But of all the insults they [the Modernists] heap on them those of ignorance and obstinacy are the favourites. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that render him redoubtable, they try to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack, while in flagrant contrast with this policy towards Catholics, they load with constant praise the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, excluding novelty in every page, with choruses of applause... (Pascendi gregis #42)
Defeating Modernism requires addressing the root cause. The root cause of Modernism according to St. Pius X is the exaltation of agnostic philosophy over natural and supernatural revelation. Philosophy - the art of reasoning about created things - in this era is based on false ideas about nature. Science is treated today as the faith once was; and where science opposes faith the faith is summarily subjected to it, even within the Church:
...faith occupies itself solely with something which science declares to be unknowable for it. Hence each has a separate field assigned to it: science is entirely concerned with the reality of phenomena, into which faith does not enter at all...
...but it is quite different with regard to faith, which [in the Modernist system] is subject to science... (Pascendi gregis #16 & 17)
How did this displacement of theology, long regarded as the Queen of sciences occur? When did this happen? I would caution the reader to tread carefully over the next few paragraphs as the ideas expressed there may be both unsettling and for some, impossible.
As St. Pius X traces in his analysis of the "compendium of all heresies" (Modernism), it is the doctrine of evolution that underpins the agnosticism of the Modernist. Enough ink has been spilt confuting the heresy of so-called theistic evolution; what I propose here is the examination of the seminal theological event that made the theory of evolution inevitable as the dominant cosmological theory even among churchmen.
Evolution attacks creation. Creation as divine revelation explains it to us simply could not have occurred. Therefore, the Book of Genesis - the sure foundation upon which all Sacred Scripture rests - is either in error or speaks only in poetic and symbolic style.
The first attack on the divinity of Genesis happened long before Darwin. It occurred in the early 17th century when three Roman Pontiffs (Paul V, Urban VIII, and Alexander VII) all condemned Galileo's heliocentric theory as formally heretical. The Church had always held that the earth was at rest in the center of cosmos as the theater of redemption in which God became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. The rest of the heavenly bodies rotated around the earth as Genesis 1,14 reveals. To this, Saint Robert Bellarmine testifies
"Second. I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators." (Letter to Foscarini, 1615)
Evolution could not have gotten off the ground - at least as regards the theology of the Church - except first that faith in Genesis had been wounded by the heliocentrists. They - long before the evolutionists - accused the Church of error as regards the interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. If the Church was wrong about so foundational a matter as the cosmological makeup of the universe, how could she be trusted with the weightier matters of Biblical interpretation?
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| St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church |
However, Saint Robert Bellarmine points out a dogmatic hermeneutic here; where there is common agreement by the Church Fathers, there is no freedom to oppose their interpretation. This decree from Trent is renewed at Vatican I:
"The complete books of the old and the new Testament with all their parts, as they are listed in the decree of the said council [Trent] and as they are found in the old Latin Vulgate edition, are to be received as sacred and canonical.
These books the Church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority after they had been composed by unaided human skill, nor simply because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their Author, and were as such committed to the Church.
Now since the decree on the interpretation of holy scripture, profitably made by the council of Trent, with the intention of constraining rash speculation, has been wrongly interpreted by some, we renew that decree and declare its meaning to be as follows: that in matters of faith and morals, belonging as they do to the establishing of Christian doctrine, that meaning of holy scripture must be held to be the true one, which Holy Mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of holy scripture.
In consequence, it is not permissible for anyone to interpret holy scripture in a sense contrary to this, or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers."
- Decree of the Vatican Council, 1869-1870
Here we face an immovable object; the Church formally forbids interpreting the Word of God against the consensus of the Fathers, which St. Robert says were agreed about the geocentric cosmological model. No Fathers ever considered that the earth rotates around the sun, especially as an insignificant and obscure planet in some remote location in the galaxies. The teaching was so firmly established that three Popes condemned the idea that earth rotates around the sun as heresy. In his 1885 book The Pontifical Decrees Against the Doctrine of the Earth’s Movement and the Ultramontane Defence of Them Rev. William W. Roberts argues that the Church exercised her charism of infallibility in the condemnations of heliocentrism. These condemnations occurred prior to Vatican I when Papal infallibility was defined, but the condemnations have never been retracted - nor could they be without destroying the integrity of the ecclesiastical magisterium.
A brief explanation about the science is perhaps helpful. As shocking as it may sound to the reader, there is no proof that the earth rotates the sun, nor is moving at all despite the claims that it is hurtling through space at a rate of 66,000 miles per hour while rotating at a speed of 1,004 miles per hour at the equator. All the experiments conducted to prove the motion of the earth failed. Albert Einstein developed two (opposing) theories of relativity to save the heliocentric system which at the end of the day simply renders the issue a 'tie': all motion is relative according to Einstein, and we cannot know whether the earth moves or the planets and stars do. And now the latest evidence from James Webb's telescope have scientists, astronomers, and cosmologists scrambling for explanations as what they previously held as fact is thrown into chaos.
They simply do not know all that they say they know and most people have blindly accepted what they say as though it were an article of faith.
Back to the roots of Modernism: it was this frontal assault by Galileo (utilizing the system distilled from others by Fr. Nicholas Copernicus) on the Church's authoritative interpretation of Genesis that resulted in his censure. Following Galileo others advanced the heliocentric theory each asserting that he found conclusive evidence for it. Finally the Catholic Church permitted the investigation of the heliocentric model in the late 19th century but never formally retracted the condemnations of Paul V, Urban VIII, and Alexander VII. The enemies of the Church used the Galileo affair as a battering ram against her as they do to this day. They accuse her of being anti-science, a position that is laughable now as the Church is infected with Modernism from head to foot. Just say the name "Galileo" and watch modern churchmen apologize profusely, back peddle with haste, and explain how we have now "repented" for the "unjust treatment" of Galileo Galilee.
This idea prevails to the present moment: the Church was wrong for 18 centuries in her authoritative interpretation of Genesis. The problem with this perception is that it contradicts the twice defined dogma of patristic biblical interpretation; it undermines the authority of previous Supreme Pontiffs who acted uniformly in condemning heliocentrism as heresy; and it opens the door for the Church to be accused on multiple fronts for false teaching based on anti-scientific exegesis.
Modernism wounds divine and Catholic faith with a malignantly inspired skepticism about the truth of revelation. It attacks the first words of Sacred Scripture in order to topple all that follows. It assumes a role above the science of divinity in order to criticize and ridicule it. But Modernism itself is condemned by the Church in the encyclical Pascendi Domenici gregis promulgated by Pope Pius X in 1907. It may surprise the reader to learn that St. Pius X is not quoted even once in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II. John Paul II famously apologized for the Galileo affair explaining that "theologians had erred" in concluding that heliocentrism was formal heresy.
It is easy to be intimidated by Modernists today who reign in the Church Militant as the Arians did in the 4th and 5th centuries. They laugh in your face if you suggest the Catholic Church was right to condemn heliocentrism as heresy. They mock and scoff at the very idea that science could be wrong about anything. Yet until the churchmen - you and I - start to stand up for our faith as the martyr-Saints always have in the face of a world that is under the dominion of the devil, the false beliefs of the world will not only dominate profane thinking but continue to wound the faith of the Catholic Church.
Evolution must be confuted in our apologetics; but that is all activity above the ground level. To remove the roots of Modernism, we must believe what the Church has always taught and recover the teaching of the holy Fathers as regards our central place in the cosmos. This task is not for the faint of heart or those who desire the esteem of the world.
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