PART II
THE CAUSES OF MODERNISM
I. MORAL CAUSES: CURIOSITY AND PRIDE
II. INTELLECTUAL CAUSES
III. ARTIFICES OF THE MODERNISTS FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THEIR ERRORS
1. NEGATIVE MEANS
Q. Are there, then, things which the Modernists consider as obstacles to be removed?
A. They recognize that three chief difficulties stand in their way.
Q. What are these three obstacles which the Modernists strive to remove?
A. The scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and Tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church.
Q. Do the Modernists really wage war on these three things?
A. On these they wage unrelenting war.
Q. What weapons do they use against scholasticism?
A. Against scholastic philosophy and theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt.
Q. What causes the Modernist to wage war on scholastic philosophy?
A. Ignorance or fear, or both. (SylL, Prop. 13.)
Q. Do dislike and hatred of scholasticism go hand- in-hand with Modernism ?
A. Certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism, and there is no surer sign that a man is tending to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for the scholastic method.
Q. As to their hatred of scholastic philosophy, what grave warning are we entitled to give to the Modernists?
A. Let the Modernists and their admirers remember the proposition condemned by Pius IX. : ” The method and principles which have served the ancient doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time, or the progress of science.” (SylL, Prop. 13.)
Q. In their war against scholastic philosophy, what do the Modernists do with regard to the second obstacle, which, as we have said, is Tradition?
A. They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of Tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority.
Q. What law of the Second Council of Nicea ought true Catholics always to call to mind in this matter of Tradition?
A. For Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the Second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those ” who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind … or endeavour by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church.”
Q. And further, as to this question of Tradition, what was the declaration of the Fourth Council of Constantinople?
A. ” We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by every one of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.”
Q. Is not respect for Tradition inscribed also in the profession of faith?
A. The Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV. and Pius IX., ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: “I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.”
Q. Respecting Tradition so little, how do the Modernists treat the holy Fathers of the Church?
A. The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon Tradition.
Q. With what overweening audacity do they speak of the Fathers ?
A. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived.
Q. At war with scholastic philosophy and Tradition, what is the third obstacle the Modernists endeavour to remove from their path?
A. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself.
Q. How do they proceed against the ecclesiastical magisterium?
A. By sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries.
Q. As regards this war of the Modernists against the ecclesiastical magisterium, can we not apply to them former condemnations?
A. To the entire band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our Predecessor sorrowfully wrote : ” To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and, perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of
light, science, and progress.” (Motu Proprio, Ut Mysticvm, March 14, 1891.)
Q. Such being the Modernists hatred of the Church, what is their attitude with regard to Catholics who defend her?
A. This being so, there is little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church.
Q. Does the ill-will of the Modernists towards Catholics who are faithful to the Church go as far as to insult them?
A. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them.
Q. What is their favourite insult against Catholics?
A. Their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy.
Q. If the Catholic who defends the Church is a learned man, what tactics do the Modernists pursue in his case?
A. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that render him redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him, to nullify the effects of his attack.
Q. Is such conduct at least palliated by a like conduct on the part of the Modernists towards their own?
A. This policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side.
Q. What, especially, is their way of dealing with regard to works filled full of novelties?
A. They are found hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause.
Q. By what sign do they know that an author is more or less learned?
A. For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium.
Q. If a Modernist be condemned by the Church, have the rest of them the audacity still to stand by him?
A. When one of their number falls under the condemnations of the Church, the rest of them, to the disgust of good Catholics, gather round him, loudly and publicly applaud him, and hold him up in veneration as almost a martyr for truth.
Q. How is it that the young allow themselves to be unsettled by all this noise which the Modernists make?
A. The young, excited and confused by all this clamour of praise and abuse, some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant, others ambitious to rank among the learned, and both classes goaded internally by curiosity and pride, not unfrequently surrender and give themselves up to Modernism.
Q. But is not this method of winning over the young to Modernism, by means of noise and audacity, one of those stratagems, mentioned above, which they use to conquer?
A. Here we have already some of the artifices employed by Modernists to exploit their wares.