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Americanism

Opinions reproved by Leo XIII in Testem benevolentiae (22 January 1899): adapting doctrine to the age, preferring the active virtues, despising religious vows. The Hecker affair and Rome's answer.

Ignispedia

Americanism is the name given to certain opinions on the Christian life which Leo XIII reproved in his apostolic letter Testem benevolentiae, addressed to Cardinal Gibbons on 22 January 1899[1]. It is neither a separate Church, nor a complete system like Modernism, nor the 19th-century Catholic liberalism of which it is the American offshoot: it is a bundle of precise theses — adapting doctrine to the spirit of the age, preferring the so-called active virtues to the so-called passive virtues, despising religious vows, declaring all outward guidance needless for souls[2].

The affair was born of a book, not of a schism: the biography of Fr. Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulists, published in New York in 1891 by Fr. Walter Elliott, then translated into French in Paris in 1897 with a resounding preface by Abbé Félix Klein[3]. The French polemic that followed — Abbé Maignen publishing in 1898 Is Father Hecker a Saint? — compelled Rome to settle the matter[4].

The capital point, which the pope writes himself: neither Hecker, who died in 1888 in good standing with the Church, nor any American bishop is condemned by name; it is opinions that are condemned, and those concerned submitted at once[5]. The American hierarchy even testified that Hecker had never held anything of the kind[6]. The beatification cause of the Paulist founder, opened in 2008, is moreover following its course[7].

The affair: how a biography gave rise to reproved opinions

Isaac Hecker, the priest of the future

Isaac Thomas Hecker was born in New York on 18 December 1819 and died there on 22 December 1888[8]. A convert to Catholicism and an ordained priest, he founded in 1858 the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle — the Paulists — devoted to the evangelization of America and to dialogue with the democratic spirit of the country[9]. A mission preacher and founder of the review Catholic World, he embodied a confident missionary Catholicism: America, a land of religious liberty in fact, would be a chosen ground for the Church[10].

In his lifetime, Rome never addressed him the least reproach: he died in good standing with the Church, and his superiors as well as his bishops attested his orthodoxy[11]. It was after his death that his name became, in spite of himself, the banner of a controversy he had neither willed nor known.

The Elliott biography and the Klein preface

Three years after his death there appeared in New York the biography by Fr. Walter Elliott, of the same congregation: The Life of Father Hecker (1891)[12]. The book, hagiographical and ardent, presents Hecker as the model of the priest of the new age, shaped by American institutions[13].

The work crossed the Atlantic: a French translation appeared in Paris in 1897 — Le Père Hecker, fondateur des Paulistes américains — with a long preface by Abbé Félix Klein, an avowed admirer of the American bishops called liberals[14]. Klein overstates the case: he makes Hecker the saint of the future and American Catholicism the model old Europe should imitate[15]. It is this preface, far more than Elliott's book, that set fire to the powder: in France, where the anticlerical Republic had just closed schools and where monarchist Catholics distrusted anything American, the comparison sounded like a provocation[16].

Maignen counter-attacks, and Rome takes up the case

A stinging reply: Abbé Charles Maignen, a Lazarist and monarchist, published in 1898 his Études sur l'américanisme under the striking title Le Père Hecker est-il un saint ? (Rome-Paris)[17]. The work, bearing the imprimatur at Rome, dismantles Heckerian mysticism point by point and forges the word that would endure: "Americanism"[18]. Other pamphlets joined in on both sides — Delattre answered from Namur, Coppinger dissected the polemic in Paris[19].

The controversy grew so violent, in the press and even in seminaries, that the pope decided to examine the case himself[20]. It is this book-born genesis that the pontifical letter records in its own words:

"It is known to you, beloved son, that the biography of Isaac Thomas Hecker, especially through the action of those who undertook to translate or interpret it in a foreign language, has excited not a little controversy, on account of certain opinions brought forward concerning the way of leading Christian life."[21]

The American context also weighed: since the letter Longinqua oceani of 6 January 1895 on the Church in the United States, Rome had been closely following the divisions of the American episcopate between "conservatives" and "liberals" around Archbishop Ireland and Bishop Keane[22]. On 22 January 1899, in the twenty-first year of his pontificate, Leo XIII settled the matter by a letter addressed by name to Cardinal James Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, with orders to transmit a copy to all the bishops of the United States[23].

What Testem benevolentiae (22 January 1899) condemns

The letter, entitled Testem benevolentiae nostrae — "A Testimony of Our Benevolence" — opens with a reminder: it is an act of apostolic charity meant to extinguish disputes arisen among Americans "to the detriment of the peace of many souls"[24]. It then states the principle of the new opinions, before unfolding their conclusions one by one.

"The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions."[25]

Adapting doctrine to the spirit of the age

The first thesis targeted: it would be opportune, in order to win over dissenters, to omit certain points of the teaching "of lesser importance" and to soften the meaning the Church has always attached to them[26]. The pope's answer, supported by Vatican I: the doctrine of revealed faith was not proposed "as a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity," but entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ "to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared"[27].

"That meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, and it must never be departed from under the pretence or pretext of a deeper understanding."[28] (Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap. IV, quoted by Testem)

The deliberate silence which omits or neglects principles of doctrine is not innocent, Leo XIII adds: all principles come from the same Author, "the Only Begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father," and Christ commanded the nations to be taught "all things whatsoever I have commanded you"[29]. Far from isolating Catholics from the world, this firmness is the condition for the return of the separated — but "by no other way than that shown by Christ"[30] (Ignispedia translation).

The Church, the pope immediately makes clear, nonetheless knows how to accommodate herself to times and places as to the manner of life: she has always known, "her divine Master guiding her," how to make herself "all things to all men," in the words of St. Paul[31] (Ignispedia translation). But it is for her to judge of these accommodations, not for private persons "often deceived by the appearance of right": Pius VI already condemned, against the Synod of Pistoia (proposition 78), the claim of submitting ecclesiastical discipline to revision, as if the Church could enact useless laws or laws too heavy for human liberty to bear[32] (Ignispedia translation).

False liberty within the Church

The second thesis: since the Vatican Council defined pontifical infallibility, minds would henceforth be safe and each would have a wider and freer field, in thought as in action[33] (Ignispedia translation). The reasoning is "obviously faulty," the pope rules: from infallible authority one should conclude the opposite — that none must depart from it, and that minds find themselves better guarded by it against private error[34] (Ignispedia translation).

Above all, this claim confuses the Church with a voluntary human society: yet the Church is a divine society, and the difference has already been set forth in the letters on the constitution of States[35] (Ignispedia translation). Confusing licence with liberty, the passion for discussing and despising everything, the supposed right to profess any opinion whatever and to publish it: these are the dangers which "have wrapped minds in darkness" and make the magisterium more necessary than ever[36] (Ignispedia translation).

"We have no thought of rejecting all that modern industry and study have produced; far from it, We welcome into the heritage of truth all that aids the progress of knowledge and virtue. Yet all this, to be of solid profit, can exist and grow only on condition of recognizing the wisdom and authority of the Church."[37] (Ignispedia translation)

The outward guide declared needless

Then comes the gravest conclusion in the pope's eyes: for souls tending to Christian perfection, all outward direction would be superfluous, even needless — the Holy Spirit would now pour forth richer graces upon the faithful than in the past and would lead them without human intermediary, by a kind of hidden instinct[38] (Ignispedia translation). To presume to measure thus the mode of divine communication is a mark of "excessive confidence," since the Spirit "breatheth where He listeth"[39].

Certainly, the Spirit acts secretly in the souls of the just — to deny it would be the heresy already struck by canon 7 of the Council of Orange II[40]. But experience shows that these motions are most often received through the means of an outward doctrinal authority: St. Augustine teaches that the Spirit "waters and cultivates outwardly by the outward ministry of men" while Himself giving the inward increase[41] (Ignispedia translation). St. John Chrysostom declares that we are taught by God through the instrument of men[42] (Ignispedia translation). And the example of Saul is decisive: although he had heard the voice of the Lord Himself and asked "What wilt Thou have me to do?", he was ordered to enter Damascus and there to seek Ananias[43] (Ignispedia translation).

"Those who tend to perfection, walking thereby outside the beaten and known paths, are the most exposed to going astray, and therefore need a master and a guide more than others."[44] (Ignispedia translation)

To reject this guidance, proven by all the wise and the saints, would be both rash and dangerous[45] (Ignispedia translation). Note the contrast with Quietism, another error on the guidance of souls, but by the opposite excess — inward passivity — which this article does not develop[46].

Natural virtues preferred, the "passive" despised

The innovators, the letter continues, attach undue importance to the natural virtues, as though they answered better to the morals of the age and made man readier for action[47] (Ignispedia translation). Yet to prefer the natural to the supernatural is incomprehensible in Christians: nature, wounded by original sin, inclines to evil, and it is grace that raises it up and carries it "with new greatness and strength"[48] (Ignispedia translation). Even fine natural acts often offer only the appearance of virtue; and were the virtue real, "of what use would it be" without divine grace in view of eternal beatitude? St. Augustine said it: admirable is the strength and swift the race, "but outside the true path"[49] (Ignispedia translation).

Hence is born the famous division of the virtues into active and passive: to past ages the passive, to our own the active[50] (Ignispedia translation). An untenable division, the pope answers with St. Thomas: there is no purely passive virtue, for "virtue designates the perfection of a faculty, whose end is an act"[51] (Ignispedia translation). Christ, master and exemplar of all holiness, "yesterday and today, the same for ever," gave to all ages the same precept — "learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart" — and the same model: obedient unto death[52].

"Would to God that in our days these virtues were practised more, to the degree of the saints of past ages, who were mighty 'in word and in deed,' through humility, obedience and mortification — to the great advantage not only of religion, but of the State and the public good."[53] (Ignispedia translation)

Religious vows despised

From contempt for the so-called passive virtues to contempt for the religious life, "the step is short"[54] (Ignispedia translation). Some declare vows foreign to the spirit of the age, bounding human liberty, fit for weak minds, harmful to perfection and to the good of society[55] (Ignispedia translation). All this is false, and the practice as well as the doctrine of the Church prove it: she has always held the religious life in the highest esteem, in which men freely called content themselves not with the precepts but, going on to the evangelical counsels, show themselves "the ready and valiant soldiers of Christ"[56] (Ignispedia translation). Far from losing their liberty therein, they enjoy "that fuller and freer liberty, that by which Christ has made us free"[57] (Ignispedia translation).

The usefulness of the orders is before all eyes, even on American soil: is it not from the religious families that the United States received "the beginnings of faith as of culture" — to the point that a public statue has just been raised to one of these sons?[58] (Ignispedia translation) Even today, religious men and women carry the Gospel to distant lands amid dangers, furnish the Christian world with preachers, directors of conscience, educators of youth[59] (Ignispedia translation). And there is no difference of praise between the active and the contemplative life: "the continual prayer of the just man" appeases and draws down the blessings of heaven, especially when joined to bodily mortification[60] (Ignispedia translation).

Those who prefer to band together without the obligation of vows "may follow this way: it is neither new in the Church, nor in any way blameworthy"[61] (Ignispedia translation). Only let them beware of setting this state above the religious orders — in an age inclined to pleasures, higher esteem will be held for "those who, having left all things, have followed Christ"[62] (Ignispedia translation).

The method of apostolate: firmness and friendly conference

The last conclusion examined: the method hitherto used to bring back the erring should be abandoned for another[63] (Ignispedia translation). Prudence, the pope answers: not to neglect "what antiquity, by its long experience, has approved" and what apostolic authority teaches[64] (Ignispedia translation). The faithful serve the salvation of their neighbour through the duties of their state, uprightness of conduct, works of charity and instant prayer; clerics, through enlightened preaching, the splendour of ceremonies and above all "the exposition of that sound doctrine" which St. Paul inculcated into Titus and Timothy[65] (Ignispedia translation).

One novelty remains permitted, and even praised: to carry the word outside churches, in a suitable place, to non-Catholics, not to dispute but to confer amicably[66] (Ignispedia translation). But let these ministers be designated by the authority of the bishops, and chosen for their proven learning and virtue — for many, in America, are separated from the truth more through ignorance than through ill-will, and "could be brought back more easily to the one fold of Christ if this truth were set forth to them in a friendly and familiar way"[67] (Ignispedia translation).

The word itself: what the pope does not condemn

The letter closes on a capital distinction: if by "Americanism" is meant the gifts of mind proper to the American people, its political condition, its laws and customs, "there is no reason to take offence at the name"[68] (Ignispedia translation). But if by it is meant to exalt the reproved doctrines above, then the bishops of America would be the first to repudiate it "as most injurious to themselves and to their country" — for it would insinuate that there are among them men who would wish "the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world"[69] (Ignispedia translation).

"The true Church is one, by unity of doctrine as by unity of government, and she is Catholic too. God having placed the centre and foundation of unity in the chair of blessed Peter, she is rightly called the Roman Church, for 'where Peter is, there is the Church.'"[70]

And the pope cites the words of St. Jerome to Damasus, offered to every true Catholic: "Acknowledging no head but Christ, I am joined in communion with Your Holiness, that is, with the chair of Peter. I know that the Church was built upon him as upon his rock, and that whoever does not gather with you scatters"[71] (Ignispedia translation).

Chronology of the affair

  1. 1819
    Birth of Isaac Hecker
    New York, 18 December

    Born in New York, Isaac Thomas Hecker, future founder of the Paulists[72].

  2. 1858
    Foundation of the Paulists
    Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle

    Hecker founds with his companions the congregation devoted to the evangelization of America[73].

  3. 1888
    Death of Hecker
    New York, 22 December, in good standing with the Church

    The founder dies without Rome ever having addressed him the least reproach[74].

  4. 1891
    The Elliott biography
    New York

    Fr. Walter Elliott publishes The Life of Father Hecker, making him the model of the priest of the new age[75].

  5. 1895
    Longinqua oceani
    Rome, 6 January

    Leo XIII writes to the American bishops on the Church in the United States, against a background of episcopal divisions[76].

  6. 1897
    The Klein translation
    Paris

    The French translation appears with Abbé Félix Klein's resounding preface: the spark of the polemic[77].

  7. 1898
    Maignen replies
    Rome-Paris

    Abbé Maignen publishes Is Father Hecker a Saint? and forges the word "Americanism"[78].

  8. 1899
    Testem benevolentiae
    Rome, 22 January

    Leo XIII settles the matter by letter to Cardinal Gibbons, transmitted to all the American bishops[79].

  9. 2008
    Hecker Servant of God
    New York, January

    Opening of the beatification cause of the Paulist founder; the American bishops vote its advancement in November 2023[80].

The theses and the answer, in one table

Reproved opinionAnswer of Testem benevolentiae
Shaping the teaching on the spirit of the age, omitting "lesser" pointsThe revealed deposit is kept and declared, its once-declared meaning never abandoned (Vatican I)[81]
Each judges of accommodations to the ageFor the Church to judge, not private persons; the condemnation of Pistoia recalled[82]
Defined infallibility opens a freer field to eachThe opposite conclusion: not to depart from infallible authority[83]
The Church should work like a voluntary societyThe Church is a divine society, of another nature[84]
The soul tending to perfection needs no outward guideA guide is necessary, especially off the beaten paths; Saul and Ananias; Orange II; Augustine[85]
Natural virtues preferred; active against passiveNo purely passive virtue (St. Thomas); Christ the unchanging model; humility and obedience[86]
Vows foreign to the age, for weak minds, uselessReligious life highly approved; fuller liberty; the American harvest[87]
Abandoning the old method of bringing back the erringKeeping the ancient method; friendly conferences permitted under episcopal mandate[88]

Finding your way among modern heresies

ErrorAct striking itIts own angle — not to be confused
Catholic LiberalismMirari vos (1832), the Syllabus (1864), Immortale Dei (1885), Libertas (1888)Liberal doctrine itself: separation, modern liberties as absolute rights[89]
Americanism (this article)Testem benevolentiae (1899)The American offshoot: adapting doctrine, active virtues, despised vows, the guideless soul[90]
ModernismLamentabili and Pascendi (1907)The complete system: agnosticism, immanence, evolution of dogma[91]
The SillonNotre charge apostolique (1910)Democracy gone astray: a future city without the Church[92]
JansenismUnigenitus (1713), among othersThe opposite excess: rigorism, grace crushing liberty[93]
QuietismCoelestis Pastor (1687)The other error on the guidance of souls: inward passivity[94]

Why Hecker himself is not condemned

Cardinal James Gibbons, photograph of 1886. Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

The letter strikes opinions, not men: no proper name of an American appears in it[95]. And the facts vindicate this prudence. From the moment of publication, Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Ireland, Bishop Keane and Abbé Klein submitted — while denying they had ever held the reproved doctrines — and the incriminated biography was withdrawn from sale[96]. Better still: the hierarchy of the United States, almost unanimously, spontaneously attested that Hecker had never deviated from nor minimised any Catholic doctrine[97].

"On the occasion of the publication of the Brief Testem Benevolentiae, the hierarchy of the United States all but unanimously gave spontaneous testimony that Father Hecker had never countenanced any deviation from, or minimising of, Catholic doctrines."[98] (The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," 1910)

History has confirmed this judgment: the beatification cause of the Paulist founder was formally opened in the Archdiocese of New York in January 2008, earning him the title of Servant of God[99], and the American bishops voted on 14 November 2023 in Baltimore to advance his cause[100]. The "phantom heresy," as some historians call it, was thus condemned without a heretic named — a rare case, which explains why the dossier remains a reference whenever the temptation is reborn to buy the audience of the age at the price of the integrity of the deposit[101].

To go further

Notes and References

  1. Leo XIII, Testem benevolentiae nostrae, apostolic letter to Cardinal James Gibbons, Rome, St. Peter's, 22 January 1899, 21st year of the pontificate (full English text: papalencyclicals.net, Leo XIII section, "Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae"). The pope speaks therein of opinions "called by some, in their collective sense, Americanism."

    1

  2. Testem benevolentiae, body of the letter: adaptation of the teaching, increased liberty in the Church, outward guidance declared needless, natural virtues preferred, active/passive division, contempt for vows, new method of apostolate.

    2

  3. W. Elliott, The Life of Father Hecker, New York, 1891 (first, posthumous biography); French trans. Le Père Hecker, fondateur des "Paulistes" américains, Paris, 1897, with preface by Abbé Félix Klein (reissued 1898). Dating 1897: John Ireland papers guide, Minnesota Historical Society; mention 1898: bibliography of the Catholic Encyclopedia, art. "Testem Benevolentiae."

    3

  4. Ch. Maignen, Le Père Hecker est-il un saint ? (Études sur l'américanisme), Rome-Paris, 1898, with Roman imprimatur (CE bibliography, art. "Testem Benevolentiae"; Catholic Textbook Project, "The Pope Condemns a Phantom Heresy," 1899).

    4 17

  5. Encyclopedia.com, art. "Americanism": Ireland, Keane and Klein submitted at once while denying they had held the reproved doctrines; the Hecker biography was withdrawn from sale.

    5 96

  6. The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," vol. 7, New York, Robert Appleton, 1910 (via newadvent, cathen/07186a): quasi-unanimous spontaneous testimony of the American hierarchy in favour of Hecker's orthodoxy.

    6 97

  7. Paulist Fathers, "Isaac Hecker" notice (paulist.org): beatification cause formally opened in 2008, title of Servant of God; Western New York Catholic, 23 November 2023: diocesan phase opened in the Archdiocese of New York in January 2008.

    7 99

  8. The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," vol. 7, 1910: born in New York on 18 December 1819, died on 22 December 1888.

    8

  9. Paulist Fathers, "Isaac Hecker" notice: foundation of the Paulists (Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle) in 1858, mission of evangelizing America and of dialogue with the democratic spirit.

    9

  10. Encyclopedia.com, art. "Isaac Thomas Hecker": missionary conception — the Church must serve the needs of men, Catholicism will spread in the measure that its deeds equal its beliefs; founder of the review Catholic World.

    10

  11. FactMonster, art. "Hecker": neither Hecker nor any American priest namedly accused by the 1899 letter; The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," vol. 7, 1910 (via newadvent): quasi-unanimous spontaneous testimony of the American hierarchy in favour of his orthodoxy.

    11

  12. D. O'Brien, review "Isaac Hecker: An American Catholic" (The Free Library): first complete biography since Elliott's The Life of Father Hecker (1891); 1972 reprint.

    12

  13. W. Elliott, Life of Father Hecker (excerpts reproduced online, freecatholicebooks / 123freebook): account of the New York birth (18 December 1819) and portrait of a priest "marked" by American institutions.

    13

  14. John Ireland papers guide, Minnesota Historical Society (m0454.pdf): 1897 French translation with introduction by Abbé Félix Klein, "fervent admirer of Ireland and his views."

    14

  15. J. Pedlar, "Americanist Debates" (Tyndale, 2016): Klein takes liberties with Elliott's already hagiographical account to present Hecker as the model of the priest of the future and to praise liberal American Catholic life.

    15

  16. Encyclopedia.com, art. "Americanism": doctrines discussed in France following the translation; the pope expressly excludes from condemnation the legitimate use of the word for the qualities of the American people.

    16

  17. "Leo XIII and Americanism" notes (adventistlaymen, after the Acta Sanctae Sedis 31, 1899, pp. 470-479): Maignen publishes in 1898 to dispel the mystique created by Klein's Life; the Roman committee gives an unfavourable opinion on the doctrines called "Americanism."

    18

  18. CE bibliography, art. "Testem Benevolentiae" (via StudyLight): Delattre, Un Catholicisme américain (Namur, 1898); Coppinger, La Polémique française sur la Vie du père Hecker (Paris, 1898); Barry in the Liverpool Catholic press (9 December 1898).

    19

  19. Catholic Textbook Project, "The Pope Condemns a Phantom Heresy": the controversy grows so violent, verbally, that the pope decides to examine the case himself.

    20

  20. Testem benevolentiae, opening §: "It is known to you, beloved son, that the biography of Isaac Thomas Hecker, especially through the action of those who undertook to translate or interpret it in a foreign language, has excited not a little controversy, on account of certain opinions brought forward concerning the way of leading Christian life."

    21

  21. Leo XIII, Longinqua oceani, 6 January 1895, to the bishops of the United States: against a background of divisions between supporters of Ireland-Keane and conservatives, Rome keeps the American Church under close watch.

    22

  22. Testem benevolentiae, superscription: "to Our beloved Son James Gibbons, Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Archbishop of Baltimore," with care to have copies reach the bishops of the United States.

    23

  23. Testem benevolentiae, exordium: letter conceived "in that same spirit of apostolic charity," to stifle disputes arisen "to the detriment of the peace of many souls" (Ignispedia translation).

    24

  24. Testem benevolentiae, § of the principle: "the underlying principle of these new opinions is that [...] the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age."

    25

  25. Testem benevolentiae: it would be opportune, in order to win over dissenters, "to omit certain points of the teaching, of lesser importance, and to soften their meaning" (Ignispedia translation).

    26

  26. Vatican I, constitution Dei Filius (De fide catholica), chap. IV, 24 April 1870: revealed doctrine "was not proposed as a philosophical invention [...] but entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ" (quoted by Testem; Ignispedia translation).

    27

  27. Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap. IV: "that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared" (quoted by Testem).

    28

  28. Testem benevolentiae: all principles come from the same Author, "the Only Begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father" (Jn 1:18); "Going, therefore, teach ye all nations; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Mt 28:19); Vatican I, chap. III on divine and Catholic faith.

    29

  29. Testem benevolentiae: "nothing is nearer to our heart than the return of the separated, but by no other way than that shown by Christ" (Ignispedia translation).

    30

  30. Testem benevolentiae: the Church, guided by her divine Master, was from the beginning "what St. Paul said of himself: I became all things to all men, that I might save all" (1 Cor 9:22; Ignispedia translation).

    31

  31. Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, 28 August 1794, against proposition 78 of the Synod of Pistoia: injurious to the Church to submit her discipline to examination "as if the Church could enact a code of useless laws or laws heavier than human liberty can bear" (quoted by Testem; Ignispedia translation).

    32

  32. Testem benevolentiae: since the proclamation of the Vatican decree on the infallible magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, "nothing more can give concern on this point," and a wider and freer field would be opened to each (Ignispedia translation).

    33

  33. Testem benevolentiae: "such reasoning is obviously faulty" — one should conclude on the contrary that none must depart from infallible authority, which keeps minds safe from private error (Ignispedia translation).

    34

  34. Testem benevolentiae: reference to the apostolic letters on the constitution of States — difference between the Church, a divine society, and human social organizations which depend on the free choice of men (Ignispedia translation).

    35

  35. Testem benevolentiae: confusing licence with liberty, passion for discussing and despising everything, supposed right to profess and publish anything — evils which "have wrapped minds in darkness" and make the magisterium more necessary than ever (Ignispedia translation).

    36

  36. Testem benevolentiae: welcoming into the heritage of truth all that serves the progress of knowledge and virtue, "on condition of recognizing the wisdom and authority of the Church" (Ignispedia translation).

    37

  37. Testem benevolentiae: for souls tending to perfection, all outward direction would be superfluous, the Spirit pouring forth more abundant graces than before and leading by a hidden instinct (Ignispedia translation).

    38

  38. Testem benevolentiae: "The Spirit breatheth where He listeth" (Jn 3:8); "to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of the giving of Christ" (Eph 4:7).

    39

  39. Council of Orange II, canon 7 (quoted by Testem): whoever persuades himself that he can assent to the truth of the Gospel "without any illumination of the Holy Spirit [...] is deceived by a heretical spirit" (Ignispedia translation).

    40

  40. St. Augustine, De gratia Christi, chap. XIX (quoted by Testem): the Spirit "co-operates unto the fruit of good trees, which He waters and cultivates outwardly by the outward ministry of men, while Himself giving the inward increase" (Ignispedia translation).

    41

  41. St. John Chrysostom, Homily I In inscriptionem altaris (quoted by Testem): we are taught by God through the instrument of men (Ignispedia translation).

    42

  42. Acts 9 (quoted by Testem): Saul, having heard the Lord and asked "What wilt Thou have me to do?", receives the order to enter Damascus and there to seek Ananias: "arise, and go into the city, and there it shall be told thee what thou must do" (Ignispedia translation).

    43

  43. Testem benevolentiae: those who tend to perfection, walking off the beaten paths, "are the most exposed to going astray, and therefore need a master and a guide more than others" (Ignispedia translation).

    44

  44. Testem benevolentiae: to reject this universal guidance of the wise and the saints would be "a belief at once rash and dangerous" (Ignispedia translation).

    45

  45. Neighbouring article Quietism (condemned by Coelestis Pastor, 1687): the opposite error on the interior life — the soul's inaction under pretext of abandonment — left to its own article.

    46

  46. Testem benevolentiae: undue importance given to the natural virtues, as answering better to the morals of the age and making man readier for action (Ignispedia translation).

    47

  47. Testem benevolentiae: human nature, through original sin, inclines to evil; through grace it is raised up, "carried with new greatness and strength," and virtue becomes fruitful for eternal life (Ignispedia translation).

    48

  48. St. Augustine (quoted by Testem): "Admirable is the strength, and swift the race, but outside the true path" — on natural acts without grace (Ignispedia translation).

    49

  49. Testem benevolentiae: division of the virtues into active and passive, the passive for past ages, the active for our own (Ignispedia translation).

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  50. St. Thomas Aquinas (quoted by Testem): "virtue designates the perfection of a faculty, whose end is an act, and the act of virtue is naught else than the good use of free will" under grace (Ignispedia translation).

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  51. Testem benevolentiae: "those whom God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom 8:29); Christ "yesterday and today, the same for ever" (Heb 13:8); "learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart" (Mt 11:29).

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  52. Testem benevolentiae: wish that humility, obedience and mortification be practised "to the degree of the saints of past ages, mighty in word and in deed" — to the profit of religion, the State and the public good (Ignispedia translation).

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  53. Testem benevolentiae: "from this contempt of the angelic virtues, wrongly styled passive, the step was short to contempt for the religious life" (Ignispedia translation).

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  54. Testem benevolentiae: vows would be foreign to the spirit of the age, limiting liberty, fitting weak rather than strong minds, harmful to perfection and to social good (Ignispedia translation).

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  55. Testem benevolentiae: those whom the divine call has freely embraced this state, going on to the evangelical counsels, have shown themselves "the ready and valiant soldiers of Christ" (Ignispedia translation).

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  56. Testem benevolentiae: religious enjoy "that fuller and freer liberty, that by which Christ has made us free" (cf. Gal 4:31; Ignispedia translation).

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  57. Testem benevolentiae: the United States holds from the religious families "the beginnings of faith as of culture" — and has just erected a public statue to one of these sons (Ignispedia translation).

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  58. Testem benevolentiae: harvest of works of the religious families — missions in foreign lands amid dangers, preachers, directors of conscience, educators, examples of holiness (Ignispedia translation).

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  59. Testem benevolentiae: "the continual prayer of the just man" appeases and draws down the blessings of heaven, especially when joined to bodily mortification (cf. Jas 5:16; Ignispedia translation).

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  60. Testem benevolentiae: to form a body without the obligation of vows "is neither new in the Church, nor in any way blameworthy" (Ignispedia translation).

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  61. Testem benevolentiae: in an age inclined to pleasures, to hold in higher esteem "those who, having left all things, have followed Christ" (cf. Mt 19:27; Ignispedia translation).

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  62. Testem benevolentiae: abandoning the way hitherto used to bring back the erring, in favour of another, to be chosen (Ignispedia translation).

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  63. Testem benevolentiae: "it belongs not to prudence to neglect what antiquity, by its long experience, has approved" and what apostolic authority teaches (Ignispedia translation).

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  64. Testem benevolentiae: duties of state, uprightness, charity and prayer for the faithful; enlightened preaching, splendour of ceremonies and "exposition of that sound doctrine" inculcated by St. Paul into Titus and Timothy, for clerics (Ignispedia translation).

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  65. Testem benevolentiae: preaching outside churches, in a suitable place, "without seeking controversy, but in friendly conference" — a method "certainly without fault" (Ignispedia translation).

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  66. Testem benevolentiae: many, in America, are separated from the truth "more through ignorance than through ill-will" and could be brought back "to the one fold" by a friendly and familiar exposition (Ignispedia translation).

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  67. Testem benevolentiae: if "Americanism" designates the gifts proper to the American people, its political condition, its laws and customs, "there is no reason to take offence at the name" (Ignispedia translation).

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  68. Testem benevolentiae: to exalt the reproved doctrines would make men suspect those wishing "the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world" — the American bishops would be the first to condemn it (Ignispedia translation).

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  69. Testem benevolentiae: "where Peter is, there is the church" — the Church one by doctrine and government, Catholic, Roman by the chair of Peter.

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  70. St. Jerome to Damasus (quoted by Testem): "Acknowledging no head but Christ, I am joined in communion with Your Holiness, that is, with the chair of Peter [...] whoever does not gather with you scatters" (cf. Mt 12:30; Ignispedia translation).

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  71. The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," vol. 7, 1910: born in New York, 18 December 1819.

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  72. Paulist Fathers, "Isaac Hecker" notice: foundation of the Paulists in 1858.

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  73. The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," vol. 7, 1910: died in New York, 22 December 1888.

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  74. D. O'Brien, "Isaac Hecker: An American Catholic": Elliott's The Life of Father Hecker, 1891.

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  75. Leo XIII, Longinqua oceani, 6 January 1895.

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  76. John Ireland papers guide, Minnesota Historical Society: 1897 French translation with Klein preface; CE, "Testem Benevolentiae" bibliography: Klein trans., Paris, 1898.

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  77. Ch. Maignen, Le Père Hecker est-il un saint ?, Rome-Paris, 1898.

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  78. Testem benevolentiae, dating: "Given at Rome, from St. Peter's, the 22nd day of January, 1899, and the twenty-first of our pontificate."

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  79. Paulist Fathers, "Isaac Hecker" notice: cause opened in 2008; USCCB, 14 November 2023: advancement vote in Baltimore.

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  80. Vatican I, Dei Filius, chap. IV, quoted by Testem benevolentiae.

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  81. Testem benevolentiae: for the Church to judge of accommodations; reminder of Pius VI, Auctorem fidei (prop. 78 of Pistoia).

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  82. Testem benevolentiae: the decree on infallibility calls for not departing from authority, not for emancipating oneself from it.

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  83. Testem benevolentiae: the Church, a divine society, is not an organization depending on the free choice of men.

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  84. Testem benevolentiae: Orange II, canon 7; Augustine, De gratia Christi, XIX; Acts 9 (Saul and Ananias).

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  85. Testem benevolentiae: Thomas Aquinas on the act of virtue; Rom 8:29; Heb 13:8; Mt 11:29.

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  86. Testem benevolentiae: religious life highly approved; liberty "by which Christ has made us free"; the American harvest.

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  87. Testem benevolentiae: keeping the ancient method; friendly conferences outside churches under episcopal mandate.

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  88. Article Condemned Catholic Liberalism: Mirari vos (1832), the Syllabus (1864), Immortale Dei (1885), Libertas (1888).

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  89. Testem benevolentiae, 22 January 1899 (this article).

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  90. Article Modernism: Lamentabili and Pascendi (1907), 65 propositions, antimodernist oath.

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  91. Pius X, Notre charge apostolique, 25 August 1910 (article The Sillon, in progress).

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  92. Article Jansenism: rigorism on grace and the sacraments, Unigenitus (1713).

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  93. Article Quietism: passivity of the soul, Coelestis Pastor (1687).

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  94. Testem benevolentiae, full reading: no proper name of an American (Hecker, Gibbons excepted as addressee, Ireland, Keane, Klein) appears in the censures; FactMonster, art. "Hecker": controversy settled by the 1899 letter "without Hecker or any other American priest ever being namedly accused."

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  95. The Catholic Encyclopedia, "Isaac Thomas Hecker," vol. 7, 1910 (via newadvent): "on the occasion of the issue [...] of the Brief Testem Benevolentiae, the hierarchy in the United States all but unanimously gave spontaneous testimony that Father Hecker had never countenanced any deviation."

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  96. USCCB, statement of 14 November 2023 (usccb.org) and National Catholic Register: the American bishops vote in Baltimore to advance the beatification cause of the Servant of God Isaac Hecker.

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  97. Catholic Textbook Project, "The Pope Condemns a Phantom Heresy" (January 1899): the phrase "phantom heresy" for a condemnation without a named heretic; G. Weigel, "Catholic Americanism": the letter warned against attitudes deemed corrupting of the integrity of the faith.

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