AMERICANISM AND THE PAPACY.
CARDINAL GIBBONS has replied to the long letter addressed to him as the leading ecclesiastic in the United States by the Pope. His letter is in form a com- plete submission to the Vatican ; that is to say. it repudiates the theory of so-called Americanism as inter- preted by Father Hecker, the founder of the Order of Paulist Fathers in New York. If Americanism means, in effect, says Cardinal Gibbons, the assertion of any principle at variance with the supreme centralised authority of the Vatican, the Church in America repudiates it, and asserts its loyal obedience to the Papal chair. Since Cardinal Gibbons has been recognised as the representative of the more liberal element of the Catholic Church in the United States as compared, say, with Archbishop Corrigan of New York, and since Archbishop Ireland, who also represents the milder side, has been in Rome conferring with the Pope, we may take it that, for the present, Americanism has received a set- back, and that the authority of the Papacy, threatened as it recently appeared to be, has been re-established in the United States.
The dispute connected with the name and work of Father Hecker, and which seemed to involve the reputa- tion of the very active Paulist Fathers, who had acquired great influence in New York as representatives of a kind of Catholic Christian Socialism, is only one of many important issues between the Papacy and the active elements (mostly the lay element) in the American branch of the Roman Church. The most important dispute has been connected with the education question, and here the Church has received a decided check. The truth is that the American laity were not found to be enthusiastic for clerical schools. They found that their children had to compete with the children of "the average public school, and that the competition was too severe. Consequently, after much skirmishing, the opposition to the American common school was withdrawn, or at least it was veiled, and the. controversy has been quiescent for some time. Another controversy had reference to the endowments of Catholic institutions out of public funds; and it led, notably in New Jersey, where these en- dowments had reached a considerable sum, to constitutional amendments forbidding the appropriation of any public looney to any sectarian institution. The alleged Catholic aggression called forth a bigoted and most objectionable movement known as the " A.P.A.," or American Pro- tective Association, which explaited in the interests of the most intolerant Protestantism the general feeling against Catholic interference with the schools. This movement came to a head in the Presidency of General Harrison, and was taken up by the baser sort of Republicans in the party interests, though all the better, and nearly all of the influential, men in the party made a. stand against it. These bigots proposed to boycott all Catholics for public offices, Federal, State, and municipal, and some of them were prepared to shut out Catholics by constitutional amendments. Thus aggression on the one side led to aggression on the other, and it has seemed at times as though the United States were to be thrown into the vortex of a fierce sectarian strife, while all the time the nature of the immigration from Europe was adding greatly to the numerical proportions of American Catholicism.
The diplomatic wisdom of Leo XIII. has undoubtedly been a powerful element in preventing any serious mis- understanding between the Vatican and the United States. Whether the real sympathies of the Pope are Republican or not, it is clear that he has judged it politic to be on good terms with the two great Republics of the world. As he advised the French Bishops and clergy to make terms with the Republic, so he has gone out of his way to countenance the more advanced elements in American Catholicism. He refused to he a party to the attempt made by a German priest to di -A.meriesnise the Church and split it up into European sections. He permitted Catholic workmen to belong to great Labour organisa- tions against the wish and advice of Archbishop Corrigan. He even refused to condemn the doctrine which denied private property iu land, a doctrine asserted by many Catholic adherents of the late Mr. Henry George. In short, the Pope appears to have made up his mind to effect a 'modus vivendi between the Church and the Re- public by a wide, if not full, recognition of the varied secular activities and aspirations of American life. The appointment of an Apostolic Delegate, a mild form of Papal Nuncio, at Washington indicated that the Papacy desired to be on terms of special goodwill with the Federal Government. This friendliness has marked the tenure of the Papacy by Leo XIII., until it seemed as though, after all, there was no contest between democracy and the Church. But the central idea of Father Hecker and the long letter from the Pope to Cardinal Gibbons permit us to doubt that pleasant view. The essence of the controversy is whether a body of persons inside the Church shall be permitted to act, teach, and agitate as American citizens apart from the will and approval of Rome. On this point the letter of the Pope is decisive. He appeals to Scripture and tradition in behalf of the supreme authority of his office, which he cannot surrender. He loves his large American following, he speaks with affection of the great Republic. but he is supreme ruler, and he must be obeyed. Sic vole, sic paw° may be said to be the sum and substance of this interesting Papal epistle. To that Cardinal Gibbons, the eminently liberal and enlightened Archbishop of Baltimore, responds in the spirit of filial obedience. Where, then, is Americanism ? Is not there obviously a great gulf between the claims of the Papacy and the demand of American priests for a social and ecclesi- astical activity not specially authorised by Rome ? We think there is ; and it is plain that at present Rome has triumphed.
But will this triumph be permanent, or will not the Papal claims, if persisted in, lead to a serious breach in the Church in the United States F Obviously, in the first place, much will depend on the next occupant of the Papal Chair. In his letter to Cardinal Gibbons the Pope takes care not to specify details, but to enjoin only general commands. A wise latitude in actual policy, while preserving the general doctrine of Papal supremacy for form's sake, would enable a sensible Pope to keep the peace and to maintain the Church intact in America for a long time. But ultimately ? Well, we confess we think the centralised power and authoritative pretensions of the Papacy inconsistent in the long-run with democratic institutions based, as they are, on private judgment and free criticism. We believe it may be predicted confidently of the United States that her lay citizens live in such a political and intellectual environment that no appreciable number of them can be counted on in any crisis to surrender their American birthright at the dictation of any power. The clergy could not count on them in the school controversy (nor could they in Manitoba), and they could not in any contest where the essential American attitude of mind and reason for action was at stake. But if the clergy and the laity were completely sundered, the moral unity of the Church would be at an end. We should have supposed that the essential unity of the Catholic Church might be maintained without the centralised power of the Papacy. But we admit that this is the view of an outside observer, and that sincere Catholic reformers like the Gallicans, like Lamennais, like the Old Catholics, found or believed it to be impossible. If it is impossible, we can only say that, in our judgment, the unity of the Church in the United States will become at the best merely formal, and may at the worst break up into chaos. Catholicism sits on thousands of American Catholic laymen very lightly ; they do not want to quarrel with the priest or break with the Church, but neither, on the other hand, will they abandon the demo- cratic privileges they have won, nor can they escape the atmosphere of liberty of thought in which they live. Can the Vatican transform itself ? Can it recognise the diverse ideas of different communities ? Can it catch a breath of the democratic spirit ? And can it accom- plish all this without an absolute break with its own past ? These are the determining problems, because, so far as the American spirit is concerned, no step backward is possible.
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