Modernism in the Catholic Church
Modernism in the Catholic Church describes attempts to reconcile Catholicism with modern culture,[1] specifically an understanding of the Bible and Catholic tradition in light of the historical-critical method and new philosophical and political developments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
For the broader artistic and philosophical sense of the term, see Modernism. For other uses, see Modernism (disambiguation).
The term modernism—generally used by critics of rather than adherents to positions associated with it—came to prominence in Pope Pius X's 1907 encyclical Pascendi Dominici gregis. The Pope condemned modernism as "the synthesis of all heresies".[2]
Writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia in 1911, the Jesuit Arthur Vermeersch gave a definition of modernism in the perspective of the Catholic heresiology of his time:
The modernist movement was influenced and accompanied by Protestant theologians and clergy like Paul Sabatier and Heinrich Julius Holtzmann. On the other hand, modernist theologians were critical of Protestant theology and engaged in apologetics of the Catholic Church against a Protestant understanding of Christianity, as in the famous attack of Alfred Loisy in L'Évangile et l'Église (1902) on Adolf von Harnack's Das Wesen des Christentums (1900).[4] The modernist movement has a parallel in the Church of England where the journal The Modern Churchman was founded in 1911.
The controversy on modernism was prominent in French and British intellectual circles and, to a lesser extent, in Italy, but, in one way or another, concerned most of Europe and North America.[5] Pope Pius X saw modernism as a universal threat which required a global reaction.[6]
"7. The prophecies and miracles set forth and recorded in the Sacred Scriptures are the fiction of poets, and the mysteries of the Christian faith the result of philosophical investigations. In the books of the Old and the New Testament there are contained mythical inventions, and Jesus Christ is Himself a myth."
"13. The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress of the sciences." – Letter to the Archbishop of Munich, Tuas libenter, December 21, 1863.
"15. Every man is free to embrace and profess the Religion he shall believe true, guided by the light of reason." – Apostolic Letter, Multiplices inter, 10 June 1851. Allocution Maxima quidem, 9 June 1862.
(1838–1918), Archbishop of Saint Paul. Considered one of the leaders of Americanism, he later turned against modernism.
John Ireland
(1843–1922), priest and philologist; one of his books was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Louis Duchesne
(1857–1940), priest and theologian, excommunicated for his views in 1908 and his opera omnia were placed on the Index. Later became an agnostic and a secular scholar at the Collège de France.
Alfred Loisy
(1861–1909), expelled from the Society of Jesus in 1906 for his views and excommunicated in 1908
George Tyrrell
(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; some of her works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Maude Petre
(1881–1946), who as a scholar of the history of Christianity and of religious philosophy, was a leader in the Italian modernist movement and was excommunicated in 1925[111]
Ernesto Buonaiuti
(1861–1929), historian of dogma
Pierre Batiffol
(1852–1925), philosopher of religion
Friedrich von Hügel
(1856–1916), English essayist and biographer
Wilfrid Ward
(1867–1931), Barnabite priest, preacher
Giovanni Semeria
(1850–1906), German theologian
Herman Schell
(1840–1901), church historian, "Liberal Catholic"
Franz Xaver Kraus
comedian Dermot Morgan parodied the Modernist trend of the Post-Vatican II Catholic Church in Ireland while appearing on the RTÉ television show The Live Mike between 1979 and 1982. On the show, Morgan played a range of comic characters, including Father Trendy, a trying-to-be-cool hippie-priest, who wore an Elvis haircut, a leather jacket and who was given to drawing ludicrous parallels between religious and non-religious life in two-minute 'sermons' to the camera. Morgan created the character as a satire of Father Brian D'Arcy, a left-wing Passionist priest who was trying to be the chaplain to the show business community in Dublin.
Irish
In the episode "The Bishop's Gambit" of the British TV series (season 1, episode 7), Prime Minister Jim Hacker discusses candidates for an Anglican bishopric with Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby.[114] The Church Commissioners have suggested a candidate who is a "modernist". Sir Humphrey later explains to the PM that "modernist" is ecclesiastical code for an atheist and Marxist Anglican clergyman.[115]
Yes Minister
Americanism (heresy)
Biblical criticism
Désiré-Joseph Mercier
Integrism
Joseph Malègue
Liberal Catholicism
Nouvelle Théologie
Spirit of Vatican II
Altholz, Josef L. (1962). The Liberal Catholic Movement in England: The 'Rambler' and its Contributors, 1848-1864. London: Burns & Oates.
Arnold, Claus (1999). Katholizismus als Kulturmacht. Der Freiburger Theologe Joseph Sauer (1872-1949) und das Erbe des Franz Xaver Kraus. Paderborn: Schöningh. 9783506799913.
ISBN
Arnold, Claus; Losito, Giacomo (2009). La censure d'Alfred Loisy (1903). Les documents des Congrégations de l´Index et du Saint Office (Fontes Archivi Sancti Officii Romani 4). Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana.
Arnold, Claus; Losito, Giacomo (2011). "Lamentabili sane exitu" (1907): Les documents préparatoires du Saint Office. Vatican City: Libreria editrice vaticana.
Arnold, Claus; Vian, Giovanni (2017). . Venice: Edizioni Ca' Foscari. doi:10.14277/978-88-6969-130-0. ISBN 9788869691300.
The Reception and Application of the Encyclical Pascendi: The Reports of the Diocesan Bishops and the Superiors of the Religious Orders until 1914
(1996). Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century. Kansas City, Missouri: Sarto House. ISBN 9780963903211. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Amerio, Romano
Botti, Alfonso; Cerrato, Rocco, eds. (2000). [Modernism between Christianity and Secularization: Proceedings of the International Conference of Urbino, 1–4 October 1997]. Studi e testi (in Italian). Vol. 6. QuattroVenti. ISBN 9788839205452. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Il Modernismo Tra Cristianitā e Secolarizzazione: Atti Del Convegno Internazionale Di Urbino, 1-4 Ottobre 1997
Botti, Alfonso; Cerrato, Rocco; Biagioli, Ilaria, eds. (2004). [Romolo Murri and the Murrismi in Italy and in Europe One Hundred Years Later: Proceedings of the International Conference of Urbino, 24–26 September 2001]. Studi e testi (in Italian). Vol. 7. QuattroVenti. ISBN 9788839206817. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Romolo Murri e i murrismi in Italia e in Europa cent'anni dopo: atti del Convegno internazionale di Urbino, 24-26 settembre 2001
Bourmaud, Dominique (2006). . Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press. ISBN 9781892331434. OCLC 72871306. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
One Hundred Years of Modernism: A History of Modernism, Aristotle to the Second Vatican Council
(1907). Figgis, John Neville; Laurence, Reginald Vere (eds.). The History of Freedom and Other Essays. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Dalberg-Acton, John Emerich Edward
Daly, Gabriel (1980). Transcendence and Immanence: A Study in Catholic Modernism and Integralism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 9780198266525.
ISBN
Fawkes, Alfred (17 July 2015) [1913]. . London: Forgotten Books. ISBN 9781331562054. OCLC 3307790. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Studies in Modernism
Gauthier, Pierre (1988). [Newman and Blondel: Tradition and the Development of Dogma]. Cogitatio fidei (in French). Vol. 147. Éditions du Cerf. ISBN 9782204028547. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Newman et Blondel: tradition et développement du dogme
(1960). The Catholic Church in the Modern World: A Survey from the French Revolution to the Present. Image Books. Vol. 95. Garden City, New York: Doubleday. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Hales, Edward Elton Young
(1954). Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century (2nd ed.). London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Hales, Edward Elton Young
Izquierdo, César (1990). [Blondel and the Modernist Crisis: Analysis of "History and Dogma"]. Colección teológica de la Universidad de Navarra. Vol. 71 (Illustrated ed.). Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra. ISBN 9788431310998. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Blondel y la crisis modernista: análysis de "Historia y dogma"
Jodock, Darrell, ed. (2000). . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521770712. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Catholicism Contending with Modernity: Roman Catholic Modernism and Anti-Modernism in Historical Context
Loome, Thomas Michael (1979). Liberal Catholicism, Reform Catholicism, Modernism: A Contribution to a New Orientation in Modernist Research. Tübinger theologische Studien. Vol. 14. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag. 3786706603.
ISBN
Nouvelle Théologie - New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II
O'Connell, Marvin Richard (1994). . Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. ISBN 9780813208008. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Critics on Trial: An Introduction to the Catholic Modernist Crisis
Portier, William L. (2013). Divided Friends: Portraits of the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis in the United States. CUA Press. 9780813221649.
ISBN
Poulat, Émile (1996). Histoire, dogme et critique dans la crise moderniste. Paris: Albin Michel. 9782226084644.
ISBN
. Leo XIII. 18 November 1893.
Providentissimus Deus
Sinke Guimarães, Atila (1999). . Eli, Eli, Lamma sabacthani?. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). Tan Books and Publishers. ISBN 9780895556363. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
In the Murky Waters of Vatican II
Vian, Giovanni (2012). . Rome: Carocci. ISBN 9788843063444.
Il modernismo. La Chiesa cattolica in conflitto con la modernità
Virgoulay, René (1980). . Paris: Éditions du Cerf. ISBN 9782204015097. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
Blondel et le modernisme: la philosophie de l'action et les sciences religieuses, 1896-1913
Bourmaud, Fr. Dominique,
One Hundred Years of Modernism: A Genealogy of the Principles of the Second Vatican Council
(2013). The Essence & Topicality of Thomism. Lulu.com. ISBN 9781304416186. — Fr. Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., explains why Thomism is the solution to the present crisis of Modernism in the Church.
Garrigou-Lagrange, Réginald
Leo XIII, 18 November 1893
Providentissimus Deus
Pius X, 3 July 1907
Lamentabili sane
Pius X, 8 September 1907
Pascendi dominici gregis
: 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."
International Catholic University: James Hitchcock, Introduction to Modernism
Fr. Michael Morton, "Catholic Modernism (1896-1914)"
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.