Ebook: Modernist

The object of these pages is twofold: first and mainly, to show that Pius X could do no otherwise than to eject the Modernist from the Catholic Church-he has no place there; secondly, to show John Henry Newman the whole-hearted opponent of Modernism, as it was not then called, but as it existed in his day. As the Papal Encyclical and Syllabus condemns no man by name, so these pages are strictly impersonal. No individual is either mentioned or aimed at in them. I shall be glad if any one will disavow this doctrine of Modernism, and cry that it never was his. Yet let him cry out without anger. The doctrine is not imputed to him. The discourses are founded on the Syllabus Lamentabili issued July 3, 1907, and the Encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis of September 8,1907, the authorized translation of which may be had of Messrs. Burns & Oates, price twopence. Of the sixty-five propositions condemned in the Syllabus, the following are chiefly dealt with in these pages. Prop. 3. From ecclesiastical judgements and censures passed upon the free and more erudite interpretation of Scripture, it may be gathered that the faith proposed by the Church contradicts history, and that Catholic dogmas really cannot be reconciled with the truer origins of the Christian religion. Prop. 6. In the defining of truths the Church taught and the Church teaching work together in such a way that nothing is left for the Church teaching but to sanction the common opinions of the Church taught.