ABSTRACT
Some Catholic leaders in the United States publicly celebrated American institutions as providing a model framework for the future development of the Church more generally. Conservative elements in Rome came to associate this view with a number of doctrinal positions they disliked, a combination termed 'Americanism'. The Pope, mindful of the influence such ideas might have elsewhere, issued the following encyclical in 1899 to warn the American Church of the dangers it was running. The effect was to encourage American Catholics to concentrate on practical issues, even though the Vatican's belief that Americans wanted to see their Church develop differently from elsewhere was misplaced.
