On Jan. 22, 1899, Pope Leo XIII sent Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore, leader of the American hierarchy, a document in the form of a letter whose opening words in Latin were Testem Benevolentiae (In Witness to Good Will). \u201cIt is clear, our beloved son,\u201d\u009d Pope Leo wrote, \u201cthat those opinions that, taken as a whole, some designate as \u201d\u02dcAmericanism\u2019 cannot have our approval.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Appalled, Cardinal Gibbons held up the document\u2019s release in the United States for a week, until the publication of excerpts originating overseas forced his hand and moved him to give it to The Baltimore Sun. In a letter to a friend, the cardinal called it \u201cvery discouraging \u201d\u00a6 that the American Church is not understood abroad.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
But the bishops of the Milwaukee province, a center of German-American Catholicism, said the errors condemned by Pope Leo were real.<\/p>\n