This issue, though, is now hotly contested in the political realm, and Kinsman expresses views that would not now be regarded as politically correct, though I would guess President Trump would probably agree with most of them, and Kinsman quotes Theodore Roosevelt in similar positions. It's intriguing and productive to revisit what are pretty clearly similar historical conflicts.
I had been hoping for an explanation from Kinsman of Leo XIII's designation of "Americanism" as a heresy, and I wasn't disappointed:
Amer1can1sm is a national spirit and temper, a patriotism, quite right in its proper place. It is, however, taken out of its place by any who would try to make of it a peculiar brand of Catholicism, or use patriotism as a substance for religion. Any who would foist it into the spiritual sphere go counter to the American principle of separation of Church and State, and are thus showing themselves poor Americans. Unwarranted intrusions of the national spirit into the ecclesiastical domain the Church repels: national spirit in its native element she blesses.Kinsman deals with a related issue, the Cahensly controversy."Americanism," as ecclesiastical hyphenism, a local mutilation of the Catholic Faith, has been officially condemned. Leo XIII declared that the name represents an error, if used to signify a policy, "that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of the Church's teaching, which are of lesser importance; and so to tone down the meaning the Church has always attached to them" as to seem to imply that "the Church in America is to be different from what it is in the rest of the world." This form of error has frequently appeared, being due to a common tendency to cramp religion into racial grooves. St. Paul denounced it in his attacks on Judaizers. There have been attempts to Gallicize, Anglicize, Teutonize and Hibernize Catholicity, all disastrous; and to Americanize it would be equally bad. Fortunately Cardinal Gibbons was able to assure the Holy Father that "the false conceptions of Americanism emanating from Europe have no existence among the prelates, priests and Catholic laity of our country." What certain Catholic leaders had urged as important for America was approved by the Pope, when he declared: "The rule of life laid down for Catholics is not of such a nature that it can not accommodate itself to the exigencies of time and place," pointing how in fact the Church had never neglected to adapt herself to the genius of nations. Of Americanism in its proper sense the Pope expressly approved: "If by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to other nations; and, if moreover, by it is designated your political conditions and laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name." (pp 224-5)
The Cahensly agitation sought to promote the use of the German language and encouragement of Teutonic culture in the churches and schools of German-American Catholics. There are those who believe that back, of this was the German propaganda which, prior to the Great War, sought to Teutonize portions of the United States. Few German-Americans understood this at the time; there are probably none who would defend it now. The agitation by Germans was assisted by French, Poles, and Italians, all of whom sought for similar use of their respective tongues; and coupled with this was a plan for the composition of the Catholic hierarchy, whereby its prelates should represent proportionately the chief European nations from which the bulk of American Catholics were drawn. It thus brought the racial question before the Church, although probably few of those identified with it in this country understood all that was involved. At any rate, the Church was confronted with the same difficulty which, on a larger scale, has for fifty years confronted the nation.I keep coming back to the issues of the "Americanist" error and Cahenslyism in trying to evaluate the practical result of Anglicanorum coetibus. To what extent do the ordinariates inevitably establish a separate hierarchy for Cahtolics of a particular ethnic background? To what extent does a made-up liturgy in a phony version of early modern English emphasize this? My regular correspondent wonders, for instance, if the otherwise inexplicable appeal of a new "Catholic" parish in the territory of the Diocese of San Bernardino -- including the half-baked attempts to establish a "school" -- are related to the fact that Spanish is not spoken there.Cahenslyism was strongly opposed, on the grounds, not only that it disrupted the Church, digging chasms under lines on a foreign map and introducing unnecessary rivalries, but also that it contravened the American spirit and would make trouble for the country. (pp 131-2)
Just wondering.
