No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Americanism Revisited: John Spalding and Testem Benevolentiae
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
Leo XIII's letter Testem Benevolentiae was the culmination of a tumultuous period in American Catholic history which may be designated as beginning with the deliberations of Baltimore III in 1884. The issues which tore at the spirit of episcopal fraternity during this period were varied and complex. Although certain groups of prelates might be labeled as conservative and others as progressive, e.g., Bishops McQuaid and Corrigan as opposed to Bishops Ireland, Gibbons, and Keane, John Lancaster Spalding had a foot sometimes in one camp and sometimes in the other, but rarely both feet in either camp at the same time.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973
References
1 A definitive treatment of this period has yet to be written. Significant works which bear upon the period are the following: Barry, Colman James, The Catholic Church and the German Americans (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1953)Google Scholar; Abell, Aaron I., American Catholicism and Social Action (New York: Hanover House, 1960)Google Scholar; Ellis, John Tracy, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, 2 vols. (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1952)Google Scholar; Kinzer, Donald Louis, An Episode in Anti-Catholicism: The American Protective Association (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Cross, Robert D., The Emergence of Liberal Catholicism in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Hogan, Peter E., The Catholic University of America, 1896–1903: The Rectorship of Thomas J. Conaty (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1949)Google Scholar; McAvoy, Thomas T., The Great Crisis in American Catholic History (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1957)Google Scholar, title later changed to The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1963).Google Scholar
2 For McAvoy, , see: The Great Crisis, 351–54Google Scholar. He distinguishes three kinds of Americanism: (1) the new American republicanism, (2) the theological views denounced in Testem Benevolentiae, (3) American Catholicism in fact. On the second kind his conclusion is somewhat hedged, but the overall impression is that it did not exist. He is most concerned to explain how the Pope could have condemned an error which might not have existed without somehow reflexively impugning his magisterial office. For Ellis, see: Ellis, John Tracy, review of The Great Crisis in American Catholic History, 1895–1900, by McAvoy, Thomas, in Theological Studies XIX (June, 1958), 243.Google Scholar “As for the reality of these errors [those predicated in Testem Benevolentiae] in the Church of the United States, one is reminded of the judgment of the late Gillis, James M., C.S.P., when he stated in an article in the Catholic World some years ago: ‘The storm of “Americanism” ought never to have happened. It was artificially produced. Its sound and fury signified nothing. There was no heresy and no schism' (169 [1949] 246).”Google Scholar Also see: Ellis, John Tracy, United States of America, New Catholic Encyclopedia, XIV, 441d–43a.Google Scholar Also see: Morrison, John Lee, Spaulding, , Lancaster, John, New Catholic Encyclopedia, XIII, 515d–17c.Google Scholar
3 This has been adequately done, and perhaps as well done as possible considering the lack of any significant collection of Spalding papers. See Sweeney, David, The Life of John L. Spalding (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965).Google Scholar
4 McAvoy, , The Great Crisis, 348.Google Scholar Criticizing the works of European historians who make affirmative judgments on the existence of a theological Americanism, McAvoy asserts that they base themselves uncritically on secondary sources, i.e., works by American writers of the period preceding Testem Benevolentiae. However, McAvoy either reads this material rather uncritically, in light of the encyclical, or he reads very little of it himself.
5 McAvoy's book may be seen as an analysis of these three phenomena and the way in which they brought about, if not caused, the issuance of Testem Benevolentiae. Mc, Avoy's judgment that there was no theological Americanism related to the matters reproved in the encyclical may in large measure result from the fact that he found the letter sufficiently explicable by these social, political, and religious events. The existence of an Americanist movement within Roman Catholic church politics during the late nineteenth century is part of the burden of a recent article by Wangler, Thomas, John Ireland's Emergence as a Liberal Catholic and Americanist: 1875–1887Google Scholar, Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia LXXI (June, 1970), 67–82.Google Scholar See also: Wanoler, Thomas, The Ecclesiology of Archbishop John Ireland: Its Nature, Development, and Influence (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Marquette University, 1968)Google Scholar. Wangler does not take a position on the relationship between this intra-church political Americanism and Testem Benevolentiae.
6 Elliott, Walter, Le Père Hecker Fondateur des “Paulistes” Américains, 1819–1888, Traduit et adapté de l'anglais avec autorisation de l'auteur. Introduction par Mgr. Ireland. Préface par l'Abbé Felix Klein (Paris: V. Lecoffre, 1897).Google ScholarElliott, Walter, The Life of Father Hecker (New York: The Columbus Press, 1891).Google Scholar
7 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, Acta Sanctae Sedis (January 22, 199), XXXI, 474.Google Scholar Hereinafter referred to as ASS. “Sequitur ut ad ea veniamus quae ex his, quas attigimus, opinionibus consectaria veluti proferentur …”
8 McAvoy, , The Great Crisis, 281–96Google Scholar. Of the fourteen archbishops in the United States three did not make any public statement, four acknowledged the letter but did not admit the existence of any such heresy as the encyclical condemned, while five more acknowledged the letter but denied that the heresy had ever existed in the country. Two, however, Corrigan of New York and Katzer of Milwaukee, acknowledged the letter and thanked the Pope for his action which had put a stop to an actual heresy. Apparently unanimity was on the side of the five (Riordan of San Francisco, Kain of St. Louis, Williams of Boston, Gibbons of Baltimore, and Ireland of St. Paul) who denied the heresy's existence. But while only two asserted that it had existed, there were seven more who were silent on this point. The silence of fully one-half of the American archbishops on the issue can hardly permit that unanimity be predicated of the situation.
9 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 471.Google Scholar
10 Ibid.
11 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 472.Google Scholar
12 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 471.Google Scholar
13 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 472–73.Google Scholar
14 Leo's use of Pius VI's censure is a somewhat questionable paraphrase, the quotation marks surrounding the material from Pius notwithstanding. The text of Pius' censure of Pistoia is as follows: “Praescriptio synodi de ordine rerum tractandarum in collationibus, qua, posteaquam praemisit, in quolibet articulo distinguendum id, quod pertinet ad fidem et ad essentiam religionis, ab eo, quod est proprium disciplinae, subiungit, in hac ipsa (disciplina) distinguendum, quot est necessarium aut utile ad retinendos in spiritu fideles, ab eo, quod est inutile ant onerosius quam libertas filiorum novi foederis patiatur, magis vero ab eo, quod est periculosum aut noxium, utpote inducens ad superstilionem et materialismutn; quatenus pro generalitate verborum comprehendat et praescripto examini subiciat etiam disciplinam ab Ecclesia constitutam et probatam, quasi Ecclesia, quae Spiritu Dei regitur, disciplinam constituere posset non solum inutilem et onerosiorem quam libertas Christiana patiatur, sed et periculosam, noxiam, inducentem in superstitionem et materialismum:—falsa, temeraria, scandalosa, perniciosa, piarum aurium offensiva, Ecclesiae ac Spiritui Dei, quo ipsa regitur, iniuriosa, ad minus erronea.” Denzinger, 1578. Compare this with the corresponding prescription of the Pistoian synod. Martin, Joanne Baptista and Petit, R. P. Ludorice (eds.), Collectio Conciliorum, II (Paris: Hubert Welter, 1907)Google Scholar, 1082C, Mansi, Johannes Dominicus, ed., Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, XXXVIII (Leipzig: Verlag von Hubert Walter, 1907)Google Scholar, 1082C. “La risoluzione di questi punti [the renovation of church discipline] sarà il principale oggetto delle conferenze [meetings of the deans], e si farà con quest' ordine. Si distinguerà in ciascuno articolo ciò che appartiene alla fede ed all' essenziale della religione, da ciò che è di disciplina. Si passerà quindi ad esaminare la natura di questa disciplina, il suo scopo, ed i suoi caratteri; e si distinguerà in essa ciò che è necessario o utile per ritenere i fedeli nello spirito, da ciò che e inutile, e tendente a gravare i fedeli medesimi di un peso, che non conviene alla libertà dei figliuoli della nuova alleanza; e molto più da ciò che è pericoloso o nocivo, perchè inducente alia superstizione e al materialismo. Finalmente si esaminerà, se nelle parrocchie vi è qualche opinione contraria ai dommi conosciuti, o qualche pratica di disciplina meno conforme ai principj decisi, e si progetterà il mezzo più conveniente di riforma.” Both Pius and Leo are extremely sensitive to any local attempt to change discipline, especially if it calls into question an order already possessing the church's formal approval. The century which separates the two pontiffs does not seem to separate them on this issue.
15 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 473.Google Scholar
16 Leo, XIII, Immortali Dei, ASS, XVIII, 161–80.Google Scholar It is beyond the scope of the present work to determine whether or to what extent these distinctions were actually made by Leo in Immortali Dei; however, the applicability of Testem Benevolentiae's reference is somewhat questionable, because, although Immortali Dei does discuss the difference between the Church as a society and civil governments as societies, it does not discuss the relevance of civil liberties to the church's social structures.
17 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 473.Google Scholar
18 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 474.Google Scholar
19 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 475–76Google Scholar.
20 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 476.Google Scholar
21 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 476–77.Google Scholar
22 Leo, XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 477.Google Scholar
23 Neither the new methods nor the prior methods are identified. It is impossible to determine whether the object of concern here is individual conversion or a new ecumenical activity. Both are possible, because the public disputation techniques advanced by the Paulists as well as the Parliament of Religious represented new departures in the domestic missionary efforts by American Catholic clergy. Leo XIII, Testetn Benevolentiae, ASS, 478.
24 Spalding, , Religious Instruction in State Schools, The Educational Review II (July, 1891), 106.Google Scholar The “Poet,” although unidentified by Spalding, is Goethe, and the passage referred to is from Part I of Faust, the “Night” scene, lines 508–09. The Earth Spirit has been conjured up by Faust in an attempt at self-understanding. Expecting the answer which has escaped him in his academic pursuits, Faust is terrified by the Earth Spirit but asserts his equality to it in its face. The spirit responds:
In tides of life, in action's storm
I surge as a wave,
Swaying ceaselessly;
Birth and the grace,
An endless sea,
A changeful flowing,
A life all glowing:
I work in the hum of the loom of time
Weaving the living raiment of godhead sublime.
Telling Faust that there is no identity between them, it disappears. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Faust, trans, and noted by Passage, Charles E. (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965), 24.Google Scholar For the original German text see: Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Faust, commentator Franz Carl Endres (Basel: Benno Schwabe and Co., 1949), 49.Google Scholar
25 Spalding, John L., Prussia and the Church, in Essays and Reviews (N.Y.: The Catholic Publication Society, 1877), 276.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as ER.)
26 Spalding, , Religion and Art, ER, 324Google Scholar. Spalding, John L., Religion and Art, in Religion and Art and Other Essays (Chicago: A.C. McClurg and Co., 1905), 28.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as RAOE.)
27 Spalding, John L., The Work of the Church in the United States, in The Religious Mission of the Irish People (New York: The Catholic Publication Society, 1880), 152.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as RMIP.) See also, University Education Considered in its Bearing on the Higher Education of Priests, in The Memorial Volume. A History of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore (Baltimore: The Baltimore Publishing Company, 1885), 85–86.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as MVB.) Spalding, Growth and Duty (June 23, 1886), in Education and the Higher Life (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1890), 130Google Scholar; and also p. 141 on the need to rise above the spirit of the age. (Hereinafter referred to as EHL.)
28 Spalding, , University Education (May 24, 1888), EHL, 178 & 183.Google Scholar
29 Ibid. See also 186–87 of the same address.
30 Spalding, , Culture and the Spirit of the Age, EHL, 77.Google Scholar
31 Spalding, , Right Human Life, EHL, 157.Google Scholar See also, Spalding, John L., Views of Education, in Things of the Mind (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1894), 42.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as TM.)
32 Passage, trans, and annotator, Faust, 22, n. 7, points out that Goethe himself denned this Earth Spirit as amoral and as the spirit of the world and of deeds (Welt und Thaten Genius). Thaten may well be translated here as action.
33 On his attitude toward the apparent materialism see: Spalding, John L., Professional Education, TM, 112Google Scholar. See, also, Spalding, , Religious Instruction in State Schools, The Educational Review II (July, 1891), 122.Google Scholar
34 Spalding, , University Education (May 24, 1888), EHL, 179.Google Scholar See, also, Spalding, , Culture and the Spirit of the Age, EHL, 79.Google Scholar
35 Spalding, John L., Introduction to Lambert's Ingersoll's Christmas Sermon, entitled Agnosticism (cont.), in Religion, Agnosticism and Education (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1897), 120.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as RAE.)
36 On Christianity as the cause of progress see: Spalding, The Development of Educational Ideas in the Nineteenth Century, The Educational Review XXVII (November, 1904), 359–60.Google Scholar On the role of Jesus in this progress see: Spalding, Progress in Education (July 9, 1901), RAE, 209. On the role of the church in this progress see: Spalding, John L., The University: A Nursery of the Higher Life (October, 1899), in Opportunity and Other Essays and Addresses (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1900), 76.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as OOEA). On the spirit of the age as the inspiration of the church see Ibid., 90.
37 Spalding, Education and the Future of Religion (March 21, 1900), RAE, 176–77. “If we look upon theology as merely a system of crystallized formulas, as a science which need take no cognizance of the general culture of the age, content with presenting old truths in the old way, as merely a larger catechism, with a more detailed exposition of definitions and refutations, we deprive it of power to influence men who are all alive with thoughts urgent as the growth of wings; who in the midst of problems which the new sciences raise and accentuate, have grown confused and begin to doubt whether human life shall not be emptied of its spiritual content.” (My emphasis.) Ibid., 168.
38 Spalding, John L., Woman and Education, in Means and Ends of Education (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1895), 121.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as MEE.)
39 Ibid.
40 Spalding, , Agnosticism (cont.), RAE, 121.Google Scholar
41 Spalding, John L., Thoughts and Theories, in Thoughts and Theories of Life and Education (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1897), 8–9.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as TTLE.)
42 Spalding, Prussia and the Church (March, 1876), The Catholic World, 791b. “It seems almost needless to remark that there is no necessary connection between the doctrine of Papal infallibility and thai of the essential organization of the church; that the jurisdiction of the Pope was as great, and universally recognized as such by Catholics, before the Vatican Council as since; and consequently that it is not even possible that the definition of 1870 should make any change in his authoritative relation to, or power over, the Church. His jurisdiction is wider than his infallibility, and independent of it; and the duty of obedience to his commands existed before the dogma was defined precisely as it exists now …” (My emphasis.)
43 Spalding, John L., The Life of the Most Reverend Martin J. Spalding, D.D. (New York: Christian Press Association Publishing Company, 1873), 412–13.Google Scholar
44 Spalding, John. L, The Catholic Church, in Lectures and Discourses (New York: Christian Press Association Publishing Co., 1882), 109.Google Scholar (Hereinafter referred to as LD.) Spalding, , The Work of the Council (November, 1884), MVB, 247.Google Scholar
45 Spalding, , RMIP, 27.Google Scholar (My emphasis.)
46 Ibid., 136. (My emphasis.)
47 Spalding, , The Rise of Protestantism, LD, 306–08.Google Scholar
48 The most thorough account of the genesis of the apostolic delegation in the United States is found in: Ellis, John Tracy, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1952)Google Scholar, Vol. I, 595–652. Spalding was not alone in his opposition. Nearly every American prelate of consequence opposed the appointment except Archbishop John Ireland. Reasons were numerous, but all agreed that it would foster American nativist sentiments which would work to the detriment of the American church. Spalding concurred in this general sentiment. Spalding, John L., Catholicism and APAism, The North American Review CLIX (September, 1894), 285.Google Scholar For the most complete treatment of Spalding's role in this incident see Sweeney, , The Life of John L. Spalding, 220–36.Google Scholar Sweeney's treatment is thorough on Spalding's involvement, but he gives no stronger reason for Spalding's intransigence in opposing the delegation than that which generally motivated the opposition, i.e., fear of American nativist sentiment. Granted that Spalding could be a rather contentious and contradictory person, it appears that he would have had much stronger reasons for his opposition. As Dorothy, Dohen points out in her work Nationalism and American Catholicism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), 116–21Google Scholar, Spalding was quite able and willing to buck the tide of both popular and hierarchical sentiment on national issues when he saw a principle to be at stake. The question must be asked whether sentiments other than fear of nativism might more fully explain his opposition.
49 Spalding, Catholicism and APAism, 282.
50 Sweeney, , The Life of John L. Spalding, 234–35.Google ScholarLetters de Propaganda Fide. (Hereinafter referred to as ACPF.) Folder 153/94, no. 9458, Satolli to Spalding, Washington, September 7, 1894. Lett., Folder 153/94, no. 9458, Satolli to Rampolla, Washington, September 7, 1894. Lett., Folder 153/94, no. 9458, Rampolla to Ledochowski, Rome, September 20, 1894.
51 ACPF, Lett., 153/94, no. 9458, Satolli to Spalding, Washington, September 7, 1894. “Nec praeteritis contentus, modo dedisti articulum in ‘North American Review,’ in quo (omittendo quaedam, quae minus conformia saniori theologiae videbuntur) recinis easdem tuas criticas observationes …”
52 Spalding, Catholicism and APAism, 283.
53 Ibid., 284.
54 Spalding, , RMIP, 136.Google Scholar
55 Spalding, , Catholicism and APAism, 282–83.Google Scholar (My emphasis.)
57 Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, ASS, 472. “Aetatum vero praeteritarum omnium historia testis est, Sedem hanc Apostolicam, cui, non magisterium modo, sed supremum etiam regimen totius Ecclesiae tributum est, constanter quidem in eodem dogmate, eodem sensu eademque sententia haesisse; … Id [to modify the rule of life] si postulet animorum salus, nunc etiam facturam quis dubitet? — Non hoc tamen privatorum hominum arbitrio definiendum, qui fere specie recti decipiuntur; sed Ecclesiae iudicium esse oportet …”
58 Spalding, , The Catholic Church, LD, 90–91.Google Scholar
59 Spalding, John L., Why the World's Fair Should be Opened on Sunday, The Arena VII (December, 1892), 45.Google Scholar
60 Spalding, , Thoughts and Theories, TTLE, 120.Google Scholar
61 Spalding, , Progress in Education (July 9, 1901), RAE, 214–15.Google Scholar
62 Spalding, , Education and the Future of Religion (March 21, 1900), RAE, 187.Google Scholar
63 Spalding, , University Education, EHL, 184.Google Scholar “To do the best work the Catholic Church must fit herself to a constantly changing environment, to the character of every people, and to the wants of each age.” On working for the present see: Ibid., 186.
64 On the purpose of the primary institutions of society (including the church) see: Spalding, , Religion (January 11, 1891), RAE, 40.Google Scholar On dishonesty in the church see: Spalding, The Scope of Public School Education, The Catholic World LX (March, 1895), 766.Google Scholar
65 Spalding, , Education and the Future of Religion, RAE, 149.Google Scholar
66 Leo, XIII, Longinqua Oceani, ASS, XXVII, 390.Google Scholar
67 On the disadvantage of ecclesiastical establishment see: Spalding, , Prussia and the Church, ER, 276.Google Scholar On the disestablishment of the Anglican Church see: Spalding, English Rule in Ireland, The Catholic World XXV (April, 1877), 115b–16a.Google Scholar On differing relationships between church and state see: Spalding, , Mr. Fraude's Historical Method, The North American Review CXXX (March, 1880), 297.Google Scholar
68 Spalding, , Growth and Duty (June 23, 1886), EHL, 119.Google Scholar See, also, Spalding, , University Education (May 24, 1888), EHL, 178–79.Google Scholar
69 Spalding, The University: A Nursery of the Higher Life (October, 1899), OOEA, 88. (Emphasis added.) In the same address (pp. 87–88) he continues to testify to the benefits which have accrued to the church in America due to this freedom.
70 Spalding, , Education and the Future of Religion (March 21, 1900), RAE, 169–70.Google Scholar
71 On the common substance of all men and God see: Spalding, , Thoughts and Theories, TTLE, 99–100Google Scholar; also, Spalding, , Truth and Love, MEE, 19–20Google Scholar. Spalding, , Religion (January 11, 1891), RAE, 9–10.Google Scholar “In the spiritual life separation of the soul from its object is not conceivable, for it is a living soul through its union with that object. Its thought and will and love are not merely the thought and will and love of a particular mind, but the result of the thought and will and love of the Eternal. It is His organ. It has its being and action in Him and its progress is not toward, but within Him.” (My emphasis.)
72 Ibid., 10–11. “We perceive the limitations of our being, because we are immersed in God; we understand that our thought is partial because we know that its true object is the Infinite; that our love is incomplete because we dimly discern the love that is perfect.” Spalding, , Views of Education, TM, 30.Google Scholar ”Consciousness of defect is the evolutionary principle which urges us toward completeness. In those who feel they know enough, love enough, believe enough, and are all they care to be, this principle is lacking. The finer and deeper the intellect, the keener and subtler is the intellectual conscience, — the love of truth for itself, as being our best equivalent of the supreme reality, the absolute.” (My emphasis.)
73 Spalding, John L., The Teacher and the School, TTLE, 210–11Google Scholar. “When religious teachers tell us that it is man's duty to be God-like they mean that the individual is to become more human, to be true, good, fair and wise.” Spalding, , Truth and Love, MEE, 50.Google Scholar “That religion alone is true which striking its roots deep into humanity exerts all its power to make men more godlike by making them more conhuman.” Spalding repeats this same notion in a Christological motif after Testem Benevolentiae. Spalding, , The Victory of Love (November 21, 1900), RAE, 261.Google Scholar “The more human we become, the more Christlike, the less are we the slaves of physical conditions and necessities.” Spalding, , Religion (January 11, 1891), RAE, 15.Google Scholar ”Now the great revealer of the hidden sources of the best human life, which is also divine is Christ; not so much because he was the first to point to their existence, as because he alone has possessed the secret and the power to make men understand and feel their inestimable worth and charm.” (My emphasis.)
74 On the “pure of heart's” divine vision see: Spalding, , Religious Indifference, LD, 23.Google Scholar On the proofs of Christ's divinity, Spalding, , God and Christ, LD, 84.Google Scholar “Love reveals Christ to men. They only know him who love Him, and those who have given up the love of the world for His sake need no proof of his divinity than the witness of the Spirit within them. His love carries with it its own evidence whence it comes.” On conscience as the knower of truth see: Spalding, , The Basis of Popular Government, The North American Review CXXXIX (September, 1884), 202.Google Scholar
75 Spalding, , Introduction to L. A. Lambert's Ingersoll's Christmas Sermon, RAE, 110.Google Scholar The context makes Spalding's assertion even stronger than the quotation may appear. It is preceded and followed by a series of examples in which material and spiritual phenomena are attributed to God's power and presence.
76 On the presence of God in the human soul see: Spalding, , The University and the Teacher (October 2, 1899), OOEA, 136.Google ScholarSpalding, , The Meaning and Worth of Education (January 15, 1903), RAOE, 121–22.Google Scholar
77 Spalding, , Opportunity (December 6, 1899), OOEA, 33Google Scholar; Spalding, , Education and the Future of Religion, RAE, 185.Google Scholar
78 Spalding, , Opportunity (December 6, 1899), OOEA, 32.Google Scholar
79 Spalding, , Thoughts and Theories, TTLE, 13.Google Scholar
80 Spalding, , Agnosticism, RAE, 92. (My emphasis.)Google Scholar
81 Spalding, , Women and Higher Education (January 16, 1899), OOEA, 53.Google Scholar (My emphasis.) Although this address was made prior to Testem Benevolentiae, it was published a year afterwards.
82 Spalding, , Religion (January 11, 1891), RAE, 7.Google Scholar
83 Although Spalding's notion of God is not directly related to the topic under consideration, it is worthwhile to notice that in this area of religious thought he utilizes some rather atypical descriptions of the nature or character of the divinity, which, if fully explored, might yield significant understanding of Spalding'S thought. The following examples are illustrative of what can hardly be denied to be pantheistic on its face: Spalding, Religious Instruction in State Schools, The Educational Review II (July, 1891), 105. “We no longer think of God as standing aloof from nature and the course of history. He it is who works in the play of atoms and in the throbbings of the human heart, and as we perceive his action in the evolution both of matter and of mind, we know and feel that, when with conscious purpose we strive to call forth and make living the latent power of man's being, we are working with him in the direction in which he impels the universe. Education, therefore, we look upon as necessary not merely because it is indispensable to any high and human sort of life, but also because God has made development the law participaboth of conscious and unconscious nature. He is in act all that the finite may become, and the effort to grow in strength, knowledge, and virtue, springs from a divine impulse.” (My emphasis.) Spalding, The Making of One's Self, The Ave Maria XL (June, 1895), 707b. “Since the universe is a harmony whose diapason is God, why should thy life strike a discordant note?” Spalding, Agnosticism, RAE, 87. ”Nature and mind do not exist as independent realities. Each is related to the other; they cohere in one system; they form an organic unity, whose bond and life-principle is the Infinite Being. Mind finds its laws in nature, and nature apart from mind would be mere chaos. We can know and love ourselves only in what is not ourselves; and the merging of our particular self into a larger, is the law of progress, making for that perfect union with the Best and the Highest, which is the end of life.” (My emphasis.) Ibid., 92. “Our ultimate idea of both spirit and matter is that of energy, and this idea, originating in our consciousness of willpower, impels us to conceive of nature as a manifestation of absolute will. A thing is force manifesting itself in definite ways: God is infinite energy, pure act manifesting itself in man and in nature.” (My emphasis.) These examples certainly raise the issue of his pantheism.
84 Mcavoy, Thomas, Bishop Spalding and the Catholic Minority, Review of Politics XIII (January, 1950), 19.Google Scholar McAvoy admits that one of the real problems with Spalding's thought was that “He failed to insist upon the clear distinction between the natural and the supernatural.”
85 Spalding, , Normal Schools for Catholics, The Catholic World LI (April, 1890), 94.Google Scholar
86 Spalding, , The Catholic Educational Exhibit in the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, The Catholic World LV (July, 1892), 585.Google Scholar Two things must be considered in assessing this reference by Spalding to natural and supernatural virtues. (1) The article is an appeal to his fellow Catholics for support of the parish common school which he felt was endangered by Archbishop Ireland's Faribault-Stillwater plan. As in any rhetorical effort, he is required to utilize language which his audience will understand. (2) More than likely, however, he uses this terminology because at that time (1892) it still fits into his thought patterns. Most all the material which supports the likelihood of his having given up the reality of this distinction occurs after 1894.
87 Spalding, , Women and the Higher Education (January 16, 1899), OOEA, 61–62.Google Scholar “Take from any nation the hundred minds that are first in all the spheres of human activity, and the national life is lowered.
“This is also true of the Church, for in the supernatural as in the natural, God works through agents; and the radical blunder is to imagine that He will do immediately what He has made us capable of doing for ourselves. Indeed there is nothing which Catholics more need to learn, in whatever part of the world they may live, that it is vain and superstitious to hope that God in some miraculous way will come to save them from the perils into which blindness, sloth, and indifference may have thrown them.” (My emphasis.) See, also, Spalding, The University: A Nursery of the Higher Life (October, 1899), OOEA, 74–75.
88 Spalding, , Education and the Future of Religion (March 21, 1900), RAE, 175.Google Scholar
89 Spalding, The Work of the Church in the United States, RMIP, 147.Google Scholar
90 Spalding, , The Rise of Protestantism, LD, 298.Google Scholar
91 Spalding, , Introduction to McGovern's, James J.The Life and Writings of the Rt. Rev. John McMullen, D.D. (1888), xi–xii.Google Scholar
92 Spalding, , Religion (January 11, 1891), RAE, 48.Google Scholar
93 Spalding, , The University: A Nursery of the Higher Life (October, 1899), OOEA, 73.Google Scholar
94 Spalding, John L., Glimpses of Truth (Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1903), 80.Google Scholar
95 Ibid., 18–19. “He who lives not in struggle and combat with himself, if not with others, leads not a human life; for he who does not face and overcome difficulties and obstacles day by day, makes no progress, grows neither in mind nor in character. To this law aggregates not less than individuals are subject. A party or a church which is not opposed becomes corrupt and falls to ruin. Christ shows the way of peace to those who take His cross and contend to the uttermost. He came not, however, to bring peace, but a sword, to inspire the heroic and sublime struggles in which souls athirst for truth, justice and love confront without fear a world in arms against them. This warfare is the indispensable condition of intellectual, moral, and religious life, and when peace is sought through compromise the result is not peace, but decay and death.” (My emphasis.)
96 Spalding, , Education and the Future of Religion (March 21, 1900), RAE, 187.Google Scholar There is some evidence that he saw little purpose for female contemplatives. Spalding, , Introduction to P. M. Abbelan's Venerable Mother M. Caroline Freiss, 17.Google Scholar Spalding praises Sister Caroline's practicality in matters of the health and material welfare of the sisters who worked under her. “She believed that to breathe impure air, to eat badly prepared food or to transgress heedlessly any law of health, is a sin against reason, and therefore, against God. The work we do for others is the best mortification, and the more healthful we are, the more life-giving will our labor become.” (My emphasis.) The encyclical clearly sees bodily self-mortification as one of the two essentials of the contemplative life.
97 Spalding appears to have seen leadership in the church through the prism of the heroic man. Thus the priest as leader was really the representative of Christ the hero; and the success of the priest's witness in his own life to Christ ought to reflect the heroic dimension.
98 Spalding, , Glimpses of Truth, 13.Google Scholar
99 For his early attitudes see: Spalding, , Comparative Influence of Catholicism and Protestantism on National Prosperity (ca. 1876), ER, 163Google Scholar; Spalding, , The Church and the Spirit of the Age, RMIP, 24.Google Scholar For his later attitude see: Spalding, , Culture and Religion, TM, 212.Google ScholarSpalding, , Education and the Future of Religion (March 21, 1900), RAE, 184.Google Scholar
100 Spalding, , Religion and Art, RAOE, 54–56Google Scholar. Compare with same ER, 346–48. The first page cited is the 1877 ER version, the second is the 1905 RAOE version.
101 No evidence exists that Spalding lost faith in the Church, contrary to the undocumented assertion of Greeley, Andrew in The Catholic Experience (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1967), 165, n. 3.Google Scholar
102 Spalding, , Religion and Art, RAOE, 56.Google Scholar (My emphasis.)
103 Ibid., 59.
104 Spalding, , The Primacy and Infallibility of the Pope, LD, 183.Google Scholar
105 Spalding, , The University: A Nursery of the Higher Life (October, 1899), OOEA, 75.Google Scholar
106 See note No. 2 above.
107 Apparently Spalding wrote no letter of submission as did Ireland, Keane, and Gibbons in this country and Felix Klein in France. Yet in 1903 he was seriously considered as the prime candidate for the vacant archdiocese of Chicago. Although he did not receive the appointment, it appears that his orthodoxy was not at issue. For an account of this event and the apparent reasons for Spalding's failure to secure the position, see Sweeney, , The Life of John Lancaster Spalding, 299–315.Google Scholar
108 In his treatment of Spalding and the Americanism issue, Life of John L. Spalding, 260–84, Sweeney avoids making a judgment on whether Spalding was a theological Americanist. He offers two secondhand reports which purport that Spalding had denied the presence in America of the teachings reprobated by Leo in Testem Benevolentiae. The first of these was contained in an account of the circumstances of Spalding's March 21, 1900 Gesù sermon in Rome by Denis O'Connell. AASP, D. J. O'Connell to John Ireland, Rome, 61 Tritone, March 23, 1900. “Spalding has been talking to the men over here and he is now enlisted for the war. He told the Pope the Americanism he condemned did not exist in America. ‘The Faith of the Catholic in America is the same as yours.' The Pope said, ‘Oh it was that Hecker.’ ‘Holy Father,’ the Bishop enquired, ‘did you know Hecker?’ ‘No,’ he answered. ‘Well then’ said the Bishop, ‘I did and a better Catholic we never had.’” The second report is contained in what appears to have been a journal kept by Walter Elliott, Hecker's biographer. APF, Americanism File, June 26, 1900. “Yesterday evening Bishop Spalding told me of his interviews with the Holy Father at his recent visit to Rome. The Pope asked him about ‘Americanism.’ The Bishop said that no such errors were taught or believed in America. The Pope answered, ‘That is what many American Bishops have written to me. But there was that poor Hecker, he taught the guidance of the Holy Spirit without the Sacraments.’ The Bishop answered, ‘I know Father Hecker well and intimately and he was a holy disinterested, zealous and enlightened priest. I am certain that he never believed or taught what they accuse him of.’” O'Connell's letter does not say who informed him of Spalding's conversation with the Pope. While Elliott's account seems to be from Spalding, he paraphrases rather than quotes Spalding on the matter of the teachings reproved in Testem Benevolentiae. This is also true of O'Connell's letter. Both accounts are explicit in showing Spalding as unwilling to dissociate himself from Hecker. Neither quotes him on the reference to Testem Benevolentiae. It may be assumed that both relate the same incident. The quoted portions both manifest Spalding's loyalty to Hecker; yet except for this they vary widely. It may be reasonably proposed that the paraphrases vary as widely from what Spalding actually said as do the quotations from each other, if not more so. Accordingly, neither should be given too great a credence, although it must be admitted that they do indicate an unwillingness on Spalding's part to accept Testem Benevolentiae as an accurate description of American thought. On the basis of the evidence of O'Connell and Elliott two possibilities, at least, are open: (1) Spalding lied to the Pope, and (2) Spalding's understanding of the encyclical was such that he felt justified in asserting its nonapplicability to the American Church. No evidence exists to support the former. However, some precedent exists in Spalding's career for the likelihood of the second possibility. While writing his uncle's biography, John Spalding had approvingly related his uncle's method of interpreting the applicability of the Syllabus of Errors in the United States. Martin Spalding's principle of interpretation was that such censures could only apply in the context of the disputes which gave birth to them. See LRMS, 272–75. Since the conflicts which gave rise to the Syllabus were not American but European, the censures would not apply to the United States. McAvoy points out that the opinion existed amon elements of the American Catholic press that the issue which gave rise to Testem Benevolentiae really was due to the French translation of Hecker's life and the subsequent French controversy. See McAvoy, , The Great Crisis, 299Google Scholar. McAvoy takes much the same position in his own estimate of religious Americanism. See, The Great Crisis, 351–53. If Spalding also saw Testem Benevolentiae as the result of this French controversy, he would have been justified in feeling that its import was not really applicable to America. Accordingly, it is possible that he simply did not seriously reflect upon whether the encyclical had any meaning for his own work. It is, of course, also possible that he did reflect upon it and just did not see it as applying to him; for this no evidence exists. Be that as it may, the analysis of his views and the problematic of the encyclical, as presented above, indicate that views therein were in mutual conflict.