<\/p>\n
In 1899, Pope Leo condemned “Americanism” as a heresy.\u00a0 <\/span>Americanism, a theological development A crisis at the University of Notre Dame occasioned the According to historian George Marsden (recently retired from In 2008, a little more than a century later, a majority of But it isn’t simply 1896 repeated.\u00a0 <\/span>The events at Notre Dame are a little like watching the Now, it is the reverse: right-wing Catholic laity and local I don’t understand all of the spiritual and political dimensions That lay Catholics are leading the charge against President The whole episode reveals some ugly results of long-term Notre Dame is probably trying to make that very point by not <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1899, Pope Leo condemned “Americanism” as a heresy.\u00a0 Americanism, a theological development in American Roman Catholicism, was a complex of progressive ideals regarding freedom, separation of church and state, historical criticism and scientific inquiry that attempted to reconcile traditional Christian teachings with what historians call, “the spirit of the age.”\u00a0 A crisis at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12,32,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-catholics","category-christians","category-religion-in-the-public-square"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nin American Roman Catholicism, was a complex of progressive ideals regarding
\nfreedom, separation of church and state, historical criticism and scientific
\ninquiry that attempted to reconcile traditional Christian teachings with what
\nhistorians call, “the spirit of the age.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nPope’s condemnation.\u00a0 <\/span>In 1896, Notre
\nDame professor John Zahm published a book entitled Evolution and Dogma<\/i> arguing that church teaching, the Bible, and
\nevolution did not conflict.\u00a0 <\/span>Within
\ntwo years, it was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books and Zahm was forced to
\nrecant its publication.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nNotre Dame), this controversy ended in a sort of intellectual stalemate:\u00a0 <\/span>“The Roman Catholic Church in America
\nwas thus forced to retain its identity and its distinctiveness, but at the
\nprice of accepting Roman authoritarianism and severe restraints on its
\nintellectual life.”\u00a0 <\/span>And he further
\nnotes that, in the first decades of the twentieth century, “permissible
\nCatholic inquiry became increasingly restricted,” whereby Catholic
\nconservatives essentially rejected the “rubric of ‘progress.'”\u00a0 <\/span>Again, according to Marsden, Catholic
\nauthorities “questioned whether philosophies that constantly celebrated
\ninnovation, openness, and individual choice could in fact provide a moral basis
\nfor a higher civilization.”<\/p>\n
\nAmerican Catholics threw their electoral lot with an avowedly “progressive”
\npolitical candidate–Barack Obama.\u00a0
\n<\/span>And, one of their leading universities responded by issuing him an
\ninvitation to speak at graduation.\u00a0
\n<\/span>In that simple act of hospitality, history is replaying itself:\u00a0 <\/span>Has the ideal of\u00a0 <\/span>“progress” encroached too far into the
\nAmerican Catholic community?\u00a0 <\/span>What
\nare the limits on creativity, inquiry, and conscience in relation to Catholic
\nmagisterial teaching?<\/p>\n
\nrecent Star Trek <\/i>movie–history is
\nrebooting itself.\u00a0 <\/span>A century ago,
\nthe Vatican and the Pope intervened from afar to stop the Americanizing spirit;
\nmany bishops actually promoted Americanism; and the Catholic laity seemed to
\ngenerally approve of the Americanization of their tradition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\npriests have besieged the University; about 20% of the bishops have condemned
\nNotre Dame for inviting the President (and no doubt, more considered doing so);
\nand the Vatican has basically absented itself from the controversy.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The protest against progressive Catholicism is coming from (at
\nleast some of) the pews. \u00a0<\/span>Evidently, the authority structure of the Roman Catholic
\nChurch has inverted itself in America–despite the election of a conservative Pope
\n(who spent his week with Muslims and Jews in the Middle East) and overwhelming
\nconservative American Catholic bishops.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The laity thinks it is their job to tell the University of Notre Dame
\nwhat to do.<\/p>\n
\nof this–but it does reveal how successfully grassroots conservative political
\ngroups have communicated their message in some Catholic circles.\u00a0 <\/span>Many of those protesting the
\nPresident’s speech have taken rhetoric about abortion as “murder” to heart,
\nthereby neglecting other aspects of Catholic moral teaching–including the idea
\nthat individual conscience is a mark of human dignity and that human beings
\neven have the right to exercise conscience when it causes them to err.\u00a0 <\/span>So, despite the Vatican’s own deep
\nhorror of abortion, most Roman Catholic leaders have not taken to the streets
\nwith bloodied baby dolls.\u00a0 <\/span>They,
\ninstead, rest in the uneasy tensions of witnessing to a Catholic moral ideal of
\nno abortion in relation to the equally Catholic moral ideal of the free
\nexercise of conscience.<\/p>\n
\nObama at Notre Dame doesn’t seem like a positive development in American
\nCatholic life.\u00a0 <\/span>With sixty percent
\nsupporting Obama and forty percent not supporting him, are we looking at a
\nCatholic Church as fractious as other American faith communities?\u00a0 <\/span>Maybe it only shows that despite all
\nEuropean attempts to the contrary, the American church was “Americanized”–in
\nsome unexpected ways–after all.<\/p>\n
\npoliticization in the Catholic community–and a fundamental misunderstanding of
\nthe whole vision of Catholic moral teaching.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nrescinding its invitation to President Obama–and it may be trying to correct
\nthe very old injustice of the Zahm case.\u00a0
\n<\/span>I’m afraid, however, the point has been lost in the shouting.<\/p>\n