On weekdays, I attend morning Mass at the parish next to mine. I am a little embarrassed to tell you why. The neighboring parish has morning Mass at 8:30. My own parish’s Mass is at 7.
I hate to give up the extra half-hour or so in the sack. What can I say? In any event, one of the priests in the neighboring parish delivered an interesting sermon a few weeks back, on the feast day of St. Pius X.
What did he have to say? He rescued Pope Pius X from political incorrectness. The priest started his sermon by talking in praise of Pius X for the way he rose from humble origins, of his years working with the poor as a parish priest. He mentioned something I had never heard before, but have no reason to question: He said that Pius X had an aversion to the expensive trappings of life in the Vatican. Then he cut to the chase. He referred to Pius’ encyclicals against the Modernists: On the Doctrines of the Modernists and The Syllabus of Condemning the Errors of the Modernists. He assured the congregation, “Times change and the Church grows. There are things condemned in these encyclicals that are now common beliefs in the Church.” You learn something every day.
I do not know this priest, so I hesitated to go out of my way after Mass to ask him which beliefs of the Modernists he had in mind. But I was curious enough to go home and get out my copies of the encyclicals to see if I could figure out what he meant. Did Pius X forbid Catholics to challenge the Church on meatless Fridays and the Latin Mass? On girls serving Mass? On Limbo?
I still don’t know what the priest meant. Those are not the kinds of things discussed in the encyclicals. I could find only one passage in the encyclicals that I suspect most modern Catholics would want to reword. In The Syllabus of Errors, it states that we are forbidden to hold that “divine inspiration does not extend to all of Sacred Scriptures so that it renders its parts, each and every one, free from every error.” I can see someone objecting that the phrases “each and every one” and “from every error” make it seem that we are obliged to make a literal reading of Genesis.
But let us not get tangled in this web. I am confident that when the priest referred to changes in the “common beliefs” of the Church, he was not limiting himself to this single section of Pius X’s encyclicals. The point is that the encyclicals on the Modernists do not deal with areas where the Church has made changes since the days of Pius X. I am simplifying, but not too much: What they condemn is the notion that the teachings of the Church are a product of their times, and, that, as a result, we are free to reinterpret them for the purpose of drawing them in line with the ascendant secular humanism of our era. To be specific, the encyclicals forbid us to take the position that “the dogmas the Church holds out as revealed” are not revealed, but are merely “an interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has acquired by laborious effort.”
This priest was right about one thing, though: If you read through the Syllabus of Errors you come across numerous examples of the “updated” Catholicism taught by modern liberal theologians and their followers. If his point was that Modernist thinking has taken root in the theology departments of many Catholic universities, it would be an insightful one. The Syllabus of Errors forbids us to treat the Resurrection and Ascension as nothing more than inspiring myths and the Sacraments as purely symbolic rituals; it prohibits us from looking upon the Church as a human organization “subject to a perpetual evolution” in its teachings. We are not to subscribe to the proposition that “Scientific progress demands that the concepts of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption be re-adjusted.” We are not to take the position that “modern Catholicism can be reconciled with true science only if it is transformed into a non-dogmatic Christianity; that is to say, into a broad and liberal Protestantism.”
All these ideas are taught openly at Catholic universities. No question: They are “common beliefs” in those venues. But, come on, they are not the “common belief” of the Church. That is why there is so much tension between the hierarchy and the theology departments at Catholic colleges these days over who can and cannot be called a “Catholic theologian.”
There is something else we can learn from the cavalier way that this priest treated Pius X’s encyclicals. I am sure you have asked yourself how liberal clerics and theologians can justify their dissent from the Church’s teachings on matters such as birth control, abortion, women priests, and homosexuality – even after the Pope has spoken out unambiguously on these matters. Do they have any respect for the authority of the Church? Do they believe in the divinity of Christ and the Apostolic Succession? Do they fear the judgement of God for their disobedience? Why do they stay Catholic when they do not agree with the authority of the Church?
I can’t read their minds. Maybe there are some who have lost their faith and no longer feel any obligation to accept the authority of the Bible or the Church. But I suspect it is more likely that the have succumbed to the Modernist proposition that what the Church teaches as a core belief today may be cast aside tomorrow; that they are correct, and the modern Church wrong, about those issues where they are in dissent. They feel free to dissent because they are confident that the Church will change and catch up to their “progressive” insights; that their dissent will one day become a “common belief” of the Church, just as the priest from my neighboring parish believes has happened with the Modernist beliefs condemned by Pius X.
This is the central appeal of Modernism, of course. It permits you to put your independent judgment above the Magisterium, but not to have to take the step of openly breaking from Rome; to retain the benefits, material and psychological, of staying a Catholic, while thinking like a Protestant on issues that matter to you; to have your cake and eat it too.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
