Wisdom from our Bruin friend:
There’s quite a bit I want to cover, so I am going to break this down over a series of articles. This is not a departure from themes I’ve been developing over years. When I talk about the Liturgy of the Hours, as I did in my last article, for example, it is not because it is nice to pray the Office. (Although it is.) It is part of a strategy. By using five points, I realize I’m breaking the classic Rule of Three. Were I speaking before you as a group, I would fold it into points 1, 3 and 4. But five allows me more scope for emphasis.
It is urgent to frame the issue around our abysmal failures. However, a winning strategy is implicit. While I believe we’ve lost the war, I also believe we need not continue snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. A victorious insurgency–in this case the Modernists–can fall victim to its own success. There are always the temptations for overreaching and in-fighting. I think we have seen that already.
Taking power and holding it requires two different temperaments. Francis has a revolutionary temperament–a valuable and very temporary opportunity for us. If he is the Lenin of Modernists, I am more afraid of the Stalin who follows. I’m hoping Modernists won’t have the humility to appease us. I’m counting on our very fractiousness to make appeasement impossible (although I worry about # 5 below).
I respectfully submit that there are five main reasons we don”t defeat Modernism.
- Modernists have a strategy, but we don’t.
- There is much anger against Modernists, but anger has become an end.
- There is much good, laudable Catholic piety, but we are not as wise as serpents.
- The internet provides information, but unwise use can only contribute to our defeat.
- The opposition to Modernists is well-meaning and fervent, but disorganized and fratricidal.
Go here to read the rest. We need the innocence of doves, the wisdom of serpents and, above all, the courage of lions.
The problem with Modernism in Catholicism now is that it is old and tired aesthetically and authoritatively having morphed into nothing more than Socialist ideology. That is its weakness. And it is on that weakness that a counterrevolution strategy should be developed.
In other words, Modernism has nothing more to offer Catholics. It gave Catholics their moral license to do more or less as they pleased sexually while assuring them they would go to heaven anyway. So what’s left for Modernism to provide Catholics? Nothing that I can see.
As a convert (1995) I’m not sure exactly what is comprised by “modernism.” Does rejection of modernism require a literal belief in Genesis 1 and a rejection of evolution (by that I don’t mean a rejection of the Darwinian model for evolution) and a rejection of what cosmology / physics tells us about the creation of the universe and the earth?
No. The Oath Against Modernism gives a pretty good guide to what Pius X was concerned about:
The Oath Against Modernism
Pope Pius X – 1910
THE OATH AGAINST MODERNISM
To be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries.
I . . . . firmly embrace and accept each and every definition that has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church, especially those principal truths which are directly opposed to the errors of this day. And first of all, I profess that God, the origin and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from the created world (see Rom. 1:19), that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause from its effects, and that, therefore, his existence can also be demonstrated: Secondly, I accept and acknowledge the external proofs of revelation, that is, divine acts and especially miracles and prophecies as the surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion and I hold that these same proofs are well adapted to the understanding of all eras and all men, even of this time. Thirdly, I believe with equally firm faith that the Church, the guardian and teacher of the revealed word, was personally instituted by the real and historical Christ when he lived among us, and that the Church was built upon Peter, the prince of the apostolic hierarchy, and his successors for the duration of time. Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical’ misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely. Fifthly, I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our creator and lord.
Furthermore, with due reverence, I submit and adhere with my whole heart to the condemnations, declarations, and all the prescripts contained in the encyclical Pascendi and in the decree Lamentabili,especially those concerning what is known as the history of dogmas. I also reject the error of those who say that the faith held by the Church can contradict history, and that Catholic dogmas, in the sense in which they are now understood, are irreconcilable with a more realistic view of the origins of the Christian religion. I also condemn and reject the opinion of those who say that a well-educated Christian assumes a dual personality-that of a believer and at the same time of a historian, as if it were permissible for a historian to hold things that contradict the faith of the believer, or to establish premises which, provided there be no direct denial of dogmas, would lead to the conclusion that dogmas are either false or doubtful. Likewise, I reject that method of judging and interpreting Sacred Scripture which, departing from the tradition of the Church, the analogy of faith, and the norms of the Apostolic See, embraces the misrepresentations of the rationalists and with no prudence or restraint adopts textual criticism as the one and supreme norm. Furthermore, I reject the opinion of those who hold that a professor lecturing or writing on a historico-theological subject should first put aside any preconceived opinion about the supernatural origin of Catholic tradition or about the divine promise of help to preserve all revealed truth forever; and that they should then interpret the writings of each of the Fathers solely by scientific principles, excluding all sacred authority, and with the same liberty of judgment that is common in the investigation of all ordinary historical documents.
Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.
I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. . .
The Catholic Church is a historical faith. Modernists were infected with the solvent of a materialist rationalism that would do away with the possibility of miracles and reduce the dogmas of the Church to man made constructs that could, would and should change over time. The fight against Modernism continues to this day, and has virtually nothing in common with battles over evolution, the creation of the world, and other topics that exercise some of our Protestant brethren.
Thanks Don. I’ve heard of it but have never actually read it. Seems to me to be a fairly straightforward document to which I can easily give assent.
Unfortunately for all concerned, the requirement that the Oath “be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries” was abrogated in 1967 by Paul VI. I guess it was too hard to follow, or “no longer needed”, as was claimed about so many other practices and devotions that have been abandoned in the past seventy years or so.
thanks, Don, for the full statement. I can adhere to that if I’ve interpreted it correctly.
The only conflicts in the Church between faith and reason, between science and religion are the ones created by Modernists who sought to rationalize faith.