Modernism (Roman Catholicism)

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Modernism refers to theological opinions expressed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but with influence reaching into the 21st century, which are characterized by a break with the past. Catholic modernists form an amorphous group. The term "modernist" appears in Pope Pius X's 1907 encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis.^[1] Modernists, and what are now termed "Neo-Modernists", generally do not openly use this label in describing themselves. Traditionalist Catholics, however, continue to use the term.

Modernists came to prominence in French and British intellectual circles and, to a lesser extent, in Italy.^[2] The Modernist movement was influenced by

• Bourmaud, Fr. Dominique, One Hundred Years of Modernism: A Genealogy of the Principles of the Second Vatican Council
• , explains why Thomism is the solution to the present crisis of Modernism in the Church. Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. —  
• Providentissimus Deus, Leo XIII, 18 November 1893
• Lamentabili sane, Pius X, 3 July 1907
• Pascendi dominici gregis, Pius X, 8 September 1907
• International Catholic University: James Hitchcock, Introduction to Modernism: Essays with bibliography arranged by subjects, headed “Note: Most of the works dealing with Modernism are sympathetic to the Modernists, and students should maintain a critical stance towards the assigned readings.”
• Fr. Michael Morton, “Catholic Modernism (1896-1914)”
•  "Modernism".  

External links

• Virgoulay, R.: Blondel et le modernisme; la philosophie de l’action et les sciences religieuses, 1896–1913, Paris, Le Cerf, 1980

• Poulat, É.: Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste, Tournai, Casterman, 1979
• Sinke Guimarães, Atila: In the murky waters of Vatican II, MAETA, Metairie, 1997

Reviewed by Fr. John Parsons

• O’Connell, Marvin: Critics on trial; an introduction to the Catholic Modernist crisis, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 1994

Cf. also this October 2010 review from The Tablet.

• Acton, The Lord, 'The history of freedom' and other essays; an outsider’s criticism.
• Alfonso Botti, Rocco Cerrato (ed.), Il modernismo tra cristianità e secolarizzazione, Urbino, QuattroVenti, 2001
• , 1962The Liberal Catholic movement in EnglandAltholz, Josef L.:
• Amerio, Romano (1996). Iota unum : a study of changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth century. Kansas City MO: Sarto House.  
• Bourmaud, Dominique (2006). One hundred years of modernism : a history of modernism, Aristotle to the Second Vatican Council. Kansas City, Mo.: Angelus Press.  
• Fawkes, Alfred (1913). Studies in modernism by the Rev. Alfred Fawkes. London,: Smith, Elder & Co.,.  
• Gauthier, P.: Newman et Blondel ; tradition et développement du dogme, Paris, Le Cerf, 1988
• Hales, E.E.Y.: The Catholic Church in the modern world, Doubleday, 1958
• Hales, E.E.Y., 1954. Pio Nono; a study in European politics and religion in the nineteenth century, Doubleday, 1954
• Ilaria Biagioli, Alfonso Botti, Rocco Cerrato (ed.), Romolo Murri e i murrismi in Italia e in Europa cent'anni dopo, Urbino, QuattroVenti, 2005
• Izquierdo, C.: Blondel y la crisis modernista ; análisis de « Historia y dogma ». Pamplona, Ed. Univ. de Navarra, 1990
• Jodock, Darrell (ed.:) Catholicism contending with modernity, C.U.P., 2002
• Loome, Thomas Michael: Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism; a contribution to a new orientation in Modernist research^[2].
• Mettepenningen, Jürgen (2010). Nouvelle théologie - new theology inheritor of modernism, precursor of Vatican II. London; New York: T & T Clark.  

References

Notes

• Buddhist modernism
• Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy
• Integrism
• Islam and modernity
• Liberal Catholicism
• Modern Orthodox Judaism
• Nouvelle Théologie
• Joseph Malègue

See also

• Louis Duchesne, historian of the Church
• Henri Bremond
• Friedrich von Hügel
• Hans Küng

Other, less public modernists

• Pierre Batiffol (1861–1929), historian of dogma^[10]

• Alfred Loisy (1857–1940), a French priest whose L'Évangile et L’Église (1902) sparked the crisis; he was excommunicated vitandus in 1908
• Jesuits in 1906 for his views
• Maude Petre (1863–1942), English nun, close friend of Tyrrell, and a participant in the modernist movement as well as one of its first historians and critics^[9]
• Ernesto Buonaiuti (1881–1946), who as a scholar of the history of Christianity and of religious philosophy, was a leader in the Italian modernist movement

Major figures

Notable Catholic Modernists

Since Pope Paul VI, most Church authorities have largely dropped the term "modernism", preferring instead in the interest of precision to call beliefs such as secularism, liberalism or relativism by their several names. The older term has however remained current in the usage of many Traditionalist Catholics and conservative critics within the Church.

In the period between World War II and the Cold War Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. was the "torchbearer of orthodox Thomism" against Modernism.^[7] Garrigou-Lagrange, who was a professor of philosophy and theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, is commonly held to have influenced the decision in 1942 to place the privately circulated book Une école de théologie: le Saulchoir (Étiolles 1937) by Marie-Dominique Chenu O.P. on the Vatican's "Index of Forbidden Books" as the culmination of a polemic within the Dominican Order between the Angelicum supporters of a speculative scholasticism and the French revival Thomists who were more attentive to historical hermeneutics, such as Yves Congar O.P.. Congar's Chrétiens désunis was also suspected of Modernism because its methodology derived more from religious experience than from syllogistic analysis.^[8]

To ensure enforcement of these decisions, Monsignor Sodalitium Pianum, i.e. Fellowship of Pius (X), which in France was known as La Sapinière. Its frequently overzealous and clandestine methods often hindered rather than helped the Church in its combat with Modernism.^[6]

Pope Pius X, who succeeded Leo, was the first to identify Modernism as a movement. He frequently condemned both its aims and ideas, and was deeply concerned by the ability of Modernism to allow its adherents to go on believing themselves strict Catholics while having an understanding markedly different from the traditional one as to what that meant (a consequence of the notion of evolution of dogma). In July 1907 the Holy Office published the document Lamentabili sane exitu, a sweeping condemnation which distinguished sixty-five propositions as Modernist heresies. In September of the same year Pius X promulgated an encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis, followed in 1910 by the introduction of an anti-Modernist oath to be taken by all Catholic bishops, priests and academic teachers of religion.

In 1893, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus affirmed in principle the legitimacy of Biblical criticism only insofar as it was pursued in a spirit of faith. In 1903 Leo established a Pontifical Biblical Commission to oversee those studies and ensure that they were conducted with respect for the Catholic doctrines on the inspiration and interpretation of scripture.

Official Church response

The "evolution of dogma" theory (see Development of doctrine), much in the manner of Luther’s theory of salvation sola fide ('by faith alone') allows for a constant updating of standards of morality. The phrase sola fide derives from Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium, a Eucharistic hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas: et si sensus deficit, | ad firmandum cor sincerum | sola fides sufficit. Since majority moral standards shifted heavily during the 20th century, Catholics not accepting the theory were placed in the position of having to abstain from receiving Communion if they wished to engage in some of the actions of some of their fellow-religionists. As for the others, the theory that dogma can change enabled them, as they saw it, to “update” Catholic morality while not being concerned with possible contradictions.

The final overall teaching of Modernism is that dogmata (the teachings of the Church, which its members are required to believe) can evolve over time – not only in their expression but also in their substance – rather than remaining the same in substance for all time. This postulate was what made Modernism unique in the history of schism) or the offender’s being ejected from it (excommunication). Using the new idea that doctrines evolve, it was possible for the modernist to believe that both the old teachings of the Church and his new, seemingly contradictory teachings were correct — each group had its time and place. This system allows almost any type of new belief which the modernist in question might wish to introduce, and for this reason Modernism was labelled by Pope Pius X as "the synthesis of all heresies".

Evolution of dogma

As more naturalistic and scientific studies of history appeared, a way of thinking called historicism arose which suggested that ideas are conditioned by the age in which they are expressed; thus modernists generally believed that most dogma or teachings of the Church were novelties which arose because of specific circumstances obtaining at given points in its history. At the same time rationalism and literary criticism reduced the possible role of the miraculous, so that the philosophical systems in vogue at the time taught among other things that the existence of God could never be known (see Agnosticism). Theology, formerly “queen of the sciences”, was dethroned,^[5] and it was argued that religion must primarily be caused by, and thus be centred on, the feelings of believers. This argument bolsters the impact of secularism by weakening any position supporting the favouring of one religion over another in a given state, on the principle that if no scientific and reasonable assumption of its truth can be made, society should not be so organised as to privilege any particular religion.

• A rationalistic approach to the Bible. The rationalism that was characteristic of the Enlightenment took a protomaterialistic view of miracles and of the historicity of biblical narratives. This approach sought to interpret the Bible by focusing on the text itself as a prelude to considering what the Church Fathers had traditionally taught about it. This method was readily accepted by Protestants and Anglicans. It was the natural consequence of Martin Luther’s sola scriptura doctrine, which asserts that Scripture is the highest authority, and that it can be relied on alone in all things pertaining to salvation and the Christian life.
• Heaven in mind. However, the humanist model which had been in the forefront of intellectual thought since the Renaissance and the scientific revolution was directly opposed to the Thomist view.
• Modern philosophical systems. Philosophers such as Kant and Bergson inspired the mainstream of Modernist thought. One of the latter’s main currents attempted to synthesize the vocabularies, epistemologies, metaphysics and other features of certain modern systems of philosophy with Catholicism in much the same way as the Scholastic order had earlier attempted to synthesize Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy with the Church's teaching.
• Theological rebellion in contradistinction or opposition to the Church's official policies, notably among Jesuits and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Modernism in the Catholic Church was the subject of the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis of Pope St. Pius X.^[4] Modernism may be described under the following broad headings:

Forms of Modernism in the Church

[3]