AMERICANISM. - This term designates a doctrine and religious movement of a liberal and naturalistic inspiration, which developed within Catholicism at the end of the 19th century in the United States of America.
Indeed, the Americanists, while starting from the noble and praiseworthy intention of a more extensive and rapid spread of Catholicism, were jeopardizing the unity of the Roman Church. For this reason Leo XIII intervened with great promptness, condemning the error with the letter Testem benevolentiae of Jan. 22, 1899, addressed to Card. Gibbons, an admirer and supporter of the Paulists. The good intentions and perfect orthodoxy of the promoters of the new theories are unequivocally demonstrated by their prompt and unconditional submission to the words of the Supreme Pontiff.
DOCTRINE. - Expounding in a rapid synthesis the doctrinal content of the papal document, Americanism can be considered under a threefold aspect: apologetic, ascetic, and dogmatic.
Apologetic aspect. - Americanism came to light under the impulse of an apologetic concern, aiming to remove, as far as possible, all obstacles that might deter modern man from embracing the Catholic faith. The needs of the times should induce the Church to raise the prestige of Catholicism before all contemporary civilization by yielding to new demands whatever is perishable in what the Middle Ages transmitted to it, departing somewhat from ancient rigorism, mitigating old formulas, and passing over in silence certain truths too contrary to the modern mindset. It will be the task of missionaries and preachers to show themselves more condescending toward non-Catholics, insisting more on the truths that bring them closer rather than on the errors that separate them from the Church.
The teaching of the Gospel must be presented in a more appealing light and made more compliant with the current aspirations of the soul, in such a way as to make it fit better with human comprehension. To obey this urgent need for adaptation, the Church must restrict the exercise of its authority and leave each individual the opportunity to fully develop their private initiatives. All the more so because, after the definition of papal infallibility, the Pope is always in time to intervene effectively to correct any eventual deviations in the thinking of individual the faithful, who are left more free.
Such a way of feeling is in contrast with Catholic doctrine. The Vatican Council teaches that the truths of faith are immutable and derive entirely from God. It is therefore intuitive that they must all be taught without attenuations or reservations, and without variations in meaning. Changes are possible only in the disciplinary order and belong exclusively to religious authority. The Vatican definition, aiming rather to prevent than to correct error, has made the bond of dependence on the Roman Pontiff even tighter.
Ascetic aspect. - In the vain attempt to justify their singular claim to a broader freedom of thought and action, the Americanists appeal to the direct internal intervention of the Holy Spirit, whose influence, being today more fruitful than in the past, would render the spiritual direction of the external magisterium useless and superfluous. They also maintain that, to achieve Christian perfection, all study must be placed in the practice of natural virtues and in the performance of great external activity directed toward the good of society.
Natural virtues must be preferred to supernatural ones, and active ones to passive ones. The latter, such as obedience, humility, etc., were good and necessary in the past, when contingencies forced the Church to unite all its energies in a perfect cohesion of individual intellects and wills, with a view to a more complete triumph over schisms and heresies. But now that conditions have totally changed, passive virtues turn out to be more of an obstacle than anything to achieving perfection and contribute to forming weak and cowardly souls, rather than strong and manly ones. Hence the disdain and low esteem held by Americanists for religious vows, which they declare ill-suited to the modern spirit.
It is easy to grasp the incompatibility of these opinions with evangelical teaching. It suffices indeed to observe that all virtues, being operative habits, deserve the name of active, principally those that demand a greater effort of will and a greater sacrifice, such as obedience, humility, etc. Their importance does not change with time, just as Jesus Christ does not change, who taught them by example and word, making Himself "obedient unto death on a cross" and exhorting us to be, like Him, "meek and humble of heart." That broader influence of the Holy Spirit, which Americanism affirms for the present epoch, while on the one hand it is in open contradiction with the contempt for supernatural virtues and with the history of primitive Christianity, on the other hand would make spiritual direction even more necessary to discern divine inspirations from vain human illusions, which are far too easy in this field.
Dogmatic aspect. - Although Americanism remains principally upon the practical terrain of action, nevertheless it is not entirely foreign to the theoretical domain of ideas. There is, at the bottom of the attitudes and programs of these promoters of innovative opinions, a veiled naturalism, which is truly the fundamental idea, the dominant motive of Americanism: a naturalism overestimating man's possibilities, to the point of forgetting the intellectual, moral, and above all passional imbalance caused in him by sin, as well as the consequent necessity of grace for the attainment of the supreme end. In addition to this false conception, aiming to humanize Christianity, a strong current of liberalism must be noted, in which one can see a manifest return to Protestant doctrines on private inspiration.
On the whole, Americanism presents in germ many errors that were later condemned by Pius X under the collective name of modernism.
EMANUEL CHICETINI
AMERICAN PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION:
V. KNOW NOTHING.
AMERICAN WALDENSIAN AID SOCIETY:
V. VALDESI.