One hundred years ago, Pope St. Pius X published an encyclical letter that has been both praised and reviled like few other papal documents. It was a firm response to a problem that was several decades in the making and an initial salvo in a battle that some believe the Church is still fighting today.
The Synthesis of All Heresies
The encyclical addressed a heresy known as modernism. With roots in Protestant biblical scholarship, the key idea of modernism was that the Christian faith had to be understood according to modern ideas about truth and knowledge. The Church, it suggested, was not as much in the role of teaching truths as it was in the business of providing meaning to people's lives.
The modernist movement was driven by a group of well-known European thinkers of the late nineteenth century, including the priests Alfred Loisy and George Tyrell, and the layman, Friedrich von Huegel.
"These men were concerned with the question of how to function in a European culture that was increasingly pluralistic and secular," Dr. Russell Reno, professor of theology at Creighton University, recently told Our Sunday Visitor. "Modernism solves that by separating the inner world of our personal religious experience from the outer world of science and truth. It says religion provides meaning, but science deals with real truth."
Applying this to doctrines about God, scripture, Jesus, and the Church resulted in a drastic watering down of Church teaching. If religion is about meaning disconnected from truth, then individual believers are free to invent their own religious concepts.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, modernism had become increasingly influential.
A Papal Response
On July 7, 1907, the Roman Inquisition (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) published Lamentabili Sane with the Pope's approval, a list of 65 modernist ideas that it condemned as "very serious errors."
Two months later, on September 8, Pope Pius X published the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, subtitled "On the Doctrine of the Modernists." Condemning modernism as "the sythesis of all heresies," the Pope insisted that modernism "means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion."
The Pope also called for some strong remedies to root out modernist thinking. Catholic seminary and university teachers were to be investigated and anyone "found to be tainted with Modernism … removed." All theological study was to be centered around scholasticism, based on the thinking of the great thirteenth century philosopher and theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. Starting in 1910, every priest was required to take the Oath against Modernism (a practice which continued until 1967).
"Some rather draconian measures were taken," Reno said. "In the first half of the twentieth century, anti-modernism became within the Church what anti-Communism was in the United States in the 1950's. Any theologian who made an effort to explore the idea of faith in the modern world was labeled a modernist."
As a result, several prominent theologians came under the suspicion of Church authorities. They included Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Joseph Ratzinger. Some of them were forbidden to teach or publish their works for several years.
This suspicious atmosphere changed with the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The same men whose work had been questioned by the Vatican were invited to serve as theological experts at the Council, which explored ways that the Church might interact with the modern world in positive ways. Congar and de Lubac were eventually made cardinals, and Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI.
"Viewed from a hundred years distance, we can look back and say it was providential that the Church put the brakes on this false solution. Most alive today didn't live through the period of intense scrutiny and constant suspicion. But there's a generation of priests, who are retired today, who tend to remember the harsh methods."
Meanwhile, some observers have argued that modernism was never completely defeated and that it is still influences the faith of Catholics today.
"If modernism means everyone gets to make their own definition of God, then there are a lot of modernists out there today," Reno said.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:22 am
I came across a booklet called "The Catechism of Modernism" about 10 years ago. It transformed the way I viewed the workings of modern society. It gave me a way to process the relativism, hedonism, and secularism around me. In fact, understanding Modernism transformed my battle against the evil around me.
Perhaps some priests remember the "harsh" ways with which theologians were scrutinized. It was a different age certainly. However, the Holy Spirit kept Holy Mother Church on task regarding rooting out modernism at the tap root. Ergo, Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:03 am
Unfortunately Reno is correct - there are a lot of modernists including my wife, children and a large number of my fellow Catholics. I have been unsuccessful in trying to show them that worshipping a god that they create in their own minds versus the God who has revealed himself to us is so very wrong. The modernist god is no better than the golden calf, it can do nothing, expects nothing in return and has no love. So wide is the easy path!
October 12th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I would ask that the editorial board of Catholic Exchange provide additional detail or clarification about the reference to Joseph Ratzinger as among those whose works were under suspicion of modernism. Further, the line that says "Some of them were forbidden to teach or publish their works for several years" tends to implicate then Father Ratzinger as well. I have not seen any credible, authoritative accusation of such. Dropping his name in this context would seem to give credibility to dissenters if they just stay the course. ("You too can become Pope someday!") Seriously, this needs to be clarified.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
“Applying this (Modernism) to doctrines about God, scripture, Jesus, and the Church resulted in a drastic watering down of Church teaching.”
If that’s the case, then it’s the Church’s fault no? It would have to be. They are wise enough to know the differences and not blame them on some protestant bogeyman.
"In the first half of the twentieth century, anti-modernism became within the Church what anti-Communism was in the United States in the 1950's. “
The myth of "McCarthyism" is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Sen. Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis. As Whittaker Chambers said: "Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does."
At the time, half the country realized liberals were lying. After a half century of liberal myth-making, the disgorging of Soviet and American archives half a century later overcame their lies. In 1995, the U.S. government released its cache of Soviet cables that had been decoded during the Cold War in a top-secret undertaking known as the Venona Project. The cables proved the overwhelming truth of McCarthy's charges. Naturally, therefore, the release of decrypted Soviet cables was barely mentioned by the New York Times. It might have detracted from stories of proud and unbowed victims of "McCarthyism." They were not so innocent after all, it turns out.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Though Ratzinger was not one of those who was ever forbidden to teach or publish (and my article does not say he was), I can point you to this “traditionalist” web page that presents an early publication noting the suspicion under which he was held: http://www.traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_001_CondemnationRatizinger.htm.
There’s no question that this suspicion was not nearly as serious as some of the others that I list. Still, it’s worth noting as an interesting illustration of the times. And my intention is certainly not to give dissenters the encouragement to “stay their course,” if that means ignoring the Church and her teachings and plowing ahead without concern. Several of those of Ratzinger’s generation who were forbidden to teach at the time provided an extraordinary example of faithful obedience. Yves Congar and Henri DeLubac are obvious examples. But the number of people who have, at various points in history, been looked upon with suspicion or condemned by Vatican authorities and later “rehabilitated” in the eyes of the Church, has indeed been taken as a source of such encouragement by some.
It happens. The most recent example of this will come on November 18, 2007, when Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, will beatify Fr. Antonio Rosmini, an Italian philosopher whose books were at one point on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Index of Forbidden Books.
Personally, I take it as a reminder of the human element in the Church and the carrying out of its mission. That human, fallible, sometimes sinful element will be there, right along with the divinely protected teaching and activity, until we’re all gathered together in the New Jerusalem.
Barry Michaels
October 12th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Thank you, Lazar, for making the connection between civil politics and Church politics. I couldn't have said it better myself. And, isn't it interesting that that battle (i.e., Macarthyism) also continues to this day, albeit under different names. The Liberals (in both arenas) don't and won't give up. (I suspect they can't.) And, weren't we warned about "the wheat and the tares"?
To Mr. Michaels, I was also under the impression from your article that Fr. Ratzinger/Pope Benedict was one of those "under suspicion". I know you have to keep your article to a certain length, but a little more clarification–or, a little less "name-dropping"–would seem to be in order.
As for those who take "encouragement" from this–whether in truth or in implication–they will continue to twist anything they can to their own ends, no matter how carefully we word it.