what the pope declared the heresy of modernism. This apparently inconsistent behavior stemmed from Ireland's concept of a "golden mean" between "ultraconservatism", rendering the Church irrelevant, and "ultraliberalism," discarding the Church's message. "Americanization" At the same time, there was a strong difference of opinion among the bishops of the United States as to how best to serve and counsel their largely immigrant parishioners. Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore and Archbishop John J. Keane of Dubuque were among those who favored encouraging Catholics to become assimilated and take an active part in American society. To this end, they tended to be strong supporters of Catholic higher education. More conservative bishops, such as Archbishop Michael Corrigan of New York, were concerned that the more that Catholics adapted to the Protestant culture, the more likely they were to lose their culture, heritage and religion. Corrigan was a strong supporter of national parishes to serve Catholics of a particular shared ethnicity. Others, such as Orestes Brownson—an abolitionist Catholic public intellectual—were not satisfied with the system of national parishes. Orestes, who was considered to be an Americanizer, advocated for immigrants to see their Catholic identity as superseding any national divides and personally opposed training priests in the then ethnically divided American seminaries. Bishop John Hughes believed that Brownson was part of a "'club' of liberal intellectuals...who wanted to Americanize the church." Hughes publicly denounced Brownson after the latter gave the 1860 commencement address at Fordham University. See also 19th-century history of the Catholic Church in the United States Cafeteria Catholicism References Further reading Murray, John Courtney. Religious liberty: Catholic struggles with pluralism (1993) 278 pages excerpts and text search McAvoy, Thomas T. The Americanist Heresy in Roman Catholicism 1895-1900 (1963) University of Notre Dame Press. McAvoy, Thomas T. "The Catholic Minority after the Americanist Controversy, 1899-1917: A Survey", Review of Politics, Jan 1959, Vol. 21 Issue 1, pp 53–82 in JSTOR Smith, Elwyn A. "The Fundamental Church-State Tradition of the Catholic Church in the United States." Church History 1969 38(4): 486-505. in JSTOR Thomas, Samuel J. "The American Periodical Press and the Apostolic Letter 'Testem Benevolentiae", Catholic Historical Review, July 1976, Vol. 62 Issue 3, pp 408–423 External links Testem benevolentiae nostrae Longinqua Catholic Encyclopedia article on Testem Benevolentiae Phantom Heresy? Americanist Crisis and the U.S. Roman Catholic Church Americanism: Then and Now Americanism — A Phantom Heresy? Shameless Popery: The Trouble with "Americanism" Heresy in