PART III
THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM

I. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDIES
II. CHOICE OF THE DIRECTORS AND PROFESSORS FOR SEMINARIES AND CATHOLIC INSTITUTES
III. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDENTS
IV. RULES CONCERNING THE READING OF BAD BOOKS
V. INSTITUTION OF DIOCESAN CENSORSHIP

Q. What is the duty of the Bishops with regard to the publication of books, etc.?

A. It is not enough to hinder the reading and the sale of bad books; it is also necessary to prevent them from being published. Hence, let the Bishops use the utmost strictness in granting permission to print.

Q. Ought the Bishops to institute official censors?

A. Under the rules of the Constitution Officiorum, many publications require the authorization of the Ordinary, and in certain dioceses (since the Bishop cannot personally make himself acquainted with them all) it has been the custom to have a suitable number of official censors for the examination of writings. We have the highest esteem for this institution of censors, and We not only exhort, but We order, that it be extended to all dioceses. In all Episcopal Curias, therefore, let censors be appointed for the revision of works intended for publication, and let the censors be chosen from both ranks of the clergy secular and regular men whose age, knowledge, and prudence will enable them to follow the safe and golden mean in their judgments.

Q. What shall be the duties of these censors?

A. It shall be their office to examine everything which requires permission for publication according to Articles XLI. and XLII. of the above-mentioned Constitution. The censor shall give his verdict in writing. If it be favourable, the Bishop will give the permission for publication by the word Imprimatur, which must be preceded by the Nihil Obstat and the name of the censor.

Q. Must censors be appointed in the Roman Curia?

A. In the Roman Curia official censors shall be appointed in the same way as elsewhere, and the duty of nominating them shall appertain to the Master of the Sacred Palace, after they have been proposed to the Cardinal Vicar and have been approved and accepted by the Sovereign Pontiff. It will also be the office of the Master of the Sacred Palace to select the censor for each writing. Permission for publication will be granted by him as well as by the Cardinal Vicar or his Vicegerent, and this permission, as above prescribed, must be preceded by the Nihil Obstat and the name of the censor.

Q. May mention of the censor sometimes be suppressed?

A. Only on very rare and exceptional occasions, and on the prudent decision of the Bishop, shall it be possible to omit mention of the censor.

Q. What precaution must be taken for the protection of the censor?

A. The name of the censor shall never be made known to the authors until he shall have given a favourable decision, so that he may not have to suffer inconvenience either while he is engaged in the examination of a writing, or in case he should withhold his approval.

Q. On what condition may a censor be chosen from among the members of a religious Order?

A. Censors shall never be chosen from the religious Orders until the opinion of the Provincial, or, in Rome, of the General, has been privately obtained; and the Provincial or the General must give a conscientious account of the character, knowledge, and orthodoxy of the candidate.

Q. What approbations must books have that are published by religious?

A. We admonish religious Superiors of their most solemn duty never to allow anything to be published by any of their subjects without permission from themselves and from the Ordinary.

Q. May the censor rely upon his title to defend his personal opinions?

A. Finally, We affirm and declare that the title of censor with which a person may be honoured has no value whatever and can never be adduced to give credit to the private opinions of him who holds it.

VI. PARTICIPATION OF THE CLERGY IN THE MANAGEMENT AND EDITORSHIP OF NEWSPAPERS

 

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PART III
THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM

I. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDIES
II. CHOICE OF THE DIRECTORS AND PROFESSORS FOR SEMINARIES AND CATHOLIC INSTITUTES
III. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDENTS
IV. RULES CONCERNING THE READING OF BAD BOOKS

Q. What is the duty of the Bishops as regards writings tainted with Modernism?

A. It is also the duty of the Bishops to prevent writings of Modernists, or whatever savours of Modernism or promotes it, from being read when they have been published, and to hinder their publication when they have not.

Q. What is their duty in this matter with regard to seminaries and Universities?

A. No books or papers or periodicals whatever of this kind are to be permitted to seminarists or University students. The injury to them would be not less than that which is caused by immoral reading nay, it would be greater, for such writings poison Christian life at its very fount.

Q. Ought the, same measures to be taken in the case of works written by Catholics who are imbued with modern philosophy and unsafe in theology?

A. The same decision is to be taken concerning the writings of some Catholics who, though not evilly disposed themselves, are ill instructed in theological studies and imbued with modern philosophy, and strive to make this harmonize with the Faith, and, as they say, to turn it to the profit of the Faith. The name and reputation of these authors cause them to be read without suspicion, and they are, therefore, all the more dangerous in gradually preparing the way for Modernism.

Q. Are the Bishops bound publicly and solemnly to condemn the pernicious books that get into their dioceses?

A. To add some more general directions in a matter of such moment, We order that you do everything in your power to drive out of your dioceses, even by solemn interdict, any pernicious books that may be in circulation there. The Holy See neglects no means to remove writings of this kind, but their number has now grown to such an extent that it is hardly possible to subject them all to censure. Hence it happens sometimes that the remedy arrives too late, for the disease has taken root during the delay. We will, therefore, that the Bishops, putting aside all fear and the prudence of the flesh, despising the clamour of evil men, shall, gently by all means but firmly, do each his own part in this work, remembering the in-junctions of Leo XIII. in the Apostolic Constitution Officiorum: ” Let the Ordinaries, acting in this also as delegates of the Apostolic See, exert themselves to proscribe and to put out of reach of the faithful injurious books or other writings printed or circulated in their dioceses.” In this passage the Bishops, it is true, receive an authorization, but they have also a charge laid upon them. Let no Bishop think that he fulfils this duty by denouncing to Us one or two books, while a great many others of the same kind are being published and circulated.

Q. May the Bishops condemn, and ought they even at times to condemn, works that have an Imprimatur?

A. Nor are you to be deterred by the fact that a book has obtained elsewhere the permission which is commonly called the Imprimatur, both because this may be merely simulated, and because it may have been granted through carelessness or too much indulgence or excessive trust placed in the author, which last has, perhaps, sometimes happened in the religious Orders. Besides, just as the same food does not agree with every one, it may happen that a book, harmless in one place, may, on account of the different circumstances, be hurtful in another. Should a Bishop, therefore, after having taken the advice of prudent persons, deem it right to condemn any of such books in his diocese, We give him ample faculty for the purpose, and We lay upon him the obligation of doing so. Let all this be done in a fitting manner, and in certain cases it will suffice to restrict the prohibition to the clergy.

Q. When the prohibition is restricted to the clergy, may Catholic booksellers continue to sell the book that has been forbidden?

A. In all cases it will be obligatory on Catholic booksellers not to put on sale books condemned by the Bishop.

Q. What are the duties of the Bishops with regard to Catholic booksellers?

A. While We are treating of this subject, We wish the Bishops to see to it that booksellers do not, through desire for gain, engage in evil trade. It is certain that in the catalogues of some of them the books of the Modernists are not unfrequently announced with no small praise. If they refuse obedience, let the Bishops, after due admonition, have no hesitation in depriving them of the title of Catholic booksellers. This applies, and with still more reason, to those who have the title of Episcopal booksellers. If they have that of Pontifical booksellers, let them be denounced to the Apostolic See. Finally, We remind all of Article XXVI. of the above-mentioned Constitution Officiorum : ” All those who have obtained an Apostolic faculty to read and keep forbidden books are not thereby authorized to read and keep books and periodicals forbidden by the local Ordinaries, unless the Apostolic faculty expressly concedes permission to read and keep books condemned by anyone whomsoever.”

 

V. INSTITUTION OF DIOCESAN CENSORSHIP

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PART III
THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM

I. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDIES
II. CHOICE OF THE DIRECTORS AND PROFESSORS FOR SEMINARIES AND CATHOLIC INSTITUTES
III. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDENTS

Q. With what vigilance are candidates for Holy Orders to be chosen?

A. Equal vigilance and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for Holy Orders. Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty! God hateth the proud and the obstinate mind.

Q. What will be required in future as a condition for validly conferring the doctorate of theology and canon law?

A. For the future the doctorate of theology and canon law must never be conferred on anyone who has not first of all made the regular course of scholastic philosophy; if conferred, it shall be held as null and void.

Q. What rules laid down for clerics, both secular and regular, in Italy, are henceforth extended to all countries?

A. The rules laid down in 1896 by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars for the clerics, both secular and regular, of Italy, concerning the frequenting of the Universities, We now decree to be extended to all nations.

Q. What prohibition is added by the Sovereign Pontiff?

A. Clerics and priests inscribed in a Catholic Institute or University must not in the future follow in civil Universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic Institutes to which they belong. If this has been permitted anywhere in the past, We ordain that it be not allowed for the future.

Q. What must the Bishops do who preside over the direction of such Universities and Institutes?

A. Let the Bishops who form the governing board of such Catholic Universities or Institutes watch with all care that these Our commands be constantly observed.

IV. RULES CONCERNING THE READING OF BAD BOOKS

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PART III
THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM

I. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDIES
II. CHOICE OF THE DIRECTORS AND PROFESSORS FOR SEMINARIES AND CATHOLIC INSTITUTES

Q. With what prudence, and according to what rules, must professors for seminaries and Catholic Universities be chosen?

A. All these prescriptions, both Our own and those of Our Predecessor, are to be kept in view whenever there is question of choosing directors and professors for seminaries and Catholic Universities. Anyone who in any way is found to be tainted with Modernism is to be excluded without compunction from these offices, whether of government or of teaching, and those who already occupy them are to be removed. The same policy is to be adopted towards those who openly or secretly lend countenance to Modernism, either by extolling the Modernists and excusing their culpable conduct, or by carping at scholasticism, and the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, or by refusing obedience to ecclesiastical authority in any of its depositaries; and towards those who show a love of novelty in history, archaeology, Biblical exegesis; and, finally, towards those who neglect the sacred sciences or appear to prefer to them the secular. In all this question of studies you cannot be too watchful or too constant, but most of all in the choice of professors; for, as a rule, the students are modelled after the pattern of their masters. Strong in the conscious ness of your duty, act always in this matter with prudence and with vigor.

III. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDENTS

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PART III
THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM

I. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDIES

Q. What does the Holy Father ordain on the subject of philosophy?

A. He says: In the first place, with regard to studies, We will and strictly ordain that scholastic philosophy be made the basis of the sacred sciences.

Q. Following Leo XIII., what reservation does Pius X. make in his prescription?

A. It goes without saying that ” if anything is met with among the scholastic doctors which may be regarded as something investigated with an excess of subtlety, or taught without sufficient consideration; anything which is not in keeping with the certain results of later times; anything, in short, which is altogether destitute of probability, We have no desire whatever to propose it for the imitation of present generations.” (Leo XIII., Encycl. Mterni Patris.)

Q. What scholastic philosophy is prescribed in seminaries and religious Institutes?

A. Let it be clearly understood above all things that, when We prescribe scholastic philosophy, We understand chiefly that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us, and We therefore declare that all the ordinances of Our Predecessor on this subject continue fully in force; and, as far as may be necessary, We do decree anew, and confirm, and order that they shall be strictly observed by all. In seminaries where they have been neglected, it will be for the Bishops to exact and require their observance in the future; and let this apply also to the Superiors of religious Orders.

Q. Would it be a great disadvantage to set aside St. Thomas?

A. We admonish professors to bear well in mind that they cannot set aside St. Thomas, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave disadvantage.

Q. In what words does Pius X. recommend the study of theology?

A. On this philosophical foundation the theological edifice is to be carefully raised. Promote the study of theology by all means in your power, so that your clerics on leaving the seminaries may carry with them a deep admiration and love of it, and always find in it a source of delight. For ” in the vast and varied abundance of studies opening before the mind desirous of truth, it is known to everyone that theology occupies such a commanding place that, according to an ancient adage of the wise, it is the duty of the other arts and sciences to serve it, and to wait upon it after the manner of handmaidens.” ( Leo XIII., Lett. Ap. In Magna, December 10, 1889.)

Q. Does not the Sovereign Pontiff, all the same, praise the theologians who teach positive theology?

A. We will add that We deem worthy of praise those who, with full respect for tradition, the Fathers, and the ecclesiastical magisterium, endeavour, with well-balanced judgment, and guided by Catholic principles (which is not always the case), to illustrate positive theology by throwing upon it the light of true history.

Q. In teaching positive theology, what is to be avoided?

A. It is certainly necessary that positive theology should be held in greater appreciation than it has been in the past, but this must be done without detriment to scholastic theology; and those are to be disapproved as Modernists who exalt positive theology in such a way as to seem to despise the scholastic.

Q. According to what law ought the study of natural sciences to be regulated?

A. With regard to secular studies, let it suffice to recall here what Our Predecessor has admirably said: ” Apply yourselves energetically to the study of natural sciences, in which department the things that have been so brilliantly discovered and so usefully applied, to the admiration of the present age, will be the object of praise and commendation to those who come after us.” (Leo XIII., Alloc., March 7, 1880.) But this is to be done without interfering with sacred studies, as Our same Predecessor prescribed in these most weighty words: ” If you carefully search for the cause of those errors you will find that it lies in the fact that in these days, when the natural sciences absorb so much study, the more severe and lofty studies have been proportionately neglected some of them have almost passed into oblivion, some of them are pursued in a half-hearted or superficial way, and, sad to say, now that the splendour of the former estate is dimmed, they have been disfigured by perverse doc trines and monstrous errors.” (Loc. cit) We ordain, therefore, that the study of natural sciences in the seminaries be carried out according to the law.

II. CHOICE OF THE DIRECTORS AND PROFESSORS FOR SEMINARIES AND CATHOLIC INSTITUTES

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PART III
THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM

Q. What did Leo XIII. do against the errors of the Modernists?

A. Against this host of grave errors, and its secret and open advance, Our Predecessor, Leo XIII., of happy memory, worked strenuously, both in his words and his acts, especially as regards the study of the Bible.

Q. Were the Modernists put to rout by these words and these acts?

A. But, as we have seen, the Modernists are not easily deterred by such weapons. With an affectation of great submission and respect, they proceeded to twist the words of the Pontiff to their own sense, while they described his action as directed against others than themselves. Thus the evil has gone on increasing from day to day.

Q. What determination was our Holy Father, Pius X., obliged to come to?

A. He tells us: We, therefore, have decided to suffer no longer delay, and to adopt measures which are more efficacious.

Q. In what terms does he call on Bishops, pastors of souls, educators, and the head Superiors of religious Institutes?

A. We exhort and conjure you to see to it that in this most grave matter no one shall be in a position to say that you have been in the slightest degree wanting in vigilance, zeal, or firmness. And what We ask of you and expect of you, We ask and expect also of all other pastors of souls, of all educators and professors of clerics, and in a very special way of the Superiors of religious communities.

 

I. RULES RELATIVE TO STUDIES.

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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
2. POSITIVE MEANS

Q. Are the Modernists zealous to enlist new recruits?

A. What efforts do they not make to win new recruits!

Q. What are their principal means of conquest?

A. They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and Universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence. In sermons from the pulpit they disseminate their doctrines, although possibly in utterances which are veiled. In congresses they express their teachings more openly. In their social gatherings they introduce them and commend them to others. Under their own names and under pseudonyms they publish numbers of books, newspapers, reviews, and sometimes one and the same writer adopts a variety of pseudonyms, to trap the incautious reader into believing in a multitude of Modernist writers. In short, with feverish activity they leave nothing untried in act, speech, and writing.

Q. With what result are all these Modernist artifices employed?

A. With what result? We have to deplore the spectacle of many young men, once full of promise and capable of rendering great services to the Church, now gone astray.

Q. What is there that cannot but cause us sorrow on the part of certain Catholics who are not as yet thorough going Modernists?

A. It is also a subject of grief to Us that many others, while they certainly do not go so far as the former, have yet been so infected by breathing a poisoned atmosphere, as to think, speak, and write with a degree of laxity which ill becomes a Catholic.

Q. Are these Catholics, who allow themselves to be contaminated by Modernism, to be found only among the laity?

A. They are to be found among the laity, and in the ranks of the clergy.

Q. But is it possible that there are some even in the religious Orders?

A. They are not wanting even in the last place where one might expect to meet them in religious communities.

Q. How do these Catholics, laymen, priests, and religious, who are all more or less tainted with Modernism, treat of Biblical questions?

A. If they treat of Biblical questions, it is upon Modernist principles.

Q. How do they write history?

A. If they write history, they carefully, and with ill-concealed satisfaction, drag into the light, on the plea of telling the whole truth, everything that appears to cast a stain upon the Church.

Q. How do they act with regard to pious popular traditions and venerable relics?

A. Under the sway of certain a priori conceptions, they destroy as far as they can the pious traditions of the people, and bring into disrespect certain relics highly venerable from their antiquity.

Q. At bottom, what is it that impels them to break thus with the ancient traditions?

A. They are possessed by the empty desire of having their names upon the lips of the public, and they know they would never succeed in this were they to say only what has always been said by all men.

Q. But have not these Catholics, who are more or less Modernists, good intentions in breaking with the traditions of the past?

A. It may be that they have persuaded themselves that in all this they are really serving God and the Church.

Q. What is the fact?

A. In reality they only offend both, less perhaps by their works in themselves than by the spirit in which they write, and by the encouragement they thus give to the aims of the Modernists.

PART III – THE REMEDIES FOR MODERNISM 

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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.

 

2. POSITIVE MEANS

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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

Q. Are the Modernists zealous in propagating their pernicious system?

A. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying labour on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such energy in endeavouring to ruin the Church, when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better directed.

Q. Do the Modernists employ artifice in this active propaganda to spread abroad their system?

A. Yes; and their artifices to delude men s minds are of two kinds.

Q. What are these two kinds of artifices?

A. The first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their purpose.

 

1. NEGATIVE MEANS

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PART II
THE CAUSES OF MODERNISM

I. MORAL CAUSES: CURIOSITY AND PRIDE
II. INTELLECTUAL CAUSE

Q. In addition to these two moral causes, curiosity and pride, what is the chief intellectual cause of Modernism?

A. If we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of Modernism, the first and the chief which presents itself is ignorance.

Q. Ignorance! in the, Modernists who think themselves so learned / can that really be true?

A. Yes, these very Modernists who seek to be esteemed as Doctors of the Church, who speak so loftily of modern philosophy, and show such contempt for scholasticism, have embraced the one with all its false glamour, precisely because their ignorance of the other has left them without the means of being able to recognize confusion of thought and to refute sophistry.

Q. Has, then, this false modern philosophy, with which the Modernists, in their ignorance of scholasticism, have allowed themselves to be taken, given birth to Modernism?

A. Their whole system, containing as it does errors so many and so great, has been born of the union between faith and false philosophy.

 

III. ARTIFICES OF THE MODERNISTS FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THEIR ERRORS

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