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Given by His
Holiness Pope Saint Pius X
September 8, 1907
Venerable Brethren, health and the Apostolic Blessing:
1. 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. 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 have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things,"[1] "vain
talkers and seducers,"[2] "erring and driving into error."[3] It must,
however, 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. Wherefore 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.
2. That We should act without delay in this matter 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 to be most dreaded
and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less
they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, 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; and, forming more boldly into line of attack,
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.
3. 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. For, 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. Moreover, they lay the ax not
to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith
and its deepest fibers. And 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. Further, 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; and 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 To this must be added 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. Finally, there is the fact
which is all hut 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.
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, Venerable Brethren,
how unavailing have been Our efforts. For a moment they have bowed
their head, only to lift it more arrogantly than before. 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, that We may
point out to the whole Church, as they really are, men who are badly
disguised.
4. It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are
commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines without order
and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed 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, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings
together here into one group, and to point out their interconnection,
and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to
prescribe remedies for averting the evil results.
5. To proceed in an orderly manner in this somewhat abstruse subject,
it must first of all be noted that the Modernist sustains and includes
within himself a manifold personality; he is a philosopher, a believer,
a theologian, an historian, a critic, an apologist, a reformer. These
roles must be clearly distinguished one from another by all who would
accurately understand their system and thoroughly grasp the principles
and the outcome of their doctrines.
6. We begin, then, with the philosopher. Modernists place the
foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine which is commonly
called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined
entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that
appear, and in the manner in which they appear: it has neither the
right nor the power to overstep these limits. Hence it is incapable of
lifting itself up to God, and of recognizing His existence, even by
means of visible things. From this it is inferred that God can never be
the direct object of science, and that, as regards history, He must not
be considered as an historical subject. Given these premises, everyone
will at once perceive what becomes of Natural Theology, of the motives
of credibility, of external revelation. The modernists simply sweep
them entirely aside; they include them in Intellectualism, which they
denounce as a system which is ridiculous and long since defunct. Nor
does the fact that the Church has formally condemned these portentous
errors exercise the slightest restraint upon them. Yet the Vatican
Council has defined, "If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator
and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human
reason by means of the things that are made, let him be anathema";[4]
and also, "If anyone says that it is not possible or not expedient that
man be taught, through the medium of divine revelation, about God and
the worship to be paid Him, let him be anathema'';[5] and finally, "If
anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external
signs, and that therefore men should be drawn to the faith only by
their personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him
be anathema."[6] It may be asked, in what way do the Modernists
contrive to make the transition from Agnosticism, which is a state of
pure nescience, to scientific and historic Atheism, which is a doctrine
of positive denial; and consequently, by what legitimate process of
reasoning, they proceed from the fact of ignorance as to whether God
has in fact intervened in the history of the human race or not, to
explain this history, leaving God out altogether, as if He really had
not intervened. Let him answer who can. Yet it is a fixed and
established principle among them that both science and history must be
atheistic: and within their boundaries there is room for nothing but
phenomena; God and all that is divine are utterly excluded. We shall
soon see clearly what, as a consequence of this most absurd teaching,
must be held touching the most sacred Person of Christ, and the
mysteries of His life and death, and of His Resurrection and Ascension
into Heaven.
7. However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of
the Modernists: the positive part consists in what they call vital
immanence. Thus they advance from one to the other. Religion, whether
natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some
explanation. But when natural theology has been destroyed, and the road
to revelation closed by the rejection of the arguments of credibility,
and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this
explanation will be sought in vain outside of man himself. It must,
therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life,
the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. In this way
is formulated the principle of religious immanence. Moreover, the first
actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon -- and religion, as
noted above, belongs to this category -- is due to a certain need or
impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in
a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore,
as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is
the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain
interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the
divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable
circumstances. cannot of itself appertain to the domain of
consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness, or, to borrow
a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness, where also its
root lies hidden and undetected.
It may perhaps be asked how it is that this need of the divine which
man experiences within himself resolves itself into religion? To this
question the Modernist reply would be as follows: Science and history
are confined within two boundaries, the one external, namely, the
visible world, the other internal, which is consciousness. When one or
other of these limits has been reached, there can be no further
progress, for beyond is the unknowable. In presence of this unknowable,
whether it is outside man and beyond the visible world of nature, or
lies hidden within the subconsciousness, the need of the divine in a
soul which is prone to religion excites -- according to the principles
of Fideism, without any previous advertence of the mind -- a certain
special sense, and this sense possesses, implied within itself both as
its own object and as its intrinsic cause, the divine reality itself,
and in a way unites man with God. It is this sense to which Modernists
give the name of faith, and this is what they hold to be the beginning
of religion.
8. But we have not yet reached the end of their philosophizing, or, to
speak more accurately, of their folly. Modernists find in this sense
not only faith, but in and with faith, as they understand it, they
affirm that there is also to be found revelation. For, indeed, what
more is needed to constitute a revelation? Is not that religious sense
which is perceptible in the conscience, revelation, or at least the
beginning of revelation? Nay, is it not God Himself manifesting
Himself, indistinctly, it is true, in this same religious sense, to the
soul? And they add: Since God is both the object and the cause of
faith, this revelation is at the same time of God and from God, that is
to say, God is both the Revealer and the Revealed.
From this, Venerable Brethren, springs that most absurd tenet
of the Modernists, that every religion, according to the different
aspect under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and
supernatural. It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation
synonymous. From this they derive the law laid down as the universal
standard, according to which religious consciousness is to be put on an
equal footing with revelation, and that to it all must submit, even the
supreme authority of the Church, whether in the capacity of teacher, or
in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline.
9. In all this process, from which, according to the Modernists, faith
and revelation spring, one point is to be particularly noted, for it is
of capital importance on account of the historicocritical corollaries
which they deduce from it. The unknowable they speak of does not
present itself to faith as something solitary and isolated; hut on the
contrary in close conjunction with some phenomenon, which, though it
belongs to the realms of science or history, yet to some extent exceeds
their limits. Such a phenomenon may be a fact of nature containing
within itself something mysterious; or it may be a man, whose
character, actions, and words cannot, apparently, be reconciled with
the ordinary laws of history. Then faith, attracted by the unknowable
which is united with the phenomenon, seizes upon the whole phenomenon,
and, as it were, permeates it with its own life. From this two things
follow. The first is a sort of transfiguration of the phenomenon, by
its elevation above its own true conditions, an elevation by which it
becomes more adapted to clothe itself with the form of the divine
character which faith will bestow upon it. The second consequence is a
certain disfiguration -- so it may be called -- of the same phenomenon,
arising from the fact that faith attributes to it, when stripped of the
circumstances of place and time, characteristics which it does not
really possess; and this takes place especially in the case of the
phenomena of the past, and the more fully in the measure of their
antiquity. From these two principles the Modernists deduce two laws,
which, when united with a third which they have already derived from
agnosticism, constitute the foundation of historic criticism. An
example may be sought in the Person of Christ. In the Person of Christ,
they say, science and history encounter nothing that is not human.
Therefore, in virtue of the first canon deduced from agnosticism,
whatever there is in His history suggestive of the divine must be
rejected. Then, according to the second canon, the historical Person of
Christ was transfigured by faith; therefore everything that raises it
above historical conditions must be removed. Lastly, the third canon,
which lays down that the Person of Christ has been disfigured by faith,
requires that everything should be excluded, deeds and words and all
else, that is not in strict keeping with His character, condition, and
education, and with the place and time in which He lived. A method of
reasoning which is passing strange, but in it we have the Modernist
criticism.
10. It is thus that the religious sense, which through the agency of
vital immanence emerges from the lurking-places of the
subconsciousness, is the germ of all religion, and the explanation of
everything that has been or ever will be in any religion. This sense,
which was at first only rudimentary and almost formless, under the
influence of that mysterious principle from which it originated,
gradually matured with the progress of human life, of which, as has
been said, it is a certain form. This, then, is the origin of all. even
of supernatural religion. For religions are mere developments of this
religious sense. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite
on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of
vital immanence, and by no other way, in the consciousness of Christ,
who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor
will be. In hearing these things we shudder indeed at so great an
audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet, Venerable
Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers.
There are Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly;
and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these
ravings! The question is no longer one of the old error which claimed
for human nature a sort of right to the supernatural. It has gone far
beyond that, and has reached the point when it is affirmed that our
most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature
spontaneously and of itself. Nothing assuredly could be more utterly
destructive of the whole supernatural order. For this reason the
Vatican Council most justly decreed: "If anyone says that man cannot be
raised by God to a knowledge and perfection which surpasses nature, but
that he can and should, by his own efforts and by a constant
development, attain finally to the possession of all truth and good,
let him be anathema."[7]
11. So far, Venerable Brethren, there has been no mention of the
intellect. It also, according to the teaching of the Modernists, has
its part in the act of faith. And it is of importance to see how. In
that sense of which We have frequently spoken, since sense is not
knowledge, they say God, indeed, presents Himself to man, but in a
manner so confused and indistinct that He can hardly be perceived by
the believer. It is therefore necessary that a certain light should be
cast upon this sense so that God may clearly stand out in relief and be
set apart from it. This is the task of the intellect, whose office it
is to reflect and to analyze; and by means of it, man first transforms
into mental pictures the vital phenomena which arise within him, and
then expresses them in words. Hence the common saying of Modernists:
that the religious man must think his faith. The mind then,
encountering this .sense, throws itself upon it, and works in it after
the manner of a painter who restores to greater clearness the lines of
a picture that have been dimmed with age. The simile is that of one of
the leaders of Modernism. The operation of the mind in this work is a
double one: first, by a natural and spontaneous act it expresses its
concept in a simple, popular statement; then, on reflection and deeper
consideration, or, as they say, by elaborating its thought, it
expresses the idea in secondary propositions, which are derived from
the first, but are more precise and distinct. These secondary
propositions, if they finally receive the approval of the supreme
magisterium of the Church, constitute dogma.
12. We have thus reached one of the principal points in the Modernist's
system, namely, the origin and the nature of dogma. For they place the
origin of dogma in those primitive and simple formulas, which, under a
certain aspect, are necessary to faith; for revelation, to be truly
such, requires the clear knowledge of God in the consciousness. But
dogma itself, they apparently hold, strictly consists in the secondary
formulas .
To ascertain the nature of dogma, we must first find the relation which
exists between the religious formulas and the religious sense. This
will be readily perceived by anyone who holds that these formulas have
no other purpose than to furnish the believer with a means of giving to
himself an account of his faith. These formulas therefore stand midway
between the believer and his faith; in their relation to the faith they
are the inadequate expression of its object, and are usually called
symbols; in their relation to the believer they are mere instruments.
Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they absolutely contain
the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of
truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to
man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must
therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the
religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something
contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of
which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who
believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the
formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and
are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic
evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which
ruin and wreck all religion.
13. Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This
is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and clearly flows from their
principles. For among the chief points of their teaching is the
following, which they deduce from the principle of vital immanence,
namely, that religious formulas if they are to be really religious and
not merely intellectual speculations, ought to be living and to live
the life of the religious sense. This is not to be understood to mean
that these formulas, especially if merely imaginative, were to be
invented for the religious sense. Their origin matters nothing, any
more than their number or quality. What is necessary is that the
religious sense -- with some modification when needful -- should
vitally assimilate them. In other words, it is necessary that the
primitive formula be accepted and sanctioned by the heart; and
similarly the subsequent work from which are brought forth the
.secondary formulas must proceed under the guidance of the heart. Hence
it comes that these formulas, in order to be living, should be, and
should remain, adapted to the faith and to him who believes. Wherefore,
if for any reason this adaptation should cease to exist, they lose
their first meaning and accordingly need to be changed. In view of the
fact that the character and lot of dogmatic formulas are so unstable,
it is no wonder that Modernists should regard them so lightly and in
such open disrespect, and have no consideration or praise for anything
but the religious sense and for the religious life. In this way, with
consummate audacity, they criticize the Church, as having strayed from
the true path by failing to distinguish between the religious and moral
sense of formulas and their surface meaning, and by clinging vainly and
tenaciously to meaningless formulas, while religion itself is allowed
to go to ruin. "Blind" they are, and "leaders of the blind" puffed up
with the proud name of science, they have reached that pitch of folly
at which they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true meaning
of religion; in introducing a new system in which "they are seen to be
under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking
not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the
holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other and vain, futile,
uncertain doctrines, unapproved by the Church, on which, in the height
of their vanity, they think they can base and maintain truth
itself."[8]
14. Thus far, Venerable Brethren, 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, 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. If you ask on what foundation this assertion of the
believer rests, he answers: In the personal experience of the
individual. On this head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists
only to fall into the views of the Protestants and pseudo-mystics. 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, and infuses 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. 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. It is this experience which makes the person who acquires it to be
properly and truly a believer.
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. Here it
is well to note at once that, 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? Will they claim a monopoly of true experiences
for Catholics alone? Indeed, Modernists do not deny, but actually
maintain, some confusedly, others frankly, that all religions are true.
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 be either 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
maybe 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
religious sense and to the believer, whatever be the intellectual
capacity of the latter. 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 premises. But 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 honor 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.
15. There is yet another element in this part of their teaching which
is absolutely contrary to Catholic truth. For what is laid down as to
experience is also applied with destructive effect to tradition, which
has always been maintained by the Catholic Church. Tradition, as
understood by the Modernists, is a communication with others of an
original experience, through preaching by means of the intellectual
formula. To this formula, in addition to its representative value they
attribute a species of suggestive efficacy which acts firstly in the
believer by stimulating the religious sense, should it happen to have
grown sluggish, and by renewing the experience once acquired, and
secondly, in those who do not yet believe by awakening in them for the
first time the religious sense and producing the experience. In this
way is religious experience spread abroad among the nations; and not
merely among contemporaries by preaching, but among future generations
both by books and by oral transmission from one to another. Sometimes
this communication of religious experience takes root and thrives, at
other times it withers at once and dies. For the Modernists, to live is
a proof of truth, since for them life and truth are one and the same
thing. Thus we are once more led to infer that all existing religions
are equally true, for otherwise they would not survive.
16. We have proceeded sufficiently far, Venerable Brethren, 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. And 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. Thus 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. 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, the Modernists reply by denying this. For 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. 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, the answer of agnostic science will be in the negative and the
answer of faith in the affirmative yet 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 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.
17. It would be a great mistake, nevertheless, 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, not on one but on three
grounds. For 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. 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. 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.
Thus 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. All this,
Venerable Brethren, is in formal opposition to the teachings 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."[9]
The Modernists completely invert the parts, and of 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."[10]
18. 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. 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. In the same way they draw their distinctions between
exegesis which is theological and pastoral and exegesis which is
scientific and historical. 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[11] 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.
Lastly, 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; while they, on their side, having for this purpose
blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a new theology
which shall support the aberrations of philosophers.
19. At this point, Venerable Brethren, 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. It is a question of effecting
the conciliation of faith with science, but always by making the one
subject to the other. 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. 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. These errors are truly of the gravest kind and
the pernicious character of both will be seen clearly from an
examination of their consequences. For, to begin with symbolism, since
symbols are but symbols in regard to their objects and only instruments
in regard to the believer, it is necessary first of all, according to
the teachings of the Modernists, that the believer does 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, endeavors to
express but without ever succeeding in doing so. They would also have
the believer make use of the formulas only in as far as they are
helpful to him, for they are given to be a help and not a hindrance;
with proper regard, however, 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. Concerning immanence it is not easy to determine
what Modernists precisely mean by it, for their own opinions on the
subject vary. 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 savors of pantheism, and this, in truth, is the sense which
best fits in with the rest of their doctrines.
20. With this principle of immanence is connected another which may be
called the principle of divine permanence. It differs from the first in
much the same way as the private experience differs from the experience
transmitted by tradition. An example illustrating what is meant will be
found in the Church and the sacraments. The Church and the sacraments
according to the Modernists, are not to be regarded as having been
instituted by Christ Himself. 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. Still it is to he held
that both Church and sacraments have been founded mediately by Christ.
But how? 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. In the same way they make out that
the Holy Scriptures and the dogmas are divine. And 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.
21. 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, the Books which we call "sacred," it concerns us to
know what the Modernists teach concerning them. To begin with dogma, We
have already indicated its origin and nature. 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. This elaboration consists entirely in the process of
investigating and refining the primitive mental formula, not indeed in
itself and according to any logical explanation, but according to
circumstances, or vitally as the Modernists somewhat less intelligibly
describe it. Hence it happens that around this primitive formula
secondary formulas, as We have already indicated, gradually continue 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. Dogma is
to be carefully distinguished from the speculations of theologians
which, although not alive with the life of dogma, 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. 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. For them the
sacraments are the resultant of a double impulse or need -- for, as we
have seen, everything in their system is explained by inner impulses or
necessities. The first need is that of giving some sensible
manifestation to religion; the second is that of expressing it, which
could not be done without some sensible form and consecrating acts, and
these are called sacraments. But for the Modernists, sacraments are
bare symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy -- 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, 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 says that these
sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let him be
anathema.[12]
22. 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. And
this is precisely what they teach about our books of the Old and New
Testament. But to suit their own theories they note with remarkable
ingenuity that, although experience is something 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. God does
indeed speak in these books through the medium of the believer, but
according to Modernist theology, only by immanence and vital
permanence. We may ask, what then becomes of inspiration? Inspiration,
they reply, is in nowise distinguished from that impulse which
stimulates the believer to reveal the faith that is in him by words of
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. The Modernists moreover 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.
23. A wider field for comment is opened when we come to what the
Modernist school has imagined to be the nature of the Church. They
begin with the supposition that the Church has its birth in a double
need; first, the need of the individual believer to communicate his
faith to others, especially if he has had some original and special
experience, and secondly, when the faith has become common to many, the
need of the collectivity to form itself into a society and to guard,
promote, and propagate the common good. What, then, is the Church? It
is the product of the collective conscience, that is to say, of the
association of individual consciences which, by virtue of the principle
of vital permanence, depend all on one first believer, who for
Catholics is Christ. Now every society needs a directing authority to
guide its members towards the common end, to foster prudently the
elements of cohesion, which in a religious society are doctrine and
worship. Hence the triple authority in the Catholic Church,
disciplinary, dogmatic, liturgical. The nature of this authority is to
be gathered from its origin, and its rights and duties from its nature.
In past times it was a common error that authority came to the Church
from without, that is to say directly from God; and it was then rightly
held to be autocratic. But this conception has now grown obsolete. For
in the same way as the Church is a vital emanation of the collectivity
of consciences, so too authority emanates vitally from the Church
itself. Authority, therefore, like the Church, has its origin in the
religious conscience, and, that being so, is subject to it. Should it
disown this dependence it becomes a tyranny. For we are living in an
age when the sense of liberty has reached its highest development. In
the civil order the public conscience has introduced popular
government. Now there is in man only one conscience, just as there is
only one life. It is for the ecclesiastical authority, therefore, to
adopt a democratic form, unless it wishes to provoke and foment an
intestine conflict in the consciences of mankind. The penalty of
refusal is disaster. For it is madness to think that the sentiment of
liberty, as it now obtains, can recede. Were it forcibly pent up and
held in bonds, the more terrible would be its outburst, sweeping away
at once both Church and religion. Such is the situation in the minds of
the Modernists, and their one great anxiety is, in consequence, to find
a way of conciliation between the authority of the Church and the
liberty of the believers.
24. But it is not only within her own household that the Church must
come to terms. Besides her relations with those within, she has others
with those who are outside. The Church does not occupy the world all by
herself; there are other societies in the world., with which she must
necessarily have dealings and contact. The rights and duties of the
Church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined, and
determined, of course, by her own nature, that, to wit, which the
Modernists have already described to us. The rules to be applied in
this matter are clearly those which have been laid down for science and
faith, though in the latter case the question turned upon the object,
while in the present case we have one of ends. In the same way, then,
as faith and science are alien to each other by reason of the diversity
of their objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the
diversity of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that
of the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the
temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed,
conceding to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all such,
because the Church was then regarded as having been instituted
immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this
doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophers and historians. The
state must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic
from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a
citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the
way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of
the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its
orders -- nay, even in spite of its rebukes. For the Church to trace
out and prescribe for the citizen any line of action, on any pretext
whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of authority, against which one
is bound to protest with all one's might. Venerable Brethren, the
principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly
condemned by Our predecessor, Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution
Auctorem fidei.[13]
25. But it is not enough for the Modernist school that the State should
be separated from the Church. For as faith is to be subordinated to
science as far as phenomenal elements are concerned, so too in temporal
matters the Church must be subject to the State. This, indeed,
Modernists may not yet say openly, but they are forced by the logic of
their position to admit it. For granted the principle that in temporal
matters the State possesses the sole power, it will follow that when
the believer, not satisfied with merely internal acts of religion,
proceeds to external acts -- such for instance as the reception or
administration of the sacraments -- these will fall under the control
of the State. What will then become of ecclesiastical authority, which
can only be exercised by external acts? Obviously it will be completely
under the dominion of the State. It is this inevitable consequence
which urges many among liberal Protestants to reject all external
worship -- nay, all external religious fellowship, and leads them to
advocate what they call individual religion. If the Modernists have not
yet openly proceeded so far, they ask the Church in the meanwhile to
follow of her own accord in the direction in which they urge her and to
adapt herself to the forms of the State. Such are their ideas about
disciplinary authority. But much more evil and pernicious are their
opinions on doctrinal and dogmatic authority. The following is their
conception of the magisterium of the Church: No religious society, they
say, can be a real unit unless the religious conscience of its members
be one, and also the formula which they adopt. But this double unity
requires a kind of common mind whose office is to find and determine
the formula that corresponds best with the common conscience; and it
must have, moreover, an authority sufficient to enable it to impose on
the community the formula which has been decided upon. From the
combination and, as it were, fusion of these two elements, the common
mind which draws up the formula and the authority which imposes it,
arises, according to the Modernists, the notion of the ecclesiastical
magisterium. And, as this magisterium springs, in its last analysis,
from the individual consciences and possesses its mandate of public
utility for their benefit, it necessarily follows that the
ecclesiastical magisterium must be dependent upon them, and should
therefore be made to bow to the popular ideals. To prevent individual
consciences from expressing freely and openly the impulses they feel,
to hinder criticism from urging forward dogma in the path of its
necessary evolution, is not a legitimate use but an abuse of a power
given for the public weal. So too a due method and measure must be
observed in the exercise of authority. To condemn and proscribe a work
without the knowledge of the author, without hearing his explanations,
without discussion, is something approaching to tyranny. And here again
it is a question of finding a way of reconciling the full rights of
authority on the one hand and those of liberty on the other. In the
meantime the proper course for the Catholic will be to proclaim
publicly his profound respect for authority, while never ceasing to
follow his own judgment. Their general direction for the Church is as
follows: that the ecclesiastical authority, since its end is entirely
spiritual, should strip itself of that external pomp which adorns it in
the eyes of the public. In this, they forget that while religion is for
the soul, it is not exclusively for the soul, and that the honor paid
to authority is reflected back on Christ who instituted it.
26. To conclude this whole question of faith and its various branches,
we have still to consider, Venerable Brethren, what the Modernists have
to say about the development of the one and the other. First of all
they lay down the general principle that in a living religion
everything is subject to change, and must in fact be changed. In this
way they pass to what is practically their principal doctrine, namely,
evolution. To the laws of evolution everything is subject under penalty
of death -- dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even
faith itself. The enunciation of this principle will not be a matter of
surprise to anyone who bears in mind what the Modernists have had to
say about each of these subjects. Having laid down this law of
evolution, the Modernists themselves teach us how it operates. And
first, with regard to faith. The primitive form of faith, they tell us,
was rudimentary and common to all men alike, for it had its origin in
human nature and human life. Vital evolution brought with it progress,
not by the accretion of new and purely adventitious forms from without,
but by an increasing perfusion of the religious sense into the
conscience. The progress was of two kinds: negative, by the elimination
of all extraneous elements, such, for example, as those derived from
the family or nationality; and positive, by that intellectual and moral
refining of man, by means of which the idea of the divine became fuller
and clearer, while the religious sense became more acute. For the
progress of faith the same causes are to be assigned as those which are
adduced above to explain its origin. But to them must be added those
extraordinary men whom we call prophets -- of whom Christ was the
greatest -- both because in their lives and their words there was
something mysterious which faith attributed to the divinity, and
because it fell to their lot to have new and original experiences fully
in harmony with the religious needs of their time. The progress of
dogma is due chiefly to the fact that obstacles to the faith have to be
surmounted, enemies have to be vanquished, and objections have to be
refuted. Add to this a perpetual striving to penetrate ever more
profoundly into those things which are contained in the mysteries of
faith. Thus, putting aside other examples, it is found to have happened
in the case of Christ: in Him that divine something which faith
recognized in Him was slowly and gradually expanded in such a way that
He was at last held to be God. The chief stimulus of the evolution of
worship consists in the need of accommodation to the manners and
customs of peoples, as well as the need of availing itself of the value
which certain acts have acquired by usage. Finally, evolution in the
Church itself is fed by the need of adapting itself to historical
conditions and of harmonizing itself with existing forms of society.
Such is their view with regard to each. And here, before proceeding
further, We wish to draw attention to this whole theory of necessities
or needs, for beyond all that we have seen, it is, as it were, the base
and foundation of that famous method which they describe as historical.
27. Although evolution is urged on by needs or necessities, yet, if
controlled by these alone, it would easily overstep the boundaries of
tradition, and thus, separated from its primitive vital principle,
would make for ruin instead of progress. Hence, by those who study more
closely the ideas of the Modernists, evolution is described as a
resultant from the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards
progress, the other towards conservation. The conserving force exists
in the Church and is found in tradition; tradition is represented by
religious authority, and this both by right and in fact. By right, for
it is in the very nature of authority to protect tradition: and in
fact, since authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life,
feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress. The progressive
force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs, lies in the
individual consciences and works in them -- especially in such of them
as are in more close and intimate contact with life. Already we
observe, Venerable Brethren, the introduction of that most pernicious
doctrine which would make of the laity the factor of progress in the
Church. Now it is by a species of covenant and compromise between these
two forces of conservation and progress, that is to say between
authority and individual consciences, that changes and advances take
place. The individual consciences, or some of them, act on the
collective conscience, which brings pressure to bear on the
depositories of authority to make terms and to keep to them.
With all this in mind, one understands how it is that the Modernists
express astonishment when they are reprimanded or punished. What is
imputed to them as a fault they regard as a sacred duty. They
understand the needs of consciences better than anyone else, since they
come into closer touch with them than does the ecclesiastical
authority. Nay, they embody them, so to speak, in themselves. Hence,
for them to speak and to write publicly is a bounden duty. Let
authority rebuke them if it pleases -- they have their own conscience
on their side and an intimate experience which tells them with
certainty that what they deserve is not blame but praise. Then they
reflect that, after all, there is no progress without a battle and no
battle without its victims; and victims they are willing to be like the
prophets and Christ Himself. They have no bitterness in their hearts
against the authority which uses them roughly, for after all they
readily admit that it is only doing its duty as authority. Their sole
grief is that it remains deaf to their warnings, for in this way it
impedes the progress of souls, but the hour will most surely come when
further delay will be impossible, for if the laws of evolution may be
checked for a while they cannot be finally evaded. And thus they go
their way, reprimands and condemnations not withstanding, masking an
incredible audacity under a mock semblance of humility. While they make
a pretense of bowing their heads, their minds and hands are more boldly
intent than ever on carrying out their purposes. And this policy they
follow willingly and wittingly, both because it is part of their system
that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned, and because it is
necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the Church in order
that they may gradually transform the collective conscience. And in
saying this, they fail to perceive that they are avowing that the
collective conscience is not with them, and that they have no right to
claim to be its interpreters.
28. It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as
authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing
immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in
their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX
wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the
skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced
into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God
but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of
perfection by human efforts."[14] On the subject of revelation and
dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new.
We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated
in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject
to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress
of human reason";[15] and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican
Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not
been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it
were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the
Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted.
Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually
retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is
this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound
comprehension of the truth."[16] Nor is the development of our
knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on
the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council
continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore,
increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in
the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages
and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to
the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation."[17]
29. We have studied the Modernist as philosopher, believer, and
theologian. It now remains for us to consider him as historian, critic,
apologist, and reformer.
30. Some Modernists, devoted to historical studies, seem to be deeply
anxious not to be taken for philosophers. About philosophy they profess
to know nothing whatever, and in this they display remarkable
astuteness, for they are particularly desirous not to be suspected of
any prepossession in favor of philosophical theories which would lay
them open to the charge of not being, as they call it, objective. And
yet the truth is that their history and their criticism are saturated
with their philosophy, and that their historico-critical conclusions
are the natural outcome of their philosophical principles. This will be
patent to anyone who reflects. Their three first laws are contained in
those three principles of their philosophy already dealt with: the
principle of agnosticism, the theorem of the transfiguration of things
by faith, and that other which may be called the principle of
disfiguration. Let us see what consequences flow from each of these.
Agnosticism tells us that history, like science, deals entirely with
phenomena, and the consequence is that God, and every intervention of
God in human affairs, is to be relegated to the domain of faith as
belonging to it alone. Wherefore in things where there is combined a
double element, the divine and the human, as, for example, in Christ,
or the Church, or the sacraments, or the many other objects of the same
kind, a division and separation must be made and the human element must
he left to history while the divine will he assigned to faith. Hence we
have that distinction, so current among the Modernists, between the
Christ of history and the Christ of faith; the Church of history and
the Church of faith; the sacraments of history and the sacraments of
faith, and so in similar matters. Next we find that the human element
itself, which the historian has to work on, as it appears in the
documents, is to be considered as having been transfigured by faith,
that is to say, raised above its historical conditions. It becomes
necessary, therefore, to eliminate also the accretions which faith has
added, to relegate them to faith itself and to the history of faith.
Thus, when treating of Christ, the historian must set aside all that
surpasses man in his natural condition, according to what psychology
tells us of him, or according to what we gather from the place and
period of his existence. Finally, they require, by virtue of the third
principle, that even those things which are not outside the sphere of
history should pass through the sieve, excluding all and relegating to
faith everything which, in their judgment, is not in harmony with what
they call the logic of facts or not in character with the persons of
whom they are predicated. Thus, they will not allow that Christ ever
uttered those things which do not seem to be within the capacity of the
multitudes that listened to Him. Hence they delete from His real
history and transfer to faith all the allegories found in His
discourses. We may peradventure inquire on what principle they make
these divisions? Their reply is that they argue from the character of
the man, from his condition of life, from his education, from the
complexus of the circumstances under which the facts took place; in
short, if We understand them aright, on a principle which in the last
analysis is merely .subjective. Their method is to put themselves into
the position and person of Christ, and then to attribute to Him what
they would have done under like circumstances. In this way, absolutely
a priori and acting on philosophical principles which they hold but
which they profess to ignore, they proclaim that Christ, according to
what they call His real history, was not God and never did anything
divine, and that as man He did and said only what they, judging from
the time in which He lived, consider that He ought to have said or
done.
31. As history takes its conclusions from philosophy, so too criticism
takes its conclusions from history. The critic on the data furnished
him by the historian, makes two parts of all his documents. Those that
remain after the triple elimination above described go to form the real
history; the rest is attributed to the history of the faith or, as it
is styled, to internal history. For the Modernists distinguish very
carefully between these two kinds of history, and it is to be noted
that they oppose the history of the faith to real history precisely as
real. Thus, as we have already said, we have a twofold Christ: a real
Christ, and a Christ, the one of faith, who never really existed; a
Christ who has lived at a given time and in a given place, and a Christ
who never lived outside the pious meditations of the believer -- the
Christ, for instance, whom we find in the Gospel of St. John, which,
according to them, is mere meditation from beginning to end.
32. But the dominion of philosophy over history does not end here.
Given that division, of which We have spoken, of the documents into two
parts, the philosopher steps in again with his dogma of vital
immanence, and shows how everything in the history of the Church is to
be explained by vital emanation. And since the cause or condition of
every vital emanation whatsoever is to be found in some need or want,
it follows that no fact can be regarded as antecedent to the need which
produced it -- historically the fact must be posterior to the need.
What, then, does the historian do in view of this principle? He goes
over his documents again, whether they be contained in the Sacred Books
or elsewhere, draws up from them his list of the particular needs of
the Church, whether relating to dogma, or liturgy, or other matters
which are found in the Church thus related, and then he hands his list
over to the critic. The critic takes in hand the documents dealing with
the history of faith and distributes them, period by period, so that
they correspond exactly with the list of needs, always guided by the
principle that the narration must follow the facts, as the facts follow
the needs. It may at times happen that some parts of the Sacred
Scriptures, such as the Epistles, themselves constitute the fact
created by the need. Even so, the rule holds that the age of any
document can only be determined by the age in which each need has
manifested itself in the Church. Further, a distinction must be made
between the beginning of a fact and its development, for what is born
in one day requires time for growth. Hence the critic must once more go
over his documents, ranged as they are through the different ages, and
divide them again into two parts, separating those that regard the
origin of the facts from those that deal with their development, and
these he must again arrange according to their periods.
33. Then the philosopher must come in again to enjoin upon the
historian the obligation of following in all his studies the precepts
and laws of evolution. It is next for the historian to scrutinize his
documents once more, to examine carefully the circumstances and
conditions affecting the Church during the different periods, the
conserving force she has put forth, the needs both internal and
external that have stimulated her to progress, the obstacles she has
had to encounter, in a word, everything that helps to determine the
manner in which the laws of evolution have been fulfilled in her. This
done, he finishes his work by drawing up a history of the development
in its broad lines. The critic follows and fits in the rest of the
documents. He sets himself to write. The history is finished. Now We
ask here: Who is the author of this history? The historian? The critic?
Assuredly neither of these but the philosopher. From beginning to end
everything in it is a priori, and an apriorism that reeks of heresy.
These men are certainly to be pitied, of whom the Apostle might well
say: "They became vain in their thoughts...professing themselves to be
wise, they became fools.''[18] At the same time, they excite resentment
when they accuse the Church of arranging and confusing the texts after
her own fashion, and for the needs of her cause. In this they are
accusing the Church of something for which their own conscience plainly
reproaches them.
34. The result of this dismembering of the records, and this partition
of them throughout the centuries is naturally that the Scriptures can
no longer be attributed to the authors whose names they bear. The
Modernists have no hesitation in affirming generally that these books,
and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been
gradually formed from a primitive brief narration, by additions, by
interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretations, or parts
introduced only for the purpose of joining different passages together.
This means, to put it briefly and clearly, that in the Sacred Books we
must admit a vital evolution, springing from and corresponding with the
evolution of faith. The traces of this evolution, they tell us, are so
visible in the books that one might almost write a history of it.
Indeed, this history they actually do write, and with such an easy
assurance that one might believe them to have seen with their own eyes
the writers at work through the ages amplifying the Sacred Books. To
aid them in this they call to their assistance that branch of criticism
which they call textual, and labor to show that such a fact or such a
phrase is not in its right place, adducing other arguments of the same
kind. They seem, in fact, to have constructed for themselves certain
types of narration and discourses, upon which they base their assured
verdict as to whether a thing is or is not out of place. Let him who
can judge how far they are qualified in this way to make such
distinctions. To hear them descant of their works on the Sacred Books,
in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one
would imagine that before them nobody ever even turned over the pages
of Scripture. The truth is that a whole multitude of Doctors, far
superior to them in genius, in erudition, in sanctity, have sifted the
Sacred Books in every way, and so far from finding in them anything
blameworthy have thanked God more and more heartily the more deeply
they have gone into them, for His divine bounty in having vouchsafed to
speak thus to men. Unfortunately. these great Doctors did not enjoy the
same aids to study that are possessed by the Modernists for they did
not have for their rule and guide a philosophy borrowed from the
negation of God, and a criterion which consists of themselves .
We believe, then, that We have set forth with sufficient clearness the
historical method of the Modernists. The philosopher leads the way, the
historian follows, and then in due order come the internal and textual
critics. And since it is characteristic of the primary cause to
communicate its virtue to causes which are secondary, it is quite clear
that the criticism with which We are concerned is not any kind of
criticism, but that which is rightly called agnostic, immanentist, and
evolutionist criticism. Hence anyone who adopts it and employs it makes
profession thereby of the errors contained in it, and places himself in
opposition to Catholic teaching. This being so, it is much a matter for
surprise that it should have found acceptance to such an extent among
certain Catholics. Two causes may be assigned for this: first, the
close alliance which the historians and critics of this school have
formed among themselves independent of all differences of nationality
or religion; second, their boundless effrontery by which, if one then
makes any utterance, the others applaud him in chorus, proclaiming that
science has made another step forward, while if an outsider should
desire to inspect the new discovery for himself, they form a coalition
against him. He who denies it is decried as one who is ignorant, while
he who embraces and defends it has all their praise. In this way they
entrap not a few, who, did they but realize what they are doing, would
shrink back with horror. The domineering overbearance of those who
teach the errors, and the thoughtless compliance of the more shallow
minds who assent to them, create a corrupted atmosphere which
penetrates everywhere, and carries infection with it. But let Us pass
to the apologist.
35. The Modernist apologist depends in two ways on the philosopher.
First, indirectly, inasmuch as his subject-matter is history -- history
dictated, as we have seen, by the philosopher; and, secondly, directly,
inasmuch as he takes both his doctrines and his conclusions from the
philosopher. Hence that common axiom of the Modernist school that in
the new apologetics controversies in religion must be determined by
psychological and historical research. The Modernist apologists, then,
enter the arena, proclaiming to the rationalists that, though they are
defending religion, they have no intention of employing the data of the
sacred books or the histories in current use in the Church, and written
upon the old lines, but real history composed on modern principles and
according to the modern method. In all this they assert that they are
not using an argumentum ad hominem, because they are really of the
opinion that the truth is to be found only in this kind of history.
They feel that it is not necessary for them to make profession of their
own sincerity in their writings. They are already known to and praised
by the rationalists as fighting under the same banner, and they not
only plume themselves on these encomiums, which would only provoke
disgust in a real Catholic, but use them as a counter-compensation to
the reprimands of the Church. Let us see how the Modernist conducts his
apologetics. The aim he sets before himself is to make one who is still
without faith attain that experience of the Catholic religion which,
according to the system, is the sole basis of faith. There are two ways
open to him, the objective and the subjective. The first of them starts
from agnosticism. It tends to show that religion, and especially the
Catholic religion, is endowed with such vitality as to compel every
psychologist and historian of good faith to recognize that its history
hides some element of the unknown. To this end it is necessary to prove
that the Catholic religion, as it exists today, is that which was
founded by Jesus Christ; that is to say, that it is nothing else than
the progressive development of the germ which He brought into the
world. Hence it is imperative first of all to establish what this germ
was, and this the Modernist claims to he able to do by the following
formula: Christ announced the coming of the kingdom of God, which was
to be realized within a brief lapse of time and of which He was to
become the Messias, the divinely-given founder and ruler. Then it must
be shown how this germ, always immanent and permanent in the Catholic
religion, has gone on slowly developing in the course of history,
adapting itself successively to the different circumstances through
which it has passed, borrowing from them by vital assimilation all the
doctrinal, cultural, ecclesiastical forms that served its purpose;
whilst, on the other hand, it surmounted all obstacles, vanquished all
enemies, and survived all assaults and all combats. Anyone who well and
duly considers this mass of obstacles, adversaries, attacks, combats,
and the vitality and fecundity which the Church has shown throughout
them all, must admit that if the laws of evolution are visible in her
life they fail to explain the whole of her history -- the unknown rises
forth from it and presents itself before Us. Thus do they argue, not
perceiving that their determination of the primitive germ is only an a
priori assumption of agnostic and evolutionist philosophy, and that the
germ itself has been gratuitously defined so that it may fit in with
their contention.
36. But while they endeavor by this line of reasoning to prove and
plead for the Catholic religion, these new apologists are more than
willing to grant and to recognize that there are in it many things
which are repulsive. Nay, they admit openly, and with ill-concealed
satisfaction, that they have found that even its dogma is not exempt
from errors and contradictions. They add also that this is not only
excusable but -- curiously enough -- that it is even right and proper.
In the Sacred Books there are many passages referring to science or
history where, according to them, manifest errors are to he found. But,
they say, the subject of these books is not science or history, but
only religion and morals. In them history and science serve only as a
species of covering to enable the religious and moral experiences
wrapped Up in them to penetrate more readily among the masses. The
masses understood science and history as they are expressed in these
books, and it is clear that the expression of science and history in a
more perfect form would have proved not so much a help as a hindrance.
Moreover, they add, the Sacred Books, being essentially religious, are
necessarily quick with life. Now life has its own truths and its own
logic -- quite different from rational truth and rational logic,
belonging as they do to a different order, viz., truth of adaptation
and of proportion both with what they call the medium in which it lives
and with the end for which it lives. Finally, the Modernists, losing
all sense of control, go so far as to proclaim as true and legitimate
whatever is explained by life.
We, Venerable Brethren, for whom there is but one and only one truth,
and who hold that the Sacred Books, "written under the inspiration of
the Holy Ghost, have God for their author''[19] declare that this is
equivalent to attributing to God Himself the lie of utility or
officious lie, and We say with St. Augustine: "In an authority so high,
admit but one officious lie, and there will not remain a single passage
of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe, which on the
same most pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the
author willfully and to serve a purpose."[20] And thus it will come
about, the holy Doctor continues, that "everybody will believe and
refuse to believe what he likes or dislikes in them," namely, the
Scriptures. But the Modernists pursue their way eagerly. They grant
also that certain arguments adduced in the Sacred Books in proof of a
given doctrine, like those, for example, which are based on the
prophecies, have no rational foundation to rest on. But they defend
even these as artifices of preaching, which are justified by life. More
than that. They are ready to admit, nay, to proclaim that Christ
Himself manifestly erred in determining the time when the coming of the
Kingdom of God was to take place; and they tell us that we must not be
surprised at this since even He Himself was subject to the laws of
life! After this what is to become of the dogmas of the Church? The
dogmas bristle with flagrant contradictions, but what does it matter
since, apart from the fact that vital logic accepts them, they are not
repugnant to symbolical truth. Are we not dealing with the infinite,
and has not the infinite an infinite variety of aspects? In short, to
maintain and defend these theories they do not hesitate to declare that
the noblest homage that can be paid to the Infinite is to make it the
object of contradictory statements! But when they justify even
contradictions, what is it that they will refuse to justify?
37. But it is not solely by objective arguments that the non-believer
may be disposed to faith. There are also those that are subjective, and
for this purpose the modernist apologists return to the doctrine of
immanence. They endeavor, in fact, to persuade their non-believer that
down in the very depths of his nature and his life lie hidden the need
and the desire for some religion, and this not a religion of any kind,
but the specific religion known as Catholicism, which, they say, is
absolutely postulated by the perfect development of life. And here
again We have grave reason to complain that there are Catholics who,
while rejecting immanence as a doctrine, employ it as a method of
apologetics, and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit,
not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural, such as
has at all times been emphasized, within due limits, by Catholic
apologists, but that there is in human nature a true and rigorous need
for the supernatural order. Truth to tell, it is only the moderate
Modernists who make this appeal to an exigency for the Catholic
religion. As for the others, who might he called integralists, they
would show to the non-believer, as hidden in his being, the very germ
which Christ Himself had in His consciousness, and which He transmitted
to mankind. Such, Venerable Brethren, is a summary description of the
apologetic method of the Modernists, in perfect harmony with their
doctrines -- methods and doctrines replete with errors, made not for
edification but for destruction, not for the making of Catholics but
for the seduction of those who are Catholics into heresy; and tending
to the utter subversion of all religion.
38. It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as
reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great
and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all
Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten.
They wish philosophy to be reformed, especially in the ecclesiastical
seminaries. They wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the
history of philosophy and to be classed among absolute systems, and the
young men to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited
to the times in which we live. They desire the reform of theology:
rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and
positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma. As for
history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods
and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to
be harmonized with science and history. In the Catechism no dogmas are
to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the
capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of
external devotions is to he reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent
their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of
symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head. They cry out
that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its
branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments
They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into
harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards
democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be
given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and
authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized The
Roman Congregations and especially the index and the Holy Office, must
be likewise modified The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line
of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside
political organizations it must adapt itself to them in order to
penetrate them with its spirit. With regard to morals, they adopt the
principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more
important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice.
They ask that the clergy should return to their primitive humility and
poverty, and that in their ideas and action they should admit the
principles of Modernism; and there are some who, gladly listening to
the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression
of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the Church which
is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles?
39. It may, perhaps, seem to some, Venerable Brethren, that We have
dealt at too great length on this exposition of the doctrines of the
Modernists. But it was necessary that We should do so, both in order to
meet their customary charge that We do not understand their ideas, and
to show that their system does not consist in scattered and unconnected
theories, but, as it were, in a closely connected whole, so that it is
not possible to admit one without admitting all. For this reason, too,
We have had to give to this exposition a somewhat didactic form, and
not to shrink from employing certain unwonted terms which the
Modernists have brought into use. And now with Our eyes fixed upon the
whole system, no one will be surprised that We should define it to be
the synthesis of all heresies. Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the
task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached
against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of
them all, he could not succeed in doing so better than the Modernists
have done. Nay, they have gone farther than this, for, as We have
already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the
Catholic religion alone, but of all religion. Hence the rationalists
are not wanting in their applause, and the most frank and sincere among
them congratulate themselves on having found in the Modernists the most
valuable of all allies.
Let us turn for a moment, Venerable Brethren, to that most disastrous
doctrine of agnosticism. By it every avenue to God on the side of the
intellect is barred to man, while a better way is supposed to be opened
from the side of a certain sense of the soul and action. But who does
not see how mistaken is such a contention? For the sense of the soul is
the response to the action of the thing which the intellect or the
outward senses set before it. Take away the intelligence, and man,
already inclined to follow the senses, becomes their slave. Doubly
mistaken, from another point of view, for all these fantasies of the
religious sense will never be able to destroy common sense, and common
sense tells us that emotion and everything that leads the heart captive
proves a hindrance instead of a help to the discovery of truth. We
speak of truth in itself -- for that other purely subjective truth, the
fruit of the internal sense and action, if it serves its purpose for
the play of words, is of no benefit to the man who wants above all
things to know whether outside himself there is a God into whose hands
he is one day to fall. True, the Modernists call in experience to eke
out their system, but what does this experience add to that sense of
the soul? Absolutely nothing beyond a certain intensity and a
proportionate deepening of the conviction of the reality of the object.
But these two will never make the sense of the soul into anything but
sense, nor will they alter its nature, which is liable to deception
when the intelligence is not there to guide it; on the contrary, they
but confirm and strengthen this nature, for the more intense the sense
is the more it is really sense. And as we are here dealing with
religious sense and the experience involved in it, it is known to you,
Venerable Brethren, how necessary in such a matter is prudence, and the
learning by which prudence is guided. You know it from your own
dealings with souls, and especially with souls in whom sentiment
predominates; you know it also from your reading of works of ascetical
theology -- works for which the Modernists have but little esteem, but
which testify to a science and a solidity far greater than theirs, and
to a refinement and subtlety of observation far beyond any which the
Modernists take credit to themselves for possessing. It seems to Us
nothing short of madness, or at the least consummate temerity to accept
for true, and without investigation, these incomplete experiences which
are the vaunt of the Modernist. Let Us for a moment put the question:
If experiences have so much force and value in their estimation, why do
they not attach equal weight to the experience that so many thousands
of Catholics have that the Modernists are on the wrong path? Is it that
the Catholic experiences are the only ones which are false and
deceptive? The vast majority of mankind holds and always will hold
firmly that sense and experience alone, when not enlightened and guided
by reason, cannot reach to the knowledge of God. What, then, remains
but atheism and the absence of all religion? Certainly it is not the
doctrine of .symbolism that will save us from this. For if all the
intellectual elements, as they call them, of religion are nothing more
than mere symbols of God, will not the very name of God or of divine
personality be also a symbol, and if this be admitted, the personality
of God will become a matter of doubt and the gate will be opened to
pantheism? And to pantheism pure and simple that other doctrine of the
divine immanence leads directly. For this is the question which We ask:
Does or does not this immanence leave God distinct from man? If it
does, in what does it differ from the Catholic doctrine, and why does
it reject the doctrine of external revelation? If it does not, it is
pantheism. Now the doctrine of immanence in the Modernist acceptation
holds and professes that every phenomenon of conscience proceeds from
man as man. The rigorous conclusion from this is the identity of man
with God, which means pantheism. The distinction which Modernists make
between science and faith leads to the same conclusion. The object of
science, they say, is the reality of the knowable; the object of faith,
on the contrary, is the reality of the unknowable. Now, what makes the
unknowable unknowable is the fact that there is no proportion between
its object and the intellect -- a defect of proportion which nothing
whatever, even in the doctrine of the Modernist, can suppress. Hence
the unknowable remains and will eternally remain unknowable to the
believer as well as to the philosopher. Therefore if any religion at
all is possible, it can only be the religion of an unknowable reality.
And why this might not be that soul of the universe, of which certain
rationalists speak, is something which certainly does not seem to Us
apparent. These reasons suffice to show superabundantly by how many
roads Modernism leads to atheism and to the annihilation of all
religion. The error of Protestantism made the first step on this path;
that of Modernism makes the second; atheism makes the next.
40. To penetrate still deeper into the meaning of Modernism and to find
a suitable remedy for so deep a sore, it behooves Us, Venerable
Brethren, to investigate the causes which have engendered it and which
foster its growth. That the proximate and immediate cause consists in
an error of the mind cannot be open to doubt. We recognize that the
remote causes may be reduced to two: curiosity and pride. 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."[21]
But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the
soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as
in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and
lurking in its every aspect. 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 rouses 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. Truly
there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as
pride. 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.
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. Examine most carefully your young clerics by
yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries, and when you find
the spirit of pride among them reject them without compunction from the
priesthood. Would to God that this had always been done with the
vigilance and constancy which were required!
41. If we pass on from the moral to the intellectual causes of
Modernism, the first and the chief which presents itself is ignorance.
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. Their whole system, containing as it does errors
so many and so great, has been born of the union between faith and
false philosophy.
42. Would that they had but displayed less zeal and energy in
propagating it! But such is their activity and such their unwearying
labor on behalf of their cause, that one cannot but be pained to see
them waste such energy in endeavoring to ruin the Church when they
might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better
directed. Their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds, the
first to remove obstacles from their path, the second to devise and
apply actively and patiently every resource that can serve their
purpose. They recognize that the three chief difficulties which stand
in their way are the scholastic method of philosophy, the authority and
tradition of the Fathers, and the magisterium of the Church, and on
these they wage unrelenting war. Against scholastic philosophy and
theology they use the weapons of ridicule and contempt. Whether it is
ignorance or fear, or both, that inspires this conduct in them, 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. 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."[22] 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. But 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
endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate
traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the
fourth Council of Constantinople: "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 everyone of those divine interpreters,
the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore 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.''
The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as
they do upon tradition. 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. Finally, the
Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the
ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its
origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of
its adversaries. 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.''[23] This being so,
Venerable Brethren, 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. There is no species of
insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to
charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up
against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable,
they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the
effects of his attack. 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, hailing their works,
exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause. 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. 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. The young,
excited and confused by all this clamor 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 infrequently surrender and give themselves up to Modernism.
43. And here we have already some of the artifices employed by
Modernists to exploit their wares. What efforts do they not make to win
new recruits! 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. And 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. It is also a
subject of grief to Us that many others who, 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. They are to be found among the
laity, and in the ranks of the clergy, and they are not wanting even in
the last place where one might expect to meet them, in religious
communities If they treat of biblical questions, it is upon Modernist
principles; 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. 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. 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. Meanwhile it may be
that they have persuaded themselves that in all this they are really
serving God and the Church. 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.
44. Against this host of grave errors, and its secret and open advance,
Our predecessor Leo Xlll, of happy memory, worked strenuously, both in
his words and his acts, especially as regards the study of the Bible.
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. We, therefore,
Venerable Brethren, have decided to suffer no longer delay, and to
adopt measures which are more efficacious. 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.
45. In the first place, with regard to studies, We will and strictly
ordain that scholastic philosophy be made the basis of the sacred
sciences. 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."[24] And 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. Further,
We admonish professors to bear well in mind that they cannot set aside
St. Thomas, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave
disadvantage.
46. On this philosophical foundation the theological edifice is to be
carefully raised. Promote the study of theology, Venerable Brethren, 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."[25] We will add that We deem worthy of praise those who
with full respect for tradition, the Fathers, and the ecclesiastical
magisterium, endeavor, 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. 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.
47. 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."[26] 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 splendor
of the former estate is dimmed, they have been disfigured by perverse
doctrines and monstrous errors."[27] We ordain, therefore, that the
study of natural sciences in the seminaries be carried out according to
this law.
48. 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 depositories; 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, Venerable
Brethren, you cannot be too watchful or too constant, but most of all
in the choice of professors, for as a rule the students are modeled
after the pattern of their masters. Strong in the consciousness of your
duty, act always in this matter with prudence and with vigor.
49. Equal diligence 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. 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.
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 nation.[28] 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. Let the
Bishops who form the Governing Board of such Catholic Institutes or
Universities watch with all care that these Our commands be constantly
observed.
50. It is also the duty of the Bishops to prevent writings of
Modernists, or whatever savors of Modernism or promotes it, from being
read when they have been published, and to hinder their publication
when they have not. 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. 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 read without suspicion, and
they are, therefore, all the more dangerous in gradually preparing the
way for Modernism.
51. To add some more general directions, Venerable Brethren, 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 clamor of evil men, shall, gently, by all means, but firmly, do
each his own part in this work, remembering the injunctions 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."[29] 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 fulfills
his duty by denouncing to Us one or two books, while a great many
others of the same kind are being published and circulated. 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 everyone, 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; but in all cases it
will be obligatory on Catholic booksellers not to put on sale books
condemned by the Bishop. And 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 catalogs of
some of them the books of the Modernists are not infrequently 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."
52. 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.
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 means in their
judgments. 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 favorable, 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. 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 he preceded by the Nihil obstat and the name of the
censor. Only on a very rare and exceptional occasion, and on the
prudent decision of the Bishop, shall it be possible to omit mention of
the censor. The name of the censor shall never be made known to the
authors until he shall have given a favorable 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.
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. 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. Finally, We
affirm and declare that the title of censor with which a person may be
honored has no value whatever, and can never be adduced to give credit
to the private opinions of him who holds it.
53. Having said this much in general, We now ordain in particular a
more careful observance of Article XLII of the above-mentioned
Constitution Officiorum, according to which "it is forbidden to secular
priests, without the previous consent of the Ordinary, to undertake the
editorship of papers or periodicals." This permission shall be
withdrawn from any priest who makes a wrong use of it after having
received an admonition thereupon. With regard to priests who are
correspondents or collaborators of periodicals, as it happens not
infrequently that they contribute matter infected with Modernism to
their papers or periodicals, let the Bishops see to it that they do not
offend in this manner; and if they do, let them warn the offenders and
prevent them from writing. We solemnly charge in like manner the
superiors of religious orders that they fulfill the same duty, and
should they fail in it, let the Bishops make due provision with
authority from the Supreme Pontiff. Let there be, as far as this is
possible, a special censor for newspapers and periodicals written by
Catholics. It shall be his office to read in due time each number after
it has been published, and if he find anything dangerous in it let him
order that it be corrected as soon as possible. The Bishop shall have
the same right even when the censor has seen nothing objectionable in a
publication.
54. We have already mentioned congresses and public gatherings as among
the means used by the Modernists to propagate and defend their
opinions. In the future, Bishops shall not permit congresses of priests
except on very rare occasions. When they do permit them it shall only
be on condition that matters appertaining to the Bishops or the
Apostolic See be not treated in them, and that no resolutions or
petitions be allowed that would imply a usurpation of sacred authority,
and that absolutely nothing be said in them which savors of Modernism,
presbyterianism, or laicism. At congresses of this kind, which can only
be held after permission in writing has been obtained in due time and
for each case it shall not be lawful for priests of other dioceses to
be present without the written permission of their Ordinary. Further,
no priest must lose sight of the solemn recommendation of Leo XIII:
"Let priests hold as sacred the authority of their pastors, let them
take it for certain that the sacerdotal ministry, if not exercised
under the guidance of the Bishops, can never be either holy, or very
fruitful, or worthy of respect.''[30]
55. But of what avail, Venerable Brethren, will be all Our commands and
prescriptions if they be not dutifully and firmly carried out? In order
that this may be done it has seemed expedient to us to extend to all
dioceses the regulations which the Bishops of Umbria, with great
wisdom, laid down for theirs many years ago. "In order," they say, ''to
extirpate the errors already propagated and to prevent their further
diffusion, and to remove those teachers of impiety through whom the
pernicious effects of such diffusion are being perpetuated, this sacred
Assembly, following the example of St. Charles Borromeo, has decided to
establish in each of the dioceses a Council consisting of approved
members of both branches of the clergy, which shall be charged with the
task of noting the existence of errors and the devices by which new
ones are introduced and propagated, and to inform the Bishop of the
whole, so that he may take counsel with them as to the best means for
suppressing the evil at the outset and preventing it spreading for the
ruin of souls or, worse still, gaining strength and growth."[31] We
decree, therefore, that in every diocese a council of this kind, which
We are pleased to name the "Council of Vigilance,'' be instituted
without delay. The priests called to form part in it shall be chosen
somewhat after the manner above prescribed for the censors, and they
shall meet every two months on an appointed day in the presence of the
Bishop. They shall be bound to secrecy as to their deliberations and
decisions, and in their functions shall be included the following: they
shall watch most carefully for every trace and sign of Modernism both
in publications and in teaching, and to preserve the clergy and the
young from it they shall take all prudent, prompt, and efficacious
measures. Let them combat novelties of words, remembering the
admonitions of Leo XIII: "It is impossible to approve in Catholic
publications a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride
the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order
of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations
of the modern soul, on a new social vocation of the clergy, on a new
Christian civilization, and many other things of the same kind."[32]
Language of the kind here indicated is not to be tolerated either in
books or in lectures. The Councils must not neglect the books treating
of the pious traditions of different places or of sacred relics. Let
them not permit such questions to be discussed in journals or
periodicals destined to foster piety, either with expressions savoring
of mockery or contempt, or by dogmatic pronouncements, especially when,
as is often the case, what is stated as a certainty either does not
pass the limits of probability or is based on prejudiced opinion.
Concerning sacred relics, let this be the rule: if Bishops, who alone
are judges in such matters, know for certain that a relic is not
genuine, let them remove it at once from the veneration of the
faithful; if the authentications of a relic happen to have been lost
through civil disturbances, or in any other way, let it not be exposed
for public veneration until the Bishop has verified it. The argument of
prescription or well-founded presumption is to have weight only when
devotion to a relic is commendable by reason of its antiquity,
according to the sense of the Decree issued in 1896 by the Congregation
of Indulgences and Sacred Relics: "Ancient relics are to retain the
veneration they have always enjoyed except when in individual instances
there are clear arguments that they are false or superstitious." In
passing judgment on pious traditions let it always be borne in mind
that in this matter the Church uses the greatest prudence, and that she
does not allow traditions of this kind to be narrated in books except
with the utmost caution and with the insertion of the declaration
imposed by Urban VIII; and even then she does not guarantee the truth
of the fact narrated; she simply does not forbid belief in things for
which human evidence is not wanting. On this matter the Sacred
Congregation of Rites, thirty years ago, decreed as follows: "These
apparitions or revelations have neither been approved nor condemned by
the Holy See, which has simply allowed them to be believed on purely
human faith, on the tradition which they relate, corroborated by
testimony and documents worthy of credence."[33] Anyone who follows
this rule has no cause to fear. For the devotion based on any
apparition, in so far as it regards the fact itself, that is to say, in
so far as the devotion is relative, always implies the condition of the
fact being true; while in so far as it is absolute, it is always based
on the truth, seeing that its object is the persons of the saints who
are honored. The same is true of relics. Finally, We entrust to the
Councils of Vigilance the duty of overlooking assiduously and
diligently social institutions as well as writings on social questions
so that they may harbor no trace of Modernism, but obey the
prescriptions of the Roman Pontiffs.
56. Lest what We have laid down thus far should pass into oblivion, We
will and ordain that the Bishops of all dioceses, a year after the
publication of these letters and every three years thenceforward,
furnish the Holy See with a diligent and sworn report on the things
which have been decreed in this Our Letter, and on the doctrines that
find currency among the clergy, and especially in the seminaries and
other Catholic institutions, those not excepted which are not subject
to the Ordinary, and We impose the like obligation on the Generals of
religious orders with regard to those who are under them.
57. This, Venerable Brethren, is what We have thought it Our duty to
write to you for the salvation of all who believe. The adversaries of
the Church will doubtless abuse what We have said to refurbish the old
calumny by which We are traduced as the enemy of science and of the
progress of humanity. As a fresh answer to such accusations, which the
history of the Christian religion refutes by never-failing evidence, it
is Our intention to establish by every means in our power a special
Institute in which, through the co-operation of those Catholics who are
most eminent for their learning, the advance of science and every other
department of knowledge may be promoted under the guidance and teaching
of Catholic truth. God grant that We may happily realize Our design
with the assistance of all those who bear a sincere love for the Church
of Christ. But of this We propose to speak on another occasion.
58. Meanwhile, Venerable Brethren, fully confident in your zeal and
energy, We beseech for you with Our whole heart the abundance of
heavenly light, so that in the midst of this great danger to souls from
the insidious invasions of error upon every hand, you may see clearly
what ought to be done, and labor to do it with all your strength and
courage. May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be
with you in His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of
all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid. And We, as a pledge
of Our affection and of the Divine solace in adversity, most lovingly
grant to you, your clergy and people, the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at St. Peter's, Rome, September 8, 1907, in the fifth year of Our
Pontificate. PIUS X, POPE
REFERENCES
1. Acts 20:30.
2. Titus 1:10.
3. ii Tim. 3:13.
4. De Revelatione, can. 1.
5. Ibid., can. 2.
6. De Fide, can. 3. 7. De Revelatione, can. 3.
8. Gregory XVI, encyclical of June 25, 1834, Singulari Nos.
9. Brief to the Bishop of Breslau, June 15, 1857.
10. Gregory IX Epist. ad Magistros theol. paris. July 7, 1223.
11. Proposition 29, condemned by Leo X in the bull of May 16, 1520,
Exsurge Domine: Via nobis facta est enervandi auctoritatem Conciliorum
et libere contradicendi eorum gestis et iudicandi eorum decreta, at
confidenter confitendi quidquid verum videtur, sive probatum fuerit,
sive reprobatum a quocumque Concilio.
12. Sess. Vll, De Sacramentis in genere, can. 5.
13. Proposition 2: "Propositio, quae statuit, potestatem a Deo Datam
Ecclesiae ut communicaretur Pastoribus, qui sunt eius ministri pro
salute animarum; sic intellecta, ut a communitate fidelium in Pastores
derivetur ecclesiastici ministerii ac regiminis potestas: haeretica."
Proposition 3: "Insuper, quae .statuit Romanun Pontificem esse caput
ministeriale; sic explicata ut Romanus Pontifex non a Christo in
persona beati Petri, sed ab Ecclesia potestatem ministerii accipiat,
qua velut Petri successor, verus Christi vicarius ac totius Ecclesiae
caput pollet in universa Ecclesia: haerectica."
14. Pius IX,encyclical of November 9, 1846, Qui pluribus.
15. Syllabus, Prop. 5.
16. Constitution Dei Filius, cap. 4.
17. Loc. cit.
18. Rom. 1:21-22.
19. Vatican Council, De Revelatione con. 2.
20. Epist. 28.
21. Gregory XVI, encyclical of June 25, 1834, Singulari Nos.
22. Syllabus, Prop. 13.
23. Motu Proprio of March 14, 1891, Ut mysticam.
24. Leo Xlll, encyclical of August 4, 1879, Aeterni Patris.
25. Leo Xlll, Apostolic letter of December 10, 1889, In magna.
26. Leo Xlll, allocution of March 7, 1880.
27. Loc. cit.
28. Cf. ASS, 29:359ff
29. Cf. ASS, 30:39ff.
30. Leo Xlll, encyclical of February 10, 1884, Nobilissima Gallorum.
31. Acts of the Congress of the Bishops of Umbria, November, 1849, tit.
2, art. 6
32. Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Extraordinary
Ecclesiastical Affairs, January 27, 1902.
33. Decree of May 2, 1877.
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