Posted on 05/10/2013 8:40:07 AM PDT by markomalley
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.
The story of the condemnation of “Americanism” is notably tangled. Even today, accounts of this crucial episode in Church history are often incomplete and biased. As the Americanization of U.S. Catholics becomes a matter of increasing contemporary concern, we need to get this story right.
Troubling reports drifted to Rome from the United States during the 1890s, and concern grew at the Vatican regarding conditions in the Church in America as well as American Catholicism’s influence on Catholics in Europe, especially in France. As the 19th century was drawing to a close, this anxiety hardened into suspicion of the Americanists and their French admirers.
In January 1895, Leo XIII fired a warning shot across the Americanist bow in the form of a letter to the Church in America. Lavishing praise on America and American Catholicism, the Pope nevertheless cautioned against things like divorce and secret societies and...
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
In this context, it has NOTHING to do with whether or not one loves his country.
When thinking about the heresy of "Americanism", think JFK...and his successors, Stretch, Biden, Lurch, and so on.
For those who are interested, you can read Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae here.
Yeah, because socialist Euro trash countries are so much more pious and moral?
To quote my earlier comment:
In terms of Catholic doctrine, "Americanism" means watering down the faith in order to fit in better within the local culture
Helps if you read before posting.
I am not catholic, but to be fair to Pope Leo, I think he is speaking of "professing Catholics". Most of the "Euro trash" you are so correctly referring to are not professing Catholics. I think he is concerned about the Catholic church in America who is doing things like wanting to ordain women priests, ignore abortion (even allowing Catholics, like Pelosi to take Holy Communion even as they vote for and condone Abortion), etc.
markomalley.... you beat me to it, I type slow.... and you are so right!
It's far more than that. From Wikipedia, warts and all:
Americanism refers to a group of related heresies which were defined as the endorsement of freedom of the press, liberalism, individualism, and complete separation of church and state.[citation needed] 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.Related threads on FR:The Americanist heresy is characterized as an insistence upon individual initiative which the Vatican judged to be incompatible with what European conservatives 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.[1]
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