Editing Isaac Hecker (section)

==Hecker and Americanism==
[[Image:Leo XIII.jpg|thumb|[[Pope Leo XIII]]]]

The name of Hecker is closely associated with [[Americanism (heresy)|Americanism]]. As part of this controversy, Hecker was accused by the French cleric {{ill|Charles Maignen|fr}} of subjectivism and [[crypto-Protestant]]ism.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=NwjwhUDwHwEC&dq=%22Maignen%27s+accusations+of+subjectivism%22&pg=PA16 Hecker Studies: Essays on the Thought of Isaac Hecker] edited by John Farina, 1983, published by The Missionary Society of St. Paul</ref> During the [[French Third Republic]] (which began in 1870), the power and influence of French Catholicism steadily declined. The French government passed laws bearing more and more stringently on the church, and most French citizens did not object. Indeed, they began to look toward legislators and not to the clergy for guidance.{{sfn|Fox|1911}}

Observing this and encouraged by the action of [[Pope Leo XIII]], who in 1892 called on French Catholics loyally to accept the Republic, several young French priests determined that because the church had held itself aloof from modern philosophies and practices, people had turned away from it. They also noted that Catholicism was not making much use of modern means of propaganda, such as social movements or the organization of clubs. In short, the church had not adapted to modern needs. They agitated for social and philanthropic projects, a closer relationship between priests and parishioners, and general cultivation of personal initiative, both in clergy and laity. Not unnaturally, they looked for inspiration to America.{{sfn|Fox|1911}}

The French reformers took him as a kind of patron saint. His biography, written in English by Paulist priest Walter Elliott in 1891, was translated into French six years later. A long introduction by a liberal French priest made exaggerated claims for Hecker. Trends in liberal Catholic thought in Europe became associated with the church in the United States and particularly with Hecker.<ref name=shaw/> Inspired by Hecker's life and character, the activist French priests undertook the task of persuading their fellow-priests to accept the political system, and then to break out of their isolation, put themselves in touch with the intellectual life of the country, and take an active part in the work of social amelioration. In 1897 the movement received an impetus O'Connell, former Rector of the [[Pontifical North American College]] in Rome, spoke on behalf of Hecker's ideas at the Catholic Congress in [[Fribourg|Friburg]].{{sfn|Fox|1911}}

Conservative Catholics took alarm at what they considered to be symptoms of pernicious modernism or Liberalism. They thought the "Allons au peuple" catchphrase had a ring of heresy, breaking down the divinely established distinction between the priest and the layman and giving lay people too much power in church affairs. The insistence upon individual initiative was judged to be incompatible with the fundamentals of Catholicism. Moreover, the conservatives were, almost to a man, anti-republicans who distrusted and disliked the democratic [[abbé]]s (clergy). It was for this reason that Hecker acquired the reputation of being called "The Yellow Dart." The conservatives complained to the Pope, and in 1898 Abbé Charles Maignen wrote a violent polemic against the new movement called ''Le Père Hecker, est-il un saint?'' ("Is Father Hecker a Saint?").{{sfn|Fox|1911}}

Many powerful Vatican authorities also detested the Americanist tendency. However, Pope [[Leo XIII]] was reluctant to chastise the American Catholics, whom he had often praised for their loyalty and faith. But he eventually made concessions to the pressures upon him, and in early February 1899 addressed to [[James Gibbons|Cardinal James Gibbons]] the papal brief ''[[Testem benevolentiae nostrae|Testem Benevolentiae]]''. This document condemned the following doctrines or tendencies:
# undue insistence on interior initiative in the spiritual life, as leading to disobedience,
# attacks on religious vows, and disparagement of the value of religious orders in the modern world,
# minimizing Catholic doctrine,
# minimizing the importance of spiritual direction.
The brief did not assert that Hecker and the Americans had held any unsound doctrine on the above points. Instead, it merely stated that if such opinions did exist, the Pope called upon the hierarchy to eradicate them. Cardinal Gibbons and many other prelates replied to Rome. With a near-unanimous voice, they declared that the incriminated opinions had no existence among American Catholics. Hecker had never countenanced the slightest departure from Catholic principles in their fullest and most strict application. The disturbance caused by the condemnation was slight; almost the entire laity and a considerable part of the clergy were unaware of this affair. However, the pope's brief did end up strengthening the position of the conservatives in France.{{sfn|Fox|1911}}

When the church in America was struggling with the question of whether the assimilation of Catholics, many of whom were immigrants, into American culture would compromise their Catholic faith, Hecker saw no contradiction between being American and being Catholic.<ref>[http://bustedhalo.com/features/isaac-hecker-living-by-the-holy-spirit Hoover CSP, Brett. "Isaac Hecker: Living by the Holy Spirit," ''Busted Halo'', July 27, 2012]</ref> According to Russell Shaw, "On the level of ideas, no one before or since has done more than Isaac Hecker did to promote Catholic assimilation into the secular culture of the United States."<ref name=shaw>{{Cite web |url=https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/Story/TabId/2672/ArtMID/13567/ArticleID/14341/Hecker-was-father-of-American-evangelization.aspx |title=Shaw, Russell. "Hecker was father of American evangelization", ''OSV Weekly'', March 26, 2014 |access-date=October 5, 2015 |archive-date=November 15, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115005117/https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/Story/TabId/2672/ArtMID/13567/ArticleID/14341/Hecker-was-father-of-American-evangelization.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref>