PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS
(Continued) BRANCHES OF THE FAITH
I. DOGMA
II. WORSHIP
III. SACRED SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION

Q. What, for the Modernist theologians, are the Sacred Scriptures?

A. ‘We have already touched upon the nature and origin of the Sacred Books. According to the principles of the Modernists, they may be rightly described
as a summary of experiences, not, indeed, of the kind that may now and again come to anybody, but those extraordinary and striking experiences which are the possession of every religion.’

Q. But does this description apply also to our Sacred Scriptures?

A. ‘This is precisely what they teach about our books of the Old and New Testament.’

Q. Experience is always concerned with the present; but the Sacred Scriptures contain the history of the past and prophecies of the future. How, then, can the Modernists call them summaries of experience?

A. ‘To suit their own theories they note with remarkable ingenuity that, although experience is some thing belonging to the present, still it may draw its material in like manner from the past and the future, inasmuch as the believer by memory lives the past over again after the manner of the present, and lives the future already by anticipation. This explains how it is that the historical and apocalyptic books are included among the Sacred Writings.’

Q. Are not the Sacred Scriptures the word of God?

A. ‘God does indeed speak in these books through the medium of the believer, but, according to Modernist theology, only by immanence and vital permanence.

Q. What, then, becomes of inspiration?

A. ‘Inspiration, they reply, is in nowise distinguished from that impulse which stimulates the believer to reveal the faith that is in him by words or writing, except perhaps by its vehemence. It is something like that which happens in poetical inspiration, of which it has been said : ” There is a God in us, and when He stirreth He sets us afire.” It is in this sense that God is said to be the origin of the inspiration of the Sacred Books.’

Q. Do they say that inspiration is general ? And what of inspiration, from the Catholic point of view ?

A. The Modernists affirm concerning this inspiration, that there is nothing in the Sacred Books which is devoid of it. In this respect some might be disposed
to consider them as more orthodox than certain writers in recent times who somewhat restrict inspiration, as, for instance, in what have been put forward as so-called tacit citations. But in all this we have mere verbal conjuring ; for if we take the Bible according to the standards of agnosticism, namely, as a human
work, made by men for men, albeit the theologian is allowed to proclaim that it is divine by immanence what room is there left in it for inspiration ? The Modernists assert a general inspiration of the Sacred Books, but they admit no inspiration in the Catholic sense.’

IV. THE CHURCH: HER ORIGIN, HER NATURE, AND HER RIGHTS

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS
(Continued) BRANCHES OF THE FAITH
I. DOGMA
II. WORSHIP

Q. What is the theological doctrine of the Modernists concerning worship and the Sacraments?

A. ‘Concerning worship there would not be much to be said, were it not that under this head are comprised the Sacraments, concerning which the Modernist
errors are of the most serious character.’

Q. Whence, according to them, does worship spring?

A. ‘For them worship is* the resultant of a double impulse or need; for, as we have seen, everything in their system is explained by inner impulses or necessities.’

Q. What is this double need of which the Modernist theologians speak?

A. ‘The first need is that of giving some sensible manifestation to religion; the second is that of propagating** it, which could not be done without some sensible form and consecrating acts, and these are called Sacraments.’

Q. What do the Modernists mean by Sacraments?

A. ‘For the Modernists, Sacraments are bare symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy.’

Q. To what do the. Modernist theologians compare the efficacy of the Sacraments?

A. ‘It is an efficacy, they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as having caught the popular ear, inasmuch as they have the power of putting certain leading ideas into circulation, and of making a marked impression upon the mind. What the phrases are to the ideas, that the Sacraments are to the religious sense.’

Q. Are they only that?

A. ‘That, and nothing more. The Modernists would express their mind more clearly were they to affirm that the Sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith; but this is condemned by the Council of Trent: ” If anyone say that these Sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let him be anathema.” ***

* The Official Translation has, For them the Sacraments are, etc. a particular case, whereas the Latin has Cultum in general. J. F.

** This word is used in the United States ; and the French and Italian versions also speak here of propagating, and not of expressing religion which were to repeat the idea of the preceding phrase. J. F.

*** Sess. VII., de Sacramentis in genere, can. 5.

III. SACRED SCRIPTURE INSPIRATION

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS
(Continued) BRANCHES OF THE FAITH
I. DOGMA

Q. Thus far We have touched upon the origin and nature of faith. But as faith has many branches, and chief among them the Church, dogma, worship, devotions, and the books which we call ” sacred,” it concerns us to know what do the Modernists teach concerning them ?

A. ‘To begin with dogma (We have already indicated its origin and nature), according to them, dogma is born of a sort of impulse or necessity by virtue of which the believer elaborates his thought so as to render it clearer to his own conscience* – and that of others.’

Q. In what does this elaboration consist?

A. ‘This elaboration consists entirely in the process of investigating and refining the primitive mental formula.’

Q. Is this elaboration a matter of reasoning and logic?

A. No, they reply; ‘not indeed in itself and according to any logical explanation, but according to circumstances, or vitally, as the Modernists somewhat less
intelligibly describe it.’

Q. ‘What is it that this elaboration produces, according to the Modernist theologians?’

A. ‘Around this primitive formula secondary formulas, as We have already indicated, gradually come to be formed, and these subsequently grouped
into one body, or one doctrinal construction, and further sanctioned by the public magisterium as responding to the common consciousness, are called dogma.’

Q. Do the Modernists distinguish dogma from theological speculations?

A. ‘Dogma is to be carefully distinguished from the speculations of theologians.’

Q. Of what use are these theological speculation?

A. ‘Although not alive with the life of dogma,’ these ‘are not without their utility as serving both to harmonize religion with science and to remove opposition between them, and to illumine and defend religion from without, and it may be even to prepare the matter for future dogma.’

*The Latin word conscientia denotes all kinds of consciousness, including that which is concerned with conduct, and is called conscience. Here, perhaps, the word had better be rendered consciousness. J. F.

II. WORSHIP

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER III

THE MODERNIST AS THEOLOGIAN
I. THEOLOGICAL IMMANENCE AND SYMBOLISM
II. DIVINE PERMANENCE

Q. With this principle of immanence is there not, according to the Modernists, another one connected?

A. ‘With this principle of immanence is connected another, which may be called the principle of divine permanence.’

Q. In what does this principle differ from the first?

A. ‘It differs from the first in much the same way as the private experience differs from the experience transmitted by tradition.’

Q. That is not very clear. Will you not explain this doctrine?

A. ‘An example illustrating what is meant will be found in the Church and the Sacraments.’

Q. What do they say about the institution of the Church and the Sacraments?

A. ‘The Church and the Sacraments, according to the Modernists, are not to be regarded as having been instituted by Christ Himself.’

Q. But how is that? How is the immediate institution by Christ of the Church and the Sacraments opposed to the principles of the Modernists?

A. ‘This is barred by Agnosticism, which recognizes in Christ nothing more than a man whose religious consciousness has been, like that of all men, formed by degrees; it is also barred by the law of immanence, which rejects what they call external application; it is further barred by the law of evolution, which requires for the development of the germs time and a certain series of circumstances; it is, finally, barred by history, which shows that such, in fact, has been the course of things.’

Q. In that case the Church and the Sacraments have not been instituted by Christ?

A. ‘Still it is to be held, they affirm, that both Church and Sacraments have been founded mediately by Christ.

Q. But how? That is, how do the Modernist theologians endeavour to prove this divine origin of the Church and the Sacraments?

A. ‘In this way: All Christian consciences were, they affirm, in a manner virtually included in the conscience of Christ, as the plant is included in the seed.
But as the branches live the life of the seed, so, too, all Christians are to be said to live the life of Christ. But the life of Christ, according to faith, is divine, and so, too, is the life of Christians. And if this life produced, in the course of ages, both the Church and the Sacraments, it is quite right to say that their origin is from Christ, and is divine.’

Q. Do the Modernist theologians proceed in the same way to establish the divinity of the Holy Scriptures and of dogmas?

A. ‘In the same way they make out that the Holy Scriptures and the dogmas are divine.’

Q. Is this the whole of the Modernist theology?

A. ‘In this the Modernist theology may be said to reach its completion. A slender provision, in truth, but more than enough for the theologian who professes that the conclusions of science, whatever they may be, must always be accepted.! No one will have any difficulty in making the application of these theories to the other points with which We propose to deal.’ *

* The Sovereign Pontiff seems here to declare that it were superfluous to follow the believer and the theologian as well as the philosopher in what concerns the branches of the faith, as he has done for the faith itself. That is why, after putting under our eyes the hand-baggage of Modernist theology, and showing us how easy it is to follow up the parallelism, he will limit himself, except for some passing indications, to setting forth the Modernist philosophy concerning the branches of the faith. He leaves it to us to apply the principles of theology. AUTHOR.

CHAPTER IV : THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS

BACK TO CONTENTS

 

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER III

THE MODERNIST AS THEOLOGIAN
I. THEOLOGICAL IMMANENCE AND SYMBOLISM

Q. At this point the way is opened for us to consider the Modernists in the theological arena a difficult task, yet one that may be disposed of briefly. What, then, does their system seek to do?

A. ‘It is a question of effecting the conciliation of faith with science, but always by making the one subject to the other.’

Q. What is the Modernist system?

A. ‘In this matter the Modernist theologian takes exactly the same principles which we have seen employed by the Modernist philosopher the principles of immanence and symbolism and applies them to the believer.’

Q. What is the process?

A. ‘The process is an extremely simple one. The philosopher has declared: The principle of faith is immanent; the believer has added: This principle is God; and the theologian draws the conclusion: God is immanent in man. Thus we have theological immanence.

So, too, the philosopher regards it as certain that the representations of the object of faith are merely symbolical; the believer has likewise affirmed that
the object of faith is God in Himself; and the theologian proceeds to affirm that: The representations of the divine reality are Symbolical. And thus we have
theological symbolism.’

Q. What judgment must be passed on this theological immanence and symbolism?

A. ‘These errors are truly of the gravest kind, and the pernicious character of both will be seen clearly from an examination of their consequences.’

Q. To begin with theological symbolism, what consequences follow from it?

A. ‘To begin with symbolism, since symbols are but symbols in regard to their objects, and only instruments in regard to the believer, two consequences follow.’

Q. What is the first consequence?

A. ‘It is necessary, first of all, according to the teachings of the Modernists, that the believer do not lay too much stress on the formula as formula, but avail himself of it only for the purpose of uniting himself to the absolute truth which the formula, at once reveals and conceals, that is to say, endeavours to express, but without ever succeeding in doing so.’

Q. What is the second consequence?

A. ‘They would also have the believer make use of the formulas only in so far as they are helpful to him; for they are given to be a help, and not a hindrance.’

Q. Must, then, the believer employ the formulas as he finds them convenient?

A. ‘Yes, answers the Modernist, but with proper regard for the social respect due to formulas which the public magisterium has deemed suitable for expressing the common consciousness, until such time as the same magisterium shall provide otherwise.’

Q. And, as regards theological immanence, what is really the meaning of the Modernists?

A. ‘Concerning immanence, it is not easy to deter mine what Modernists precisely mean by it, for their own opinions on the subject vary.’

Q. What are these different opinions of the Modernists, and their consequences ?

A. ‘Some understand it in the sense that God working in man is more intimately present in him than man is even in himself, and this conception, if properly understood, is irreproachable. Others hold that the divine action is one with the action of nature, as the action of the first cause is one with the action of the secondary cause ; and this would destroy the supernatural order. Others, finally, explain it in a way which savours of Pantheism, and this, in truth ; is the sense which best fits in with the rest of their doctrines.’

II. DIVINE PERMANENCE

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER II

THE MODERNIST AS BELIEVER

I. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
II. TRADITION
III. RELATION BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE
IV. PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES

Q. Is the conduct of Catholic Modernists in keeping with their principles?

A. ‘This will appear more clearly to anybody who studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with their teachings. In their writings and
addresses they seem not unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other, so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of science and faith. Thus, in their books one finds some things which might well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a rationalist.’

Q. Do they not play a double part in matters of history?

A. ‘When they write history they make no mention of the divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it clearly. Again, when they are
dealing with history, they take no account of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people they cite them respectfully.’

Q. And in matters of exegesis?

A. ‘In the same way they draw their distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is scientific and historical.’

Q. Is this done also in other scientific work?

A. ‘So, too, when they treat of philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in treading in the footsteps of Luther,* and are wont to display a manifold contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the (Ecumenical
Councils, for the ecclesiastical Magisterium; and should they be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived of their liberty.’

Q. What is, consequently, the conduct of Catholic Modernists with regard to the Church s magisterium?

A. ‘Maintaining the theory that faith must be subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her dogmas to the opinions of philosophy.’

Q. As to them, how do they treat Catholic theology?

A. ‘They, on their side, having for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavour to introduce a new theology which shall support the aberrations of
philosophers.’

* Prop. 29, condemned by Leo X., Bull, Exsurge Domine, May 16, 1520 : It is permissible to us to invalidate the authority of Councils, freely to gainsay their acts, to judge of their decrees, and confidently to assert whatever seems to us to be true, whether it has been approved or reprobated bv any Council whatsoever.

CHAPTER III : THE MODERNIST AS THEOLOGIAN

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER II

THE MODERNIST AS BELIEVER
I. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
II. TRADITION
III. RELATION BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE

Q. Can we now have some idea, of the relations which the Modernists establish between faith and science, including, under this latter term, history?

A. ‘We have proceeded sufficiently far to have before us enough, and more than enough, to enable us to see what are the relations which Modernists establish between faith and science including, as they are wont to do, under that name, history.’

Q. What difference do they make between the object of the one and of the other?

A. In the first place it is to be held that the object-matter of the one is quite extraneous to and separate from the object-matter of the other. For faith occupies itself solely with something which science declares to be for it unknowable. Hence each has a separate scope assigned to it: science is entirely
concerned with phenomena, into which faith does not at all enter; faith, on the contrary, concerns itself with the divine, which is entirely unknown to science.

Q. Then, according to them, no conflict is possible between faith and science?

A. ‘It is contended that there can never be any dissension between faith and science, for if each keeps on its own ground they can never meet, and therefore never can be in contradiction.’

Q. And if it be objected that in the visible world there are some things which appertain to faith, such as the human life of Christ?

A. ‘The Modernists reply by denying this.’

Q. How can they deny it?

A. ‘They say: Though such things come within the category of phenomena, still, in as far as they are lived by faith, and in the way already described have been by faith transfigured and disfigured, they have been removed from the world of sense and transferred into material for the divine.

Q. Hence, should it be further asked whether Christ has wrought real miracles, and made real prophecies, whether He rose truly from the dead and ascended into heaven, what do they answer?

A. The answer of agnostic science will be in the negative. The answer of faith in the affirmative.

Q. But is not that a flagrant contradiction between science and faith?

A. ‘There will not be, on that account, any conflict between them. For it will be denied by the philosopher as a philosopher speaking to philosophers and
considering Christ only in His historical reality; and it will be affirmed by the believer as a believer speaking to believers and considering the life of Christ as lived again by the faith and in the faith.’

Q. Faith and science acting thus in entirely separate fields, will there be, according to the Modernists, no subordination of the one to the other?

A. ‘It would be a great mistake to suppose that, according to these theories, one is allowed to believe that faith and science are entirely independent of each
other. On the side of science that is indeed quite true and correct, but it is quite otherwise with regard to faith, which is subject to science.’

Q. Faith subject to science! But on what ground?

A. ‘Not on one, but on three grounds.”

Q. According to the Modernists, what is the first ground?

A. ‘In the first place it must be observed that in every religious fact, when one takes away the divine reality and the experience of it which the believer
possesses, everything else, and especially the religious formulas, belongs to the sphere of phenomena, and therefore falls under the control of science. Let the believer go out of the world if he will, but so long as he remains in it, whether he like it or not, he cannot escape from the laws, the observation, the judgments of science and of history.’

Q. What is the second ground of the subordination of faith to science?

A. ‘Further, although it is contended that God is the object of faith alone, the statement refers only to the divine reality, not to the idea of God. The latter also is subject to science, which, while it philosophizes in what is called the logical order, soars also to the absolute and the ideal. It is, therefore, the right of
philosophy and of science to form its knowledge concerning the idea of God, to direct it in its evolution, and to purify it of any extraneous elements which may have entered into it. Hence we have the Modernist axiom that the religious evolution ought to be brought into accord with the moral and intellectual, or, as one whom they regard as their leader has expressed it, ought to be subject to it.’

Q. What is the third ground?

A. ‘Finally, man does not suffer a dualism to exist in himself, and the believer therefore feels within him an impelling need so to harmonize faith with science,
that it may never oppose the general conception which science sets forth concerning the universe.’

Q. Than, according to the Modernist doctrine, faith is in bondage to science?

A. Yes. ‘It is evident that science is to be entirely independent of faith, while, on the other hand, and notwithstanding that they are supposed to be strangers to each other, faith is made subject to science.’

Q. How did Pius IX. and Gregory IX. stigmatize such doctrines ?

A. ‘All this is in formal opposition to the teaching of Our Predecessor, Pius IX., where he lays it down that : ” In matters of religion it is the duty of philosophy not to command, but to serve ; not to prescribe what is to be believed, but to embrace what is to be believed with reasonable obedience ; not to scrutinize the depths of the mysteries of God, but to venerate them devoutly and humbly.”*

The Modernists completely invert the parts; and to them may be applied the words which another of Our Predecessors, Gregory IX., addressed to some
theologians of his time: ” Some among you, puffed up like bladders with the spirit of vanity, strive by profane novelties to cross the boundaries fixed by the Fathers, twisting the meaning of the Sacred Text . . . to the philosophical teaching of the rationalists, not for the profit of their hearer, but to make a show of science. . . . These men, led away by various and strange doctrines, turn the head into the tail, and force the queen to serve the handmaid.”**

* Brief to the Bishop of Wratislau, June 15, 1857.
** Ep. ad Magistros theol. Paris, non. Jul., 1223.

IV. PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES

BACK TO CONTENTS

ON THE GRAVITY OF THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

Q. What is one of the primary duties appointed by Christ to the Sovereign Pontiff?

A. His Holiness the Pope replies: ‘One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock, is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called.’

Q. Has such vigilance been necessary in every age?

A. ‘There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the Supreme Pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there has never been lacking ” men speaking perverse things,”* “vain talkers and seducers,” * “erring and driving into error.”

Q. Are these men, erring and driving into error, more numerous in our day, and what object have they in view?

A. It must be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ.

Q. Why may not the Sovereign Pontiff remain silent?

A. ‘We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.’

Q. Where in these days are the partisans of error are they open enemies?

A. ‘That we should act without delay in this Matter’, continues the Holy Father, ‘is made imperative, especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought, not only among the Church s open enemies, but, what is most to be dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open.’

Q. Holy Father, are these secret enemies, who wring your paternal heart, to be found among Catholics, and are there even priests among them?

A. Yes. ‘We allude to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay, more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church.’

Q. Do these Catholic laymen and these priests, who pose as reformers of the Church, dare to attack the work and even the person of Jesus Christ?

A. ‘Forming boldly into line of attack, they assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with
sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.’

Q. But will these men be astonished at being accounted by Your Holiness as enemies of Holy Church?

A. ‘Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We
should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech,
and their action. Nor, indeed, would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church.’

Q. Why do you say they are the worst enemies of the Church?

A. ‘As We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate.’

Q. For what other reason are they the worst enemies of the Church?

A. ‘Moreover, they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibres.’

Q. Are they satisfied with cutting at the root of immortal life?

A. ‘Once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt.’

Q. By what means do they pursue their purpose what tactics do they adopt?

A. ‘None is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error.’

Q. But must not the consequences of their doctrine alarm and drive back these Catholics, these priests?

A. ‘As audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink, or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance.’

Q. What is it that renders them particularly dangerous and gives them greater power to lead minds astray?

A. ‘The fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for irreproachable morality.’

Q. Is there any hope of remedy?

A. ‘There is the fact, which is all but fatal to the hope of cure, that their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority
and brook no restraint; and, relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.’

Q. Holy Father, did you yourself not hope to reclaim these erring ones?

A. ‘Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better mind, and to this end We first of all treated them with kindness as Our children; then with severity; and at last We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. It is known to you how unavailing have been Our efforts. For a moment they have bowed their head, only to lift it more arrogantly than before.’

Q. Since all hope of converting such enemies is lost, why, Holy Father, do you lift up your voice?

A. ‘If it were a matter which concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it; but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore We must interrupt a silence which it would be criminal to prolong.’

Q. Is it, then, time to speak out?

A. ‘Yes, that We may point out to the whole Church, as they really are, men who are badly disguised.

Q. What name, must we give to these new enemies of Christ and of His Church?

A. Modernists as they are commonly and rightly called.

OBJECT.

Q. What is the object of the Encyclical?

A. ‘It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and dis jointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast. For this reason it will be of advantage to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out their interconnexion, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil results.’

DIFFERENT PARTS.

Q. How is the Encyclical divided?

A. It is divided into three parts:

Part I. The Errors of the Modernists.

Part II. The Causes of Modernism.

Part III. The Remedies for Modernism.

BACK TO CONTENTS

PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS

CHAPTER II

THE MODERNIST AS BELIEVER
I. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Q. Thus far We have considered the Modernist as a philosopher. Now, if We proceed to consider him as a believer, and seek to know how the believer, according to Modernism, is marked off from the philosopher, what must be done?

A. ‘It must be observed that, although the philosopher recognizes the reality of the divine as the object of faith, still, this reality is not to be found by him but in the heart of the believer, as an object of feeling and affirmation, and therefore confined within the sphere of phenomena; but the question as to whether in itself it exists outside that feeling and affirmation is one which the philosopher passes over and neglects. For the Modernist believer, on the contrary, it is an established and certain fact that the reality of the divine does really exist in itself and quite independently of the person who believes in it.’

Q. And now we ask on what foundation this assertion of the believer rests.

A. ‘He answers: In the personal experience of the individual.’

Q. Is it in that, then, that the Modernists differ from the Rationalists?

A. ‘On this head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists, only to fall into the views of the Protestants and pseudo-Mystics.’

Q. How do they explain that, through individual experience, they arrive at the certitude of the existence of God in Himself?

A. ‘The following is their manner of stating the question: In the religious sense one must recognize a kind of intuition of the heart which puts man in immediate contact with the reality of God.’

Q. They attain to God without any intermediary. But what kind of certitude do they pretend to have through this intuition of the heart?

A. ‘Such a persuasion of God’s existence and His action both within and without man as far to exceed any scientific conviction. They assert, therefore, the existence of a real experience, and one of a kind that surpasses all rational experience.’

Q. If that is the case, whence comes it that there are men who deny the existence of God ?

A. ‘If this experience is denied by some, like the Rationalists, they say that this arises from the fact that such persons are unwilling to put themselves in the moral state necessary to produce it.’

Q. Is it, then, this individual experience which makes the believer?

A. ‘It is this experience which makes the person who acquires it to be properly and truly a believer.’

Q. But is not all that contrary to the Catholic faith?

A. ‘How far this position is removed from that of Catholic teaching! We have already seen how its fallacies have been condemned by the Vatican Council.
Later on we shall see how these errors, combined with those which we have already mentioned, open wide the way to Atheism.’

Q. According to such principles, does it not seem that the Modernists must conclude that all religions are true?

A. ‘Evidently; given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true. What is to prevent such experiences from being found in any religion? In fact, that they are so is maintained by not a few. On what grounds can Modernists deny the truth of an experience affirmed by a follower of Islam?’

Q. Do they claim a monopoly of true experiences for Catholics alone?

A. ‘Indeed, Modernists do not deny, but actually maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true.’

Q. In fact, is not that an absolutely rigorous conclusion in their system?

A. ‘That they cannot feel otherwise is obvious. For on what ground, according to their theories, could falsity be predicated of any religion whatsoever? Certainly it would either be on account of the falsity of the religious sense, or on account of the falsity of the formula pronounced by the mind. Now, the religious sense, although it may be more perfect or less perfect, is always one and the same; and the intellectual formula, in order to be true, has but to respond to the religions sense and to the believer, what ever be the intellectual capacity of the latter.

Q. But do the Modernists not maintain the superiority of the Catholic religion?

A. ‘In the conflict between different religions the most that Modernists can maintain is that the Catholic has more truth because it is more vivid, and that it
deserves with more reason the name of Christian because it corresponds more fully with the origins of Christianity. No one will find it unreasonable that these consequences flow from the premisses.’

Q. Do not Catholics, and even priests, act as though they admitted such enormities?

A. ‘What is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests who, We would fain believe, abhor such enormities, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honour on the teachers of these errors, as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess, and which they do all in their power to propagate.

II. TRADITION

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