Preface

A study of the present state and causes of the rapid growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States of North America.

In place of an introduction

The extraordinary success of Roman Catholicism on American soil is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable ecclesiastical-historical phenomena of modern times. In the span of a single century, it has risen from insignificance to nearly the first place among the religions of the United States. This fact is all the more remarkable because it has taken place in a country that was first to implement the principle of legal separation of church from state and whose public-governmental system represents a type of democratic republic that seems incompatible with the type of Latinized Christianity. Clarifying the causes and process of rapid growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the great American republic is the subject of this work. If this study were additionally to reveal certain features determining the general religious condition of the American people—a condition whose clarification is so necessary for the Orthodox Church in its holy mission recently begun on that same continent—then the author would consider his purpose fully achieved.

New York.

May 29 (June 10), 1881.

I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd (John 10:16).

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest (Matt 11:37-38).

I. The religious state of the American people. Protestantism and its incompatibility with the national character. The search for one true church. Claims to the role of the one true church for the American people from three principal existing confessional forms—Methodism, Episcopalianism, and Roman Catholicism—and their groundlessness. II. The Episcopal Church and its position among the American people. Its consciousness of the instability of its principles and the search for firm support. Ritualism and its significance. The “bankruptcy of Protestantism.” The sermons of Dr. Ewer and the search for “catholicity.” The location of true catholicity and the attraction of Episcopalianism toward the Orthodox East. III. The Episcopal Church’s attempts to enter into communion with the Orthodox East. The question of church unity at its General Conventions of 1868, 1871, and 1874. The significance of these attempts and the alarm in the camp of Roman Catholicism. Conclusion.

In terms of religion, the American people present a deeply interesting subject for investigation—incontrovertible proof of the truth that religious need lies in the very nature of the human spirit and is as eternal as the human spirit itself. Separated from the ancient historical centers of religious belief by an immense ocean, this people have not merely failed to suppress the religious instincts within themselves; on the contrary, they have developed them to a degree unknown in the majority of European peoples at the present time. While the latter, exhausted by the prose of everyday centuries-long life, have succumbed to cold and soulless skepticism that corrodes national organisms, the American people, full of life and youthful fervor, are devoted with unbounded dedication to their inner development in all its forms and expressions—both in political-social and in religious-moral respects.

From the very beginning of their history, as they migrated into an unknown, wild country, this people had to shed the ancient traditions of the Old World—traditions that had been developed through a complex historical process and often constrained the free exercise of national forces or directed them toward barren activity. They stood face to face with nature and with it alone had to struggle to secure their existence. This mighty struggle developed in them energy and self-reliance, equalized the relations of their forces, balanced their physical nature with their spiritual, and from this developed that remarkable type of balanced human being whom Americans represent. The equilibrium of spiritual and physical forces constitutes the most characteristic feature of the American people. Thanks to it, they are free from extremes in thought and life, and in this respect more nearly approach the type of the perfect human being than any other people. This quality sharply distinguishes them from European peoples. Because of this same equilibrium in their physical and spiritual nature, they necessarily represent a type of balanced, all-sided popular development. In the Old World, national development proceeds through limited centralization, so that the national genius is concentrated chiefly in a small group of the higher classes and thus reaches its highest manifestation and development, while the general popular masses remain in the lethargy of dark ignorance. In the United States, by contrast, the national genius is diffused more or less evenly throughout the entire national mass; but because it spreads widely, it does not reach the height it does in Europe. The American people have numerous artists and poets who in their particulars show unmistakable signs of great national genius, yet despite this, their genius does not possess the mighty force that distinguishes the genius of first-rate European poets and artists. They are filled with philosophizing thinkers, and the best of them achieve remarkable strength of transcendental thought; yet at the same time in them there is not the mighty and unfettered scope of philosophical thought that characterizes the great philosophers of Europe. In refined thinking and free flight of human genius, the American people are undoubtedly still behind the principal European peoples and have not yet produced such geniuses as would have universal significance in the realm of pure thought or poetic creation. But in return, it has no rival in the Old World in that healthy practical thinking which often more quickly and truly grasps the actual essence of a subject than the most refined and abstract thought. Abstract questions of human existence that preoccupy European thought concern it little, but it follows with deep interest their practical manifestation in history and there finds a clear answer to the questions of its thought. Hence, while in Europe thought is in constant fluctuation and experiences periodic crises of extreme infatuations, American thought proceeds evenly along the path of continuous progressive development. And moreover, while European thought in its highest representatives in its strong flight completely tears away from life, losing itself in the transcendent height of misty speculation, American thought always goes only ahead of life, and the latter, having it as an accessible guide, easily and freely directs its course according to its indications. Such a relation of thought to life is displayed in all aspects of the American people. They are the freest people politically, yet they are at the same time the most conservative people. They are foreign to the utopian ideas of extreme European thinkers, and regard them with contemptuous indifference as useless fantasies obstructing the healthy development of practical life. Hence socialism, at which European states tremble, has found no soil among the American people and drags out a miserable existence in the squalid corners of German emigration.[1] They are the most educated people in the world, yet their education must be measured more in breadth than in height, and the course of their higher colleges cannot compare with the curricula of European universities. In social relations, they know no hereditary class divisions, and a person has open to him a wide field for activity in all spheres of life that he can reach through his own abilities and talents; yet at the same time, once a person has attained a certain position, it is surrounded by the same social honor and advantages that in the Old World are connected with historically-established positions. Finally, in religious respect, they are the most freethinking people, yet their freethinking at the same time finds limitation in the general conservatism of their character and therefore knows no such extremes as are inseparably linked with religious freethinking in Europe. Their religious freethinking is Christian freethinking, and it does not go beyond the bounds of positive Christian truths. European rationalism is as foreign to the American people as is European socialism.[2]

As a result of the harmonious development of physical and moral forces in the American people, there emerges a mental constitution that is in some sense a mediocrity. But this mediocrity should not be understood in the European sense. It does not constitute a weakness of productive forces, but is precisely the result of their healthy self-limiting action. Americans are a thoroughly young people. Their productive forces are characterized by all the freshness and ferment of youth. Thought in them works with amazing energy, and practice passionately receives the results of intellectual work. Therefore, if we employ the term “mediocrity” to designate their character, it should be understood in the sense of that healthy state of the organism which, despite all the ferment of vital forces within it, constitutes the surest guarantee of the moderation of its functioning. A sick or disordered organism is always more inclined to excesses and passions than a healthy organism, which through its normal development is more subject to the lawful requirements of moderate nature in all things. As a result of this, beneath external restraint, the American nature seethes with internal activity. Its forces, without going beyond the bounds of moderation, exhibit fervent energy within those bounds, and therefore the general level of vital activity in it is much higher than that average level which might be found in Europe. Alien to political utopias, the American people at the same time devote themselves with passionate dedication to their existing political system. The same holds true in religious respect. Alien to European destructive rationalism and deadening skepticism, the American people are devoted with youthful energy to positive Christian truths. The level of their religious character is as high as the level of their political consciousness. Their religious faith and political independence constitute two principal elements of their life, and in them chiefly they live, move, and have their being. Religious faith is for them the supreme ideal, their political system is their actual life. But as in every young organism the ideal has more vitality and attractiveness than reality, so too in the American people does their religious faith have even greater vitality than their political life.[3]

The American people owe their very origins to religious zeal. The “Pilgrim Fathers,” as the people respectfully call the first settlers of America, migrated to the newly discovered continent impelled by their religious zeal. They were ready to endure all the dangers of ocean travel and subject themselves to all the unforeseen hardships in a new land, provided only that they could preserve their faith. And upon arriving on American soil, their first thought was to establish a “kingdom of God” on earth—a form of society that would be the complete expression of their religious beliefs. They were so thoroughly imbued with religious spirit that their society was founded on the theocratic principle, almost in its Old Testament severity.[4] This was an extreme, and it is explained by the isolation of the Puritans’ position. As such an extreme, it could not be maintained during the subsequent historical development. With time, various nationalities began to arrive in the country, bringing with them a diversity of customs and religious beliefs. Settling among the Puritans, these adherents of different faiths made it impossible to continue the theocratic regime in all its original strictness, and therefore it naturally began to yield to other influences. The original American population consisted of English Puritans and Dutch. If the former represented strict, fanatical religious rule, the latter brought with them religious freethinking which, strengthened by the subsequent German element, became an important counterweight to theocratic extremism. From the interaction of these elements was formed the present character of American religiosity. The intensity of the Puritan religious system was so great that when it collided with the opposing element, it could lose only enough to limit its extreme manifestations. On the other hand, the freethinking of the Dutch-German element was not so great as to survive when it collided with Puritan enthusiasm, and therefore it was considerably subordinated to Puritanism. Hence the mean level of religiosity could only be such a level at which religiosity, showing traces of moderate freethinking, has the predominant character of Puritanism. Such is the character of the American people’s present religiosity. In particulars they tend toward religious freethinking, yet at the same time Puritanism remains the dominant element even in those localities where the opposite element might be expected to prevail.[5] Clearly Puritanism, having formed the foundation of the entire worldview of the first American settlers, had succeeded in taking such deep root in American soil and had even become embodied in political institutions, that for subsequent migrants it appeared as the fundamental spirit of American life, and therefore they, as newcomers, of necessity had to submit to it as the dominant mood, despite the fact that Puritanism as a church-religious community had long lost its first place in the country.[6]