state are "dissevered and divorced," and wrote of his preference for a closer relationship between the Catholic Church and the State, along European lines.
Finally, in his pastoral letter Testem benevolentiae
Testem Benevolentiae
Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae is the name for an apostolic letter of Pope Leo XIII. The letter was addressed to "Our Beloved Son, James Gibbons, Cardinal Priest of the Title Sancta Maria, Beyond the Tiber, Archbishop of Baltimore", and was promulgated on January 22, 1899...
(January 22, 1899; “Witness to Our Benevolence”) addressed to Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Leo condemned other forms of Americanism. Catholicism had long allowed nations to tolerate other religions, but the Church believes that the Catholic Faith must be favored, to the exclusion of other religions, when possible.
More relevant to this controversy, Pope Leo XIII expressed concerns about the liberalism
Cultural liberalism
Cultural liberalism is a liberal view of society that stresses the freedom of individuals from cultural norms. It is often expressed, in the words of Thoreau as the right to "march to the beat of a different drummer"...
of some American Catholics: he pointed out that the faithful could not decide doctrine for themselves (see Cafeteria Catholic). He also emphasized that Catholics should obey the magisterial teaching authority
Magisterium
In the Catholic Church the Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church. This authority is understood to be embodied in the episcopacy, which is the aggregation of the current bishops of the Church in union with the Pope, led by the Bishop of Rome , who has authority over the bishops,...
of the Church, which, according to Catholic doctrine, is infallible in matters of faith and morals. In general, he deemed exposing children to public schools as something to be avoided when possible. The Pope derided the idea that all opinions should be aired publicly, as he felt certain speech could harm general morality. He condemned the biography of Hecker and Americanism.
This document condemned the following doctrines or tendencies:
- undue insistence on interior initiative in the spiritual life, as leading to disobedience
- attacks on religious vows, and disparagement of the value of religious orders in the modern world
- minimizing Catholic doctrine
- minimizing the importance of spiritual direction
The brief did not assert that Hecker and the Americans had held any unsound doctrine on the above points. Instead, it merely stated that if such opinions did exist, the Pope called upon the hierarchy to eradicate them.
The American response
The disturbance caused by the condemnation was slight; almost the entire laity and a considerable part of the clergy were unaware of this affair. However, the pope's brief did end up strengthening the position of the conservatives in France. American Catholics claim that Leo's pronouncements effectively ended the Americanist movement and curtailed the activities of American progressive Catholics.
See also
- American exceptionalismAmerican exceptionalismAmerican exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation," and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty,...
- Catholic Church in the United States
- City upon a HillCity upon a HillA City Upon A Hill is a phrase from the parable of Salt and Light in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:14, he tells his listeners, "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden."-American usage:...
- First Amendment to the United States ConstitutionFirst Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
- Holy See – United States relations
- Invincible ignorance fallacyInvincible ignorance fallacyThe invincible ignorance fallacy is a deductive fallacy of circularity where the person in question simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given...
- Separation of church and stateSeparation of church and stateThe concept of the separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state....
Further reading
- Murray, John Courtney. Religious liberty: Catholic struggles with pluralism (1993) 278 pages excerpts and text search
- Smith, Elwyn A. "The Fundamental Church-State Tradition of the Catholic Church in the United States." Church History 1969 38(4): 486-505. in JSTOR
- McAvoy, Thomas T. The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism 1895-1900 (1963) University of Notre Dame Press.