Americanism is a heresy that was well denounced by Pope Leo XIII with the Letter Testem Benevolentiae in 1899. By this term we mean a series of deviations from the original Catholic doctrine. We will try to understand how some of these opinions can also refer to the liturgy up to our times and how, while praising the vivacity of American Catholicism with Leo XIII, we cannot deny the dangers that come from there.
The Pope makes these observations almost at the beginning:
“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. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind. The Vatican Council says concerning this point: “For the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared. Hence that meaning of the sacred dogmas is perpetually to be retained which our Holy Mother, the Church, has once declared, nor is that meaning ever to be departed from under the pretense or pretext of a deeper comprehension of them.” -Constitutio de Fide Catholica, Chapter iv.”.
This idea that one must modernize at all costs has deeply penetrated the liturgy, so much so that we have seen how it has practically destroyed it. The modern for the modern is not only still relevant, but it is one of the arguments that are continually recalled by the updated liturgists, as if this were a kind of new dogma.
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