Next update is done! I would not be surprised if I've bungled some of the details on Catholic hierarchy and theology, so please let me know if there's anything really wrong.
Part One Hundred Thirty-Four: One Church or Two?
The Church of the Occident:
By the early 20th century, the divisions within the Catholic Church following the ouster of the Pope from Rome in 1870 had widened into an increasingly apparent separation of the two churches. Through its administration of the Bishopric of Puebla, the Puebla Papacy had entrenched itself as both a religious and political authority in Ibero America. The theological divide between the Temporal and Spiritual Catholic churches was quickly exacerbated by the geographical divide. Most European bishops remained in allegiance with the Pope in Rome, with only the extreme Integrist clergy aligning themselves with Puebla. The Church in Puebla, seeking to fill the higher ranks of the clergy, soon became more and more represented by bishops and cardinals from the Americas. This was ultimately beneficial for the Pueblan Papacy as it gained the outward support from many conservative parties in Ibero America. In 1884, the Pueblan Church de facto cemented its division with the Church in Rome. After the death of Benedict XV[1], many cardinals in the Conclave desired to select a Pope who would better reach out to the Puebla Papacy's current flock. This meant taking the extraordinary step of selecting a candidate from Ibero America. Several candidates were put forth, and conservative Ecuadorean cardinal Gabriel Garcia Moreno was elected Pope Damasus III. The name of Damasus recalled the fourth century Pope Damasus I, who fought one of the earliest struggles of balancing the temporal and spiritual powers of the Papacy against the Gallican bishops in France.
Pope Damasus III's reign last twelve years until his death in 1897. However, even after his death the Puebla Papacy continued its move toward a more independent entity. The Conclave of 1897 returned the Pueblan Papacy to an Italian. Luigi Oreglia di Santo Stefano was elected Pope Paul VI, but did not even serve five years. Paul VI died in 1902 after he succumbed to yellow fever during an outbreak in Puebla. In the first Papal Conclave of the 20th century, the Pueblan cardinals chose a more local steward to guide the Pueblan Church in its increasing administrative duties. The inability of many remaining European cardinals in the Pueblan Curia to arrive in Puebla in time for the Conclave likely helped sway the vote toward another cardinal from the Americas. Archbishop of Puebla Eulogio Gillow y Zavalza was chosen as Pope Paul VII. Paul VII's major accomplishment during his papacy was to reogranize the Pueblan Papacy's day to day administration to more fit the new reality of the Church. Paul VII created gubernatorial positions for Puebla similar to those that had existed in the Papal States, appointing governors of Tlaxcala and other cities. In 1904, Paul VII authorized a canonical coronation for the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the canonization of Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin and Brazilian friar Antonio Sant'Anna Galvao[2]. Paul VII also declared the Virgin Mary the patron saint of the Americas.
In addition to these reforms, the crowning achievement of Paul VII's Papacy was beginning the construction of a new Apostolic Palace in Puebla. Prior to its construction, the Pueblan Church had operated primarily out of Puebla Cathedral. However, Paul VII sought to create "a new house of God for a new century and a New World" and reorient the church's institutions to focus on the Americas. The centerpiece of the Apostoilc Palace complex was to be a great new cathedral. Paul VII sought out the modernist architect Antoni Gaudi from Catalonia through Gaudi's friendship with the Catalan theologian Josep Torras i Bages. Torras i Bages convinced Gaudi to come to Puebla to make his proposal for the palace. While Torras i Bages sided with Rome when the Temporal Church fled to Puebla, he remained a proponent of reconciliation between the two papacies throughout his life and stayed in contact with both Rome and Puebla. Paul VII approved the plan, and construction on the new Basilica de la Sagrada Familia began in 1909. Pope Paul VII did not live to see the construction of the first phase of the cathedral itself. However, the other buildings including the papal apartments were completed by Pope Paul VII's death in 1918. As the Pueblan Church continued to steer away from Rome, the Basilica remained under construction as Church funds were diverted to other more pressing matters. The Basilica de la Sagrada Familia was finally completed in 1966 under Pope Filippo I[3].
The Church of Rome:
With the Pueblan Catholic Church taking steps to assert its independence and authority over the Catholic clergy in Ibero America, the Roman Catholic Church sought to reconcile its loss of temporal authority. While the Temporal Catholics were fleeing to the New World, Roman Pope Pius IX was meeting with Garibaldi and Louis Napoleon to settle the matter of Papal sovereignty within the Italian state. After the meeting, an agreement of extraterrotiriality was granted to the Roman Papcy similar to the agreement the Papacy had established with the Order of Malta. The Apostolic Palace including the Papal Apartments and Saint Peter's Basilica, the Castel Sant Angelo were granted as Papal properties as were the four patriarchal basilicas. Outside of Rome, other Papal properties such as Castel Gandolfo and the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi were also granted extraterritorial status as Papal properties.
After the death of Pope Pius IX in 1881, the curia elected Carmelengo and Archbishop of Perugia Vincenzo Luigi Pecci at Pope Leo XIII. Leo XIII was one of the longest serving Popes in history, and it was during his papacy that the Roman Catholic Church made the most efforts to maintain its congregation and influence in the United States. The Plenary Councils in Baltimore were continued in the 1880s and 1890s. In the Third Plenary Council in 1884, six archbishops - Baltimore, Boston, New York, Saint Louis, New Orleans, and Havana - as well as dozens of bishops and other lower clergy. The Plenary Council, presided over by Archbishop of Baltimore James Gibbons, organized the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church within the United States, determining the process for archbishops to recommend candidates to the Pope when a bishop's seat became vacant. The Third Plenary Council also reiterated the ownership rights regarding Church property and the importance of Catholic schooling in the United States at all levels of education. On Catholic schooling in particular, the need for a Catholic university in the United States was expressed[4]. Separately from the council, John Ireland, then Bishop of Saint Paul of Itasca and later elevated to archbishop along with the diocese, spoke in favor of establishing parochial schools for Catholics of all races in the country. This was part of Ireland's progressive leanings as a bishop as well as a way to evangelize in the United States.
The most important development out of the 1884 Plenary Council and another council in Baltimore in 1896 was the resolution of the theological controversy surrounding American priest Isaac Hecker. Hecker founded the Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, which organized missions to convert non-Catholics throughout the United States. The Paulists as they became known spread Catholic doctrine but placed a more American emphasis on the faith and action of the individual worshiper rather than the authority of the Pope[5]. This message resonated well with many Americans, but also spread to France in the 1880s and 1890s. Hecker died in 1886, but his teachings spread in the next decade to a Europe where clericalism was increasingly viewed with disdain. In a theological debate known as the Americanist controversy[6], Pope Leo XIII at first seemed to endorse Hecker's ideas. In 1890, the Pope called upon French Catholics to swear loyalty to the French republic even as anticlerical policies were being passed in France. However, as French priests embraced Hecker's teachings and began spreading the idea of updating Catholic doctrine for the modern era with a closer relationship between priests and parishioners. Leo XIII became concerned over the growing popularity of the Americanist thought after a French translation of Hecker's memoirs was seen as endorsing separation of church and state. He summoned Archbishop Gibbons and several French priests to Rome to discuss the matter. In 1899, Leo XIII issued a surprising encyclical supporting many aspects of Americanism, including more Church support of social projects and expanding Catholic schools to include secular subjects and permit non-theologians to attend. Leo did not go so far as to endorse the separation of church and state, but in light of the recent schism, Leo XIII strayed from any language that would potentially drive the Americanist thinkers further from the Church.
The resolution of the Americanist controversy and the reconciliation of modernist American and French thinkers with Rome had a widespread effect on the Roman Catholic Church's relations with other governments. While Pius IX and early on Leo XIII had decried movements in Germany by Bismarck and Naumann to lessen the influence of the Catholic Church in the political sphere, Leo XIII later sent emissaries to Berlin to attempt to reconcile with the German state. However, Naumann was a staunch liberal and kept many of Bismarck's anticlerical measures in place. The pseudofederal structure assisted the Church's efforts, however, and they found a more receptive audience in the Kingdom of Bavaria. Karl Lueger and the Christian Democratic Party encouraged the effective nullification of many anticlerical laws in Bavaria. While the more liberal reaction to Catholicism faced a backlash in Germany, it was more receptive among English Catholics. The mass deportations of the Irish through the latter 19th century created a culture of mistrust of the conservatism in the English government, and many Catholics embraced the more spiritual turn of Leo's Papacy. In particular, writer and philosopher G. K. Chesterton praised the Roman Church and Leo XIII for moving toward a less stringent church hierarchy that connected more with the people. Chesterton also used his praises of the Roman Catholic Church to attack the state of post-Great War Britain. With the loss of temporal power over the Papal States, Chesterton extrapolated and supposed that "perhaps this decoupling of Church power and State power should likewise be adopted in England. If the Pope and Italy can live side by side in Rome, surely the Head of the Church of England and the Head of the British government can do that same." This jab at the English monarchy led to a government investigation of Chesterton, but it did not yield any results for the government. However, Chesterton's call did find many supporters among a war-weary population. In particular, it attracted the attention of John Maynard Keynes, recently elected to Parliament on the new Party for the Common Wealth for the Cambridge university constituency.
[1] Benedict XV is Luigi Bilio.
[2] In OTL, Juan Diego was not canonized until 2002 and Frei Galvao until 2007.
[3] Filippo I is the Papal name of Charles Coughlin, after
Filippo Neri. I forget why I chose this name for him and can't find the connection I'd made, but I think it was Neri founded an order that Coughlin was in?
[4] Most of these were OTL decrees during the
Third Plenary Council of Baltimore.
[5] A lot of this is from Isaac Hecker's OTL life and beliefs, which the core of Americanism was derived from.
[6] Without the publication of
Testem benevolentiae nostrae, Americanism isn't really considered a heresy in TTL.