Two recent signs of the grand triumph achieved by the Pope's Encyclical, condemning Modernism have occurred soon after its publication. There is a direct one from the cordial manner all the Catholic Bishops have received it; especially noteworthy is the beautiful letter on the subject, addressed to the Pope from all he Catholic Bishops and the Archbishops and priests of the Catholic Church in Ireland. An indirect one is afforded by the hatred and spiteful attitude of a couple of rather inferior Anglican weeklies, not much valued or well spoken of by the vast body of Anglicans, and which papers, if they continue to uphold as martyrs the Modernists, will overreach themselves and help many Anglicans who are disgusted with the support such Anglican weeklies give to every form of error and 'New Theologies' to leave the 'City of Confusion' and enter the Catholic Church. It is a sign most significant of the complete triumph of the Catholic Church over this 'New Theology' that such journals are so disturbed and betray such uncontrolled anger.
Modernism is a blasphemous attempt to deform Christianity. Modernists pose as reformers, but they are bogus ones -- i.e., deformers. Their work is more fitly called 'deformation.' There is no reformation in it. They are guilty before God of endeavouring, like many before their time, to start a new religion, completely different in every detail from the one true religion our Saviour made and left to endure till the end of the world. They have the impertinence and monstrous conceit of thinking and speaking as if God the Holy Ghost had been waiting for more than nineteen centuries for Modernist 'teachers' to appear on the scene, and tell Him how He should guide and teach and rule the Church. In fact, there is nothing within the whole range of Catholicism that these men do not wish to do away with. They evidently regard all the things contained in the Catholic Church as so much lumber, to be cast forth on to the scrap-heap, to make room for a brand-new and up-to-date Modernist 'religion,' diametrically opposed to the Catholic Creed, and completely in agreement and conformity with the 'inner sentiment' and 'vital immanence' of each and every deluded fanatic that chooses to evolve them from his inner consciousness -- in fact, a sort of Modernist 'home-spun' derived in principle from Kant, in Germany, and to be further 'modernized' as time goes on. But such a notion as this is not modern at all. It is very obsolete, and, like all previous efforts of the kind, doomed to utter failure, In the Old Testament there were Modernist deformers and disfigurers of God's true religion. Ten of the tribes of Israel, anxious to make a brand-new Church of their own devising, revolted against the ancient Church of Judah, set up by Almighty God. They revolted and became rebels, breaking away from the true House of David and the future Messiah, renouncing by their own act and deed the true promises of God. Roboam, the leader of that rebellion, was punished by God. His son was cut off soon after he had succeeded to his father's throne. Rebellion broke out in Roboam's family against Roboam. In the end his entire family and his very name were destroyed. So it has ever been, sooner or later, with all that rose up in rebellion against the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ, the true Son of David and God's Only-Begotten Son. They cut themselves off from the one true Faith and from its magnificent privileges and promises. Time, whose whirligig brings its revenges, gradually destroys them. First, they begin to quarrel and rebel against each other, and to form mutually hostile conventicles, and this in the end brings disintegration, corruption and death.
'All heresies die like flowers in May.
They rise and wither and fall.
Their glories have been that blazed to the skies.
They have been, and that is all.
But here is the grand old Roman See,
The ruins of earth among,
Young with the youth of its early prime,
With the strength of Peter strong.'{1}
The Church lives on, in spite of them. She passes along on her heavenward way through all the ages unto the end of time. 'I have seen,' she says, 'my enemies lifted up like the cedars of Libanus. And behold, I passed by, and they were not. I looked for them, but their place was no longer found' (Ps. xxxvi. 35, 36).
Let us see what is the Modernist 'up-to-date' conception of the Church as they want it to be. It is one based on the new and so-called philosophy of agnostics and pantheists, with a 'New Theology' of the Holborn-Viaduct-City-Temple-Dr.- Campbell pattern. There are to be new dogmas, with Modernist Bible and Scripture, Catechism, worship, and Modernist 'Sacraments.' There is to be new authority in the Church, and on this head, it seems, everything is to be turned upside down. The cart must go before the horse; the horse's tail must come first and the head last. Christian morality must also be 'reformed' (!) to fit in with Modernist ideals.
All the active virtues are to be deemed holier than the passive Christian virtues. Active life is to be considered better than contemplative life; ambition and pushfulness are to be far better and much holier than humility and the hidden life taught by the example of the Divine Nazarene. Here is deformation indeed with a vengeance. Now we may ask, Who are these Modernist innovators who presume to put everybody right except themselves, and lecture their superiors and their betters?
1. One thing is quite certain. The Pope, in his immortal Encyclical 'Pascendi,' shows to the world that these men have no claim to the monopoly of brains. There are thousands of learned men, scientific men, within the Catholic Church and loyal to Christ's Vicar, quite ready and able to meet them and expose their very clumsy and very unscientific system.
2. These Modernists are in themselves a small body of men trying to join hands with agnostics and rationalists, and to permeate Catholicism as far as they can with their pernicious and truth-destroying principles.
3. What is their precise aim and object, as evidenced by their writings? They wish to make out that the dogmas of the Catholic Church are capable of being changed and as liable to 'modernization' as the shifting doctrines and system of Protestantism.
4. Who sent these Modernist so-called reformers, and whence do they derive their authority? it may well be asked, seeing they are a mere handful of men. No one sent them; they sent and appointed themselves. 'How, then, shall they preach unless they be sent?' (Rom. x. 15).
5. Their concept of so-called reform of God's Church gives the lie to Jesus, her Divine Founder, Who promised she would never teach error, and Who both promised and sent the Spirit of Infallible and Unchangeable Truth to be her perpetual Guide.
6. Then, the very lives of these misguided men prove they are not of the nature of which true reformers are made. They are swayed by pride and obstinacy, allied with ignorance. Humility and obedience are not their striking characteristics. Every heresiarch began by lecturing the recognized leaders of God's Church. This was one of the traits of Luther's character, but his life and conduct showed how sadly he needed reformation within his own miserable soul. So, again, was it with Jansenius, and some of his deluded followers bore the name of being 'pure as angels, but proud as devils.'
So Modernists are no exception to their prototypes. Vaunting themselves as the moral and intellectual superiors of God's priests and Bishops, and even of Christ's Vicar, Pope Pius X., they contend that the Catholic ideal and practice of Christian living is not good enough for them. It must be levelled up ('levelled down' would be a better term) to their Modernist ideals.
Here are a few things out of many that they want to alter in Catholic authority and morality:
1. Allow laymen and simple priests to do the work of Bishops, to help them in ruling the Church.
2. Let priests be permitted to give up their holy and consecrated lives of special purity and sacredness, and let them live like ordinary men.
What, we may ask, would be the result if this deformation of Modernism were realized? Why, there would be no Catholic Church, no real Christ, no authentic Christian Creed left; all would be 'modernized' -- Divine authority would be replaced by individualism. We would have lay Bishops wearing the mitre and wielding the crozier beside real Bishops. There would be a new Modernist Bible, and the old one would be cast forth as obsolete and purely mythical. In the end no sane man, using his reason, would believe in anything at all -- in the end would logically follow pure atheism.
Away, then, with this Modernist absurdity. It is a delusion and a snare, a modern phase of the delusions of proud minds rebelling against lawful authority, and refusing to believe the truth as God taught it and the Church of God proposes to our belief.
A certain Anglican weekly in a recent 'review' of Modernism sneered at the defences of Catholic Christianity, calling it 'medieval armour.' It invites us to cast it aside, as being useless against modern bullets, and to put on, instead, the Modernist brand-new armour. We refuse to do so for obvious and plain reasons. It is not real steel; it is not even a good imitation of that strong metal. It more resembles a suit of cardboard that could easily be pierced and destroyed by agnostic and atheistic weapons. Then, it is 'made in Germany' on a Kantian model, and made very badly and ill-fitting. We prefer the old armour, ancient yet new, medieval yet at the same time as true and trusty to-day. What was good enough in St. Paul's day -- the Modernists, in their writings, do not like St. Paul -- is good enough for us: 'Put ye on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and to stand firmly. Gird your loins round about with truth' (not Modernist falsehood). 'Have ye on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all things, take up the shield of the faith, and put on the helmet of salvation, and take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God' (Eph. vi. 11 seq.).
This is the old armour. It is older than medieval, and can never get rusty, become obsolete, or wear out. Made by God, it has fought many a successful battle and won many a noble triumph. 'This is the victory that overcame the world, even our faith' (James v). We refuse, then, to throw away this God-made armour of the Christian and Catholic soldier of the Cross, for the miserable makeshift, the ragged vesture that Modernists want to make us believe is armour.
Since these lectures were written Modernists have been trying to make out that the Pope, in condemning Modernism, virtually condemns Newman's writings. It has, however, been shown that what Newman wrote is quite different to what Modernists try to read into his works. Newman, in his 'Development,' declares war against the theory of intrinsic development of dogma. Newman was loyal and submissive to the Church, and one of her most gifted and saintly men. It is easy for Modernists to misrepresent Newman's Catholic writings now he is dead, but were he alive, he would be the very first to submit to the Papal Encyclical and disown Modernist principles. One has only to contrast Newman's writings on development with the Modernist theory on the subject to see how absolutely opposed they are to each other. Modernism is doomed, like all other heresies of past times, to wither and die under the blighting exposure and condemnation of the Catholic Church.
{1} Adapted, with apologies, from 'The Song for the Pope.'