PART II
THE CAUSES OF MODERNISM
Q. The better to understand what Modernism is, and to find the fitting remedies for it, what must now be done?
A. To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behoves Us to investigate the causes which have engendered it, and which foster its growth.
CHAPTER I
I. MORAL CAUSES : CURIOSITY AND PRIDE
Q. What is the proximate and immediate cause of Modernism?
A. That the proximate and immediate cause consists in an error of the mind cannot be open to doubt.
Q. Whence, in its turn, comes this perversity of mind which is the proximate cause of Modernism, or, in other words, what are the remote causes of Modernism?
A. We recognize that the remote causes may be reduced to two curiosity and pride.
Q. Is curiosity really a cause of error?
A. Curiosity by itself, if not prudently regulated, suffices to account for all errors. Such is the opinion of Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI., who wrote: “A lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty, when against the warning of the Apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know, and when, relying too much on itself, it thinks it can find the truth outside the Catholic Church, wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error.” (Ep. Encycl. Singulari nos, 1 Kal. Jul., 1834.)
Q. What evil is it that, even more than curiosity, Hinds the mind and precipitates into error?
A. It is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error.
Q. Has pride really entered into the doctrines of the Modernists?
A. Pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect.
Q. Can you describe to us the different aspects of Modernism which betray its pride?
A. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with presumption, ” We are not as the rest of men,” and which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most absurd kind. It is pride which arouses in them the spirit of disobedience, and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for authority, even for the supreme authority.
Q. Is there, then, no truer cause of Modernism than pride?
A. Truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride.
Q. Would a Catholic priest or layman, if overcome by pride, be inevitably a subject for Modernism?
A. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Christ, and neglects to tear pride from his heart, then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism.
Q. What duty is, therefore, incumbent on Bishops with regard to these priests full of pride?
A. For this reason, Venerable Brethren, it will be your first duty to resist such victims of pride, to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest offices. The higher they try to rise, the lower let them be placed, so that the lowliness of their position may limit their power of causing damage.
Q. Is it not also the duty of directors of seminaries to keep those seminarists from becoming priests who are infected with the spirit of pride?
A. Examine most carefully your young clerics by yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries, and when you find the spirit of pride amongst them, reject them without compunction from the priesthood.
Q. Up to the, present has this duty of keeping those infected with the spirit of pride from becoming priests been faithfully enough fulfilled?
A. Would to God that this had always been done with the vigilance and constancy which were required!