PrintNovember 17, 2007
The LA Times instructs Benedict XVI
Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae is the name of a Papal encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, issued in 1899. The encyclical concerned the then burning issue of something called Americanism or American particularism, which grew from a movement of ninteenth century American Catholics who felt they were a special case that needed greater latitude in order to assimilate to the dominant Protestant ethos of the nation. The encyclical rejected the idea as a heresy before acknowledging that Catholicism could accommodate to American norms when they did not conflict with doctrinal or moral teachings of the Catholic Church.If the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times reviewed the encyclical before their recent editorial, "Teaching [!] the pope" then they willfully ignored it. But of course they probably never heard of it. To the learned editors of the LA Times, no doubt, the history of the Church consists entirely of Latin gibberish, bad popes, abusive nuns, and the Inquisition.When the decline...(Read Full Article)
