What is Modernism?
Pope St. Pius X, great defender of faith, facing the error of modernism.
In very short words, modernism is that philosophical error trying to transform the Church (and all its beliefs) in a subjective thing separating it to the same of all transcendence. Transforming it like this, into something essentially in the modern world. And who are trying to transform the Faith? It is the mistake today very widespread and condemned by the Popes called modernism.
We publish a small and consistent summary by the Dominican priest Jean-Dominique, of what the Church has always believed and of what I created the modernism of the Church, as if to illustrate the souls who have not been informed of this grave error.
What is Modernism?
The judgments of the Magisterium of the Church against Modernism are of an impressive vehemence.
The doctrine is qualified as:
- "Poison of error",
- "monstrosity",
- Terrible plague
- "Perversion of spirit",
- "Poisoned food",
- "Universal crash of errors",
- "Cesspool of all heresies" which "leads to pantheism" and "the destruction of religion".
The trial is no less severe compared to people: "We have to fight against skilled enemies , " says Pope St. Pius X, "against a very pernicious kind of men, modernists" who "plotting the ruin of the Church". These adversaries are seized of a "thirst for novelty", have "a new and often perfidious skill" are "enemies hiding in the breast and in the heart of the Church"; They are "the worst enemies of the Church", of a "perverted soul against authority , " imbued with "contempt for the Magisterium of the Church , " which undermine to its foundations"affecting an air of submission" and "hiding under the guise Exterior of compliance an unlimited audacity. " Thus, the modernists are so much to be feared as "their insidious tactic is never present their doctrines methodically and together".
What is modernism, which deserves such a condemnation?
First approximation.
The term "modernist" and gives us an indication of the nature of this heresy. Indeed, "modern" means that which belongs or should the present time or relatively recently. Consequently, modernism consists in the tendency to reconcile Christian exegesis with the presuppositions of historical criticism and modern philosophy.
This definition - indeed - is insufficient, but it highlights the general character of modernism. First of all, modernism - as its name indicates - wants to be modern, wants to adapt to the taste of the day; He does not want to be left out of society. The Church, she says, must adapt to the customs and way of thinking of the time, which were born of a rationalist and subjectivist philosophy. The modernist 'amalgam itself the rationalist and Catholic "say St. Pius X." Imbued with modern philosophy, dedicated to reconcile it with faith and use it , say, in favor of faith ". To put it in some way, the modernist will want to make a marriage between the traditional faith and the novelties coming out of Protestantism and the Revolution, thus giving it renewed fecundity.
The modernist wants this union to be total. Far from subordinating human thought to the demands of faith, it asks the Church to take contemporary philosophy as it is. The data revealed as a whole must be rethought and renewed in the light of new developments. Traditional language is likely to be retained, but it will give it a new meaning. "They judge that it is absolutely necessary that theology replace the old notions with new ones, as a result of the various philosophies of which, according to the times, that serves as instruments".
Modernism, therefore, appears at first sight as a pretension to bring the Church up to date, in the sense of a sincere adoption of the data of the prevailing philosophy. Hence it is rather a state of mind, often difficult to pin down, a kind of blood transfusion to the body of the Church that must lead to radical and permanent change.
the principles Of modernism.
What is this new philosophy, which has so much fascination with the modernist? With much discretion, Pope St. Pius X was summed up in two words: agnosticism and vital immanence. What is it about this?
The word "agnosticism" consists of proprietary "a" and the root "gnosis" or knowledge. In the broad sense, agnostic is one who denies that human intelligence has the natural ability to know reality as it is. Man should be content with the perception of phenomena, the appearance of things and make an image. He can not pretend to know the nature and the metaphysical laws of the real. More precisely and as a consequence, agnosticism teaches that man can not know the existence of God through reason.
Extending this principle, the modernist will come to affirm that the path that leads man to God is already closed in the natural order itself. It cuts, if it may be so, to the man of God, building a thick layer of cement between nature and Creator, between earth and sky. Not only intelligence can not know God (human intelligence must be circumscribed to nature and to itself, so that individuals and societies live without reference to God), but also God himself can no longer contact man (they are no longer possible or the incarnation, nor revelation, nor miracles):"the history of mankind is explained without reference to God."
The agnostic is also recognized for his contempt for objective truth and clear and definitive definitions. In addition, the contempt of intelligence leads to relativism and liberalism. How to judge whether a doctrine is true or false if it is deprived of all objective criteria? Then a difficulty arises: Where will man find the religious convictions he needs? Where is the source of this phenomenon found in all cultures, in all ages and is called "religion"?
Since it can not come from God (agnosticism), it can only come from man. This is the second modernist principle borrowed from modern philosophy, that of vital immanence. Religious life, faith and relationship with God, are reduced to an inner experience, a feeling, a conscience, a self-realization. "The doctrine of immanence, in the modernist sense, affirms and professes that every phenomenon of consciousness comes from man as a man.""Closed all way to God from intelligence (agnosticism), they strive to open another by the feeling and action", ie, experience. "The religious sentiment, which thus emerges through the vital immanence of the depths of the unconscious, is the germ of all religion, as much as it is the reason for all that has been and always will be of all religion."
The modernist, in other words, is like a aurista, who, deprived of all contact with the outside world, is abandoned to himself and his feelings. Deprived of the knowledge of the real and the first cause by virtue of his agnosticism, he believes that he can find in himself the motor of his progress. He is invited to surpass himself, to make his life and his religion giving free rein to his religious feeling. This is what modern philosophers describe as"transcendental act".
An immediate consequence is ecumenism. Since man makes his religion and is the master of his approach to God, to unite men and bring them closer to God, it will be sufficient for each one to follow his conscience, to practice his own cult, whatever it may be, putting into action His vital immanence. In this way they will all be more men, they will all build humanity together and join other men, advancing all towards the same peak, walking their own way.
The Modernist religion.
What is the Catholic religion transformed after having been examined and corrected by such a philosophy?Let's ask the modernist:
What is Faith?
The Catholic faith is a supernatural virtue infused by God, which confers upon the intelligence the supernatural certainty of revealed truths. The modernist transforms into a feeling coming "from the depths of the subconscious" in "an individual experience" in "certain intuition of the heart". The formulas of dogma are nothing more than "symbols" that should not be used but to the extent that sustain and develop the religious sentiment of each.
What is Revelation?
Instead of being a teaching of God that speaks with authority through Jesus Christ, the Prophets and the Apostles, the revelation of the modernist is reduced to "a feeling that arises in consciousness , " an experience of the divine that says something God is available to all.
What is Tradition?
Tradition, that is, the transmission of revealed truths made by the Church, becomes "the communication made to others in some original experience through the body of preaching".
The role of teachers is only to awaken in others, by good example and word, this religious feeling that everyone bears in himself, in "the depths of his nature and his life".
What is the Church?
While the Catholic Church is the hierarchical society of the baptized, founded by Christ, united by true faith, sacraments and obedience to a visible authority, the modernists deform in a "collection of individual sciences" that mimic the religious sentiment Of Jesus Christ. It is a "vital emanation of the collective conscience." Far from being one and visible, the Church is indefinable and unlikely to be known. To be Catholic means to relive the vital immanence of Christ-man, to be a man like Christ. The difference between clergy and laity is abolished, as well as the visible limits of the Church.
What is the Pope?
For the modernist, authority is an arbitrator in the service of peace, which allows each one the free expansion of his own religious feeling.
The Pope is no longer the Vicar of Christ, endowed with the supreme power of jurisdiction and magisterium.It is at the service of the vital immanence of each one.
He is the spokesman of the collective consciousness and strives to maintain a balance between existing active forces within the Church, ensuring "the changes and progress" thanks to "a kind of compromise and compromise between the conservative force (Tradition ) and progressive force. "
What is worship?
The cult and the sacraments do not have the theocentric value due to them. "They have not been instituted more than to nourish the faith", ie, "to enliven and activate" individual religious sentiment.
Conclusion.
What is left, after all, after this re-reading of faith and the Church under the prism of agnostic and subjectivist philosophy?
Man, nothing more than man, the cult of man, the human person erected at all and dedicated to building humanity in itself through his "religious experience."
One word can sum up this new religion: ingratitude. Ungrateful, in fact, is who ignores or denies the gratuity of the gifts that are made. Start by counteracting and destroying what is offered.
This is the fact of agnostic doubt. Then he tries to reach for himself the object of his desires. If he accepts certain gifts, it is because they are due to him and he has deserved or conquered them by his own forces: they are no longer gratuitous. It is what is meant to be done with vital immanence. In this title, modernism shows its name. It coincides with the spirit of his time, to which a profound ingratitude to God and the Church is inherent. To this ingratitude of men must correspond the public profession of the gratuitousness of the gifts of God.
TradCatKnight: Fr. Hesse, "Modernism & Pope St. Pius X"