Dr. Chad C. Pecknold, associate professor of systemic theology at Catholic University of America, told the audience at the Pontifical College Josephinum on March 29 that their mission as Catholics is to bring the faith to America.
Pecknold’s lecture addressed the dangers of America separating itself from the authority of the Catholic Church. He explored the idea of Americanism and its connection to Catholicism, and he focused on three stages – Americanism at the turn of the 20th century, Americanism at midcentury and rethinking the Catholic mission in America today.
Pecknold spoke of a need for missionary activity in America at the annual Pio Cardinal Laghi Chair lecture, which was inaugurated at the Josephinum in 1992 in honor of Pio Cardinal Laghi, then-prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
His presentation, “To Make Disciples of All Nations: Rethinking the Catholic Mission in America,” was part of the Josephinum’s 2022-23 Building Spiritual Bridges to the Community Lecture Series.
Pecknold holds a doctor of philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge and has authored or edited five books. He contributes weekly columns to The Catholic Herald and writes for publications including First Things and The Wall Street Journal.
He began his presentation by recalling the story of the commissioning of the disciples in the Gospel of Matthew and its connection to Cardinal Laghi.
Jesus told his Apostles that “all authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to (Him)” and to “go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:18-19)
“Why does Jesus take His disciples to a mountaintop to say all power has been given to Him?” Pecknold said.
He asked the audience why Jesus would not say to go and make disciples of all “people” or all “souls.”
“Why nations?”
Pecknold said Jesus instructed his Apostles to make disciples of all nations because the Church’s missionary activity is done in a holistic, communal way.
“Ours is not an individualistic faith,” he said.
Jesus took his disciples to a mountaintop for the commissioning, Pecknold said, because the Catholic faith is a communal faith that goes down from the mountaintop and has a need for hierarchy.
Pecknold said Cardinal Laghi worked to make disciples of all nations while he served as a papal nuncio (diplomat) in Argentina and brought concord, or agreement and harmony, between the Church and the political world.
Cardinal Laghi became a cardinal in 1991, and Pope St. John Paul II made him a nuncio to the United States in 1994. He was later a special envoy from Pope Benedict XVI to former President George W. Bush.
Pecknold said Cardinal Laghi’s “deepest instincts” were to bring the Church’s teachings to the nations.
For the first part of his lecture, Pecknold discussed the idea of Americanism during the papacy of Pope Leo XIII at the turn of the 20th century.
In 1899, the pope penned a letter to Cardinal James Gibbons, then-archbishop of Baltimore, Pecknold said, regarding new opinions in America.
The apostolic letter, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae (Testimony of Our Benevolence), addressed opinions held by intellectuals, and some bishops, that the Church should reshape her teachings for the modern age and relax some of her ancient practices.
“Liberal Catholicism believes he has landed upon a new method for winning the salvation of souls,” Pecknold said, adding that liberalism is synonymous with Americanism.
Pope Leo XIII wrote that such matters needed to be corrected and avoided.
The pope urged Cardinal Gibbons: “Do not tailor the faith to suit the spirit of the modern age” and “any accommodation must remain faithful to the Church’s teaching,” Pecknold said.
Pope Leo XIII named the heresy Americanism.
At this point in history, Pecknold said, Americanism was dismissed as being unreal, or existing only in people’s minds, and so it was called a “phantom heresy.”
Pecknold pondered whether Americanism was, in fact, a phantom heresy, or if it was a reality.
He said the great danger to Americanism was Catholic acceptance of new simple freedoms: liberty, religion, conscience and the press.
He added that an obstacle at the time was a faulty strategy for mission and advancing the knowledge of the Gospel, known formally as “missiology.”
Pecknold transitioned to Americanism at midcentury, a time, he said, when Catholics were deeply involved in Hollywood’s golden age.
“In the 1930s, American Catholics have reason to believe they were making disciples,” he said.
However, by World War II, American Catholics faced a new dynamic – the rise of authoritarianism – and downplayed authoritative Catholic teaching, he said, to prove themselves to be better liberals than Catholics.
“Pope Leo XIII’s warning was no phantom heresy; it was real,” Pecknold said of midcentury America.
He discussed, for example, the conflict between John Courtney Murray, an American Jesuit priest and theologian, and Joseph Clifford Fenton, a “star pupil” at Catholic University of America.
Fenton “refuted errors of Catholic liberals everywhere” and argued that church and state should be distinct but not separated, Pecknold said.
While Fenton recognized the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church, he said, Murray had a fundamental plan in which everyone had the right to choose whether to worship God.
Pecknold said Murray’s argument with Fenton stemmed from being unhappy with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical and traditional Catholic teaching.
“Murray thought the traditional view was morally inadequate, morality has changed, and the Church needs to change its teachings,” Pecknold said. “Murray took a strong stand against the Holy Office in Rome.”
Murray’s views were championed by Protestant theologies, and he was featured on the cover of Time magazine.
Pecknold said this transformed how Americans would view the Catholic mission.
Murray endorsed religious freedom as a path by which men might fulfill their duty to worship God, Pecknold said.
“The rumor in Rome was that Pope Pius XII intended to condemn Murray’s errors, but (the pope) died,” he said.
The third part of Pecknold’s presentation was a call to action and focused on strategically rethinking the Catholic mission in America today.
“America exists principally by the will of God,” Pecknold said. “We are converted by the medicine of grace.”
Pecknold told the audience to commit to the conversion of the nation.
“We must remember the Church has been given power for this,” he said, reflecting on Jesus’ commissioning on the mountain in St. Matthew’s Gospel.
Pecknold said that Catholicism is a faith of dependence, and Catholics are called to be entirely dependent on God.
“We must reject the spirit of independence,” he said. “We must return to the missiological (missionary) view from the mountaintop.”
Pecknold said that each soul has a religion, and each nation does, too.
“Large parts of America were Catholic because of temporal (worldly) power,” he said.
Pecknold recalled various cities in California named after Catholic saints, including San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Monica; Sacramento named after the Blessed Sacrament; and San Antonio, Texas, and St. Augustine, Florida, named in honor of saints.
“We are a refuge and sanctuary for souls and families, and as our Lord taught us, for the nations,” Pecknold said. “Let us not be afraid of this.”
He said that concord, or agreement, between the Church and nations, comes only by way of conversion. He told the audience to be sent out again with a true sense of mission.
“The answer to liberalism is not left or right, but Catholicism as a whole,” he said. “What is right order, and how do we conform ourselves to it?”
Pecknold concluded his presentation by reminding the audience that there is still time for conversion.
“Though the hour is late, it is not too late,” he said. “God is merciful and patient.”
Pecknold encouraged dialogue that is ordered toward conversion, and he told the audience to pay attention to the intent, or purpose, of their mission as Catholics in bringing the faith to America.
“Pray for the conversion of our country.”