Americanism (heresy)

Coined in the nineteenth century, in Roman Catholic use the term Americanism referred to a group of related views, claimed to be heresies, tending to the endorsement of the separation of church and state, which were alleged to be prevalent among some American Catholics. European "continental conservative" (see Ancien Régime) clerics thought they detected signs of modernism or classical liberalism of the sort the Pope had condemned in the Syllabus of Errors in 1864. They feared that these doctrines were held by and taught by many members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States in the 1890s. Catholic leaders in the U.S., however, denied that they held these views.