The main bone of contention seems to be that the 'Americanists' believe in the seperation of Church and State(same same Cavour's ideal of a free chruch in a free state) and Rome(still defending the concept of the Temporal Power) does not. Kertzers book Prisoner Of The Vatican would be useful here. Ciao

The main bone of contention seems to be that the 'Americanists' believe in the seperation of Church and State(same same Cavour's ideal of a free chruch in a free state) and Rome(still defending the concept of the Temporal Power) does not. Kertzers book Prisoner Of The Vatican would be useful here. Ciao

The main bone of contention was that the Americanists were fanatical worshipers of the Modern World Spirit and their opponents were faithful followers of Christ Jesus of Nazareth, Who taught His disciples to hate and despise all manifestations of World and to have no truck with the pomps and wiles of the Prince of this World.

"O Leo!" Ireland effused. "O Modern Age! O Church! O Leo, Pope of the Church! O Leo, Pope of the Age! O! O! The Church has much to teach the Age! And the Age has much to teach the Church! O!"

Well, that's my Archbishop Ireland impression. But it's based on idiotic, antichristian things he babbled and roared which I could cite. Ireland was the very devil of the kind of "Perfidious Liberal Catholic" whom Pope Pius IX denounced. And yet, as I pointed out before, he had the number of Modernists such as the Abbe Loisy and complained that they didn't leave much of the Creed to believe in.

Are you familiar with lefty Denis O'Connell--Rector of the American College in Rome  and friend of card Gibbons?

And I did not call Durant, Welles or Schlesinger Historians.

In spite of the fact Cletus has agreed that there is no compelling evidence Card Rampolla was a 'secret occult mason and in the OTO' he has somehow clung to the idea that Rampolla was never the less a closet lefty of sorts who sympathised w/ the Americanist liberal faction( Ireland, O'Connell, Keane, Gibbons etc).

In an effort to find evidence of this, I followed a trail blazed by Cletus and came up w/ the book by Fogarty.

It can now be reported that there is nothing in the book that allows one to hold such a point of view. Most probably the impression that Rampolla was a left shill comes from a passage on pg 165 that I will quote. It should be noted that Ireland and O' Connell were Tea Totalers.

"On Aug 20 1894, the Holy Office condemmed the Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, and the Sons of Temperance, but Card Rampolla instructed Abp Satolli, the Apostolic Delegate to leave the promulgation of the decree to the prudence of the American archbishops. When the prelates assembled in Oct for their annual meeting, EVEN THE CONSERVATIVES voted w/ the liberals not to publish the condemnation because of the anti-Catholic campaign then being waged by the American Protective Ass. in anticipation of the congressional elections in Nov".

In other words Card Rampolla(being after all a diplomat) was trying at the advice of the American hierarchy not to throw gasoline on a fire for the moment. As a result, it appears that the Pope wisely held off for a couple of months.

As far as the rest of the book(which Cletus would enjoy) there is only collaboration of the idea that Card Rampolla deserves our admiration. There is explict info that Card's Raphael and Rampolla and Pius X were very close; Della Chiesa is not mentioned.

There is also a very curious passage where the author confuses Clem V and Templars(whom O' Connell refers to as Masons) w/ Clem XII and his bull against Masons. Ciao

The fact that nothing in Fogarty's book supports the contention that Cardinal Rampolla was part of a Liberal clique and acted badly in the case of the Americanist "heresy" does not mean that he was not the one and did not do the other.

At this late date I blame American Churchmen of the late 1800s and early 1900s only for making a mockery of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical against Americanism. (Not ALL did.) For having the mendacious effrontery to say to the Vicar of Christ, "Thanks kindly for condemning so-called Americanist errors that no one in American holds or ever held."

As for the liberal AND the conservative bishops not condemning the Knights of Pythias and their sort in 1894, laymen have no choice but to think the best of what the leaders in God's Church do when there is no clear error or betrayal of Catholic principles involved. (It would have been different if the likes of Ireland had ordered that the Masons and the Knights of Pythias preach on Civic Virtue and against "Compestellan pilgrimages" from Catholic pulpits.)

Though I shudder to think of what some latter day version of St Bridget of Sweden would have made of a lot of things that  the American bishops said and did and allowed in the late 1800s and early 1900s and what she would have gone around saying to make St Frances Xavier Cabrini's hair stand on end.

But Archbishop Ireland went beyond the pale. He was a bold Indifferentist and Liberal. He was an absolute horror show as a Catholic and as a pastor of souls. It would seem that Cardinal Rampolla was wrong to be chummy with him in the way he was.

European Churchmen of that period tended to have a rather patronizing attitude towards American Churchmen. With his Boy Scoutish (and, of course, unCatholic) Tea Totaling and his twisted ultramontane euphoria ("O Leo! O Pope of the Age!") Ireland made a dashing, quirky, rambunctious, and, despite his atrocious arrogance, endearing figure. Also, however much he wrongly idolized Modern Man, no one could say that Archbishop Ireland was one to go easy on the Protestant heretics. It's not hard to see why the likes of Cardinal Rampolla, accustomed to the silken corruptions of Catholic European civilization, were attracted to the Wild West verve and zip and pep of the Americanists.

It was like having a brandy with Mark Twain in the Vatican gardens. Or keeping a racoon, or a skunk, in a cage designed by Cellini.

But we're not on this earth to indulge our natural appetites and sympathies at the expense of our clear duties as members of a household of faith.

Again, and again, I refer to those excerpts from the Ireland biography which I copied out in the Rampolla thread. Rampolla seems to have been a personal chum of Ireland. Their relations were not just formal and perfunctory. Not that that in itself is damning. But it would seem to be part of the historical record, and it won't do to deny it.

I'll be the first to admit that so far Cardinal Rampolla is looking better and better around here. So far I have not justified my suggestion that the traditional Traditional notion of Cardinal Rampolla as a Satanistic Masonic monster from whom Providence saved us through the Emperor of Austria is a myth justified by the Modernist reality that we find to painful to delve into. But I do think that I have demonstrated that he was in cahoots with the "lefties" of the late 1890s. That's already pretty bad, if not monstrous.

Roscoe, what do you think of the tid-bit in wikipedia according to which the true story of the 1903 papal veto was simply that Cardinal Rampolla had offended the Emperor by refusing Christian burial to his son, who apparently had committed ѕυιcιdє? I know nothing about it. It could turn out for all I know that Cardinal Rampolla had nothing to do with Catholic affairs in Austria at the time of the "Mayerling" affair.