Americanism (heresy)

In the 1890s, European "continental conservative" clerics detected signs of modernism or classical liberalism, which Pope Pius IX had condemned in the Syllabus of Errors in 1864, among the beliefs and teachings of many members of the American Catholic hierarchy, who denied the charges.

[1] Pope Leo XIII wrote against these ideas in a letter to Cardinal James Gibbons, published as Testem benevolentiae nostrae.

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.

They agitated for social and philanthropic projects, for closer contacts between priests and parishioners, and for general cultivation of personal initiative, both in clergy and in laity.

They looked for inspiration to America, where 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.

[3] In the 1890s, this issue was brought forcefully to the attention of European Catholics by Comtesse de Ravilliax's translation of a biography of Isaac Hecker by the Paulist priest Walter Elliott in 1891; the book's introduction by Félix Klein drew ire from the Vatican.

In 1897, the movement received a new impetus when Denis J. O'Connell, former rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome, spoke on behalf of Hecker's ideas at the Catholic Congress in Fribourg.

[3] Some Catholics complained to the Pope, and in 1898, Charles Maignen wrote an ardent polemic against the new movement called Le Père Hecker, est-il un saint?

[6] Arthur Preuss (1871–1934) the foremost German American Catholic intellectual in the United States, was an outspoken enemy, filling his scholarly journal Fortnightly Review with criticisms of Americanist theology.

[12] Finally, in his letter Testem benevolentiae nostrae (January 22, 1899; "Witness to Our Benevolence")[13] addressed to James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, Leo condemned other forms of Americanism.

Pope Leo XIII also expressed concerns about the cultural liberalism of some American Catholics: he pointed out that the faithful could not decide doctrine for themselves.

"[19] John Ireland, archbishop of Saint Paul, Minnesota and a foremost modernizer, had to walk on eggshells to avoid condemnation for his views.