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ODERNISM AND
ii THE VATICAN

J. LOEPPERT, D.D.

YALE
DIVINITY SCHOOL
LIBRARY

Gift of
Professor Roland H. Bainton

MODERNISM AND
THE VATICAN

ADAM J. LOEPPERT, D. D.
UI
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
BISHOP WILLIAM F. McDOWELL, D. D.

*

Cincinnati: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
New Yoek: EATON AND MAINS

CoPYHIGHT, 1912, BY
Jennings and Graham

CONTENTS
CHAPTEB PAGE
A Peesonal "Woed, ... 5
Inteoduction, - 9
i. modeenism, - - - - - 15
II. Italy,  36
III. Feance,  65
IV. Gebmany, ----- 88
V. England,  108
VI. Austbia,  138
VTL Spain,  157
VIII. Stbuggle op Pius X, - - - 178
IX. The Anti-Modeenist Oath, - 226
X. The United States, - - - 265

rA PEESONAL WOED
Some three years ago the study on "Eeli
gious Life in Europe," of which a number
of articles have appeared since regularly in
the Northwestern Christian Advocate, first
drew my attention to the present phase of
difficulty within the Papal Church. Later
Dr. James M. Buckley, editor of the Chris
tian Advocate (New York), published an ex
tensive review written by the author on
Dr. Josef Schnitzer's important work, "Did
Christ Found the Papacy?" ("Hat Jesus
das Papsttum gestiftet?") The extreme in
terest of the subject, then shown by many
notable students in the comment upon the
review, cast its spell upon me from the very
first; and I resolved to make it a matter of
more detailed study. Consequently my pur
pose has been to describe the actual status
of the conflict in various countries between
the authority of the Vatican in matters of
faith and modern scholarship, sometimes of
5

A PEESONAL WOED
the extreme type. This purpose has, how
ever, been modified by a deepening convic
tion that there is still considerable work to
be done, and that it is not yet time to write
the history of the decline and fall of Mod
ernism. Assuredly no Eoman pontiff has
ever proclaimed, from the chair that is called
of Saint Peter, a crusade that is more re
lentless and persistent than the one which
Pope Pius X has inaugurated against priests,
professors, and scholars within the Eoman
Catholic Church who refuse to subscribe to
all Papal assumptions in the light of modern.
scholarship. Modernism is fundamentally
a great question of spiritual liberty with a
tragic element of suffering. It aims at the
restatement of the creed, a change in the
external polity, as well as a regeneration of
the inner spirit of the Mother Church of
Christendom. Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made
to Bishop "William Fraser McDowell, D. D.,
for writing the introduction ; to Eev. E. C. E.
Dorion, D. D., associate editor of Zion's
Herald, for correcting the manuscript; to
Eev. C. M. Stuart, D. D., president of
6

A PEESONAL WOED
Garrett Biblical Institute, for many help
ful hints and suggestions; to Pastor Jo
hannes Kubel, D. D., of Frankfurt am Main,
Germany, pastor of the Lutheran Church
and author of "Die Geschichte des Katho-
lischen Modernismus," who so cheerfully
granted to the author the permission to
make use of his valuable book. Other friends
Have made the author their debtor, but their
names, as in case of so many of the world's
most helpful spirits, do not appear in the
records. I commit this little volume to the reading
public with a firm conviction that, if it fails
to create interest, the writer, not the subject,
must be held to blame.
Adam J. Loeppeet.
Elgm, III., October 25, 1911.

INTEODUCTION
Modebnism Can neither be defined in a sen
tence nor characterized by an adjective or
an epithet. An attitude, a sentiment, a prin
ciple, a method, a movement— it is all of
these. It is one of those things of which
we say they are "in the air." Their enemies
declare that the Modernists are "up in the
air," but Modernism can not be so easily
disposed of. Possibly the Eoman Catholic
Church is just now experiencing the most
acute experience of Modernism, but it is not
wholly a movement within that Church.
Nor is it simply a sensation on the surface
of the Church, caused by a few men making
a noise. The movement in Eomanism and
out of it goes very deep, no matter by what
name it is called. Its roots strike far back
in history and are intertwined with the forces
that we call the Eeformation and the Eenais-
sance. The really potential and significant
movements in theology, or science, or poli-
9

INTEODUCTION
tics, or life are not the creatures of a single
day. They have their roots in the centuries.
This Modernist movement could not be es
caped, even if it were desirable to escape it,
after Protestantism made its place in the
world. Sooner or later these issues were
bound to emerge in all Churches, and in all
regions of life and thought. This is the logic,
the resistless logic of a genuinely living
thing. And such movements always give pain
and make disturbances. The established or
der does not readily adjust itself to expand
ing conditions. And life keeps on expand
ing. I saw a wall not long ago which had
been quite ruined by a growing tree. The
wall had been ruined and had at the same
time kept the tree from having a fair chance
for a normal growth. Maybe the tree should
have been destroyed, root and branch, in
order to save the wall. Maybe the wall
should have been torn down in order to give
a real tree a real chance for growth. Evi
dently there was a bad adjustment, equally
bad for both. The tree was full of life and
just pushed ahead. The wall would not yield.
10

INTEODUCTION
Both suffered. Growth is likely to be rather
regardless. Walls have a tendency to be
stubborn. Under those circumstances mis
chief is almost certain to follow.
Now here is this movement of Modern
ism with its energy, its determination, its
vitality, its deepest roots, its expansion.
And here is a stone wall, old and well estab
lished, not recognizing this growing tree as
having any right to grow where growth will
affect the wall. And in Eomanism the tree
grows. It has a program. And the pope
issues an encyclical against it; a long and
elaborate document reminding students of
history of mediaeval days. And the Modern
ists ask troublesome questions like this: "Is
there in the Catholic Church a power of con
quest, or simply a conservative instinct?
Does she still hide in the secret complexities
of her wonderful organization capacities for
winning adherents, or is her vitality threat
ened by the germs of a speedy decay? Is
her mission henceforth to be limited to a sus
picious vigilance over the rude and simple
faith of her rapidly-dwindling followers, or
will she rouse herself to the reacquisition of
11

INTEODUCTION
that social influence which she has lost
through her long years of listless self-isola
tion?" And Modernism in the Eoman Cath
olic Church declares: "The Church and so
ciety can never meet on the basis of those
ideas which prevailed at the Council of
Trent, nor can they converse together in
mediaeval language. How many days have
dawned since the time of Innocent III ! How
many events have ripened since Paul 1TI!"
And the pope answers, ordering that ' ' all
young professors suspected of Modernism
are to be driven from their chairs in the
seminaries ; that infected books are to be con
demned indiscriminately; that a committee
of safe censors for the revision of books is
to be established in every diocese ; that meet
ings of modernizing priests or laymen are to
be forbidden ; that young ecclesiastics are to
be prevented from studying the general
movements of contemporary thought; that
every diocese is to have a vigilance commit
tee to discover and eliminate Modernists;
and that all bishops are to become inquisi
tors-general against every phase of Modern
ism in their dioceses." 12

INTEODUCTION
And the tree and the wall have clearly
joined issue!
And all this is vastly larger than simply
a Eoman Catholic question. Protestantism
has no pleasure in the blunders or disasters
of Eomanism. But Protestantism may well
observe the movements in Eomanism and
their treatment by Eomanism lest Protes
tantism may blunder and meet disaster in
the day of trial.
This volume is an attempt to set forth
the principles and meaning of Modernism
and its relation to the Eoman Catholic
Church. But it is of significance and value
for Protestantism as well. "If your neigh
bor's thatch is on fire, look out for your own
roof." As a careful, faithful study of a
most interesting current problem in Church
life and religious thought this volume is
commended to careful readers and students
of the times. William Feaseb McDowell.
Chicago, October 24, 1911.

13

Modernism and the Vatican

MODEENISM
Chbistiantty offers to each age, as it comes,
its own special problem. That for our own
day seems more fundamental than that of
any which has preceded it in recent history,
and that chiefly because there has never been
a time when so penetrating a scrutiny has
been turned upon religious belief as now.
This cultivated insight, directed upon the
Christian origins, has now opened an entirely
new set of difficulties for orthodoxy. The
inner conflict is by no means confined to the
Protestant wing of the Christian Church,
where the present crisis overshadows any
battle of former centuries, excepting the Lu
theran Eeformation; nor is it satisfied with
gaining a strategic point about one singular
dogma or one article of the Christian faith,
as each have been understood and declared
by the Church, both Catholic and Protestant.
15

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
It may be admitted with Eothe that the
distinctive glory of the Christian religion is(,
that of all institutions it is the most capable
of change, for we recognize its adaptability to
all generations ; yet this does not apply to the
presentation of it, as offered by the Church
of Eome, bound as that Church is to a dead
past by precedent, by her special genius, and
by the persistent voice of a supreme and in
fallible papacy. But Eome has felt in its
Modernist movement that struggle which con
fronts serious thinkers of all Churches'.
Whatever the ultimate destiny and results
may be — 'and it is difficult to forecast them —
this most important life and thought tend
ency, that has appeared since the Eeformai-
tion, must in all seriousness be reckoned with.
The present phase of the liberalizing
movement in the Church of Eome received
the name "Modernism," and this phase may
be described as the shape which religion takes
in the mind of the modern as distinct from
the mediaeval man. In this large sense it is
found in all the Churches. The pious Mora
vians in Bohemia must meet the conflict as
well as the Baptists or Methodists in the
16

MODEENISM
United States, while the State Church of
Germany or Norway can not escape the or
deal where fierce battles are as yet raging.
No communion has escaped the strain which
attends the inevitable friction between the
old and the new.
This strain is exceptionally severe, how
ever, in the Church of Eome, caused by the
stereotyping and accentuation of the eccle
siastical element. The lateness of this de
velopment makes the situation more difficult,
for this is not the sixteenth century of the
Lutheran Eeformation, but the twentieth of
the Eeformation of Latin Christendom. The
demands of such a movement can not be en
tirely rejected. For the Modernist of to
day, as we shall later see, is not, as claimed
by some official Catholic papers, a monist
pure and simple. He acknowledges and re-
veres the sanctity which appears so often in
the Church.
Protestantism has watched with close
attention and sincere sympathy develop
ments in the Eoman camp. For Protestant
ism is affected to some extent by the great
changes within the Papal Church as well
17

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
as is Catholicism itself. This is true espe
cially in Germany and the United States of
America, where the denominations live so
closely together and where a constant, quiet,
but none the less perceptible influence is ex
erted by the one upon the other. Conse
quently it would be mere deception to believe
that only Protestantism must play an active
part in this movement. A crisis wherein
Eoman Catholicism would lose some of its
spiritual or moral power would certainly not
be beneficial to the Protestant Church, while,
on the other hand, a great advance move
ment within the papal c'amp would without
doubt benefit Protestantism. The problem
of harmonizing the beliefs of Protestant or
thodoxy with the science of modern times
has been keenly felt within the Church for
over a hundred years. That the same prob
lem should now be met within the Eoman
Church is not to be wondered at. It greatly
stirs and even angers the Holy Father and
his advisers at the Vatican, but it is one
more proof that this question can not be re
jected in modern life. How will Eomanism
meet the situation? Protestantism, through
18

MODEENISM
many painful experiences, is familiar with
the difficulty. The opposing factions are
facing each other to-day with the same de
termination that characterized the struggle
fifty years ago. Will the Catholic Church
solve these problems of uniting the old and
the new within her own borders with less
difficulty than does Protestantism? Will
modern thinking exert an influence upon her
system without causing serious friction or,
in some quarters, even disruption? Can she
reform herself with regard to papal assump
tions? How is it that this problem forces itself
so impetuously at present upon the Catholic
Church? She has always kept step with
progress and civilization, according to her
idea, until these last great changes appeared.
She absorbed Hellenistic and Eoman culture
soon after her establishment in Eome ; in the
Middle Ages we find her equally able to meet
scholasticism; during the period of the Re
naissance valuable elements were not re
jected by Catholic standard-bearers, and in
the eighteenth century even we find her sons
yielding to the power of enlightenment. The
19

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
spirit of modern movements began, un
doubtedly, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, but it was met with peculiar energy
and oppression. Eome rejected the ideas of
enlightenment by her return in systematic
theology to the Middle Ages. As the mind
of our time is positive rather than meta
physical, it turns instinctively to the actual,
testing theory and formula by fact. For the
Catholic theologian, however, facts and his
tory are dangerous ground. In the last cen
tury a protest against the stereotyping and
professionalizing of religion was not want
ing within the Church of Eome, considering
such names as Lamennais, Montalembert,
Dollinger, and recently Prince Max, the lat
ter in his sincere attempt to unite the Eastern
and Western branches of the Catholic Church.
They and others have endeavored to stem the
rising tide of clericalism and keep religion
in touch with life. Although some of these
attempts failed in their immediate purpose,
yet they were not in vain; political, histor
ical, and theological liberalism have poured
their waters into the flood of Modernism.
And therefore not a particular dogma or in-
20

MODEENISM
stitution is in question, but the whole fabric
of Eoman Catholicism. Nothing, then, is
more unjust or untrue than to brand in con
sequence the Modernists as iconoclasts, who
recklessly and cruelly wreck the faith of the
simple. While dealing with the freer tendencies
in Catholicism, as seen in the works of such
men as Schell, Kraus, Ehrhard, Schnitzer,
and Koch, it can not be overlooked that Mod
ernism proper is a movement of the Latin
mind. Its home is in Latin countries —
France and Italy especially ; we also find that
at the head of every department of its ac
tivity there stands a man of the Latin race.
In the atmosphere and under the peculiar
conditions as found in Italy, France, and
Spain Modernism has been bred. Professor
Giovanni Luzzi says: "All is not dead in
Eoman Catholicism; the immense agglomer
ation of additions 'and superstitions has not
yet quenched in its bosom the spark of
Christ's Christianity. As a protest against
the mediaeval ecclesiasticism of the Vatican,
Modernism has raised its head. Everywhere
it has permeated: seminaries, monasteries*
21

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
town and country parishes through reviews,
translations of foreign works, newspapers,
pamphlets, secret circulars ; everywhere it
has carried the breath of new hopes, of new
ideas, of new aspirations." This professor
of Florence knows many cells in different
convents ; he has entered the homes of many
priests in the country and in town ; he knows
well what the young think in more than one
seminary; and therefore he is in a position
to state authoritatively that of a hundred
clerics, from forty years of age upwards in
Italy, not less than sixty kept most jealously
in their private desks the best products of
Modernist literature.
Modernism is a complex phenomenon.
Its modernity is undoubtedly good, while ex
aggeration, the other side of it, has often
had bad tendencies and evil influences. The
one word, Modernism, which describes both
modernity and exaggeration, is most unfor
tunate, inasmuch as it only suggests reproof.
The Jesuit Fathers of Eome invented this
term. Pius X got it from them and has
adopted it in his official documents, and with
his free hand he uses it to condemn all the
22

MODEENISM
new disturbers of the Church. Although
Modernism is not a system to be defined by
a formula, it is, however, a synthesis of sev
eral new movements in theological and ec
clesiastical thought in the Eoman Church.
It will not miss its mark if it knows how to
keep itself on the granitic basis of Christ's
Christianity; if it is able to organize itself;
if it succeeds in rousing in the laity an in
terest in their things. In this connection it
might be stated that Modernism should try
to aim at a more rational conception of
dogma, and should consequently revise the
formulas of its catechism in some respects.
While it must insist on the necessity of a
clear and sharp distinction between religion
and theology, it must also remember not to
allow itself to be carried away by the flood
of hypercriticism, lest it be hurled into the
sea of unbelief and be lost.
"Modernism," a term fitly used in con
trast with the term "Medievalism" in its
meaning, spirit, and method, is by no means
to be applied exclusively to the Eoman Cath
olic liberals whom the pope has condemned.
It stands for progressive, well-marked, and
23

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
often destructive tendencies in all the re
ligious communions. Every denomination
of religious people has an advance guard,
representing in a general way the new dis
coveries and fresh interpretations and mo
bile elements of the truth which is common
to the whole body. Over against these will
be found a conservative school, solicitous for
the original foundations and referring itself
to established documents. In this far-reach
ing clash between the old and the new in the
Papal Church the thoughtful man will be im
pressed by the presence of both these classes
as precisely the fittest provision for pre
serving the sane and divine balance of prog
ress. We shall meet these men in the move
ments in Italy, France, and in German Ee-
form Catholicism, as a conservative party
to correct the excesses and extremes of the
other side.
The year 1907 was undoubtedly the most
important year in the history of religious
Catholicism since the Vatican Council, ex
cepting probably the latest developments re
sulting from the issuance of the new circu
lars against the Modernists. .Clash upon
24

MODEENISM
clash followed; each excelling the other in
bitterness and rigor. As a prelude Pope
Pius X complained, April 17th of that year,
of the terrible heresies which were then evi
dent in the Eoman Church, and which he
thought would destroy Christianity. The
first act, properly speaking, occurred on the
fourth of July, 1907, when the pope signed
the "Decree of the Holy Officium Lamenta-
bili," the Syllabus, a catalogue of sixty-five
theological heresies, which the Congregation
of the Inquisition had prepared at the Holy
Father's request and command. Then, on
September 8, 1907, the supreme pontiff of
the Eoman Catholic Church issued a pronun-
ciamento which registers an important epoch
in the history of modern thought. The ef
fects of this encyclical will long be felt
throughout Christendom, and the deliver
ance of it is bound to become historic. This
pronunciamento' deals with the greatest
themes of morality and religion ; it also fear
lessly grapples with the profoundest prob
lems of philosophy and science, of civil gov
ernment and social economy; it further held
a close and controlling grip upon the indi-
25

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
vidual conduct and private lives of the faith
ful, and so has in it the elements of a gen
uine inquisition, as it speaks with a tone of
an authority which deems it unnecessary to
state the grounds of its absolute and uni
versal sway.
What were the causes which called forth
this "Pascendi dominici gregis" of Septem
ber 8, 1907? Eoman Catholicism has often
been embarrassed by serious differences and
dissensions within. No intelligent reader of
history will doubt this. Ultramontanism and
Gallicanism, Jesuitism and Jansenism, the
old Covenanter and the higher critic, have
hated each other with a cordial hatred that
has not been too much softened by their com
mon allegiance to the throne of St. Peter.
Presently these differences are rather sharp
ened than delayed. This encyclical in its
tone and contents makes plain the open se
cret that the pope to-day is quite as much
the head of a faction, the tool of the Curia,
as he is the spiritual head of the entire body
of Eoman Catholics.
The marvelous changes in the world's
theories and thinking during the last century
26

MODEENISM
have unchained a spirit of inquiry, and the
old papal authority with its assumptions has
been fearlessly challenged. While not very
many of the leaders of modern scientific
thought have been devout Eoman Catholics,
yet there have been some ; but they have had
to struggle against heavy odds. According
to the encyclical the Modernist has really
seven functions. He is, as a philosopher, in
the papal judgment an Agnostic; and now
follows a severe castigation of Agnosticism.
As a believer the Modernist believes too
much rather than too little. The Modernist
theologian aims at the conciliation of faith
and science, always, however, saving the
primacy of science over faith. As a histo
rian the Modernist harks back to his own
philosophy and, accordingly, knows nothing
except phenomena ; and so the things that are
out of sight, such as God and the divine side
of external religion, are handed over by the
historian to the sacred domain of faith.
Hence the modern talk about the Christ of
history being one thing and the Christ of
faith quite another. Pope Pius X is here
striking at no imaginary evil, and we are
27

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
bound to consent that the blow is not mis
placed. The Modernist is further taken to
.task as a higher critic for his adventures
'/into the criticism of the Holy Scriptures.
As an apologist two shields of defense are
open to the Modernist, the objective and the
subjective. Lastly, the Modernist is charged
with trying to overthrow nearly everything
which the Church thinks is worth while to
maintain. According to this papal letter the
Modernist would change the present order
of things in philosophy, in history, in dogma,
in worship, and in episcopal administration
and authority. And therefore, as a reformer,
he is a sort of an ecclesiastical anarchist in
the Church of Eome.
This first great letter against the Mod
ernists in its second part discusses the causes
of Modernism, giving simply two; namely,
curiosity and pride, while the intellectual
cause is ignorance. It further prescribes
remedies against Modernism, of which the
first is exceedingly significant; it is the
study of the scholastic philosophy on which
"the theological edifice is to be solidly
raised." The second remedy is a practical
28

MODEENISM
but drastic, and for Eoman Catholicism char
acteristic, application. The following in
junction gives it, "Anybody who in any way
is found to be imbued with Modernism is to
be excluded without compunction from the
offices of directors and professors in semi
naries and Catholic universities." Then fol
lows the episcopal vigilance over publica
tions; the censorship which is so rigid and
searching that many in reading it are car
ried back into the atmosphere of mediaeval
times. Congresses and public gatherings,
where Modernists might ventilate and defend
their views, are to be tolerated only on very
rare occasions, and when permitted, no men
tion is to be made of Modernism. Vigilance
committees are to be set at work in every
diocese, bound to secrecy in their delibera
tions and decisions, whose business it shall
be to watch for and by all prudent, prompt,
and efficacious measures to nip in the bud
all the poisonous weed of Modernism.
Should this all fail, finally, there are to be
triennial returns from all bishops, furnishing
the Vatican with a diligent and sworn report
upon the whole situation, especially on the
29

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
doctrines that find currency among the
clergy. This is simply a brief outline of the en
cyclical of September 8, 1907, covering some
forty-eight pages. On November 18th of the
same year Pope Pius X confirmed the Sylla
bus of July 4th, also the encyclical of Sep
tember 8th, "by virtue of His Apostolic
Authority," and consequently threatened
any possible offenders with excommunica
tion. As a postlude to this, on December 16,
1907, he expressed his special thanks and
appreciation to the bishops who so loyally
and faithfully supported him in the fierce bat
tle against the Modernists, and yet "in spite
of all the efforts their mischievous malice did
not disappear; may God enlighten the err
ing!" Germany had a rather amusing in
cident when a committee of laymen of Mini
ster waited upon the Vatican authorities with
the request to have the stringent precepts of
the Index at Eome changed; also the strug
gle about Herman Schell's grave, and the
inexplicable letter in which Pope Pius X con
gratulated Professor Ernest Commer on the
pamphlet the latter had written concerning
30

MODEENISM
Schell, and wherein the Holy Father declared
to the twenty German theological professors,
to the Bishop of Eegensburg, and to the
Archbishop of Bamberg, that they either un
derstood nothing of Catholic truth or else
were opposed to the authority of the Holy
See. Modernism has one great weakness which
lies in the fact that it has no great unifying
and organizing principle; it has not yet crys
tallized into a definite, positive movement.
An. attentive observer, however, can not
down the conviction that the Vatican is play
ing a losing game, should the pope and his
advisers insist on the thus far stringent but
unprofitable measures. In Italy the Quirinal
stands over against the Vatican, and the
pope's weak protest at being bereft of his
temporal power goes unheeded, if not un
heard. France has long been a land of alle
giance to Eome, but to-day, with a disman
tled establishment, with a divided clergy, and
with a distracted laity, France has plainly
been too much for the narrow statesmanship
and lame diplomacy of Pope Pius X. Spain
refuses to be governed by Eome in the future,
31

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
and openly protests against the mediaeval
methods of the Vatican, while the reign of
monks and nuns in Portugal has not bettered
this land, a land wherein Protestant mission
aries never worked. The de-Eomanizing
movement in Austria is steadily going on
until it has reached such enormous dimen
sions in Eastern Eussia and in Poland that
it is estimated that the Mariarites (the new
name of the dissenters) number from four to
six hundred thousand followers. And it is
feared that the Vatican knows nothing of the
seriousness and depth of feeling in Germany,
and that the Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese,
and others, in whose hands rest the affairs
of the Curia, are ill able to appreciate the
struggles and the pain, inseparable from the
searchings after truth, which have been char
acteristic of Germany since the days of the
Eeformation. The spirit of the Vatican in the struggle
with Modernism is autocratic, while in con
trast the spirit of the age is democratic;
consequently the conflict is drawing nearer.
Therefore the Modernist, as a reformer,
32

MODEENISM
urges that the spirit of the Church must be
brought into harmony with the public con
science, which is wholly for democracy; he
also demands that a share in ecclesiastical
government should be given to the lower
ranks of the clergy and even to the laity.
The common man, who has drunk too freely
and deeply from the blessed fountain of free
dom, demands to be led in future years and
refuses to be driven. This important fact
should be perceived by the Vatican authori
ties. Pope Pius X understands by Modernism
really the "Essence of all Heresies," mean
ing the introduction of the historic-critical
Bible science and the after-scholastic philos
ophy into Catholicism. This Modernism,
however, had its predecessors; Beform Ca
tholicism, Ideal Catholicism, Americanism
belong here. Their object has been to bring
Catholicism into harmony with the spirit of
the newer time and the modern world. These
movements will receive proper attention in
later chapters.
Protestantism has by no means created
8 33

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
this condition, although Protestants have been
branded by the pope as "Modernists, one de
gree less removed." But Protestantism has
recognized these new conditions and has en
deavored to make the ideals of the newer
time subservient to the attainment of a higher
efficiency. Catholicism stood more closely
in harmony with the modern spirit one hun
dred years ago than it does to-day. This is
the opinion of many scholars. The theolog
ical faculty at the University of Wiirzburg
at that time consisted of both Protestant and
Catholic professors; while the more gifted
Catholic students in the Klerikalseminar in
1804 were obliged to listen to Protestant lec
tures in the university, the Protestant Pro
fessor Paulus outlining the plan of studies.
The enlightenment of the eighteenth century
had also influenced Catholic theology.
Modern demands — such as freedom of
conscience, new philosophy, critical Bible
study — have, here quietly and there impetu
ously, knocked at the door of Eome and asked
for admission. They tried in vain. Whence
came the men who wanted to pour new wine
34

MODEENISM
into old bottles? What have they accom
plished? What will they do in the future;
what will they experience and suffer in their
battle for truth and freedom of conscience,
in their battle for God?

35

n
ITALY
About the middle of the nineteenth century
we find two theologians in Italy who deeply
felt the contrast between the spirit of pres
ent-day Eoman Catholicism and that of the
modern age: Antonio Eosmini and Vincenzo
Gioberti. Both had been thoroughly educated
in philosophy, were enthusiastic in religion,
full of idealism and of the desire of achiev
ing their definite aim. The faithfulness of
Count Eosmini in matters of religion and his
devotion to the Church were never ques
tioned; he was unconditionally devoted to
Pope Pius IX, and he earnestly desired
through his philosophical studies to serve his
Church. He would bring Catholicism into
harmony with a philosophy that would fur
nish to theology weapons against infidelity.
Eosmini leaned toward the ideas of Des
cartes, consequently his position even unwit
tingly was bound to injure the dogma of tra-
36

ITALY
dition. The Church scented danger, and in
1849 placed his writings on the Index; forty
of his maxims were later censured in 1887.
Vincenzo Gioberti, priest, philosopher,
and politician, was exiled for many years
from Italy on account of his theological lib
eralism, although he condemned the philo
sophical system of Eosmini as pagan and
Protestant, claiming that his own theology
contained the only Catholicism and ortho
doxy. Gioberti *s success is found in his po
litical career, fighting for the liberty and
unity of Italy in such a manner that the lead
ership in the future state of Italy should
be placed into the hands of the pope. He
recognized the critical conditions of Italian
Roman Catholicism, clearly and unsparingly
branding the Jesuitical danger in his "Pro-
legomeni" (1845); his main achievement,
however, is in his political work "Del pri-
mato morale e civile degli Italiani" (1843).
Besides Rosmini and Gioberti, the two
theologians, Italy's greatest statesman is
entitled to a place among the forerunners
of the present Modernist movement. Count
Cavour, as pioneer, prepared the way for
37

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
the final union of Italy in the expulsion of
a political papacy ; yet he thought of a peace
ful adjustment between the pope and united
Italy with his slogan, "A Free Church in a
Free State," thus reconciling the State and
the Church, modern culture and Catholicism.
The Church has reaped nothing from the
seed sown by these three men. The revival
of scholasticism and the Vatican Council re
fused admittance to any non-Thomastic phi
losophy or theology. When the papal States
were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, the
religious and political demands of that coun
try were then brought into an irreconcilable
contrast, and between the Church and the
State, as between the Church and modern
culture, the most embittered enmity followed.
Eepeatedly the State had made overtures for
peace, yet they were harshly rejected by the
Church, and the Catholics of Italy were for
bidden to take any part whatever in the po
litical life. Consequently many stood in open
opposition to the Church and were compelled
to desist from any active part in ecclesias
tical functions. This irreconcilable spirit
found further expression in the fact that in
38

ITALY
1873 the theological faculties were divorced
from State universities.
Dr. Albert Ehrhard, the celebrated Ger
man Catholic theologian, says: "Catholic
theology exerts no definite influence upon the
national intellectual life of Italy, but has lost
its public position in the intellectual life al
most entirely; it has degenerated into a
special, if not secret, science of the clerics.
It has taken refuge in the seminaries for
priests, and there suffers a meager existence.
Italy has three hundred such seminaries;
among these are hardly forty or fifty, ac
cording to men of knowledge, where the in
structors deserve the name 'Professor.' In
addition this comparatively little country,
where the intelligent inhabitants keep at a
distance from the Church, must furnish two
hundred and eighty bishops; this demand is
so large that it is impossible to supply it
with only able and excellent personalities."
Therefore it must be possible that the in
fluence of such men as Mariano, professor in
Church History at the University of Naples ;
Chiappelli, professor in History of Philoso
phy at Naples; and Labanca, professor of
39

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Church History at the University of Eome,
men who love their Church, is not heeded by
such clerics as Ehrhard describes.
It was the French school of hypercritical
Modernists, headed by Abbe Alfred Loisy,
with its newer theological tendencies that
carried the flame into Italy. Several Italian
clerics had read Loisy 's writings; the ques
tions he propounded were their own ques
tions; here they found the answer. And
when they laid the French books aside, it
was only for the purpose of influencing their
Italian brothers with the new theology, one
corresponding to the French developments.
They would deal on scientific lines with the
Old Testament, the Gospels, and the atmos
phere of the Primitive Church. In later
years, however, they have given themselves
over to the apologetic-philosophic field. This
new trend in Biblical science, though rather
young, as it did not make its appearance un
til about 1895, numbers not many names, yet
behind every name there stand not only a
strong character but an army of loyal pupils
and the enlisting power of truth.
The first Modernist cleric of Italy was
40

ITALY
Salvatore Minocchi, professor of Hebrew at
the Eeale Istituto Superiore of Florence,
who was familiar with the Old and New Tes
tament texts and the history of the Christian
Church. In 1896 he founded the "Eivista
Bibliografica," to teach the clerics the new
publications and the new developments in
Biblical science; from 1901 to 1907, in con
junction with like-minded friends, he edited
Studi Beligiosi, which was later suppressed.
He translated Genesis, Isaiah, the Psalms,
and the Gospels into the Italian language.
How keenly he could discern the develop
ments in French, Italian, and German the
ology is shown in an article appearing in the
last issue of Studi Beligiosi on "The Present
Crisis in German Catholicism." Minocchi
admits the superiority of the German Cath
olic clerics over the French and Italian in
their general education, but proves otherwise
that the German Catholic theological science
does not measure up to the French and the
Italian. The astonishing and abashed retro
grade movement is explained by him — and
probably this is the only explanation that
there is — in the secret contract which exists
41

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
between the episcopacy in the Catholic
Church and the Center party in Germany:
the Center party surrendered to the episco
pacy the absolute control over theological
science, while the episcopacy granted full
sway to the Center party concerning all po
litical and economic questions. Umberto
Fracassini, rector at the Seminary for
Priests in Perugia, reported in the Studi Be
ligiosi the result of research work concern
ing the Gospels, when Loisy 's writings were
placed on the Index, hoping, however, that
Bible criticism would not share the same
fate, and therefore he reported all favorable
Catholic opinions on Loisy. Fracassini had
been highly esteemed by Pope Leo XIII,
who appointed him a member of the Bible
Commission. Pater Giovanni, professor of
Holy Scriptures at the Seminary for Priests
in Eome, managed the translation of the
Gospels into the Italian, of which translation
three hundred thousand copies were sold and
distributed; he was soon after released of
his position because of his hypercritical
trend. The members of the circle which
gathered about Minocchi, Fracassini, and
42

ITALY
Gennochi organized about 1895 in Eome into
a "Society for Biblical Studies," but after
Gennochi 's trouble with the Vatican this so
ciety dissolved. Closely connected with this
movement were Paolo Savi and Giovanni
Semeria. Many Italian Modernists have made ship
wrecks of themselves in the flood of hyper
criticism, yet it must be admitted by impar
tial observers that their example seemed to
be destined to beoome the salvation of the
rest. According to the most radical of them,
Christ is not pre-existent, nor of miraculous
birth, nor risen from the dead. Miracles are
no longer historical facts, but fanciful veil
ings for moral teachings. In the Synoptic
Gospels affirmations regarding the humanity
of Christ predominate, but have no trace
of any claim to divinity, affirmed by Christ
Himself. The Gospel of St. John is without
historical foundation. The intention of the
four evangelists, was not to give us facts,
but merely moral teachings. In the atmos
phere of the Primitive Church it is not facts
which created faith, but faith which created
facts; simply meaning the sacred writers
43

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
did not first see, then believe, and then write,
but they first believed, then imagined they
saw, and then wrote. Now, with such a con
ception of Christ, and with a New Testament
in which the divine is spurious, the grand
is fantastic, and the human is either not
original or to be taken with a grain of salt,
a radical and a lasting reform in the Church
would not be possible. So we must meet
another class of Modernists.
When some Modernists in their reform
tendencies laid most stress upon Biblical re
search work, others attempted to work in the
field of practical religion, prompted by the
demands of the time to reconcile the Church
with the Sate and with society. Many priests
could not understand why the pope would
not forget the loss of the papal States, al
though his spiritual power should have
gained by such a loss. Consequently the
priests were not allowed to have any national
patriotic feeling. This group of Modernists
is represented by Christian democracy, led
by Abbate Eomolo Murri. Christian de
mocracy does not concern itself either with
Biblical criticism or dogma; it has arisen in
44

ITALY
connection with the social question. It de
sires to bring happiness to the Italian people
in longing and striving to hasten the time
when oppression of the weak and poor will
cease, when wealth will be wisely used, when
the bonds of human brotherhood will be more
closely woven by the awakened conscience of
a great Christian solidarity, and when justice
will be established on earth. It further seeks
to remind Christians that the Kingdom of
God is not only of heaven, but of the earth,
and that Christ's Christianity does not aim
at making egoistically happy individuals, but
saves the individuals in order that they may
serve as means to save the masses. It has
been recognized by the Vatican that in our
time it would not do to stamp as heretical
such aspirations, so the movement of Chris
tian democracy was directed, its policy lim
ited from the very beginning, moderated and
disciplined, and above all kept well secured
within the boundaries of the Church by the
papacy. Abbate Murri and his supporters at this
point of their reform work caused dissension
between the Vatican and the social phase of
45

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Modernism. The breach between progress
ive Catholics and the Vatican had to be com
plete, as an understanding with the papacy
on the basis of the inauguration of some de
gree of reform was sought in vain. The
movement, according to the Vatican, in order
to be legitimate, ought to be subject to re
ligious authority ; the director of every social
effort in the parish should be the priest; in
the diocese the bishop ; in the Church the pope.
According to the Modernists, instead, the
movement ought to be free in all its action,
autonomous, genuinely democratic, altogether
independent of religious authority. The dis
sension ended in a complete rupture, and the
outlook regarding any genuine reform is con
sidered hopeless.
The soul of this Christian-social work has
been Eomolo Murri. His life has been a
chain of persecutions, a change of continual
diving and reappearing in the stream of na
tional and ecclesiastical politics. Eome con
demned him in 1902 for the first time; in
May, 1907, he was disciplined for the fifth
time within two years, because he publicly
criticised the Italian politics of the Vatican.
46

ITALY
He was then forbidden to officiate as priest
any longer. His dogmatic position is incon
testable. Toward the Holy See he has re
peatedly shown a spirit of conciliation by
suppressing his magazine La Bivista di Cul-
tura in deference to the ecclesiastical authori
ties. The reappearance of this magazine was
widely welcomed on the one hand, and
fiercely condemned on the other, for the Ab
bate is immensely popular with the young
Italian Catholics, both lay and clerical.
Murri has been for about ten years the leader
in the inner-Catholic movement in Italy. In
his attitude he is not doctrinal.
Bishop Geremia Bonomelli, of Cremona,
is another noble soul who fears that the old
piety of the Church is attacked by the dis
ease of an exaggerated and hysterical senti-
mentalism and fossilized into a nerveless
formalism. His eyes are not closed to the
actual facts within the Church, as his heart
clings to the welfare of Italy and the priests
whom he would serve with hand, pen, and
lips. Listen to him as he addresses the
priests of his diocese: "I have seen altars,
dedicated to the Virgin and saints, hung with
47

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
silk draperies, brilliantly illuminated, and
great crowds prostrated before them, and I
rejoiced; but then I saw the altar of the
Holy Sacrament only modestly adorned, with
but one poor lamp before it, and few if any
worshipers. . . . Many times it has fallen
to my lot to take part in processions in which
the Sacrament, or some relic, or images of
the Virgin or saints were carried, and I have
observed with mingled wonder and regret
that few people uncovered as the Sacrament
passed, but many knelt as the relics or images
passed, thus inverting the parts. ... Is
everything correct in this external worship?
Is there nothing in it which offends the
Christian sense?" The importance of such
words can not be denied, as they are spoken
by a man high up on the ladder of the hier
archy, and held in great esteem and consid
eration by the Church. Such men as Bono-
melli and Cardinal Alfonso Capecelatro,
Archbishop of Capua, could yet be a greater
force, should they not only point out the evil,
but propose an adequate remedy.
Until quite recently Padre Bartoli, a
noted writer, preacher, journalist, and uni-
48

ITALY
versity professor, was in high honor among
Eoman Catholics. He was perhaps the most
brilliant writer in the editorial columns of
the Civiltd Cattolica, the leading organ of
the extreme papal party in its opposition to
modern movements within and without the
Church. Because of his recognized ability
Bartoli was asked to reply to an English
attack upon the primacy of St. Peter. The
outcome of that incident he portrays in his
own words: "I thought it would be an easy
thing to convince my Anglican writer of the
weakness of his position; so I set to work
immediately. In the course of my article I
quoted against him certain words by St.
Cyprian in his treatise 'De Unitate Eccle-
siae,' which, as it seemed to me, settled once
for all the lawfulness of the claims of the
papacy to universal domination. My friend
the German Jesuit (who had asked him to
write on the subject) read my article, smiled,
stared at me, and asked me where I had
studied my theology. 'You do not know,' he
said, 'that the words you have just quoted
were never uttered or written by St. Cyp
rian? And you mean to say that in Italy it
* 49

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
is not generally known that they are a later
interpolation in St. Cyprian's works?'
"These words stung me to the quick. At
first I wondered if my friend's bold asser
tion could be true; but a short study of the
question convinced me that it was unques
tionably so. Then I got very indignant at
having been basely imposed upon by my pro
fessors of theology, who either through cul
pable ignorance were not aware of the fa
mous interpolation in Cyprian's works or,
in the interest of the papacy, had preferred
to ignore it. I suspected, therefore, that as
I had been once deceived in my studies, I
might have been so, God knows, how often
besides. In consequence I resolved there
and then to study the whole of my theology
over again for myself."
This conscientious priest spent ten years
in the study of this subject, not trusting him
self to write until it had been exhaustively
considered. He says his studies were chiefly
from Eoman Catholic writers themselves,
that he might not acquire any undue preju
dice from Protestant sources. In 1907 he
began to speak to the brethren of this order
50

ITALY
about these matters, and he was put under
severe and humiliating discipline, but at the
same time he was tempted by flattering offers
on condition of his remaining silent. Bartoli
could not so divide the allegiance of his soul
between right and the Church. He esteemed
truth as something above ecclesiastical teach
ing, especially after he had discovered that
the ecclesiastical authority was itself without
either Scriptural or historical basis. Since
he has entered the Waldensian Church. This
ex-Jesuit has been preaching every Sunday
night in the large Waldensian church in Via
Nazionale, where the edifice is crowded to
the doors with an audience consisting chiefly
of men. The addresses are delivered in
Italian, and he captures the crowds in spite
of the fact that he is a finished scholar and
uses only the language of educated men.
We find the result of the studies of this
eminent scholar in his book on "The Primi
tive Church and the Primacy of Eome."
The work is comprehensive of the whole sub
ject as well as clear and entertaining. Like
the old Teuton reformer, Martin Luther, he
has chosen between mental honesty with
51

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
persecution on the one hand, and the de
bauchery of his conscience and ease there
with on the other. Simply for reasonably
and properly claiming to have a will of his
own, and to preach and to write what he
sincerely believed, he has been driven from
his chair, forbidden to write in the papers
and to enter the pulpit. So he has shaken
off the yoke of the papacy and left the
Jesuits, taking his place as a simple Chris
tian with Murri, Minocchi, and Semeria — the
latter a Barnabite monk and eminent scholar,
who through his public lectures and his schol
arly writings incurred the displeasure of the
Vatican, and was therefore placed on the
martyr-list of Modernists.
Some of the daring Modernists go in their
utterances to such a length as to be obliged
to conceal the name under a pseudonym;
for these ventursome men the question of
the temporal power of the pope has been dis
posed of entirely. Here is what "Sibilla"
says in the Letter e Ghibelline: "God con
ferred a blessing upon His Church when,
through the force of events, He liberated her
from that earthly power which subjected
52

ITALY
the great lordship of the Church to the
smaller interests of a kingdom. The Ultra-
montanes of Italy fight for a cause which is
dead and buried." And further on: "In the
Church a reform is necessary to lead back
the flock of Christ to the spirit of the gos
pel." Sibilla gives the essentials of this
reform: "In the past the reform called for
was the improvement of conduct and of dis
cipline; at the present day the renovation
required is of an intellectual kind; its aim
is to see if the old interpretation of the Faith
is adapted to our generation ; if the primitive
method of exegesis holds its own against the
newer canons of historical criticism and re
search; if the mediaeval concept of miracles
should not be revised in the light of positive
science; if it is sufficient to reply to new
doubts, as formerly done, with the assertion
of authority; if, in short, the human con
ception of Christianity should be the same
for Jews converted in primitive times, for
contemporaries of the scholastic period, and
for the scientific believer of the twentieth
century." Through whom must this reno
vation come? "It must come from above, in
53

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
humble submission to the pope; and by first
passing through the hierarchy, must propa
gate itself in the lower ranks of the Roman
Catholic family. ' '
Giuseppe Prezzolini, in his Cattolicismo
Bossa, rightly says concerning this intellect
tual renovation: "If you ask these Modern
ists where the disease of the Roman Church
— which, they say, is sick — lies, they answer:
In the head. And if you ask them again:
What remedy do you propose for its cure?
they reply: A library." Professor Giovanni
Luzzi, of Florence, says concerning the ex
pectation of a reform from high places:
"Will ever any reform come from the Vati
can as it is? And history, does it not say
that reforms begun from above most fre
quently remain there and do not descend to
transform the masses, unless something more
deep stir the masses and awaken in them
a longing for what is truly divine? Did the
great and beneficent Franciscan movement
begin in the upper classes? By no means.
It began in the lower classes ; and though it
was finally recognized and accepted by the
Church, much hostility had it first to over-
54

ITALY
The younger part of the clergy is
beginning to prepare itself for an ecclesi
astical revolution which is found in the at
mosphere and conditions of Roman Catholi
cism in Italy.
A number of priests, formed in a group,
wrote a letter addressed to Pope Pius X and
entitled, "Quel Che Vogliamo" (What We
Want) : "Our society has now for many years
held entirely aloof from the Church, which
it considers as an ancient and inexorable foe.
The old cathedrals, which the piety of free
believing peoples of the Middle Ages raised
to the Virgin and to patron saints, are ut
terly deserted; men no longer care to draw
from religion the strength and light neces
sary to the soul agitated by daily struggles;
respect and veneration for all that has been
held most sacred from the cradle has van
ished. And not only that, but the Church
is considered an obstacle to the happiness
of the nations ; the priest is insulted in pub
lic as a common, ignorant parasite; the gos
pel and Christianity are regarded as expres
sions of a delayed civilization because they
are entirely insufficient to answer to the
55

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
ideals of freedom, justice, and science which
are shaking the masses. Few have remained
faithful to their religious traditions, and
even this minority shows symptoms of decay
and lifelessness. For these few religion,
with its cold observance of formulas and tra
ditional precepts, is no longer a directing
force in their life; church-going men are a
small number; church-going women are
slowly becoming rarer; and the young are
growing up more than ever refractory to all
religious education." Is it therefore any
wonder when the young Italian priests, are
widely embracing Modernistic views and in
the higher ranks of the priesthood they find
able and courageous leaders, when occasion
ally earnest men cross the boundary and find
shelter in the Protestant camp, while the
multitudes who still remain are frankly re
bellious and claim that in the existing situ
ation rebellion is a sacred right?
On the 27th day of April, 1902, a society
was formed called "The Pious Society of
St. Gerome for the Spreading of the Holy
Gospels." They might be called the prac
tical Modernists, as they want to lead the
56 '

ITALY
people back to the true source of spiritual
life. It has been their effort to place the
conscience of the people into the immediate
cantact with the Christ of the Gospels, so
that the spiritualizing of worship and the
restoration of dogmatic formula can follow.
To accomplish this end they immediately
prepared and widely distributed a new trans
lation of the Four Gospels and the Acts of
the Apostles. It seemed as if the society
could not have begun its work under better
auspices. More than two hundred bishops
had signified their approval of it, and many
had promised their assistance. The pope
had granted an indulgence of three hundred
days to the faithful who read the Gospels
for at least a quarter of an hour once a day.
After three years the society had circulated
three hundred thousand copies of the book.
In 1907 the eight hundred and eightieth thou
sand of the small volume was issued from the
Vatican printing-press, and in 1908 the num
ber had not fallen far short of a million,
while it was known that the society was work
ing with alacrity at the preparation of the
rest of the New Testament. But the little
57

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
volume in its general aspect, with its index
of passages from the Old Testament quoted
in the New, with its little concordance and
synoptic tables, its underlined verses, its il
lustrations, and its cheap price, savored too
much of Protestantism not to be unpalatable
to some; and the society was soon denounced
as one whose object was "a new kind of
dangerous propaganda." When the Curia
perceived that the fortunes of the society
were very different from what it had ex
pected, it became diffident and nervous, the
general introduction and the notes were
amended, touched up, and corrected in the
Vatican's own way, and the grave of the
society dug. It has not killed the society di
rectly, but has so managed that it should
expire gradually, slowly, by itself.
Although foreign influences, mostly the
French, have caused to some extent the
Modernist trend in Italy, it must also not be
forgotten that many domestic conditions
greatly influenced the laity and clergy alike.
Among others mention must be made of the
great Italian poet and author, Antonio Fo-
gazzaro (born 1842 in Vicenza, died 1911 in
58

ITALY
Venice). He was the author of "II Santo,"
a novel which five years ago came under the
disfavor of the Holy See. Fogazzaro is fa
miliar with all the evils within the Eoman
Catholic Church; evils which have caused
the lingering disease of the Church : the high
regard of the Church for her outward po
sition, for worldly power and ostentation,
the heaping of devotional exercises, the tena
cious adherence to traditions and inheritance,
the suppression of independence, especially
with the laity, out of which a spirit of want
of truth and falseness arises. These he con
siders the chief reasons for the present con
dition. According to this novel, "The
Saint," salvation can only come through
men who live in direct and vital contact with
God, to whom piety is not only a fountain
of submission but a power for action; men
who will cheerfully perform their duty in
humility, and not within the bounds of in
herited forms. He drew sharp pictures of
the Eoman prelates, and consequently his
book was placed on the Index, April 5, 1906.
The prohibition of the sale of this book did
by no means hurt the circulation ; the placing
59

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
of it on the Index rather helped it. In Italy
alone in October, 1906, thirty thousand copies
were sold; in the United States, after the
appearance of the first English translation,
in seventeen days fourteen thousand copies;
in England, at the close of 1906, daily one
thousand copies, while even in Germany the
sale was enormous, though the tenor of the
book was exclusively religious, as it dealt
with the Eoman Catholic question. In Jan
uary, 1907, Fogazzaro gave a lecture in Paris
on ' ' The Eeligious Ideas of Giovanni Selva, ' '
the leading character in the book, in which
he said that Selva was no imaginary person,
but his name is legion and could be found in
France, England, Germany, America, and
Italy. Every page of "II Santo" proves
how loyal Selva and his family were orig
inally toward their Church, but how the con
tinuous persecutions of Pope Pius X made
them obstinate.
Multitudes of Italian priests are frankly
rebellious and claim that in the existing situ
ation rebellion is a sacred right. Altogether
we are presented here with a picture of a
vessel where the crew, in increasing num-
60

ITALY
bers, are in a state of mutiny. For the most
part they do not intend to leave the ship,
but to capture it. They believe they can, but
meanwhile the captain is engaged in taking
measures of his own to throw them over
board. Eeform must eome from the direc
tion of the young priesthood, men who live
in contact not only with ideas but with facts.
Between these men and the Vatican, however,
an abyss lies; the words coming from the
Vatican to the young clergy are for them
no longer words of authority and power.
They are grieved to see the formalism, the
paganism, the superstition into which the
Church has fallen; they have no longer any
confidence in the Curia, that seems to have
lost nearly all of its power in the things
that are of God. According to the leading
scholars in the Catholic Church of Italy, this
great Church with its episcopal ritual, its
strong ecclesiastical organization, its glori
ous traditions, with its majestic cathedrals,
erected to God by the piety of former gener
ations, is the Church which seems to the
young clergy best to respond to the genius
and temperament of the Latin races. Over
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
this great historical Church a primate is de
sired, exercising not a juridical and tyran
nical, but a spiritual and human authority,
where pontiff, cardinal, bishop, and priest
are inspired with the Spirit of Christ, and
where God is worshiped in the cathedrals in
spirit and in truth. In their "Open Letter
to Pius X" they said, "We are not rebels,
but sincere Catholics ; and as such we desire
to stand up for the salvation of Christian
ity." Recently laymen have begun to interest
themselves in the movement. One reason for
their lethargy up to this time has been the
widespread indifference among them for
everything connected with the Church, and
especially the profound distrust of the clergy
which has grown up among them. But facts
are happening which are producing in the
laity a deep impression in favor of Modern
ism. Professor Luzzi, of Florence, recites
one of these facts, which relates to the re
cent anniversary of the fall of the papal tem
poral power, when the mayor of Rome made
a speech lauding civil and religious liberty,
and denouncing the moral and spiritual ty-
62

ITALY
ranny of the papacy. The pope replied to
the speech with a protest filled with "poor
and dull lamentation. ' ' The incident created
great general interest, and both mayor and
pope received messages from their respective
sympathizers. One of the messages to the
mayor was published throughout Italy and
aroused much enthusiasm. It was from a
large group of priests representing the Mod
ernist movement, and contained the following
sentences: "On the 20th of September you
knew how to find in the tradition of the Eter
nal City the human and universal words of
liberty, right to live, which the Vatican no
longer knows how to herald, and you spoke
to Italy and to the world in a Eoman way.
. . . The Vatican has uplifted its voice in
the name of the Church against your asser
tions; but the Vatican, inasmuch as it has
always hindered the progress of Christian
ity, has no right to speak in the name of the
Church. The best part of the Church in
Italy does not want to be an accomplice of
the Vatican in the fatal program of open war
against the unity of the country, against the
evolution of thought and liberty of con-
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
science. . . . Still a great hope lives in our
hearts, the hope that the Church may yet
find new ways to beoome, as the gospel says,
'the light of the world' and 'the salt of the
earth.' In the name of those who are long
ing for freedom and truth we rejoice in the
opportunity we have to-day of expressing to
you our gratitude and sympathy." There
are difficult days lying ahead of the papacy
in Italy. But Modernism, inspired by the
Spirit of Christ, strongly organized, sup
ported by the laity and led by a great leader,
will guide the old Church in the fair land of
Italia, and she will see again days of free
dom and life.

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rn
FEANCE
The picture changes entirely and becomes
theologically interesting when we place our
foot on French soil. Here it is not, a battle
for freedom of conscience and belief, not a
struggle for a common education ; theology is
here in the foreground. It is a battle for theo
logical principles which originated in France
and found their way gradually into Italy.
Historic-critical searching of the Scriptures
and the new post-Kantian and Kantian phi
losophy, as it appears to the scientific man,
are wrestling with a scholasticism — which
seems to appear unscientific to the world —
for the truth within the Catholic fold; this
threatens not only the Catholic dogma as
such, but the historical and philosophical
foundation of the dogma as it has been un
derstood. In reality here one meets what
Pope Pius X calls "Modernism:" the critical
research of the original Christianity and the
8 65

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
acceptance of the new, especially the Kant
ian, philosophy. This is the Hydra, the wa
ter serpent with its many heads, which the
pope seems bound to kill.
Catholic theology in its criticism of the
Biblical text will always meet two difficulties
which seem to be an obstacle in the research
work of the Catholic theologian, as can be
plainly seen in French Modernism. The first
difficulty is the Decree of the Council of
Trent, when tradition was declared to be
equally with the Bible a rule of faith ; when
the Vulgate was proclaimed to be the authen
tic version of the Bible and the Church its
only interpreter; when, further, the hypothe
sis of verbal inspiration was declared as dog
matically binding. Secondly, the fact that
the Catholic Church will not recognize and
accept a gradual formation and development
of the dogmas of the Church, but assumes
that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception,
the Sinlessness of the Virgin Mary, and the
doctrine of the Infallibility of the pope were
in the primitive Church even in New Testa
ment time commonly accepted. No Catholic
Bible student may alter these assumptions.
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FEANCE
Will he reach scientific results, according to
which he concludes that by way of reasoning,
based upon historical research, a doctrine is
historically untenable or suspicious, he must
either renounce the result of his labors or
begin his research anew.
One of the first Modernists is found in
the prominent French Eoman Catholic the
ological author of an increasingly liberal
type, Abbe de Lamennais (1782-1854). In
his earlier works he advocated the separa
tion of the Church from the State, which
oppressed and fettered it, and more freedom
for the people as well as for the Church.
After the July revolution of 1830 he began to
publish L'Avenir, a newspaper whose motto
was, "God and Freedom; the Pope and the
People." The bishops now began to bring
formal charges against Lamennais ; he went
to Eome in 1832, but found little support,
and his ideas were condemned by the new
pope, Gregory XVI. The publication of
L'Avenir was abandoned. Later he gave
way to the logical developments of his liberal
principles, marking a definite breach with
Eome by the publication of "The Words of
67

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
a Believer, ' ' which was condemned, but made
a deep impression upon the people, whom he
addressed in his glowing words of hope and
love. His work, "The Book of the People,"
reminds them not only of their rights, but
in the tone of an inspired prophet of their
duties also. After producing a number of
fugitive writings of democratic tendency, he
attempted to bring his new ideas into har
mony with his original principles, according
to which the truth is determined not by the
Church, but by human reason, examining,
judging, and confirming. He had a noble and
active nature, never content unless at work.
His unselfish piety and humility were un
questioned; but the failure of all his plans
so embittered a positive and passionate dis
position as to lead him far away from the
principles with which he began his life into
a position which his early associates con
sidered little short of apostasy.
Pope Leo XIII was not a Liberal, but he
was scholarly and a friend of scholars. He
was therefore anxious to bring Catholic
scholarship up to the level of Protestant
scholarship. With this end in view he threw
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FEANCE
open the Vatican library to students; he
made overtures to the Liberals — creating
Newman a cardinal, and entering into nego
tiations with Dollinger, the historian and
leader of the Old-Catholic movement; he en
couraged historical research. An ecclesias
tic, and a man rather of letters than of learn
ing, he did not really understand the Liberal
mind and standpoint, or see how wide a de
parture from tradition it involved. When it
became evident that things were going fur
ther than he thought, he was puzzled and
temporized. Pope Leo XHI was an oppor
tunist by policy and by temperament; he was
unwilling to break either with the past or the
present; he was old, and left the decision to
his successor — not foreseeing that his succes
sor would be Pius X.
The impulse thus given to learning by
the pope produced a brilliant group of
French Catholic scholars, d'Hulst, Duchesne,
Loisy, Hebert, Houtin, Batiffol; the "Insti-
tuts Catholiques" were developed; a new era,
it seemed, had set in. The records of distin
guished men who have dreamed the fair
dream of a renovated Catholicism in France
69

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
will receive a testimony of honesty and fair
ness by impartial students, although the Lib
eral school was suspected by the Vatican
later of being a school of the Pharisees and
the Sadducees. One of its most distinguished
pioneers was a man whose services to Catho
lic scholarship it would be difficult to over
estimate, the Abbe, now Mgr. Louis Marie
Olivier Duchesne, who held the chair of
Church History in the Institut Catholique de
Paris from 1877 to 1895, and since the latter
year has been director of the French school
at Eome. Mgr. Duchesne had the learning of a Ne-
ander and the irony of a Voltaire; when he
began to apply the critical method in his
Bible study, his lectures were suspended for
one year. He belonged with other scholars
to the new school of the "Progressives," and
their first books were placed on the Index
in 1887. They looked upon this step of the
Vatican very calmly, for the condemnation
of their books through the Index they deemed
by no means a condemnation of their doc
trine, it simply meant for them the prohibi
tion to read certain books; they further
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thought that the suppression of their books
was founded undoubtedly upon the fear of
the newness of their theories, which, being
made public without special preparation,
would undermine the faith of the common
people. Even orthodoxy could not pardon
Duchesne; it dreaded at once his encyclo
paedic knowledge and his incisive tongue. He
taught men to see. For what they saw he
was not answerable ; but it was not what the
Church wished them to see. His examina
tion of the legends which attached to the
foundation of the great French Churches,
though based on the work of such eminent
scholars as Tillemont and the Bollandists,
gave offense to modern piety, while his
"Etude sur le Liber Pontificalis" (1877),
saved with difficulty from the Index, demon
strated the presence of fable in the records
of the earliest period of the Christian com
munity at Eome. He refrained from draw
ing the theological conclusions indicated by
his historical criticism. But these conclu
sions could not fail to suggest themselves to
his pupils. The study of the papal assump
tions on Christian origins, seriously under-
71

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
taken by Duchesne, led to a new conception
of ecclesiastical dogma and institutions;
Eoman Catholic traditions and science could
not keep house together in one mind.
Eoman Catholic scholars in France in
their investigations were using the methods
of research followed by modern scholarship
in general. In addition to the introduction
of modern systems of philosophy and the
ology, many Eoman Catholics were devoting
themselves to Biblical criticism along non-
traditional lines. In both these respects the
antagonism between the new methods and
the new teaching and the traditions of the
Eoman system on its intellectual side became
acute. Exegesis seemed at first sight less
dangerous than history. Catholics, who build
on Scripture plus and interpreted by tradi
tion, could deal more freely, it was thought,
with the sacred texts than Protestants, who
build on Scripture alone. This reasoning,
however, overlooked what may be called the
regulative function of the Bible. It is not
necessary that either the formulas or the in
stitutions of the Protestant Church should
be found in Scripture; and as a matter of
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FEANCE
fact they are not found there. But it is
necessary that they should not be in conflict
with it. And reference to the sources
showed, as it had shown at the Eeformation,
that this was the case.
Concerning Biblical criticism, Pope Leo
XITI issued, November 18, 1893, his encyc
lical "Providentissmus," which can be con
sidered as the first declaration of the Vati
can against higher criticism. This encyclical
of 1893 disputed the right of higher criticism
which would only recognize internal reasons
for the inspiration; as a rule such reasons
should simply and only be used to strengthen
the external testimony. All the books which
the Church considers as canonical and holy
must be completely understood according to
their extent and contents as having been
written under the direct guidance and in
spiration of the Holy Spirit. As God Him
self is infallible and could not inspire heresy,
so the books of the Church must therefore be
certainty and truth. D 'Hulst, who had been
the leader in exegesis as Duchesne in history,
wrote to Eome that he would no longer enter
tain the idea that the infallibility of the
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Scriptures refers only to questions of faith
and conduct; this is no longer his personal
opinion, and he would yield to the pope's
advice. The papal encyclical against "Modern
ism" is largely directed against Loisy, the
most eminent of French Bible critics, who in
his methods practically agreed with Well
hausen, Schmiedel, and Van Manen. Loisy,
in addition to being a critic, also in several
works attempted a synthesis dealing with the
history of dogma and the principles of re
ligious psychology.
Alfred Firman Loisy was born at Am-
brieres, February 28, 1857. He was educated
at the Seminary of Chalons and was or
dained to the priesthood in 1879, after which
he was parish priest of Broussy-le-Grand
and Landricourt (1879-81). In 1881 he be
came lecturer in Hebrew at the Institut Ca-
tholique of Paris; was appointed associate
professor in 1882, and titular professor of
Holy Scripture in 1889. The freedom of his
views, however, caused such distrust of his
orthodoxy that in 1893 he was removed from
the Institut and appointed chaplain of the
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FEANCE
Dominical nuns engaged in teaching at Neu-
illy-sur-Seine. In 1899 he retired to Belle-
vue, and in 1900-04 lectured at the Sorbonne
on Assyriology, but in the latter year was
again obliged by his superiors to cease lec
turing. Since that time he has lived in re
tirement at Garney. His works attracted
considerable attention, and five of his books
in 1903 were placed on the Index, although
Loisy claims to seek in them to refute the
radicalism of Dr. Adolf Harnack and to de
fend the orthodox faith of the Church. This
learned French ecclesiastic, Ex-Abbe Loisy,
whose excommunication in 1908 created so
great a sensation, is still the subject of wide
spread interest. His vast erudition and
charming style as a writer have combined
to enhance his European reputation. His ap
pointment by the French Government to the
chair of History of Religions in the College
of France is naturally provocative of differ
ent expressions of opinion. For it is impos
sible to regard him simply as a victim of
the uncompromising papal policy. It is only
fair to recognize that the type of Modernism
of which Loisy is a leading representative is
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
as destructive to Protestantism as to Catholi
cism, for it is so utterly extreme and so ab
solutely drastic that it entirely eliminates
every belief cherished by all evangelical
Christians. The dogmatical precepts of Loisy were
very carefully formulated. He claimed that
one could never find a satisfactory solution
of the Biblical problems from a dogmatical
standpoint. The Biblical question is above
all things a historical question; the point is
not to determine whether the Bible contains
errors, but whether the truths claimed for
the Bible by the Church can be historically
proven. He expresses his position in the fol
lowing precepts : 1. The Pentateuch can not
be the work of Moses as it has been delivered
to us. 2. The first chapters in the Bible do
not give an exact and true account and his
tory of the origin of man. 3. The books of
the Old Testament and different parts of the
individual books have not the same historical
value. 4. All the historical books of the
Scriptures, also of the New Testament, were
edited with far greater liberty than the works
of modern historical research; the liberty
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which prevailed at the time when these books
were written grants the scholar certain lib
erties in the exposition of the Scriptures.
5. The history of the Christian doctrine, as
far as it is found in the Bible, shows an
evolution in all its parts in regard to the per
ception and knowledge of God, the destina
tion of man, and the moral law. 6. In re
gard to all things in the kingdom of nature
the Bible is not superior to the common pre
vailing view of antiquity. His method was
very radical, as can be seen when he dealt
on scientific lines with the Canon, the religion
of Israel, and when he taught that Baby
lonian myths were lying behind the first
chapters of Genesis.
In 1902 Abbe Loisy criticised Professor
Adolf Harnack's famous "Wesen des Chris-
tentums" (The Essence of Christianity) in
his no less famous "L'Evangile et Eglise"
(The Gospel and the Church), in which he
refuted the radicalism of the famous Har-
nack and challenged the distrust and disap
proval of Eome. To the average orthodoxy,
Catholic or Protestant, "The Gospel and the
Church," it must be admitted, was an enig-
77

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
matic book. As a critic Loisy went beyond
Harnack, emphasizing more strongly the
apocalyptic features in Christ's teaching, its
points of contact with the mind of his time,
its undogmatic and unsystematic character,
and the absence from it of any provision for
the organization of the Christian community.
Most startling of all, he abandoned the at
tempt to prove the Eesurrection of Christ on
the ground of history; it was a fact, he ar
gued — here agreeing with Harnack — not of
history, but for faith. In his monumental
commentary on the Gospels he proceeds reso
lutely, perhaps rather ruthlessly, on the same
lines ; his conclusions do not materially differ
from those of such scholars as Julicher and
Weiss, whose position in theology is that of
a rigid limitation to strict historical investi
gation. This radical French Modernist, Mgr.
Loisy, disclaims a speculative philosophy.
The time, he probably thinks, is not ripe for
such a construction ; and meanwhile, with the
help of such notions as symbolism and evolu
tion, the scholar can hold his own. Ulti
mately, however, a philosophical foundation
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FEANCE
is a necessity; it is impossible to state the
simplest fact without philosophical implica
tions, because thought is one. The philoso
phy on which Catholic theology is built, and
which from first to last it implies, is the
Thomist- Aristotelian ; and the Aristotelian
ontology which underlies this, underlies the
language and thought of the average man.
Another victim in this battle is Mgr. Bat-
tifol, rector of the Institut Catholique at
Toulouse. He is neither a radical Bible critic
nor a philosophical Modernist, and plainly
spoke against Loisy in 1904 ; but Battif ol has
written a history of the Eoman breviary, in
which he criticised a number of absurd Eo
man Catholic legends and traditions. This
breviary, which must be devotionally used
in prayer by the clerics, contains actually
stories, according to Battifol, which can
hardly be believed. About St. Scholastica,
who, being dissatisfied with beautiful
weather, bowed over the table and asked for
bad weather, after which thunder and light
ning appeared. About St. Patrick, who daily
prayed the whole Book of Psalms and three
hundred times bowed his knees before God,
79

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
who divided his nights into three parts, in
the second part diving under in cold water
and praying in that position Psalms 101-150,
while later he slept on a bare stone in the
third part. Another saint had his hand am
putated, which later grew on again. These
and other legends were believed and not ex
amined in mediaeval times ; but woe unto the
cleric who nurtures modern views in his re
search work of history. Battifol simply lost
his chair; it availed him nothing that he
proved his dogmatic orthodoxy before the
pope. Not all the Modernists in France are ex
treme radicals. Too commonly it is sup
posed that all Modernists in France stand
for a violent and bitter attack upon the
authenticity and authority of the Holy Scrip
tures, and one readily allows that the hail
storm of books and pamphlets which has
fallen in recent years upon France would be
sufficient to justify such an opinion. But it
should be remembered that with many
French scholars Modernism means no more
than the habit of mind which searches and
tries the truth of things. It is called soien-
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FEANCE
tific, an expression which has misled many.
A scientific way of examining the Christian
faith is, after all, only to separate out of the
theological dogma what is merely legendary
and traditional. Or, as Abbe Houtin writes
in "La Crise du Clerge:" "By Modernism
we denote the tendency to disentangle re
ligious sentiment from its theological shell;
to distinguish the imperishable from the
ephemeral, the eternal from the transitory,
the essential from accretions." Naturally,
therefore, it includes not only the most reck
less (and actually unscientific) criticism, but
also, which is just now to be observed, the
most reverent and devout handling of the
Word of God. The number of books about
the Bible and the primitive Christian faith
written in France within the last ten years
is legion; and still they come. They betray
by their number as much as by their quality
the intensity of the movement by which they
have been inspired.
It is estimated by loyal French priests
within the Catholic Church that the number
of priests who are in the current of Modern
ism and who at heart have rejected the
6 81

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
papacy is about fifteen hundred. Macaulay
said, "A man who does not change his opin
ions is either an inspired angel or an un
mitigated fool." That is what fifteen hun
dred priests have actually declared during
the last ten years, and they have conse
quently unfrocked themselves. To use their
own words, they have "thrown the soutane
to the nettles." That Eome is not reform-
able from within, they are perfectly sure.
No chipping off of ecclesiastical excrescenses
can make Eome a Christian Church. Papal
allocutions only make matters worse. As
Jeremy Taylor said, "You can not cure a
man's rheumatism by brushing his clothes."
Nothing short of actual, definite, and out-
and-out conversion from the pope to Christ
can save France, or any other Catholic peo
ple. The day of legendary and traditional
dogma, like the day of aristocracy in Church
and State, is near its setting. The world has
suffered long and severely from both, but the
brighter day of light and liberty is clearing
rapidly for the Catholic peoples.
A rather striking discrimination is notice
able in the recent campaign against Modern-
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FEANCE
ism ; it has often been hard to decide exactly
upon what principle the official condemna
tions were made. Individual priests were
disciplined in France, after the papal en
cyclical had been published, who were not
known to have written or spoken anything
resembling the tenets condemned in the papal
documents. The leaders of the Christian
Democratic movement in France and Italy
have been especially singled out for this
treatment. There is apparently a kind of
unofficial political and social Modernism as
distasteful to the authorities at Eome as the
critical and philosophical type. Papal pro
nouncements have taken no account specific
ally of this development, but the social
Modernist appears to be in an even more
precarious position than the philosophical
Modernist. The French editor, Laberthon-
niere, who has been especially active in sub
stituting a newly-modeled Christian system
of philosophy in place of scholasticism, and
his review, though it has been a clearing
house for many French Modernistic writers,
has escaped excommunication. But several
of the French clergy who edited Christian
83

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Democratic newspapers favorable to the Re
public and loyally accepting disestablish
ment have been disciplined.
The Vatican authorities as representing
Catholicism should endeavor to regain the
confidence of the French people who are on
the verge of atheism, for it is indeed a de
mocracy without God that is establishing
itself in France on the ruins of the old ec
clesiastical establishments. It is only just
to Catholicism to say that it continues its
struggle with official atheism, yet it must
also be admitted that many papal tendencies
did not tend to conserve any confidence. A
war which seems likely not to come soon to
an end is still being waged in France be
tween the bishops of the Roman Church and
the teachers of the public schools. The de
termined prelates, representing the powerful
though disestablished and largely disen
dowed Gallioan Church, formulated their
grievance in a very demonstrative method.
They issued an open letter denouncing the
teachings in the school as atheistic, immoral,
and unpatriotic. The object of the bishops
is to introduce Vaticanism in the shape of
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FRANCE
religion by such books as Rome would ap
prove for the suppression of some books now
in use. The whole scholastic profession
arose, as the accusation of atheism infuri
ated them, for the purpose of self-vindica
tion, and rapidly formed an association of
ninety-six thousand members. While the
Church in France is passing through a se
rious crisis resulting from the separation of
the Church from the State, while even the
government is frankly and officially atheistic
to such a degree that in the Chamber of
Deputies a minister dared to say, in words
which have become celebrated, and which
caused deep indignation in many circles, that
"the lights of heaven which had given to
men lying hopes were henceforth and forever
extinguished," while children in some quar
ters are trained to hate God and those who
speak of Him, yet there can be no doubt that
dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church
have often gone much too far in their oppo
sition to the secular power.
Pasteur Georges Dieny says: "In these
conditions the difficulties of our task may
be imagined. Yet I believe in the future of
85

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Protestantism. Already in scientific and
philosophical circles there is less of the dog
matic materialistic accent, and there is a new
tendency to examine and to study religious
ideas." Mention should be made of the re
markable Eoman Catholic congress which
held its third annual meeting in Paris. Its
purpose is the promotion of spirituality
among Christian (Eoman Catholic) families.
Its watchword is, "Back to the Gospel."
Its chief aims are thus stated: 1. Eeturn to
the ancient custom of evening prayers, which
are to be followed by the reading of some
verses of Scripture. 2. Eeading of the Bible
in school and catechism classes, in meetings
of societies and in teachers' classes. 3. Pub
lic reading of the Bible at all masses without
a sermon. 4. Presentation of Bibles to those
who are confirmed or married, and use of
the Bible as a premium in the schools. Thus
once more is revealed the longing of many
Eoman Catholics for the Word of God. May
God help the pope and his advisers to heed
the signs of the time in the light of modern
conditions! One might be struck with the
fact that two thousand years ago the Gallican
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FEANCE
temperament was the same as to-day, as he
reads Julius Caesar's "Gallic War," or as
he considers the outlook in France stormy,
or as the spiritual condition might suggest
pessimistic conclusions ; yet true Catholicism,
not influenced by the pope's Italian or Span
ish advisers, and the Church of God as found
in the Protestant branches of Christendom,
must find the one means of salvation in the
faith in Jesus Christ as the only Mediator
between God and man and a consistent Christ
tian life.

87

rv
GEEMANY
In dealing with the problem of Modernism
in Germany, one must take into considera
tion the movement of the Old Catholic
Church, which owes its origin to certain
Eoman Catholics who refused to accept the
decree of the Vatican Council of 1870 affirm
ing the infallibility of the pope. The decree
had been fiercely debated and opposed by a
considerable minority of the bishops present
at the council, their arguments being based
upon the early history of the Church and her
fundamental faith and usages as declared
by the ecumenical councils. After the issu
ance of the decree the opposing minority met
at Nuremberg, August 27, 1870, and the pro
fessors from Bonn, Breslau, Braunsberg,
Munich, Miinster, Prague, Wiirzburg, and
other places, under the leadership of Johann
Josef Ignaz von Dollinger, declared against
the decree. A gathering of laymen at Ko-
88

GEEMANY
nigswinter in September, 1870, resolved that,
"Considering that the council did not delib
erate in perfect freedom, the undersigned
Catholics (1,359 in number) do not recognize
the decree concerning the absolute power of
the pope and his infallibility as the decision
of an ecumenical council, but rather reject
them as innovations in direct contradiction
to the uniform faith of the Church." In
faith and practice only the doctrines which
are deemed apostolic are recognized.
Johann Josef Ignaz von Dollinger, Church
historian 'and leader of the Old Catholic
movement, was born at Bamberg, February
28, 1799, and died at Munich, January 10,
1890. He saw the principal mission of him
self and his friends in the desire not only to
maintain freedom of faith and conscience, but
also the independence of Church and State,
with a similar basis for all religious societies.
The opposition to him, which began in 1849,
because of his national Church tendencies
never waned. The Archbishop of Munich,
Count von Eeisach, a Jesuit scholar, de
nounced him. While at Eome he was re
garded with the greatest mistrust. At Eas-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
ter of 1861, at the request of certain ladies
of the nobility that he say something regard
ing the situation in Italy, he gave his Odeon
lectures, in which he considered the possi
bility of the fall of the papal State. The
nuncio left the hall in the middle of the dis
course, and the Eoman Catholic world was
thrown into great excitement. Meanwhile a
great conflict broke out between the Jesuits
and the German theologians. No unscho-
lastic theologian or philosopher was accepted
as trustworthy, no theological faculty as
Catholic, which was not held by the Jesuits.
On September 28, 1863, opened the confer
ence of German Catholic scholars with D61-
linger's celebrated lecture on "Die Ver-
gangenheit und Gegenwart der katholischen
Theologie" (The Past and Present and Cath
olic Theology). A severe breach widened
rapidly. His "Fables Eespecting the Popes
in the Middle Ages" appeared in 1863, in
which he criticised the Donation of Constan-
tine. Consequently in 1864 the lectures of
Dollinger were put under the ban. Arch
bishop Scherr, of Munich, considered that it
would be the best solution of all the difficul-
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GEEMANY
ties if Dollinger should die of the attack of
pneumonia from which he was then suffering.
When the Vatican Council met in Eome
in 1870, Cardinal Schwarzenberg urged upon
Dollinger that, at least as a private indi
vidual, he should attend the Council; but he
preferred to remain in Munich, where he pub
lished regularly in the Allgemeine Zeitung
his " Brief e vom Konzil" (Letters from the
Council), based upon material furnished him
from Eome. He then was called a heretic.
Bishop Ketteler, of Mainz, and other bishops
of the minority, in an open letter addressed
to him begged of him to keep silent. He
complied, and on July 18, 1870, the personal
infallibility of the pope and his universal
episcopacy were declared an article of faith.
Dollinger declined to give up what he had
hitherto taught, and on April 18, 1871, Arch
bishop Scherr, himself an opponent to in
fallibility in the Council, caused his excom
munication. Dollinger acknowledged the
fact of excommunication, but pronounced it
unrighteous, and therefore futile. He con
sidered himself and his associates as still
Eoman Catholics. He opposed the organi-
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
zation of a separate Church, but soon threw
in his lot with the Old Catholics. According
to Dollinger the very highest aim of Christ
like development was to unite the now di
vided Christian communions. Dollinger at
last understood better how to appreciate
Luther, "that Titan of the spiritual world."
He makes in an academical lecture on the
Eeformation (1882) this confession: "I must
admit that, for a greater portion of my life,
what occurred in Germany from 1517 to 1552
was an impenetrable riddle and, moreover,
a subject of sorrow and pain. I saw only the
fact of the separation, and the two halves of
the nation, divided as by the sharp blows of
a sword, standing inimical to each other.
Since examining more closely the history of
Germany and of Eome in the Middle Ages,
and since the experiences of these later years
have so illuminated the subjects of my re
search, I now believe that I understand what
was so enigmatical, and I adore the ways of
Providence, in whose almighty hand the Ger
man nation became an instrument — a vessel
in the house of God, and not one unto dis
honor." 92

GERMANY
Catholic theological scholarship in Ger
many is not as far advanced in learning as
in France ; this must be conceded. So Mod
ernism has had fewer victims in Germany
and Austria. This is not because the move
ment has not many sympathizers there, but
largely because the critics of the traditional
system of the Roman Catholic Church are
professors in Roman Catholic universities
where they have the protection of the State.
The Roman Catholics of Germany have been
more stirred by the case of Hermann Schell,
a Roman Catholic professor at Wiirzburg,
who was disciplined from Rome because of
his non-scholastic system of theology; but
his case occurred several years before the
encyclical was published and before the Mod
ernistic agitation commenced. Indeed, the
genesis of the present policy of the Eoman
Church may be studied in separate cases of
condemnation, some going back a number of
years, where what is now called Modernism
is foreshadowed vaguely, both as regards the
teaching held by and the condemnations is
sued from Eome. This is applicable to
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Schell 's Ideal-Catholicism as well as to the
efforts of the German Eeform-Catholics.
Hermann Schell was born at Freiburg,
February 28, 1850, and died at Wiirzburg,
May 31, 1906. He originally was found on
the side of the Thomist-Aristotelian phi
losophy, but was later attracted by the Pla-
tonian system. These later tendencies, how
ever, necessitated that he fight an unbroken
battle with the newer philosophy. In 1884
he was called to the chair of Apologetics and
Archaeology at the University of Wiirzburg,
where, besides his being a very successful
teacher, he exerted a fruitful literary activ
ity. Worthy of special mention is his "Cath
olic Dogmatic in Six Volumes," which he
wrote in 1889-1893. This work was very
favorably received. Not knowing that it
would be placed on the Index later, Catholic
papers published laudable reviews. This was
the first attempt to place the Catholic dogma
all along the line in the modern perspective.
When in 1896 the new university building
was dedicated, Schell gave it the name " Veri-
tati," and in his famous dedicatory address
on "Theology and the University" he re-
94

GEEMANY
marked that the building was dedicated to
the spirit of truth. No tradition should ever
hinder progress. His first work on Reform-
Catholicism appeared in 1897 under the title,
"Catholicism the Principle of Progress."
Against the vulgar Catholicism, as it had
been evident, he described Catholicism as it
should and could be, as the "Idealkatholizis-
mus," which demanded the theological and
practical management of religion.
In specific matters the following points
were advocated by him : 1. The Catholic laity
must be better made use of in the service
of the Church; the educated classes, and es
pecially the men, must be won not by certain
inducements, but through rational compre
hension, proofs, and explanation of the doc
trine. To accomplish this end, one must not,
self-satisfied and proud, reject the achieve
ments of modern thinking. Even secular
things must be spiritualized by the super
natural power and truth of Christianity; a
world of ideas which delight in the phantas-
tic should not be nurtured. 2. Theological sci
ence must retain its proper place in univer
sities, it must be free and independent, it
95

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
must not be confined to the seminaries ; other
scientific research must also be undertaken
by Catholics and in the Catholic spirit. Dif
ficulties should not hinder, if sufficient con
fidence is placed in the truth of the Christian
faith, then genius can freely and without
molestation search in its respective fields.
3. Catholicism must, being based upon prin
ciple and being energetic, work for the prog
ress of science, civilization, and political ad
vancement not only so far as it can absorb
the results of foreign research, but it must
also endeavor to gain first place. 4. Believ
ing in the future of the Catholic mind and
genius in the Germanic world, Catholics must
energetically work for the national advance
of Germany, they must lay more stress upon
what the German mind expects in religion,
in theological experience, and in the practical
application of the Christian faith.
Dogmatically Schell was a Catholic and
wanted to remain a Catholic; yet in all of
his works, especially those of an apologetic
nature, we find in him not the defender of
Catholicism, but of Christianity. He plainly
showed the distinction between the form and
96

GERMANY
essence of religion. So he always paid due
respect and justice to Protestantism. How
his struggles strengthened him is shown
again in his later work on "Die neue Zeit
und der alte Glaube" (The New Time and
the Old Faith). Here Schell spoke very little
of the objective side of the Catholic dogma,
but the spirit was the spirit of the modern,
energetic, and inner Christianity, not of me
diaeval Catholicism. His foundation was the
gospel and modern civilization. He consid
ered for his Catholic friends the most essen
tial part in worship to be not in devotion to
the saints, but in direct communion with God,
in the saving mysteries, as found in the
Atonement and in His great works.
The "Congregation of the Index" took
exception to numerable portions of Schell 's
dogmatic and apologetic books. 1. The only
deadly sin for eternal punishment, according
to the author, is the sin against the Holy
Spirit. 2. He was accused of denying the
eternal nell-punishment, except for complete
obduracy in this life. 3. The criterion of
judgment will be the love to our neighbor,
therefore baptism and the anointing with oil
7 97

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
are not considered necessary. 4. Schell 's
idea of God rests upon a false principle of
God and personality; this can not be taught
without insulting the scholastic teachers. 5.
The mystery of the Trinity is not sufficiently
explained. Schell 's books were placed on the
Index December 15, 1898. Soon after, Schell
submitted to Rome, to the sorrow of some
of his closest friends. In 1906 he was dis
ciplined again, being accused of sowing the
poison of heresy through his teaching in the
university, in his lectures, and in his literary
works. Among the German "Reformkatholiken"
will be found Dr. Josef Miiller. He published
in 1898 his "Der Reformkatholizismus die
Religion der Zukunft" ("Reform-Catholi
cism the Eeligion of the Future"). In the
practical part of this book Miiller contended
that the Bible should be read by everybody,
for to prohibit it means danger for the
Church, as many Catholics would affiliate
with Protestantism. We must also mention
Franz Xaver Kraus (died 1890) ; he was pro
fessor of Church History at Freiburg. In
1904 the "Krausgesellschaft" was founded
98

GEEMANY
in his honor at Munich ; this society has aimed
to promote the deepening of the Christian life
and to further harmony between Eoman
Catholics and Protestants.
During the later years the struggle has
become more severe and acute in Germany;
the Catholic Church is in increasing difficulty
with its Modernists. Numerous scholars de
cline to accept the dicta of the Church with
out examination of the authority on which
they rest. The latest trouble was caused by
Professor Josef Schnitzer 's book "Hat Jesus
das Papsttum gestifted?" ("Did Christ
Found the Papacy?") Schnitzer is another
"Eomanist heretic" and an old offender who
has been giving trouble for a number of
years. He has held with rare distinction aca
demic positions in the universities of Wiirz
burg and Munich, the two distinguished
higher schools of Catholic learning in Ba
varia. As a priest he has been repeatedly
warned, and repeatedly has he expressed re
gret for the boldness of his words. But this
latest book surpasses all previous utterances.
As a result he has been suspended by the
pope and granted a furlough by the Bavarian
99

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Government, and rumors are rife that if he
refuses to withdraw it from publication he
will be placed under the greater excommuni
cation. Schnitzer is a Modernist of the radical
and destructive type. His reasoning by some
might be considered conclusive. He admits
that the Eoman Church has the greatest in
terest in proving the divine origin of the
papacy. On this depends the claim of the
papacy in the Middle Ages for universal do
minion and her modern claim of inf allibility.
If the pope is not the follower of Saint Peter
in the See of Eome, and if the alleged privi
leges granted by Christ to Peter have not
been inherited by Peter's successors, the
whole edifice, says Schnitzer, falls to the
ground like a house built of cards. Eome has
not only developed its own philosophy, but
also its own history. The author says this is
absolutely necessary, and likewise necessary
has it been to remove this philosophy and
this history from the realm of criticism. The
greatest question in connection with this criti
cism is : Will this philosophy and this history
bear examination? He comes to the logical
100

GEEMANY
conclusion that it will not. For the scien
tific investigator tradition, as such, has no
aureole around its head. If dogma disagrees,
so much the worse for dogma; for history
must correct dogma. According to Schnitzer
the Catholic Church has raised a fence
around it, and on the fence is this notice,
"Do not touch me." But the true historian
is not frightened by this. He does not per
mit himself to be throttled by the theologian.
"It is not my purpose merely to keep my
self in harmony with the Church ; my duty is
to keep myself in harmony with the truth.
And if I am in harmony with the truth I
am in harmony with the Church, if she is in
possession of the truth. If she is not, if she
stands in fear of the truth, if she flies from
recognized scientific conclusions, so much the
worse for her. In this case she can not be
considered. Does God require or stand in
need of lies?" This is certainly a noble pas
sage among others in this book, which shows
the spirit in which Schnitzer approaches this
important question. He further treats it
from the viewpoint of literature, eschatology,
Biblical criticism, and the history of the
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Christian Church. After a very thorough
and minute examination of all the sources of
information available to the modern scholar
he concludes that Jesus did not establish the
papacy, that He did not even think of such
an establishment. Christ's thoughts were
bent on a coming world-catastrophe. Not in
the remotest degree did the future of the
Church engage His attention. This last as
sertion of Schnitzer, however, will undoubt
edly be questioned by conservative scholar
ship. Coming to the words according to Mat
thew 16 : 18, " Thou art Peter, and upon this
rock I will build My Church," he considers
them as uncanonical, and says that they crept
into the Gospel manuscripts in the second or
third century (???). They were unknown to
the early Church, and even if mentioned as
the traditional utterances of our Lord, they
did not bear the interpretation ultimately
given to them. Schnitzer says these words
were the beginning of those monstrous fabri
cations which were used to support the mad
claims of the mediaeval popes to dominate the
world. Among the Eoman clerics of Ger-
102

GEEMANY
many this bold utterance was plainly under
stood, and there is much searching of hearts
and vowing of vengeance. Yet the march of
truth can not be halted, and even if Eome
once more brings Professor Schnitzer to his
knees, he has succeeded in the great search
for truth, as is plainly shown in the case of
the German professors and the anti-Modern
ist oath, which shall be treated in a later
chapter of this book.
Another Eomanist heretic is found in the
eminent professor of Theology, Dr. Hugo
Koch, of the Catholic Divinity School at
Braunsberg. He also has fallen a victim to
the persecuting zeal of the anti-Modernist
school in the Church of Eome. Koch has
been forced to relinquish his post on the
teaching staff of this institution and to re
tire into private life. He is considered as
one of the greatest authorities on the history
of the Church in the first three centuries after
Christ, and his writings in Germany and else
where enjoy a reputation second only in ex
tent to those of Harnack and Gunkel. A sim
ilar question to the one propounded by
Schnitzer, in thorough treatment with con-
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
elusive reasoning and convincing logic,
brought the ire of the Vatican with its Italian
and Spanish advisers down upon him. The
immediate cause of the trouble was a study,
published by the professor, entitled "Cyp
rian und der Eomische Primat" ("Cyprian
and the Eoman Primate"). In this book
Dr. Koch was at pains to show that Saint
Cyprian, who was Bishop of Carthage and
who died A. D. 258, was absolutely ignorant
of any difference between the standing of the
Bishop of Eome and that of any other bishop,
and that at that time there was no notion
entertained among churchmen either of a
papacy or of a doctrine of infallibility. Dr.
Koch laid it down as an historical fact that
up to the time of Cyprian's death there was
no question of any general subjection to the
Eoman See, and that such an idea would have
been absolutely repellant to such a powerful
churchman as Saint Cyprian.
Dr. Koch reasons in this fashion: The
doctrine that Jesus founded the papacy when
He said to Peter, "Thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build My Church," is directly
contradicted by the facts of history. The
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GEEMANY
dogma that this saying of Christ's meant the
rule and dominance of the Bishop of Eome,
and that the powers of this bishop were di
rectly received from Peter in accordance with
the spirit and letter of this saying, is a doc
trine, says Koch, for which not the shadow
of a shade of evidence is forthcoming. Jesus
founded nothing in the sense in which the
modern Eoman Catholic Church uses this
word. Koch will not agree with the Eoman
doctors when they say that the papacy was
founded by Christ, nor will he consent to
Luther's assertion that the papacy was
founded by the devil. And the remark,
"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will
build My Church," has about as much to do
with the foundation of the papacy as the
phrase, also addressed to Peter, "Get thee
behind Me, Satan ; thou art a stumbling block
unto Me," has to do with the French Eevo-
lution. "As a matter of fact," says Koch,
"the child has quite another father."
Dr. Koch knew quite well the conse
quences that would befall him after his pro
gressive attitude. Very nobly he says in the
foreword to his book, "He who openly says
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
that which he believes after years of earnest
seeking and toil in the face of history will
escape the most fearful of all anathemas, the
anathema of insulted truth and a tortured
conscience." Quietly and vountarily Koch
resigned his position in Braunsberg, and now
lives in private life. He is a Wurttemberger,
and, had he remained "orthodox," would un
doubtedly have been appointed to a high po
sition at Tubingen.
The German Catholic press points out to
its readers that it was nothing less than an
imperative and inevitable duty on the part
of the Holy Father to enter upon the war
fare against Modernism, which he is conduct
ing so energetically. Although the action
was prompted by the developments in Italy
and France mostly, yet we hardly believe that
the Kblner Volksseitung is quite right when
it says, "We are glad to be able to say that
there is nothing like this in Germany." Of
course, Germany is not a Catholic nation in
the sense in which this can be said of Italy,
nor does there stand at the head of the Mod
ernist movement in Germany as radical a
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GEEMANY
man as Loisy in France; but let us not for
get that conditions, as they have developed
in regard to the anti-Modernist oath, will
sooner or later bring out the spirit of the
Teuton, as in the days of the great reformer,
Dr. Martin Luther.

107

V
ENGLAND
English Catholicism of the nineteenth cen
tury has received its best strength and tal
ents, its real life, from Protestantism. Ever
since the year 1833 has the movement of
Tractarianism brought large numbers of con
verts from Protestantism into the Catholic
fold. Among them were not a few members
of the nobility, men of science, and even
clerics of the Anglican Church. They be
lieved that the Christian doctrine had a more
genuine exemplification within the Catholic
Church than within Protestant denomina
tions; yet these men were considerably less
attracted by the Catholic theology and dogma
than by the Church ceremonies and the papal
claim of apostolic succession.
The father of Tractarianism is found in
Edward Bouverie Pusey, (born 1800; died
1882). He was the second son of the first
Viscount Folkestone, Jacob Bouverie, de-
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ENGLAND
scending from the old Huguenot family of
Bouverie. At the age of eighteen he entered
Christ Church College, Oxford, and in 1824
was elected fellow at Oriel College, where he
became intimately acquainted with J. H. New
man and John Keble. In 1828 he had at
tracted the attention of academic circles to
such a degree that the Duke of Wellington
in 1829 made him regius professor of Hebrew
and Canon of Christ Church. In 1833 his
"Tracts for the Times" had begun to ap
pear and caused a great sensation. In these
"Tracts" was promulgated the Anglican
doctrinal and religious system, known as
"Tractarianism." The principles of this
movement are known as the Oxford Move
ment, and afterwards as the Catholic or
Anglo-Catholic Eevival. In the first quarter
of the nineteenth century the principles of
the Church of England were maintained with
little zeal, and public worship and church
edifices evidenced laxity and neglect. The
first marked sign of a reaction was the ap
pearance of John Keble 's "Christian Year,"
and its phenomenal popularity. The publi
cation of the "Tracts for the Times," pre-
109

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
pared by different authors, began September
9, 1833. The first sixty-six tracts were short
papers, some original, but mostly extracts
from eminent English writers, especially of
the seventeenth century, and from Ante-
Nicene Fathers. The points especially in
sisted upon by the Tractarians in addition to
apostolic succession (the grace of the sacra
ments, and therefore belief in baptismal re
generation, the Eeal Presence of the Eucha
rist, and the power of the keys in absolution)
were regarded by many as Romish. The en
try of J. H. Newman into the Roman Catho
lic Church in 1845 intensified the feelings
against the Tractarians, but the two greatest
leaders, E. B. Pusey and John Keble, re
mained Anglicans. The Anglo-Catholic Re
vival since 1845 has assumed a more and
more practical character in the institution of
guilds, religious sisterhoods and brother
hoods, and parochial missions, improvement
of church music, introduction or revival of
hymns and popular devotions, restoration
and building of churches. The principal
phases of the Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic
movement have reproduced themselves to a
110

ENGLAND
large extent in the Episcopal Church of the
United States.
E. B. Pusey in 1834 joined the forces of
High-Churchism, which after that formed
the purpose and task of his life. He exer
cised a great and decisive influence upon the
character and events of the movement, but
was not responsible for the foundation of the
new party. He threw himself into the study
of the Fathers and of those Anglicans who
in the seventeenth century had not succeeded
in realizing their idea that the "Old Church,"
i. e., the Mediaeval Church, in spite of Roman
deformations, had been the only true expres
sion of the Church of Christ, and from these
studies Pusey 's ideas of the Church received
a decisive influence. In this he, together with-
Keble and Newman, edited, after 1836, the
"Oxford Library of the Fathers of the Holy
Catholic Church, Anterior to the Division of
the East and West" (50 vols., Oxford, 1838-
85). In a lecture on the "Book of Common
Prayer" he asserted, long before Newman,
that many genuinely Catholic doctrines might
be upheld even with the acknowledgment of
the Thirty-nine Articles. In 1843 Pusey, in
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
a sermon, stated views which, deviating from
the conception of the sacrament current since
the Reformation, closely approached the me
diaeval sacrificial idea of the Real Presence.
In consequence he was deposed from his
office as preacher. The news of the deposi
tion created such a sensation that Pusey ad
vanced to a leading position in the struggle
of the Church, and the movement was char
acterized by the name of Puseyism.
Pusey was held in check in his sermons
as well as in his theological investigation by
a forced conservatism that strove to awaken
forgotten ideals. As a polemical writer he
possessed great gifts, but was not so pro
found in theology, as he lacked in consistence
and keenness. He directed his eye to the
past, therefore he could not comprehend the
modern spirit. A natural consequence to a
renewal of mediaeval ceremonies in worship
was his effort to harmonize with Rome and
the renewal of the mediaeval conception of the
sacrament. He vigorously protested against
such a renewal, yet he could not hinder the
renewal of ceremonies from becoming the
shibboleth of his party. Although he worked
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ENGLAND
very keenly for the harmonizing of his
Church and Catholicism, outwardly he always
remained true to the Anglican Church.
Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, a ro
bust personality and a prince in ecclesiastical
matters, probably retained to himself more
independence toward the Roman Church than
any other bishop in the nineteenth century.
He was born in 1808 at Totteridge; studied
theology at the University of Oxford, and
was appointed rector of Lavington and Graff-
ham in Sussex, 1834, and Archdeacon of
Chichester, 1840. At this period, and when
he was two years selected preacher at Ox
ford, he published his "Unity of the Church,"
in which he ably defended the doctrine of
Anglo-Catholicism. Previous to this time he
had visited, in 1838, Rome and had seen Car
dinal Wiseman, whose successor he became
later, but he was still totally out of sympathy
with Roman Catholicism. After the conver
sion of W. G. Ward and J. H. Newman to
Roman Catholicism, Manning was left at the
head of the High Church party in the An
glican Church.
Compelled by sickness, however, in 1847
8 113

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
he took a continental tour through Belgium
and Germany to Italy, which lasted until July,
1848. Most of this time he spent in^Rome.
In April and May, 1848, he was received in
audience by Pius IX. His doubts concerning
the catholicity of the Anglican Church were
meantime increasing, although there is no
evidence that he seriously contemplated with
drawing from her communion. The conse
cration of the unorthodox Hampden to the
See of Hereford and the decision in the fa
mous Gorham case seemed to him evidence
that the Church of England was not a part
of the Church catholic. (Rev. G. C. Gorham,
having views concerning baptismal regenera
tion which were highly Calvinistic, and not
in accord with those of the Church of Eng
land, was refused to be instituted by the
Bishop of Exeter in 1847. Gorham took the
case into the Court of Arches, which sus
tained the bishop in 1849 ; he then appealed
from the decision of the spiritual court to
the judicial committee of the Privy Council,
which rendered a decision in Gorham 's favor
in 1850.) Manning resigned his archdeaconry in
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ENGLAND
1850, went to London, and there placed him
self under the instruction of the Jesuits, and
on Passion Sunday, April 6, 1851, was re
ceived into the Roman Catholic Church. On
the following Sunday he received minor or
ders, and was ordained priest on June 14th.
After residing for several years in Rome,
where he spent three years in study at the
Accademia dei Nobili Ecclesiastici, receiving
his doctorate from the pope in 1854, he began
regular work in England. With unceasing
activity in preaching and writing, he also la
bored among the poor. When in 1865 Cardi
nal Wiseman died, the pope ignored the
names submitted to him by the chapter, nom
inating Manning as Wiseman's successor as
Archbishop of Westminster, London. A
rigid disciplinarian, he spared neither him
self nor others, and worked consistently in
an ultramontane spirit to advance Roman
Catholicism in England. He founded the
Roman Catholic University of Kensington in
1874; this was an unsuccessful attempt, for
this institution remained open only from 1874
to 1878. More success, however, was attained
by him in the promotion of parochial schools.
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
He gained additional prominence in 1870, as
he took a very active part in the Council of
the Vatican, defending the dogma of the in
fallibility of the pope.
On March 15, 1875, he was created a car
dinal, receiving the hat December 31, 1877,
when he was in Rome. When attending the
conclave, after the death of Pius IX, Febru
ary 7, 1878, although some of the Italian car
dinals were prepared to vote for him as
pope, he cast his ballot for Cardinal Pecci
(Leo XIII). With the new pope he was less
in sympathy, and so for the remainder of
his life his chief interests were social ques
tions, especially total abstinence, for the ad
vancement of which he founded a "League
of the Cross," which in 1874 already had
numbered in London alone some thirty thou
sand members. He was likewise extremely
active in the cause of labor, and his urgent
advocacy of the claims of the working classes
drew upon him the charge of Socialism, al
though he rightly denied the truth of the as
sertion. In 1889 he assisted in settling the
strike of the longshoremen, while he was also
active in movement for the suppression of
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ENGLAND
the East African slave-trade and Hindu
child-marriage, in addition to advocating the
raising of the minimum age for child-labor.
Cardinal Manning was a Christian So
cialist, public-spirited, broad in his sympa
thies, and a friend of the laboring classes.
As an independent cleric he criticised re
peatedly with severe words the church-
politics of the Vatican. In the nine "Hin
drances" (published by his biographer, E. C.
Purcell, 2 volumes, London, 1895), which
were in the way of extending the cause of
Catholicism in England, Cardinal Manning
accuses the Church of Rome most severely
for the disintegrating influence of the Jesuits,
the alienation of ritualism, the intellectual in
feriority, the spiritual and social separation
of the Catholics from Protestants. These
were the same conditions in England, which
were profoundly and keenly felt by the Re
form-Catholics in Germany. Herman Schell
repeatedly for the defense of his position re
ferred the Vatican authorities to Manning's
"Hindrances," for they even excelled
Schell 's writings on reform within the Roman
Church. Manning was a prolific writer, and
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
his works reveal a man of sincere conviction,
earnest faith, and noble character. He was
pre-eminently an ecclesiastic and a diplomat.
The most prominent of his writings are:
"The True Story of the Vatican Council,"
"Independence of the Holy See," "Four
Great Evils of the Day," "The Temporal
Power of the Pope," "England and Christen
dom," "The Church and Modern Society,"
etc. Manning had been too long in the fold
of the Protestant Church; he had been too
closely connected with the Church of his
youth; consequently the spirit of the Refor
mation remained to a great extent within his
heart. This is especially noticeable in his
later years, in his keen reaction against Cath
olic Ultramontanism.
Cardinal John Henry Newman (born 1801
and died 1890) is not an ecclesiastic simply,
but a theologian with a fine and profound
spirit. When he refers to the Christianity
of the New Testament as the immortal and
practical ideal, when he finds in one's per
sonal experience and in one's testimony of
the conscience the last instance for the proof
of Christianity, when he grants to the con-
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ENGLAND
science of the individual under certain cir
cumstances the right to disregard even some
decrees of the pope, we find here memories
of the Christianity under whose light he had
been reared and under whose shadows he
grew to manhood. The name of this eminent
Englishman must be mentioned in connec
tion with English Modernism. It is, however,
impossible to mention Newman's name with
out reverence and regret — the name of the
man who wrote in June, 1833, while traveling
in an orange-boat from Palermo to Marseilles,
the famous verses, "Lead, kindly Light."
He was born free. Oh, that he had but been
able to retain his birthright ; but he forfeited
it to his own loss and that of many others.
Newman was in no sense a Modernist.
He accepted the papacy because it was an
essential part of his conception of the
Church: to be a Catholic, in the sense in
which he understood the word, without the
pope was, he saw, a contradiction in terms.
But no Modernist was ever more alive to the
weak points in the theory of Catholicism or
to the defective working of its practical sys
tem than he. He may be regarded as the
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Father of Modernism in this sense, that he
gave currency to certain root-ideas of the
movement. His theory of the development
of Christian doctrine, applied on a restricted
field, accounted for the differences between
the ancient and the mediaeval Church; taken
largely, it involved an outlook over religion
and history which he could no doubt have
repudiated, but which, equally without doubt,
owes its diffusion to him. Professor Karl
Holl says: "In spite of certain and not un
essential differences, although it is doubted
by interested parties, one fact remains — Car
dinal Newman is the father of English Mod
ernism. No one has exerted such an influence
upon the men who are to-day at the head of
the Modernist movement in England as he."
With Keble and Pusey, Newman was as
sociated in the "Oxford Movement." As
Dean Church says, "Keble gave the inspira
tion, and Newman did the work." Tn 1838
he published "Lectures on Justification,"
also his tract on "Antichrist." These pub
lications were largely responsible for the
formation of a school of opinion, which even
tually came into collision with the nation and
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the nation's Church. At about this time
Newman became editor of the British Critic,
which was used as the chief organ of Trac
tarianism. His influence was already wide.
During the years in which the Tractarian
movement held sway Newman wrote twenty-
four tracts. The famous "Tract 90" he
wrote in 1841, the outcome of which was that
the movement came under the ban, and New
man's position was no longer tenable. When
he wrote his "Essay on the Development of
Christian Doctrine" (1845), his doubts re
specting the Roman Catholic Church gradu
ally vanished, and he was received into that
Church on October 9, 1845. This event was
of far-reaching importance to the Church of
England and brought about the end of the
Oxford Movement. In October, 1846, he went
to Eome, where he was ordained priest and
received the doctorate. He became a very
important factor in 1850, when the Eoman
hierarchy of England was restored, also
called the Papal Aggression. This move
produced a violent anti-Catholic agitation.
In reply to an adverse criticism made by
Charles Kingsley in 1864, Newman issued his
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
"Apologia pro Vita Sua," a work which has
been regarded a triumphant vindication of
his integrity and honesty of purpose through
out his life.
Dr. Johannes Kubel, author of "Ge
schichte des katholischen Modernismus,"
writes the following words concerning the
work of Newman: "A few years before his
conversion to Catholicism he sought in vain
the genuine holiness and the fruits of regen
eration in the Eoman Church ; and in his last
years he confessed to a friend he would never
have found the courage to affiliate with the
Papal Church had he really known the Cath
olic Church from within. In spite of this
fact he remained a Catholic; for in Catholi
cism he saw the only possibility to flee from
skepticism. He could not believe in God
without believing in the Church. But prac
tical Catholicism disappointed him as it had
disappointed Manning and the other great
English converts. 'In the vicinity of Peter's
Eock rages malaria,' Newman wrote at times.
It has been characteristic that Newman re
tained the independence of theological think
ing in the second half of his Catholic life.
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ENGLAND
Whoever has absorbed through forty years
of his life modern culture and civilization
will not become a scholastic in spite of his
conversion." When the pope in 1907 deliv
ered his encyclical against Modernism, which
is known as the Syllabus of 1907, there is no
doubt that some propositions had been aimed
at the teachings of Newman, not at Loisy
alone. Newman had actually influenced
Loisy and other historians of the dogma. Of
course, to reject Newman would simply mean
for the Eoman Church to reject one of the
greatest men in Anglo-Catholicism. Yet that
had been done by the Papal Church before.
Prophets have been killed and their graves
decorated. The best services of her great
sons have often been placed under the ban.
The case of Abby Loisy, who had dis
claimed a speculative philosophy, was ex
tensively discussed in 1904 in Anglican and
Anglo-Catholic circles. The alliance between
the French Modernists and the English Mod
ernists — or, as they had been called, based
upon Newman's work, "advanced Catholics,"
also "progressive Catholics" — this alliance
had been brought about by Freiherr Fried-
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
rich von Fliigel, a friend of Loisy. He came
from an Austrian family of nobility; by
family relations, however, he became a Brit
ish citizen. The PMot, as the organ of An
glican orthodoxy, The Hibbert Journal, also
The Times, published articles for and against
Loisy. H. C. Corrance, a leader among Eng
lish Modernists, explained the orthodox
Protestant, the liberal Protestant, and the
modern Catholic historical position in such
a manner that he claims it is really not a
question of historical criticism, nor a ques
tion of diverse establishment, but a question
of several religio-philosophical theories. The
facts are the same always; only, orthodox
Protestantism sees in history here the work
of God and there the work of the devil ; lib
eral Protestantism differentiates between di
vine origin and the continuous work of man;
true Catholicism considers the whole develop
ment in Church history as only the work of
God : this latter point then justifies the Cath
olic dogma.
The noblest personality and unquestion
ably the leader of the Modernistic movement
in England was a member of the Jesuit or-
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ENGLAND
der, Father George Tyrrell. Professor Karl
Holl says, "In Father Tyrrell the religious
motive is found at its strongest and purest."
His case is somewhat different from those
already mentioned, for his variation from
the official teaching can not be so definitely
determined as in the case of Loisy. Father
Tyrrell's books, published with the official
sanction, were of a popular religious char
acter, and although they were obviously in
compatible with the strict scholastic system,
they were published with the official sanction
of the Church authorities. The immediate
cause of the excommunication of Father Tyr
rell was a personal letter, afterward printed
under the title of "A Much Abused Let
ter," written to an Italian professor to urge
him to remain in the Eoman communion,
even if many items in teaching and practice
of the Church seemed contrary to his con
victions and distasteful to his feelings. It
was plain here that Father Tyrrell's point
of view was not that of his correspondent;
apparently, therefore, Tyrrell's condemna
tion was brought upon him because he spoke
in a slighting way of the administration of
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
the Church and failed to hold that scholas
ticism was absolutely involved in the Eoman
Catholic system of belief. Unconsciously he
lived on his Protestant inheritance. He
studied in the school of Augustine and
Thomas a. Kempis, in order to absorb the
evangelical elements.
George Tyrrell grew up as a boy in Dub
lin, receiving the major part of his educa
tion in Trinity College, Dublin. After his
graduation he felt the attraction of the Eo
man Catholic Church to such a degree that
he took the vows of the Jesuit order. He
was an Irishman in every fiber of his nature,
with Irish wit, impulsiveness, and large-
hearted generosity of temper and of affec
tions. In regard to religion, however — for it
was with that central subject that the intel
lect, or rather the whole nature, of the youth,
George Tyrrell, came keenly to concern it
self — in the Dublin of that time, as indeed in
Ireland generally, every one belonged to one
of two opposing camps, the Catholic or the
Protestant. The Puritan and the anti-Cath
olic sentiment, once so prevalent, is now not
so keenly felt, owing to certain circum-
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stances; the first of these is the wide exten
sion through the length and breadth of the
modern Church of England of the ideals and
influence of the Oxford Movement. The sec
ond is the existence of a widespread mass
of indifference to all organized religion, es
pecially among the working classes in great
centers of population. George Tyrrell's se
cession from the Protestant garrison to the
opposing Catholic camp needed a good deal
of quiet and lonely courage. Among the
main elements in Tyrrell's spiritual and in
tellectual equipment, however, was the in
fluence of Newman's writings. For a great
part of his career, at least, he was as far
as was possible for so original a thinker a
disciple of the Newman school; yes, more
than that, a teacher and an evangelist for
Newman's principles. It is scarcely an ex
aggeration to say that Tyrrell was the most
striking personality among the followers of
Newman, certainly of those who became so
after the cardinal's retirement.
The great cardinal was not a Modernist
in the sense of many others, except in his
methods. And yet from the "Grammar of
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Assent," that fruitful seed-plot of neo-
Catholic Pragmatism, Tyrrell learned the ne
cessity of appealing to the whole man, to
the emotional and volitional as well as to
the intellectual elements of his complex be
ing, if the man is to be brought into alle
giance to truth, and is to steer his course
aright as his spirit goes sounding on his
dim and perilous way. From the "Essay
on Development of Christian Doctrine" he
learned that looking backward is but a pa
thetic fallacy, unless it be to see in Scrip
ture the principles revealed in the first dawn
of Christianity which are to guide it to its
goal. Tyrrell learned also that, in Newman 's
words, "to grow is to change, and to be per
fect is to have changed often."
For twelve years Father Tyrrell was
recognized as one of the most daring and
brilliant of the Jesuit writers. In 1906 he
published in an English paper an article
which was rejected by his superiors in the
society as extremely heretical. He promul
gated theories of hell and punishment after
death which were contrary to the doctrines
of Eoman Catholicism, and brought down
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ENGLAND
upon his head heavy storms of ecclesiastical
criticism. In the same article he expressed
some sympathy with the opinions put for
ward by the scientist, Saint George Mivart,
who had some years previously been excom
municated by Cardinal Vaughn. When or
dered by the authorities to recant his heresy
he refused, but afterward withdrew from the
order. He appeared on the battleground as a
leader of the Modernist movement in 1904,
the year which is filled at first with M.
Loisy 's troubles, and throughout with Father
Tyrrell's. For M. Loisy, after Eome's re
jection of three successive forms of submis
sion and non-acknowledgment of the fourth
declaration, abandoned in March his Sor-
bonne lectureship and retired to live in the
country. Beginning with January, Father
Tyrrell circulated, amongst those who re
quired this information, his anonymous "Let
ter to a Professor of Anthropolgy," a bro
chure which was destined to bring him the
second-greatest of his trials ; in January and
February appeared, or were simply printed,
his articles "Semper Eadem," that caused
9 129

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
much commotion. In the same year appeared
his book "Lex Orandi," which revealed the
differences between him and traditional Ca
tholicism. So May 2, 1904, he wrote to his
intimate friend, Friedrich von Fliigel, "I
have no sympathy with virulent anti-clerical
ism and scandal-mongering, but I feel more
and more, with Lord Acton, that the principle
of Ultramontanism is profoundly immoral
and un-Christian. " At the end of August
and the beginning of September, 1904, he
addressed a request to be secularized to the
general of the Jesuit order, also a full state
ment of his views concerning the official ideas
and policy of this order. His sincerity is
seen after receiving the answer from the
general (he did not like his position, for the
general said nothing about taking any steps
for Father Tyrrell's secularization), when
on October 11th he wrote to his friend, von
Fliigel: "I do not see how I could with self-
respect have done less than I have done.
I am resolute that there shall be no sign of
bitterness or of ungenerosity. I have num
berless dear Jesuit friends whose least hair
I would not harm." Throughout 1905 the
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negotiations for his leaving the order and
finding a bishop to receive him proceeded
very slowly, with difficulties, but with little
or no bitterness on either side. On February
20, 1906, the Daily Chronicle published a
dignified letter from Father Tyrrell, saying,
' ' The conflict, such as it is, is one of opinion
and tendencies, not of persons; it is the re
sult of mental and moral necessities, created
by the antithesis with which the Church is
wrestling in this period of transition." He
was then outside his former order, and he
was still without a bishop to give him an
ecclesiastical status. These privileges, for
merly considered so important by him, he
never regained.
The break between him and the Church
occurred in 1906. George Mivart, professor
of Anthropology, complained to Father Tyr
rell about the incompatibility of his own sci
entific conclusions with Catholic belief. Tyr
rell sought to reconcile the professor in a
letter, and consequently made certain state
ments very friendly to modern scientific re
search. His troubles with the general of the
Order of the Jesuits came to a head by the
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
appearance in the Corriere della Sera, a Mi
lanese newspaper, of an unauthorized Italian
translation of part of his "Letter to a Pro
fessor of Anthropology," with the divulga
tion of the letter's authorship. Archbishop
Ferrari, of Milan, informed the Jesuit gen
eral, and Tyrrell was then expelled from the
order. This confidential "Letter to a Pro
fessor," where he endeavored to persuade
his friend to remain in the fold of the Eoman
Catholic Church even if he could not counte
nance the extravagant interpretation of the
Catholic claims, was put on the Index of
books not to be read by good Catholics. In
"A Much Abused Letter" Father Tyrrell
prints the letter itself with the facts of the
incident and his own explanation.
In 1907 Father Tyrrell published an ar
ticle in II Binnovamento under the title
"From God or from Man?" a keen treatise
against "Sacerdotalism," the bureaucracy
and red-tapeism of the priests, especially
against the absolute exaggeration of the
pope-thought, an exaggeration which has
shown great power since the Vatican Council.
The Church should be there for the pope, and
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ENGLAND
not the pope for the Church. The article
closed with the vision of the time when the
Church will return to the deep-Christian and
deep-Catholic idea of the democratic charac
ter of all authority and freedom with which
Christ has liberated humanity. The year
1907 brought the culmination of the troubles.
In May, Cardinals Steinhuber and Ferrari
censured and prohibited II Binnovamento in
the pope's name, and excommunicated the
editors. In July the Holy Office's decree
"Lamentabili Sane" condemned sixty-five
propositions, mostly of a directly historico-
critical kind.
At the same time many of Tyrrell's
friends, among them chiefly de la Fourriere
of Storrington, worked for Father Tyrrell's
rehabilitation. The pope permitted him to
celebrate the mass ; of course, under the ex
orbitant condition "not to hold epistolary
correspondence without the previous appro
bation of a competent person designated by
the bishop." Father Tyrrell refused to ac
cept the condition; he would not ask his
nearest friend to share the responsibility of
an action that was all his own, although he
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
had accepted the clause of ordinary corre
spondence, even though on religious topics.
In his book ' ' Through Scylla and Charyb-
dis, or the Old Theology and the New," he
gives a vivid account of his theological and
religious development. His aim had been to
liberate religion from every theological and
dogmatic bond. According to Loisy 's state
ment, the theologians of the encyclical had
found most of their material in Tyrrell's
book. Later he wrote to a friend: "Looking
back, our mistake has been our zeal to help
the disturbed intelligence of the minority to
hold on to the Church. Our 'synthesis'
raised theological difficulties in solving his
torical, and the officials have fastened on the
former and have ignored the latter." He
also admitted that his "Lex Orandi" and
Loisy 's "L'Evangile et L'Eglise" were writ
ten for needs that Eome has never felt.
Tyrrell made advances to the Old Catholics
shortly before his death, which occurred
July 19, 1909.
Tyrrell's "Medisevalism," the final burn
ing of his bridge, is a book which lives from
start to finish. It is the Modernist's deelara-
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ENGLAND
tion of war against the Ultramontanism
which exploits Catholicism and which justi
fies the saying of the German philosopher,
Baader, uttered years ago, that "Catholi
cism is the strength of popery, while popery
is the weakness of Catholicism." The deep
est and most characteristic of his books,
written shortly before his death, was un
doubtedly ' ' Christianity at the Cross-Eoads. ' '
Here he showed that he was increasingly
conscious of the mistake of Liberal Protes
tantism, and refused to accept its one-sided
attempt at solution of the religious problem.
He never parted with the view that, however
apparently startling the incidental changes
in the course of its long development, Cath
olic Christianity is one organism, fundamen
tally the same, whether in its earlier and
rudimentary or its later and more articulated
condition. Father Tyrell in the last months of his
life lived near the ancestral home of Miss
Maud Petre, and she became a confidential
friend of the excommunicated Modernist.
Miss Petre is a member of a prominent Eng
lish family which for many generations has
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
been conspicuously devoted to the Eoman
Catholic faith, and she herself continues very
lcyal to the traditions of her fathers. Un
expectedly she was made the target of a very
sudden persecution directed from the Vatican
at Rome. The courage with which the little
woman has resisted the dragooning provokes
great admiration. On account of having be
come a confidential friend of the excommuni
cated Modernist solely, and without other
word or act of her own to justify the suspi
cion, she was marked by bigoted cardinals
at Eome as a probable heretic, and twice the
demand has been made of her, in order to
clear herself of this suspicion, that she must
certify over her own signature that she ac
cepts to the letter the encyclical and decree
in which three years ago the present pope
denounced Modernism as a mortal sin and
commanded all Catholics to renounce it. The
first demand was that she should send her
declaration in this matter to the Vatican.
She replied that if her life did not testify
to her faith, her signature would be entirely
in vain. This brought out, after some
months, the second demand that, as a con-
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ENGLAND
dition of receiving the sacraments in her
Church, she must publish in the public press
the affirmation that she accepted the pope's
encyclical. To this she made answer again
that she could undertake such a solemn action
only if she were assured by the pope himself
that his pronouncement on Modernism is as
much a part of the infallible faith as the
Apostles' Creed. This aftermath shows the
spirit of the Vatican that is yet prevalent
against the Modernist Tyrrell.
The articles of the great English Modern
ist were condemned by the Holy Office. He
was deprived by the pope in 1907 of the right
to administer the sacraments. Boldly he an
swered by a criticism of the papal encyclical
on "Modernism," stating that it was di
rected against him and his friends; that it
was not pastoral but polemic and argumenta
tive. He said "the bishops would obey, but
eventually Modernism would progress with
redoubled vigor, like a river which, having
been damned up for a time, was set free
from its barriers." Father Tyrrell did not
recant, and so could not be absolved nor
buried in consecrated ground.
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vr
AUSTEIA
Austeia is essentially a Eoman Catholic na
tion where the problem of Modernism is not
so much a problem touching the historico-
critical and theological side of the question,
as seen in France or England, but rather the
practical side of it. The cry in past years has
been for practical reform. Before mention
of two theologians can be made, however, we
must consider a movement within the Eoman
Church of Austria which has grown to such
an extent that from the year 1898 to Decem
ber 31, 1910, the official figures show that
60,744 persons left the papal Church and
affiliated themselves with evangelical Church
bodies. This movement is known as the ' ' Los
von Rom Bewegung;" i. e., Away from
Rome, or Free from Rome Movement.
This is one of the most interesting fea
tures of recent religious life. It has taken
place during the past half century. In the
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AUSTRIA
beginning of the nineteenth century it seemed
to be unquestioned that the bounds of Prot
estantism and Romanism were finally settled,
and that a new reformation was not to be
looked for. But the middle of the century
saw a great intellectual, political, and re
ligious awakening, which was destined to
have unexpected results in the ecclesiastical
world. It became impossible to maintain the
persecuting laws against Protestants which
characterized all Roman Catholic countries,
and these laws gradually disappeared or were
mitigated, and Protestant mission work be
gan. These missions have been carried on
with varying success, partly by small native
Protestant Churches, partly by missionary
societies of England, America, and Germany.
But the movement away from Rome has not
been due entirely or mainly to these mis
sionary efforts ; it has been due to movements
of various kinds within the Church of Rome
herself. The middle of the last century was char
acterized in political matters by a fierce
struggle between absolutism and democracy.
We find that in the ecclesiastical world also
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
a similar struggle has taken place between
Ultramontanism and the desire for greater
freedom. The growth of political liberty
made men dissatisfied with the despotism of
the Vatican. In the political world democ
racy triumphed, but in the ecclesiastical Ul
tramontanism won the day, and the result of
its victory was the Vatican Council and the
Decree of Papal Infallibility. Some of the
bishops who fought in the Council against the
decree, with Dollinger at the head, launched
the Old Catholic Church. This organization,
however, in its friendship for Protestantism,
has drawn more and more away from the
characteristic doctrines of Romanism, and in
some places it now serves as a temporary
spiritual resting-place for those who are dis-
contended with Rome, but not yet prepared
for the decisive step of adopting a thoroughly
evangelical Protestantism.
A movement away from Rome which was
at first promising, but in the end proved
more or less abortive, was that known as
German Catholicism (Deutschkatholizismus).
It was a reform movement which arose within
the Roman Catholic Church in Germany in
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AUSTRIA
the middle of the nineteenth century, and
which also led to the formation of separate
congregations. The immediate occasion was
the solemn exhibition of what purported to
be the seamless coat of Christ by Bishop Ar-
noldi in Treves in 1844. This was intended
to demonstrate that the Roman Catholic pop
ulation rendered unconditional obedience to
the leadership of their clergy. Johannes
Ronge, a young priest, thirty-one years old,
published an open letter to Bishop Arnoldi
as a trenchant protest against the "idola
trous celebration." In this letter the con
tradiction between the veneration of relics
and the spirit of true Christianity is sharply
emphasized. Ronge refused to retract this
open letter, was excommunicated and de
graded, left the Roman Church, but con
tinued the literary controversy in a series of
pamphlets, in which he demanded the aboli
tion of celibacy, of auricular confession, and
of Latin as the ecclesiastical language, and
called for the formation of the German Cath
olic Church. Another priest, Johann Czerski,
had already put these thoughts into practice.
Ronge modernized the Apostles' Creed as
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
follows: "I believe in God, the Father, who
through His almighty word created the world
and rules it in wisdom, righteousness, and
love. I believe in Jesus Christ, our Savior,
who by His teachings, His life, and His death
has ransomed us from the bondage of sin.
I believe in the sway (Walten) of the Holy
Ghost on earth. I believe in a holy, universal
Christian Church, the communion of the
faithful, the forgiveness of sins, and an eter
nal life." At the same time the congrega
tions proclaimed the principle of complete
freedom of conscience and the freedom of
scientific investigation. Eonge began his agi
tation by making journeys throughout Ger
many, and it seemed as if a great day was
dawning for German Catholicism. In 1847
there were already two hundred and fifty-
nine congregations with eighty-eight minis
ters. The movement attracted notice even in
foreign countries. But finally both men,
Ronge and Czerski, from objecting to com
pulsory dogmas went on apace to thrusting
all dogmas aside, and so a breach with the
Christian faith resulted.
At the start German Catholicism was not
142

AUSTRIA
without certain prospects, for it voiced de
mands and represented ideas which corre
sponded to the mood of the times and con
tained much that was good. But that which
Ronge and Czerski lacked was that wherein
the entire movement was deficient : the power
to proceed from negative criticism of the
faults of the Roman Church to the formation
of a purer Catholic Church. This impotence
was rooted in the lack of religious produc
tivity. The German Catholic movement
brought forth not a single personality able
to lead others as a prophet. Though it may
also be granted that persecution by the civil
power was not without influence on the de
cline of the movement, nevertheless in the
last analysis the decisive reasons for failure
were in its own make-up.
Now the remains of this once promising
movement are associated with the Union of
Free Religious Congregations. The German-
speaking Roman Catholics, originally fur
nishing the greater part of these congrega
tions, have recently given birth to a move
ment much more important, as already men
tioned: the "Los von Rom" movement in
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Austria. For a long time there has been a
considerable alienation of both the German
and Slav inhabitants of Austria from the
Church of Rome and its services ; but whether
this would have led to a movement toward
Protestantism, and what form such a move
ment might have taken, it is difficult to con
jecture. The actual initiation of the move
ment toward Protestantism was due to a
combination of racial and political influences.
The war of 1866 with Prussia had trans
ferred the leadership of the German States
to that State, and eventually, after the de
feat of France, had led to the formation of
the German Empire, from which Austria was
excluded. This loss of political position and
power was keenly felt by the Austrian Ger
mans, who saw themselves displaced by a new
Protestant power from the position they had
occupied for ages, and the explanation that
forced itself on many minds was that Ro
manism had sapped the vigor of their race.
Their resentment against Rome was inten
sified by the attitude Rome assumed in the
racial struggles between Germans and Slavs.
Having found France an ineffectual instru-
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AUSTRIA
ment for the promotion of its political claims,
the Vatican began to throw its influence on
the side of the Slavs, against the Germans,
in order to build up a strong Slav Catholic
power on which it could depend. Bitter anti-
Roman political feeling was excited by this,
and at length, on November 5, 1898, Scho-
nerer, the leader of the German National
party, made an appeal for a secession from
Rome, issuing the watchword by which it has
been known since, "Los von Rom." The
movement has been pronounced purely a po
litical maneuver, but this misrepresents its
character entirely.
There existed at the time in Austria a
pronounced religious dissatisfaction, out of
which the possibility of the political move
ment arose. Even at the beginning many
came out under the cover of the political pas
sion of the moment whose impelling motive
was religious. After two or three years the
political element began rapidly to recede into
the background, and finally became entirely
subordinate, till eventually it almost disap
peared. The secessions have taken place
almost entirely from the German-speaking
10 145

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
portions of the population. Those who are
most familiar with the Czech portions of Bo
hemia consider that the conditions exist for
an important movement from Rome, but for
the present the priests have succeeded in
utilizing the strong racial hatred to prevent
it by teaching their flocks that Protestantism
is a German religion, and to become Protes
tants is to be Germanized. The converts
have joined one or the other of the two Prot
estant confessions recognized by the govern
ment: the Augsburg or the Helvetic, mainly
the former. Besides these many have joined
the Old Catholics. According to the latest
statistics the Old Catholic Church has had,
since 1898, 16,571 accessions from Rome in
Austria. A large number also worship in
other Protestant Churches who are prevented
by fear of persecution from publicly enroll
ing themselves as Protestants. The conver
sions to Protestantism have during the past
few years remained steadily about 4,500 an
nually, the year 1910 numbering a larger
number than 1909, or exceeding it by 813
persons. The movement shows no sign of
abating yet. We give below a table of official
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AUSTRIA
figures as furnished by the secretary on Ec
clesiastical Affairs of the Empire of Austria,
showing accurately this annual deflection
from Rome:
1898.. 1,598 1903.. 4.510 1908... 4,585
1899 . . 6,385 1904 . . 4,362 1909 .. . 4,377
1900.-5,058 1905.. 4,855 1910... 5,190
1901.. 6,639 1906.. 4,364 
1902. .4,624 1907.-4,197 Total. . .60,744
So these two Churches alone have gained
from Rome, since the autumn of 1898 — a little
more than eleven years — 77,315. And these
numbers, important as they are, are only a
slight indication of the gain the movement
has brought both to the Protestants and the
Old Catholics of Austria.
There is not space to follow the move
ment in detail through the different Roman
Catholic countries. Little Belgium even has
a vigorous and growing Mission Church, al
most exclusively composed of converts from
Romanism and their children. Mixed mar
riages, which at one time used to result al
most invariably in gains to the Church of
Rome in Germany and Austria, now gener
ally mean gains to Protestantism. The losses
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
in Germany from this cause alone for recent
years have been estimated by a Roman Cath
olic authority at over one hundred thousand,
and the entire losses for the nineteenth cen
tury as at least a million. In France the re
volt from Eome, though different in its na
ture, has been no less marked. The attitude
of the Church of Eome toward the monas
teries and the schools convinced the leading
French statesmen that it was necessary to
disestablish that Church, and an act for that
purpose was carried in 1905. In Italy the
last half century has seen a great revival
of the Waldensian Church and the spreading
of its organization and activities all over the
peninsula, while the upheavals in Spain and
Portugal are too fresh in our memory to
need reporting here.
In the transformation from the political
to the religious element a very profound in
fluence has been exerted by the celebrated
Austrian novelist, Peter Eosegger, who has
shown deep interest in the movement, though
remaining nominally a Eoman Catholic. It
had been his earnest intention to purify the
Church of Eome. His celebrated book "Mein
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AUSTEIA
Himmelreich" contains his creed. This book
was widely read. The chapter "Los von
Bom" undoubtedly contained the general
view of many of the dissenters. Eosegger
honored the sacraments, believed the doc
trine of the Eoman Church in as far as it
was in harmony with the gospel, honored the
ritualism and the Church laws, but took,
however, the Eesurrection of Christ symbol
ically. But could and would not believe that
the pope is infallible. Consequently he un
derstood that the Bishop of Eome had neither
divine nor other right to consider himself
lord and master over all earthly potentates
and peoples. "Why am I not allowed with
my Alpine people to hear our mother tongue
in the services? It is hard for the layman
to understand, when the Catholic worship is
conducted everywhere in a language under
stood by nobody. If Latin had only been the
language of Christ, it might perhaps be dif
ferent; there might be an excuse. But the
Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles so
that they should preach to all creatures in
their respective tongues. We can humbly
adore the divine in religion, without under-
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
standing it, but the human — that is the form,
the ritualism — we desire to understand that.
When the Church of Eome has become a
matter of indifference to some, when others
have entirely lost their confidence in her, and
yet they still believe in Christianity as such,
may they not affiliate with something higher
that will lift them up morally and strengthen
them spiritually, whether it is Protestantism
or Old Catholicism?" Eosegger plainly de
scribed the conditions among the peasants of
Styria in a vivid manner, the abuses of relics
and ceremonies, the auricular confession, etc.
If he took the Eesurrection symbolically, he
explained it was only for the reason that he
could understand it better thus.
Albert Ehrhard, professor of Church His
tory in Vienna, now at Strassburg, ventured
in the fall of 1901 upon a rather daring un
dertaking when he published his book, "Ca
tholicism and the Twentieth Century in the
Light of Modern Ecclesiastical Develop
ments" ("Der Katholizismus und das zwan-
zigste Jahrhundert im Lichte der kirchlichen
Entwickelung der Neuzeit"). It was the
aim of this book to show by historical proof
150

AUSTEIA
that it is unjust to take the Middle Ages as
the model period for all times. The value
of mediaeval developments is only relative;
but an irresistible development has continued
from those centuries to modern culture. This
development was not simply the product of
Protestantism, but rather neutral in relation
to denominations. The attacks upon the Eo
man Catholic Church in the "Los von Bom"
movement prompted Ehrhard to write this
book. He is convinced that the imperfections
and abuses within the Church of Eome, as
shown in the practical life, must be remedied
by the Vatican, yet he would not do that in
public. In spite of this reluctance this book
was a noteworthy attempt to reform the
Church in Austria. It was later greatly re
gretted that such a scholarly man could be
quieted by the Vatican.
"Eeform-Catholicism, where are you?"
asks, after Ehrhard 's and Schell 's futile at
tempts, the active and rather peculiar leader
of the Christian Socialistic party, Prelate
Schleicher. Eeform work is being done by
this party, of course, in the sense of Ultra
montanism. Ehrhard says the theological
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
life of the Austrian clerics is of a rather low
type. Seminaries for priests are more nu
merous than the theological faculties in uni
versities. The faculites have the same an
cient curriculum as the seminaries ; it is their
endeavor to give the minimum of theological
education. In 1907 Ehrhard was requested
by the authorities either to be silent or,
should he continue in his reform effort
against the Church of Eome, to stay within
a certain prescript limit. He knew the limit
too well; his serious mistake was not that
he could be forced to keep silent, but that
he ever attempted to reform.
A man coming in conflict with the pope's
encyclical was Professor Ludwig Wahrmund,
who delivered in February, 1908, in Inns
bruck a profound lecture. on "The Catholic
View of the World and Liberal Science."
This lecture was printed, and in a few months
forty-four editions of the pamphlet were sold
and distributed. Wahrmund never attempted
to explain the essence of the philosophy of
the Catholic Church; only the favorable cir
cumstances of time under which the lecture
was delivered was the cause of the excite-
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AUSTEIA
ment. Quickly this professor was trans
ferred from Innsbruck to Prague; yet it
should justly be remembered that Wahrmund
read law, and not theology, therefore clerical
ism had no right to transfer him from Inns
bruck to Prague.
The theological training of the Catholic
clergy is given partly by the faculties of the
various universities and partly by the dio
cesan seminaries. The course given by the
seminaries corresponds essentially to that
given by the university faculties, but the
seminaries are forbidden to confer academic
decrees, and the bishop is in absolute control.
Certain orders provide for the education of
their own members in twenty monastic
schools, yearly courses being given in suc
cessive years in different monasteries in
Tyrol. The increase made by Eoman Catholics
in the last decade of the nineteenth century
was but 9.12 per cent, while the evangelicals
of the Augsburg Confession showed an in
crease of 15.17 per cent during the same pe
riod, as against 9.28 made by them in the
preceding decade. The Helvetian Confession
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
also made a gain of 6.67 per cent in that
decade. In Bohemia alone the Evangelical
gain was 20.06 per cent, in Styria 25.9 per
cent, and in lower Austria 37.01 per cent.
Only in Silesia and Galicia did the increase
of Evangelicals fail to keep pace with the
gain in population, this being due to the in
creasing emigration from the German dis
tricts of West Silesia and the German colo
nies in Galicia, an additional factor being the
immigration of Galician workmen to Silesia
to work in the coal mines.
In connection with the de-Eomanizing
process in Austria we must in this chapter
refer to a similar movement among the Ro
man Catholic Poles of the western provinces
of Russia. This movement is akin to the
"Los von Rom" Bewegung. It is a revolt
of the more intelligent of the Catholic popu
lation against the aggressive tactics of the
Jesuits, a revolt which in some districts has
been fanned into flame by the revelations of
loose living among the clergy, revelations
which have recently been made in several
Polish bishoprics.
The new sect, which has assumed the name
154

AUSTRIA
of "Mariarites," finds favor in the eyes of
the Russian authorities, probably for polit
ical reasons, for it has always been the policy
of the Czar's government to exercise pres
sure on the Vatican by favoring every move
ment of revolt against the Roman Church.
The "Mariarites" have now practically
spread over the whole of Eussian Poland in
more or less loose communities, and are found
as far north as the confines of Lithuania and
as far south as the borders of the Ukraine.
It is computed that the movement already
numbers no less than five hundred thousand.
While retaining some of the peculiar doc
trines of the Eoman Catholic Church — for ex
ample, the belief in the purgatory and in the
power of the Virgin Mary — they have thrown
overboard everything which gives the priests
any sacrificial or sacerdotal authority. The
belief in the Eeal Presence they regard as
idolatrous. Equally explicit is their nega
tion of the dogma of papal infallibility. In
a recent pastoral by their bishop, Johann
Kowalski, the following remarkable passage
occurs, "The Kingdom of God is a kingdom
of light, of love, and of peace; a kingdom
155

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
which gives all men liberty and equality in
Christ." Another significant passage gives
the attitude which the new Church assumes
towards the Bible. "One of our principal
duties," says the bishop in another letter to
his clergy, "is the proclamation of the gos
pel. Our lives shall be as the mirror to
Christ's gospel. The gospel is our highest
law, our light on the road of life. In every
Mariarite house the gospel must find a place,
and every member of the family must be
versed in its contents."
The Mariarites have established friendly
relations with the Old Catholics of Holland,
and their bishop, Johann Kowalski, has been
consecrated by Bishop Gerhard Gul, the Old
Catholic Bishop of Utrecht, on October 5,
1909. The new Church has little difficulty in
obtaining money from its supporters. Its
leaders are even thinking of establishing a
mission to the heathen in the eastern prov
inces of Siberia.

156

vn
SPAIN
"Why spill so much ink over Spain? Are
there not nineteen million Catholics there to
guard the Church?" asks a correspondent in
the Catholic Citizen of September, 10, 1910.
The matter is in the newspapers, and the
Catholic press is now compelled to present
the Catholic side of it ; they must pay atten
tion to and worry respecting the Spanish sit
uation, realizing that their publicity is lim
ited, and that the current of public opinion
runs adversely to the Eoman Church. They
do find it exceedingly difficult to persuade the
non-Catholic American public that the Vati
can is right on this Spanish question, when
the majority of Spanish dailies, and appar
ently the majority of the thinking and pro
gressive Spanish people, are supporting the
anti-papal view. Under the Jesuit yoke
Spain, so little understood outside of its own
borders, is earnestly struggling to be free.
157

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Spain is evidently tired of being ruled by a
venerable ecclesiastic on the banks of the
Tiber who is entirely out of sympathy with
the modern movement of society in politics,
science, education, and theology. It is also
a very restless nation.
The situation in Spain concerning Mod
ernism is not the same as found in Italy or
France, the other Latin countries on the con
tinent. We do not find strong personalities
like Salvatore Minocchi, Giovanni Gennocchi,
Giovanni Semeria, or Eomolo Murri, as we
do in Italy; for leaders like Mgr. Duchesne
and Alfred Loisy of France we look in vain.
Yet in Spain, as in the other Latin countries,
changes have taken place during the last few
years that are almost startling; they are of
fundamental significance. A third of a cen
tury ago, when Protestant missionaries first
entered Spain, they found few friends and a
country mad with open opposition. Now the
vision of thousands of the best people of
Spain has been lifted beyond the narrow bar
riers erected by the Church, and in their
hearts has been planted a longing to be in
tellectually and spiritually free. These are
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SPAIN
the present conditions that so widely prevail
there. New ideas of personal liberty in re
ligious thought and practice have already
taken root in the minds of the thinking men
of Spain. The opposition to the rule of the priests,
as dictated by the Vatican with its Italian ad
visors who are not sufficiently familiar with
the conditions in other countries, has been
growing among the Spaniards for nearly a
quarter of a century. This growth was
greatly accelerated by the successful revolt
of the French and the open break between the
papacy and the French Government. Al
though the educated classes in Spain are
Catholics by long-established national tradi
tion, and it therefore is entirely natural for
them to feel reluctant about separating from
the Church of their fathers and of their own
childhood, yet there is evidence all over this
peninsula of a strong and growing national
ism which for some time has resented, and
is now openly resisting, the interference of
Rome in purely domestic matters. It is
hardly fair for the Catholic press to brand
the leaders in this nationalism as "Atheists"
159

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
because they protest against the interference
of the Church in governmental policies.
Constitutionally Spain is not a theocratic
State. The clergy is not a part of the gov
ernment and has access to Parliament only
as the representative of a social element of
the nation, a few members of which are ap
pointed to the Senate. According to Article
Eleven of the Spanish Constitution, freedom
from molestation is guaranteed to non-Cath
olic Spanish citizens; also is the right estab
lished to perform the ceremonies of all cults
or not to practice any, which was formerly
considered a crime. Here can be seen that
the prevalent religious regime is one of tol
erance, which has often been very grossly
misused. Up to the present time the estab
lishment of non-Catholic churches or chapels
was allowed only on condition that no signs
revealing the character of the building should
be displayed, nor was the performance in
public of any religious ceremony allowed.
Another aspect of this limitation which for
eigners have noticed is the fact that within
the Royal Palace there is only a Catholic
chapel, and non-Catholic princes visiting the
160

SPAIN
Spanish royalty have to seek outside a chapel
of their national or private religious denomi
nations, while it is well known that in the
palace of the King of England Catholic
chapels are open for the use of royal visitors
professing that religion.
The Protestant missionaries of Spain
look for a brighter day. In 1910 the Cortes
encouraged the Protestant workers by reviv
ing a paragraph of the Constitution of 1869,
which declared the "Roman Catholic Apos
tolic Religion" to be the religion of the State,
but added: "In Spain and its dependencies
no person shall be molested on account of his
religious opinions, nor for the exercise of his
form of worship, as long as he respects Chris
tian morality in a becoming manner. At the
same time no other public ceremonies nor
manifestations are permitted than those of
the religion of the State." The new enact
ment authorized Protestants to make their
Church known as such by inscriptions on the
outside. The revival of the measure of tol
eration, quoted above, was accomplished by
revoking a law of 1876 which had rendered
it practically nugatory. The original meas-
161

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
ure had seemed to allow freedom of religious
opinion and worship, merely barring the
"public ceremonies" and "manifestations"
of the Protestants. The law of 1876, how
ever, interpreted the prohibition in pretty
sweeping terms, so that crosses, bells, spires,
Gothic arches and windows, and, indeed, ev
erything that looked at all religious had to
go. All the inscriptions or crosses upon
churches which were not Roman Catholic had
to be removed. It was even regarded as a
public manifestation when the singing of the
children in a school was heard on the street.
The facade of the secondary school built by
Pastor Franz Fliedner in Madrid had to be
altered because a clock, a vane, and a Gothic
arch were regarded as manifestations of a
dissenting form of worship. Cabrera had to
remove a cross from his church in Madrid.
The same thing happened with an English
chapel in Barcelona, and the German
churches in Madrid and Barcelona were cau
tiously built inside gardens and left without
towers. Other articles and decrees interfere
unwarrantably with the rights of those who
do not belong to the Roman Catholic Church.
162

SPAIN
The thirteenth paragraph of the Spanish
Constitution secures the right of expressing
his opinions to every one. The supreme tri
bunal even permits the exercise of scientific
criticism of the doctrine of the Roman Catho
lic Church and makes insult and mockery
alone punishable. But in reality persons
have been punished by the law because they
did not uncover before the host on the open
street and, when called to account, quietly
replied that their convictions would not allow
them to do so. At the same time it is cus
tomary for the Spaniards to call the host,
when carried by the priest to a dying person,
"the little God," and when carried around
in solemn procession, "the great God."
They have no idea how deeply such expres
sions offend truly religious feeling.
The law in regard to marriage in Spain
is rather peculiar. Of course, Catholicism,
being accepted as the official religion, the civil
code does not recognize the right to contract
matrimony by the civil form except to non-
Catholics. The Catholics perform it oanon-
ically, and the State only intervenes in the
act by the presence of a municipal judge or
163

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
a delegate who draws up a license by virtue
of which the marriage is recorded in the Civil
Eegistry. The civil power in this matter,
therefore, is subordinate to the ecclesiastic.
In regard to the requirements exacted from
parties contracting matrimony before a mu
nicipal judge, the liberal government resolved
to amplify the formula by exempting the con
tracting parties from the obligation that has
always been placed on Catholics. This con
cession was not approved by the clericals;
they feared that some broad-minded Catho
lics, if relieved of that declaration, might con
tract a civil marriage, and so they later in
duced the conservative government to revoke
the royal decree of the Liberals.
The number of priests paid by the State
is nearly forty thousand. These regular or
monastic clericals (friars) enjoyed practi
cally absolute freedom to establish them
selves in Spain; hence in these later years
numerous orders proceeding from the Phil
ippine Islands and from France have estab
lished themselves in that country, although
an article of the Concordat of 1851, still in
force, limits to three the number of these
164

SPAIN
orders which may be established in Spain.
The secular clergy even depends for its ex
istence and for the support of a number of
its dioceses on the national budget, an ex
penditure which is considered excessive by
public opinion. This financial dependency on
the State is largely responsible for the alien
ation of ecclesiastical property.
To give a brief account of conditions we
quote from Gerundo, a Spanish monk, who
has left the Catholic Church and is now lec
turing in Germany, and who makes rather
curious statements regarding the increase of
monastic life in Spain. Going back to 1808,
the year of the French invasion, he says that
there were at that time 46,568 persons in that
country living in 1,940 monasteries. He is
unable to say how many nuns were there
at that period, but he thinks that their num
ber was not far short of ninety thousand.
Under the French rule the number of monks
diminished, and until 1875 the number fluc
tuated very considerably. In 1875, however,
things began to settle down. In that year
in the diocese of Barcelona there were only
twenty-two monasteries. At the present time
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
there are 482. In this diocese the number of
Catholic churches, monasteries, nunneries,
seminaries, and confraternities number no
less than six thousand, which cost the State
the incredible sum of thirty million dollars
a year, or over thirty dollars for every head
of population in the diocese. Official statis
tics place the number of actual monasteries
in Spain at 4,320, with 200,000 monks. The
number of female convents is still difficult
to obtain with any degree of accuracy; but
Gerundo, quoting from the only statistics
available, reckons them at over 7,300, with
376,000 nuns. And this Spanish monk says
m his lecture that it is far easier to give the
number of monks and nuns in figures than
to give in figures the demoralizing influences
of these persons, or the incredible supersti
tion and the ignorance for which they are
directly responsible.
The clergy in Spain by its diffusion, its
privileges, and the favor it enjoys among the
rich classes, possesses not only considerable
social power, but in fact also exercises a
great political influence. The prevailing tone
166

SPAIN
of the religious politics of the clergy causes
the public to confound them all under the de
nomination of "Carlists," an appellation
equivalent to the one of "Clerical" and of
"Ultra-Catholic," and this is supposed to
mean Absolutist and anti-Liberal opinions in
politics. Its attitude on the labor problem,
siding always with the employers and fight
ing the labor unions, has led the Liberals and
the working men, who are non-Catholics, to
consider the clergy in general as an active
political and social enemy. The secular
clergy even mixes in politics, and each such
politician is popularly called an ' ' electioneer
ing priest" — a personage who, mounted on
a horse, goes all over the district seeking
votes, and from the pulpit recommends can
didates and takes his parishioners to the
polls to vote, influencing them by threats or
by using religious arguments. In addition
to all this we find the organization of the
Catholic press, whose object it is to fight and
to compete before the community with the
liberal publications. It is reported that not
a few priests, on receiving the confession of
167

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
their penitents, refuse to absolve them if they
decline to abandon reading some paper of
the "naughty press."
In Spain, as in many other countries,
Catholicism prefers to be forced into sub
mission rather than to grant concession to
other beliefs; and this spirit goes hand in
hand with the firm belief in the absolute su
periority of the ecclesiastical power over the
civil power in all spheres of life. So in their
peculiar conception of the religious sphere
there is hardly any question — political, ju
dicial, scientific, economic, even artistic} —
which does not fall under their jurisdiction.
Being suspicious of everything new, they
consider it dangerous, and from such ecclesi
astics have emanated attacks and snares
against institutions and modern works of ed
ucation. The same attacks were extended to
patriotic undertakings, those in favor of
peace and culture, such as the establishment
of intellectual intercourse with the Spanish-
American countries. These monks, nuns,
Jesuits, and priests are the sworn subjects
of the pope, and owe no allegiance to any
other ruler. Patriotism, as the American
168

SPAIN
understands it, has no claims on them, no
music to charm, no bonds to hold. For them
all power is concentrated in the Vatican, of
which the pope is the figure-head, and the
Italian and other advisors, who are not suffi
ciently familiar with the conditions in other
countries, make the laws. Here are the laws
these Spanish clericals are sworn to obey, no
matter in what country they may reside.
Their State is the Church of Eome ; their king
is the man in the Vatican, or his secretary,
Merry del Val ; their law is the bare word of
the infallible. Eebellion against the laws of
any country, if they conflict with the utter
ances of the papacy, is for them logical ; nay,
more, it is their clear duty. We see this po
sition plainly illustrated in the recent debate
in the Spanish Senate, on the projected law
against religious congregations — that is,
against monasteries, nunneries, and the va
rious orders housed in such ecclesiastical
buildings — when the Bishop of Cadiz strenu
ously maintained that the State is incompe
tent to legislate in regard to persons who
have placed themselves under the authority
of the Church. He contended that when a
169

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
monk or a nun takes the vows peculiar to any
religious order, he thereby renounces his
rights as a citizen of the State and becomes
a subject of the Church. And he went on
to assert that the civil power altogether ex
ceeds its authority when it proceeds to busy
itself with religious questions and presumes
to legislate touching religious matters. But
the Bishop of Cadiz failed to see the other
side of the question. If this position is log
ical for monks and nuns, Jesuits and priests,
it is no less logical, no less the duty of a
State which regards them as subversive of
the interests and order of the community at
large, either to drive them from its borders
or constrain them to submit to a regime set
up for the very purpose of safeguarding its
own existence against their conspiracies.
Spain to-day has some modern Catholics
who do not possess the characteristics of the
cunning Jesuits. They are disposed to listen
to the voice of the times which calls them to
the labor of peace and harmony, and to share
in the social movement and advancement that
lie outside of the strict limit of a prescribed
religion. Some of them entertain new ideas
170

SPAIN
in regard to the change of the present re
gime, relative to the budget of the clergy,
aiming at economic independence for the
Church. Among the laity, of course, the
sense of tolerance and communion with the
ideals of the country are naturally much
stronger. As stated in conservative publi
cations of Spain, there exists a considerable
number of Catholics — at least as sincere as
the men with an attitude of continual hos
tility to the State — whose desires are center
ing on harmony between the Holy See and
the Spanish Government, regardless of its
political significance. It commonly happens
that these modern Catholics, inclined to a
compromise, do not care to express plainly
and energetically their ideas. They are
afraid of being called "Modernists," for
many of them have met, even in some work
of culture or of a social character, with such
an animosity from many of their colleagues
that, after untold unpleasantness, they were
compelled to withdraw. It is to be greatly
regretted that the moderate Catholics are
lacking in civic courage.
Men knowing the conditions in Spain, like
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Pastor Theodore Fliedner and others, tell us
that the mass of the people are yet untouched
by modern skepticism and are deeply reli
gious. Fliedner says in an open letter to Auf
der Warte (September 4, 1910): "There is
greater need than ever before that all of
evangelical Christendom unite as one to help
Spain with her highly talented, yet deeply
unfortunate people to know Him who alone
in His person is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life. Plainly have the Spanish people shown
to the world that they are tired of the ty
ranny of Eome."
The rehgion of the Spanish people is
simple in the extreme; some would call it
gross superstition, yet they have learned to
distinguish between the priest and religion.
The strife between the government and the
papal authorities is one of the most striking
signs of the times, and marks the change
that is coming over the ideals of the peoples
and their rulers. If we would think of a
modern nation that seemingly has endured
all things for the sake of its rehgious tradi
tions, surely it must be Spain. This nation
has endured many things and has for long
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SPAIN
been the chosen and most obedient child of
the pope. This in spite of the fact, so well
known to all students of history, that the de
cline of the national prestige and the falling
away of all heroic traditions were to be
traced, directly or indirectly, to the pitiful
subserviency of the whole State to the inter
ests of a corrupt and an alien despotism.
Now at last Spain has some glimpses of the
truth, and the king has determined, under the
guidance of his government, that he will be
master in his own house. Even if the Catho
lic press in this country, as well as in Europe,
asserts that Spain is receiving a great deal
of attention from "prejudiced writers and
shallow observers," yet the indisputable fact
remains that you can not deceive the people
all the time in a struggle for religious as well
as civil liberty.
We must pay some attention in this con
nection to the little Kingdom of Portugal,
where, through all its stormy history, Eoman
Catholicism has remained the State religion.
The considerable deflection from that Church
in Portugal may be traced either to educa
tional or political movements, rather than to
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
the desire for religious reform. Toward the
close of the eighteenth century the gradual
infiltration of the ideas of the French phi
losophers inaugurated a "Liberal" tendency
among the cultured classes, which has
steadily grown until to-day about fifty per
cent of the educated Portuguese, if not pro
fessedly infidels, are in open opposition to
the clergy. This movement away from the
Church of Eome has been limited somewhat
by the dense ignorance of the great mass of
the people and the scant attention paid to ed
ucation. In 1878 the illiterates were 82 per
cent of the population, and in 1909 they still
comprised 78.6 per cent. In 1900 there were
only 240,000 pupils in the elementary schools
of Portugal, though education has been de
clared compulsory since 1844. Likewise in
the political affairs of Portugal the nine
teenth century marked a persistent struggle
by certain elements of the population for
"Liberal" principles. The pernicious inter
ference by the Eoman Catholic clergy to de
feat the aims of this movement attracted a
constantly increasing hatred from the work-
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SPAIN
ing classes and has developed a strong anti
clerical party among the masses themselves.
Indeed, the overthrow of the monarchy in
October, 1910, with the flight of the young
King Manuel, seems to indicate that liberal
principles have now won to their support
the majority of the people.
The Portuguese clergy, who now find
themselves homeless and wanderers in alien
lands, are not exempt from blame for their
distressful plight. And if the clergy fell with
the monarchy, it is because they were its
victim. The Conservatives (the party nomi
nally devoted to religion and the monarchial
regime), hke the other parties, have not had,
during the late years, in reality any other
political program than their own interests,
understanding the word in its lowest sense.
The Portuguese are a good people, and if
the clergy had done its whole duty the farm
ers and villagers, though ignorant, would be
bound to their priests and devoted to their
Church. It is reported that the priests in
the country exploited farms, and they were
oftener seen at sales than in the sanctuary.
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
In spiritual matters it is not so long ago that
most of the clergy busied themselves in
everything else except the ministry.
The most recent statistics indicate that
the secular clergy in Portugal numbers
93,979 parish priests in a total population
of 5,423,132; an average of one priest to
every fifty-seven inhabitants. Portugal,
Catholic to the core, has at length aroused
herself and driven out priests, friars, and
nuns, bag and baggage, and is fully decided
they shall not return. Now, to an outsider
all this appears passing strange. If it is
true, as we are so frequently told, that monks
and nuns are such desirable people, doing
much good work and spreading the odor of
sanctity in the neighborhoods where they
congregate, how does it happen that they
are driven out of places where they have
lived so long, and where one could naturally
expect to find them surrounded with sym
pathy and affectionate devotion? Whence
arises this extraordinary aversion in Catho
lic countries against their pastors, their con
fessors, and their masters? Is not the fact
eloquent to unprejudiced eyes? If it were
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SPAIN
the Chinese who had taken up arms against
them, we could understand it as arising from
a natural anti-Christian sentiment; but here
is a people who are baptized and confirmed,
who belong to the Church. They regard this
army of celibates, marshaled by the Jesuits,
as pernicious and harmful to the best inter
ests of their country. It is the work of rene
gades, the pope would have us believe. But
this is not true. The Portuguese and Span
iards have not abjured Christianity. They
are patriots, lovers of their country, whose
consciences have been awakened by a na
tional danger, and to a knowledge of citizen
rights, of which the papacy would deprive
them.

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vm
STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
In the present pope's struggle with the
Modernists the Vatican is showing more than
ordinary capacity for blundering deliver
ances. Justice, however, demands that not
all stones should be thrown at Pope Pius X.
Leo XIII repeatedly sinned against the spirit
of the modern times. He placed Thomas
Aquinas, and with him the Middle Ages, on
the cathedra. In 1897, through the " Consti
tute Officiorum, ' ' he renewed the regulations
concerning certain books not agreeable to the
ecclesiastical authorities, where he threat
ened not only authors and publishers of such
books with excommunication, but also the
public that would read them. Leo Xni con
demned Americanism and placed Herman
Schell 's books on the Index; and how harm
less are Schell and Americanism as compared
to real Modernists ! He insulted Protestant
ism repeatedly. Sometimes it has almost
178

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
seemed as if he would make belief in the ne
cessity and inalienableness of the Church-
State a dogma. But Leo Xni was too wise
and highly cultured, and would therefore not
allow an awkward compromise. He re
spected science; sometimes he commanded,
even threatened. He would hardly strike the
offender, not even Alfred Loisy, although
there had not been a theologian in the Cath
olic Church for centuries who left the tradi
tional paths of Catholicism so far as Loisy
did. Consequently modern methods in the
solution of theological problems are intro
duced by the researchers in Catholic exegesis
and history. Yet Leo XIII was not so scien
tifically and Modernistically inclined as some
Modernists would have us believe.
In the summer of 1903 Pius X succeeded
Leo XIII. Pius X possesses certain charac
teristics which arouse more sympathy in cer
tain quarters than the malleability of Leo
Xin. He is a profoundly religious nature,
and has consecrated his strength to the forti
fication of Catholic doctrine, obsolete as it
might seem to some Modernists. In spite of
his blunders, which are noticeable in the bat-
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
tie with the French authorities, we see the
imposing quietness of Pius X. Even the
most destructive Modernists will admit that
he personifies in himself and in his personal
life the ideal of Catholic Christianity. Paul
Sabatier, the noted Protestant theologian of
France, the great admirer of Saint Francis,
says that none of the cardinals has made so
many blunders in such a short time as Pius X,
but in his personality Sabatier finds the most
attractive phenomenon of the present time.
He lauds his meekness. Whoever nears the
inner life of Pope Pius X will immediately
recognize the man of pure heart. But the
problems of the present time, the needs of
theology, are unknown to him; he is not fa
miliar with the belief or unbelief of twentieth
century humanity. The religion of the Mid
dle Ages has not left the Vatican. He sees
the salvation of the Church in the condemna
tion of all new thoughts. With him the fu
ture of Christianity lies only in the renewal
of the scholastic past. In the simple reli
gious certainty of a humble parish priest, not
in sympathy with present-day difficulties
which modern scientific research throws into
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STEUGGLE OF PDJS X
the path of traditional Catholic doctrine, he
stands exalted and sublime above all dog
matic doubts ; consequently he expects every
Catholic, priest and layman alike, to be with
him in spirit and in doctrine. So he recog
nized in the labor and theology of the Mod
ernists, although most of them hunger and
thirst after righteousness, nothing but pride,
sin, and unbelief, instead of a movement to
saturate superstitious Italy and godless
France with the life, faith, and spirit of the
gospel. Pius X is always pope, always and
at all times the tool of divine revelation.
Piety alone is not sufficient to guide the ec
clesiastical ship of Eoman Catholicism
through the stream of modern and twentieth
century tendencies.
It is self-evident that a pope like Pius X
will not limit his work to the destruction of
Modernism. He removed from office un
worthy Italian bishops and "unpleasantly
touched" more than one prelate. When the
Holy Father reformed the Eoman Curia, two
years ago, he reformed the pay of the officials
also. One of the most striking features of
his reign thus far has been the official pro-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
motion of the use of the Gregorian chant
throughout all churches of the Roman Cath
olic communion.
Pius X saw his special mission from the
beginning in his battle against the Modern
ists. In the encyclical of October 3, 1903, he
promised to stand on guard, so that the
members of the clergy would not be caught
in the so-called snares of the new and so
phistical science, which, he says, has nothing
in common with Christ, and which under pre
tense and arguments introduces the heresies
of rationalism and semi-rationalism. In
January, 1904, he confirmed the precepts of
Leo XIII concerning the study of scholastic
philosophy ; presently, he said then, we must
with all our might fight the new rationalism,
which is especially dangerous to the academic
youth. In March, 1906, the professors in
exegesis were placed under the solemn duty
never to depart from the common doctrine
and tradition of the Church. In a papal let
ter of July 28, 1906, addressed to the Italian
bishops, he paid close attention to the "Mod
ernism" of the young clericals and the Chris-
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STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
tian Democrats. Young clericals can only for
sufficient reasons visit the universities ; daily
papers they should never read, and periodi
cals only under episcopal supervision. A
priest that would not give implicit obedience
to the ecclesiastical instructions could be re
moved from the pulpit, if necessary, even
during the preaching of a sermon. Accord
ing to this letter no priest or cleric was al
lowed to lecture on any theme without the
permission of the bishop. The affiliation with
any society which had not the episcopal sanc
tion was likewise strictly forbidden. May 5,
1907, the pope gave his precepts concerning
the scientific education of the Italian clerics.
The former rule prevailed, according to
which the same professor is responsible for
the entire theological discipline in the semi
naries. Pope Pius X instituted that the in
structors in philosophy and theology must
submit all their manuscripts for the class
room, before they are read, to the papal Re
form Commission for Seminaries, and then
to the bishop for certification. The Index
Congregation worked zealously, as a number
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
of Modernistic periodicals were condemned
before anything was ever known about the
Modernist encyclical.
Characteristic of the theological position
of Pius X is the reorganization of the Bible
Commission and the decrees under the new
regime. Leo XIII had organized this com
mission for the benefit of a temperate prog
ress within the Church of Rome; Pius X
placed the stamp of his "Restaurare" upon
the work of the commission as well as on
all endeavors of Catholicism. All delibera
tions are keenly guarded by the mighty papal
secretary, Mgr. Merry del Val; Modernistic
members, some probably only inclined that
way, are quickly removed. This man of the
Roosevelt-Fairbanks-affair fame, the Vatican
statesman of many blunders, and the Vigil
ance Committee keep a watchful eye on sus
pects and take prudent but prompt and effi
cacious measures. Under this regime ex
communication, like silver in the day of Solo
mon, is "nothing accounted of;" so broad
cast has been its distribution that it is diffi
cult to find a single thinking Catholic in Italy
by whom it has not been incurred.
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STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
The year 1907 marked the beginning of
the real struggle. On April 17th the pope
delivered a passionate address in the open
consistory against the disturbers "who un
der deceitful methods teach and distribute
atrocious heresies about the development of
the dogma, the return to the pure gospel
(cleansed from the theological interpreta
tions and the decrees of the councils). You
conceive, reverend brothers, that we must
guard with all our might the foundation of
faith. We have reason to be disturbed con
cerning these attacks, which are not only one
heresy, but the substance and poison of all
heresies, which also threaten to undermine
our faith and destroy Christianity." This
war-cry was uttered concerning Italian Mod
ernism to which we have referred in the
chapter on "Italy."
The Syllabus of July 3-4, 1907, officially
known as the "Decree of the Holy Officium
Lamentabili, " is a catalogue of sixty-five
heresies ; the Congregation of the Inquisition
had prepared this manuscript at the request
of the Holy Father and submitted it to him
July 3d for ratification. He signed it July
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
4th, commanding that every cleric and true
Catholic must reject the sixty-five maxims of
the Syllabus. The Syllabus was far-reaching
for Catholic theology, as according to the
division of Michelitsch they referred to the
duty-bound power of the ecclesistical teach
ing profession, the inspiration of the Bible
and Gospel research, revelation and the
dogma; the Divinity of Christ, His person
and work; the sacraments; the constitution
of the Church, and Christian truth. Loisy
has proven that the Syllabus was prepared
with special reference to the five books of
this noted Modernist, which were placed on
the Index in 1903. But the Syllabus men
tioned neither Loisy nor any other author;
yet in the sixty-five maxims could easily be
recognized an assault upon the historico-
critical trend of Modernism. A number of
these pretended or so-called heresies — for in
stance, the heresy concerning the origin and
especially the formation of the sacraments,
and the Church government or the hierarchy
— are to-day considered absolute truth among
all students who have liberated themselves
from the suppositions and the coercion of
186

STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
the Roman dogma. Another class stands as
indisputable facts, while a third class —
namely, the maxims concerning the character
of the Gospel according to St. John — applies
to the right wing of Protestant theology as
well, and is considered a heresy.
Pius X commands and prohibits in the
Syllabus not so much certain distinct opinions
concerning the Bible, Christ, and the sacra
ments, and Church government as those re
lating to the origin of the Bible, the Christo-
logical dogma, and the sacraments, referring
not only to the present age with its life and
faith, but especially to the past and the his
tory of life and faith in the Church. The
veto of censure can not overcome Bible criti
cism; of course, the pope assumes and acts
as all of his predecessors. The Syllabus in
dicated the temper of the Vatican, and was
prophetic of fuller utterances to follow.
In the nature of the case it is difficult to
define briefly and accurately the position of
the Modernists, and they protested against
the pope's characterization of them; yet it
must be conceded that the encyclical "Pas-
cendi Dominici Gregis," of September 8,
187

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
1907, is an exhaustive treatise upon existing
conditions, and does not miss the mark en
tirely. It covered some forty-eight octavo
pages and was a furious fulmination against
what is called "Modernism." This term is
ambiguous, and in itself means nothing. It
is rather an epithet than a name. It is taken
neither from the name of a teacher, as Pla-
tonism and Darwinism, nor from some dis
tinguishing fundamental principle, as ideal
ism and evolutionism. Professor Charles A.
Briggs says, in the North American Beview
of February, 1908, that the term, as applied
to a religious party in the Catholic Church,
is unknown to our dictionaries. While those
so designated made no serious objection to
the use of the term as applied to themselves,
yet it meant nothing unless it be a new atti
tude toward the Church as opposed to the
old or traditional attitude. Mgr. Canon
Moyes in a very able article says, "It is pos
sible to define it, at least in a broad and
general way, by saying that it is a form of
belief which finds the origin of all religion
and knowledge of God in the soul's internal
sense and experience." Archbishop Ireland,
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STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
in the North American Beview, April 1908,
refers to Modernism in these words, "The
radical mistake of Modernism and of its
methods of apologetics is that it excludes,
or at least minimizes, overmuch the functions
of the intellect, thereby reducing its theodicy
to sentiment — to mere subjectivism." This
subjectivism, however, which regards con
sciousness as revelation and religiousness as
religion is indeed one very prominent aspect
of advanced modern thought, growing more
or less directly out of the evolution theory,
and, whether taught by the Loisys or Tyr-
rells or by the Sabatiers and Campells, is
assuredly a menace to the integrity of apos
tolic Christianity. The encyclical Pascendi
itself affects no definition. It declared Mod
ernism to be a sort of loose heap of errors
rather than a definite system, and charged
Modernists with deliberately scheming that
it should be so. The encyclical defined Mod
ernism as "the synthesis of all heresies,"
and added that it "means destruction, not of
the Catholic religion alone, but of all reli
gion." No charges were made against the
moral character of Modernists, and while it
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
was conceded that "they possess, as a rule,
a reputation for the strictest morality," yet
they were pronounced "the most pernicious
or all the adversaries of the Church."
Back of Modernism, says Pope Pius X,
is a certain philosophy, which may be called
Agnosticism, and which also emphasizes the
doctrine of Immanence. The manifestations
of religion are classified with other psycho
logical phenomena, and Christianity is com
pared with other religions. All the funda
mental doctrines of the Catholic religion are
changed. Instead of the impartation of
truth, revelation becomes experience, and the
distinction between the natural and the su
pernatural vanishes. Dogmas beoome sym
bols. Faith rests no longer on authority, but
on personal experience. Even the very pil
lars upon which the Church rests, Scripture
and tradition, are removed. Holy Scripture
is a collection of extraordinary and special
experiences, and inspiration in a specific
sense is done away with. Tradition is a kind
of impartation of the original experience.
Even the sacraments, which constitute the
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
Church's most valuable possession, are in
fringed upon by the Modernists. They hold
that in religion everything must have grown
out of inner impulses and needs, and they
doubt the immediate institution of the sacra
ments by Christ. They undermine the
Church and her authority. The Church is
not for the Modernists, according to the
pope's encyclical, an institution founded by
Christ, but is "a fruit of the collective con
sciousness. ' ' Authority is necessary for the
unity of religious consciousness, but it must
not be tyrannical; it must come to terms
with freedom. That which is truly living is
subject to change. The logic of the Modern
ist's position is to abolish the distinction be
tween priest and layman. In view of these
and other positions the pope comes to the
conclusion that Modernism is a synthesis of
all heresies, and consequently orders that the
most stringent measures be taken for its sup
pression. And it must be asserted, with Pro
fessor Karl Holl of Berlin, that the pope
has no other course open to him. He says
that it is not a question of Pius X or Leo
191

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
XUI; any pope would have had to do the
same. Some undoubtedly in a somewhat
different manner.
In the papal judgment the Modernist is,
as a philosopher, an Agnostic. A severe
castigation of Agnosticism follows. The
pope is undoubtedly right in his general esti
mate of Agnosticism, which is but the full-
grown fruit of a merely empirical or phenom-
enological conception of science, developing
its defective epistomology from the negative
side of Kant's Critical Philosophy. But the
Modernists strongly deny, on what we re
gard as very plausible grounds, that they
are Agnostics. And certainly very many of
them are not that, even in the most orthodox
sense of the word. Is it not strange that the
pope should not perceive the signs of the
times, which plainly show that Agnosticism
of the Huxleyan and Spencerian type is al
ready somewhat past, and that some sort of
idealism bids fair to claim the succeeding
ascendency? The Modernist, as theologian, taking his
cue from himself as philosopher, aims at the
"conciliation of faith and science, always,
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
however, saving the primacy of science over
faith." The principle of faith is in all men;
that principle is God; therefore God is in
all men. This is the doctrine of divine im
manence. The expression of this inner prin
ciple is never complete; it is fragmentary,
symbolic, imperfect. Here Father Tyrrell is
seen between the lines. Of course, creeds,
confessions, even encyclicals, are symbols,
algebraic signs of truth, reports of progress
— nothing more. The encyclical "Pascendi"
works this out in relation to the sacraments,
the Scriptures, and the Church, and this is
really one of the strongest sections. It
should interest all Americans to read these
words: "For as faith is subordinated to
science, as far as phenomenal elements are
concerned, so too in temporal matters the
Church must be subject to the State. They
do not say this openly as yet, but they are
logically committed to it. For, given the
principle that in temporal matters the State
possesses absolute mastery, it will follow that
when the believer, not fully satisfied with his
merely internal acts of religion — such, for in
stance, as the administration or reception of
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
the sacraments — these will fall under the con
trol of the State. . . . Such are their ideas
about disciplinary authority. But far more
advanced and far more pernicious are their
teachings on doctrinal and dogmatic author
ity." This brief quotation may be enough to
enable the Eoman Catholic citizen of this
country, where the formal separation of
Church and State is an alphabetic principle,
to decide whether to be a patriotic American
means to be a pernicious Modernist.
When the pope speaks of the Modernist
as an historian who harks back to his own
philosophy, and, accordingly, knows nothing
except phenomena, and so the things that are
out of sight, such as God and the divine side
of external religion — as these things are
handed over by the historian to the sacred
domain of faith (hence the modern talk about
the Christ of history being one thing, and the
Christ of faith quite another) — Pius X is
here striking at no imaginary evil. Whether
we are in harmony with him in some of his
other, rather pecuhar, assumptions or not,
we must, as orthodox Christians, be with
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
him here, as we are also bound to consent
that this blow is not misplaced.
Concerning the Modernist's attempt at
higher criticism of the Holy Scripture we
may let the encyclical "Pascendi" speak for
itself: "To hear them talk about their works
on the Sacred Books in which they have been
able to discover so much that is defective,
one would imagine that before them nobody
ever even glanced through the pages of Scrip
ture, whereas the truth is that a whole mul
titude of doctors, infinitely superior to them
in genius, in erudition, in sanctity, have
sifted the Sacred Books in every way, and
so far from finding imperfections in them,
have thanked God more and more the deeper
they have gone into them, for His divine
bounty of having vouchsafed to speak thus
to them. Unfortunately these great doctors
did not enjoy the same aids to study that are
possessed by Modernists for their guide and
rule — a philosophy borrowed from the ne
gation of God and a criterion which consists
of themselves. . . . Let one of them but
open his mouth, and the others applaud him
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
in chorus, proclaiming that science has made
another step forward; let an outsider but
hint at a desire to inspect the new discovery
with his own eyes, and they are on him in
a body; deny it, and you are an ignoramus;
embrace it and defend it, and there is no
praise too warm for you. . . . The impru
dence of others have combined to generate
a pestilence in the air which penetrates
everywhere and spreads the contagion."
The Modernist has two shields of defense
as apologist. The first is the objective. Its
general idea, according to the great papal
letter, was christened in Agnosticism, and,
according to the principles and processes of
evolution, it has developed into the social and
sacramental and institutional religion of to
day. The other is the subjective, and it is
able to tell the non-believer that down deep
in his nature are the need and desire for
religion, and that this religion is, in impli
cation, Roman Catholicism. Here again we
catch the echoes of Tyrrell, and Tyrrell has
not been the only man who has tried to con
vince people that because they had in them
the desire for religion, therefore, ipso facto,
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STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
they already possess the very thing they de
sire. The pope does not forget in his cele
brated letter the reformer ; here the Modern
ist is charged with trying to overthrow
nearly everything which the Church thinks
it worth while to maintain. "With this re
forming mania in all Catholicism there is
absolutely nothing on which it does not
fasten." They would change the present or
der of things in philosophy, in history, in
dogma, in worship, and in episcopal admin
istration and authority; so the Modernist in
the Church of Rome is looked upon as a sort
of an ecclesiastical iconoclast or anarchist.
In the struggle with the Modernist, as
seen in the encyclical "Pascendi," the pope
by no means forgets the necessary remedies
for the supression and, possibly, extinction
of Modernism. The first remedy prescribed
is exceedingly significant. It is the study of
scholastic philosophy on which "the theo
logical edifice is to be solidly raised." The
second remedy, as a practical application,
must be administered to all such teachers
and priests ; in fact, to anybody who in any
way is found to be imbued with Modernism.
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
They should immediately be excluded with
out compunction from the offices of directors
and professors in seminaries and Catholic
universities. We further notice the episcopal
vigilance over publications. Bishops are en
joined to perform the duty of exercising a
careful and constant watch upon all books
produced, sold, and read in their dioceses.
In the remedy of censorship the regulation
is so rigid, so thorough, and so searching that
one is at once, in reading it, carried back into
the atmosphere of mediaeval times. In order
that Modernists might not ventilate and de
fend their views, congresses and public gath
erings are to be tolerated on very rare oc
casions only, and when permitted, no men
tion is to be made of Modernism, or even
laicism. By all means through the vigilance
committees, which are to be set at work in
every diocese, must even the buds of all poi
sonous weeds of Modernism be extracted,
while at the triennial returns from all the
bishops the Holy See must be furnished with
a sworn and intelligent report upon the whole
situation. The Italian Modernists answered the
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STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
pope in October, 1907, through their "Pro-
gramma dei Modernisti." This "Pro-
gramma" asserted that Catholics for many
reasons had lost their sense of personal re
sponsibility, and they consequently tolerate
the actions of the highest authority not with
a rational independence, but rather with in
sensible submission. So this highest author
ity has lost its real field of action and of
limitation, and has changed a sound religious
government into a pure absolutism. The
Modernists believed that they could do a
great favor to the Roman Church by remov
ing the predominant lack of judgment, and
further by placing their ideas before the
Church for discussion. Such ideas, however,
were condemned by the highest Catholic
authority, as they were not well enough
known. In addressing the pope these words
are found : ' ' Father, hear us. We offer you
a remedy which already has proven to be
more or less successful to restore the power,
formerly possessed by the Church over the
world, but which unfortunately has been lost.
Remember your responsibility toward God,
society, and history, before you reject us,
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
and before you solemnly confine yourself
within the ranch of ideas of the political and
intellectual theocracy of the Middle Ages."
They plainly laid their system of Modernism
before Pius X with an analysis of the en
cyclical "Pascendi." The Italian Modern
ists hoped earnestly that the pope would
listen to their "Programma," in which they
humbly asserted that the doctrine and labor
of the Modernist propaganda had stood the
test and would not vanish, but they were
greatly disappointed. It is said the pope
yawningly laid the book aside, saying that he
never had read such a tiresome book. In
fact the book was too earnest and demanded
considerable scientific apprehension, so could
not be read at leisure. But Pius X was not
yawning very long; we find him on October
29, 1907, excommunicating the instigators,
authors, and all co-laborers on the "Pro
gramma dei Moderaisti." The answer of the
pontiff followed in his "Motu Proprio" of
November 18, 1907.
The "Programma dei Modernisti" had
been published anonymously, therefore the
excommunication of its authors had only
200

STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
theoretical value. Yet Pius X gave vent to
his feelings and anger whenever he was able
to seize any of the Modernist leaders. Ro-
molo Murri and Antonio Fogazzaro had been
disciplined before; now the axe fell upon
Umberto Fracassini, rector of the clerical
seminary in Perugia, Salvatore Minocchi
deemed it necessary in December, 1907, to
cease the publication of the Studi Beligiosi.
In February, 1908, he was also suspended on
account of his lecture on "Earthly Paradise
and the Dogma of Original Sin," as he re
fused to retract certain statements. In the
summer of 1908 the Jesuit Bartoli, who had
just returned from the Catholic Mission Uni
versity at Mangalur, India, was stationed in
Ireland as a punishment for writing certain
questionable political newspaper articles.
As Modernist he could choose between re
nouncing his functions as priest or return to
the mission field at Mangalur. Hurt in his
inmost soul, he rejected every compromise
and immediately left the convent and later
the Church.
The difference between an encyclical and
a Motu Proprio, as this latter was given in
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
September, 1910, is this : the encyclical deals
only with doctrine; the Motu Proprio deals
with discipline and practical matters. The
only new part of this document (all the rest
is a repetition of previous papal utterances)
is the oath of orthodoxy and of fidelity to
the Roman Catholic doctrine and discipline.
This oath is to be taken by every professor
before resuming his annual course, by every
priest of an inferior order before his pro
motion, by all new confessors, parish priests,
canons, and by every one who holds a special
office in the Church.
Romolo Murri, the champion of Christian
Democracy in Italy, editor of the Commento
(October, 1910), a Modernist review, who is
well aware that Modernism must not allow
itself to be carried away by the flood of
hypercriticism, lest it will be hurled into
the sea of unbelief and thus be lost (already
too many Italian Modernists have made ship
wreck of themselves in that way), says, in
answering Professor Salvatore Minocchi,
who a short time ago was also a priest and
editor of the now suppressed Studi Beligiosi:
"No, I will not shut myself up in a sterile,
202

STRUGGLE OF PIUS X
unfruitful negation, as you have done. I be
lieve in Christianity. ... I find it necessary
to have faith in what man has said and meant
to say by formulas such as the following:
Divine personality; individual immortality;
working of God in history; absolute worth of
the spiritual realities which shine in the his
torical life of Christ. And I count that I
have a right to declare myself a Catholic;
meaning by this very declaration to affirm
that the pontiff (as he is at the present day)
and his men have forfeited the right to speak
and act in the name of the Church; and I
claim for myself the right to handle freely,
without subjection to nobody, all matters
pertaining to historical Christianity. I de
clare myself a Catholic, I say, because I
think that, as there is a living doctrine, there
is also a living tradition handed down to us
by Western, Latin, Italian culture and life;
and from that tradition I do not want to
sever myself." At the present hour this is
the position of the large majority in the
Modernist camp in Italy. Modernism in
Italy at the present hour is very much alive.
A member of the Roman clergy quotes a
203

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
prominent Italian paper, saying: "The Vati
can has in its possession hundreds of docu
ments proving that in the Eoman Catholic
Church there exists at present a secret Mod
ernist organization, and that a sort of Free
masonry has been formed in order to foster
and spread Modernism. The Vatican has
succeeded in finding that a clandestine Mod
ernist correspondence is kept up between
some Churches, and even between various
seminaries. We know, for instance, that from
some seminaries circulars and writings are
periodically issued in favor of Modernism.
Whoever thinks that Modernism is dead or
about to die is grossly mistaken."
The struggle of Pope Pius X with Mod
ernists has demanded many victims in Italy,
not only among men in high positions, but
also among the ranks of the lower clerics,
although their names may never appear in
the annals of history. The answers from
France were not less pronounced after the
issuance of the Syllabus and the encyclical
"Pascendi." When, in July, 1907, the Sylla
bus appeared, the reform paper Le Demain,
of Lyon, suspended immediately its publica-
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
tion with the following statement: "Begin
ning to-day, Demain suspends its publication
for a few months. We have arrived at this
conclusion entirely of ourselves and are con
vinced that our action will be understood.
After recent developments the efforts and the
thoughts of sincere Catholics have been so
obscured and misjudged that it seemed to us
necessary to wait for resumption and con
tinuance of our endeavors without molesta
tion until all is calm. . . . Time accom
plishes its sovereign work quicker than ever.
Should the moment arrive to resume this
work again, then Demain will proceed, sup
ported by all such men according to whose
opinion the religion of Jesus Christ has no
worse enemies than the lie and the sectarian
spirit." Another periodical, La Quinsaine,
which excellently has served Modernism for
years, then ceased its publication.
In 1908 French Modernists followed their
Italian friends in answering the pope's en
cyclical "Pascendi" through their "Lende-
mains d'Enzy clique." This answer of
French Catholics to the pope was a master
piece of French composition. Elegant ver-
205

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
satility abounded ; they showed sympathy for
the Holy Father, cunning sarcasm, also bit
ter anger and indignation. They dedicated
this answer to the harmless, humble, and
humiliated priests, who had been prevented
by a brutal interdict from consecrating bread
and wine to the memory of the Lord; to the
university and seminary professors, who had
been torn from their students and whose
books were defamed, also their spiritual life
broken; to the monks in the monasteries,
who had grown old and weary in their cowl,
and who had saved nothing for old age but
what God had given them, who were forced
to forsake and leave the cell which they had
chosen when barely twenty years of age, who
would rather follow the dictates of their
own conscience than the demands of their
superiors; to the honest and magnanimous
Christians who warningly informed their ec
clesiastical friends that their Christianity
of to-day is not in harmony with the spirit
of the time; to the slandered and defamed,
the victims of the brutal inquisition of Pope
Pius X; to the rejected and restless of the
great, fraternal Christian Church ; to the dis-
206

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
ciples of Christ who had stood and testified
before their high priests for righteousness
and truth, and consequently suffered in soul
and body, and who, always without even a
murmur, would endure all hardships for
Christ and His gospel; to all those who in
the latter days twice defenseless and sad
bowed their heads before the voice of Eome
and had to be ashamed of their Mother
Church. In addition to the dedication the
answer of the French Modernists contained
the following points: 1. The Modernism of
Pius X and the Modernists. 2. The Causes
of Modernism mentioned by the pope are
not mentioned. 3. The Persecution of Mod
ernists; what will it accomplish? 4. History
and Dogma, an unavoidable Conflict. 5. En
cyclical and the Catholic Future. By Mod
ernism, according to the French answer, is
not so much meant a system as a method.
It is even admitted, according to Eoman
Catholic development the pope was forced
to act thus. Or, speaking with Ernest Eenan,
Modernists were convinced that "Catholi
cism can' not perish, yet it can not remain
as it is, although we can not see how it can
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MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
be otherwise. But the great moments, when
all ways seem to be barricaded, are the great
moments of Divine Providence."
The French bishops accepted the papal
letters without very great opposition, even
those who were inclined to be Modernists.
They felt that they were bound to meet with
an awful catastrophe, but would not speak
openly. Eome, however, rejected all efforts
at a compromise made by French bishops,
claiming that it aimed to reorganize the
Church in France. The Vatican would not
even allow them to hold their eagerly-sought-
for episcopal conference. Who can blame
the French clergy for its indifference toward
the theological needs of the Church, an in
difference which is plainly seen in its scien
tific and moral attitude toward the encyclical.
And yet it is an open question whether or
not twelve courageous French bishops would
not have been able to influence the pope by
earnest presentations to alter his position,
had they tried.
The first French victim in the Modernist
struggle was Mgr. Battifol, rector at the
Catholic Institute in Toulouse. Battifol is
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
neither a hypercritical nor a philosophical
Modernist; courageously he had spoken in
1904 against Alfred Loisy. But he had writ
ten a history of the Catholic breviary, se
verely criticised certain Eoman Catholic leg
ends and traditions. We have referred to
this controversy in the chapter on ' ' France. ' '
Abbes Naudet and Dabry, Eepublican and
Socialistic politicians under punishment of
suspensio a divinis, were then prohibited
from publishing any longer their periodicals
Justice Sociale and Vie Catholique. Bishop
Lacroix of Tarentaise and Bishop Sueur of
Avignon later resigned their office. Finally,
on March 4, 1908, Alfred Loisy, the arch-
Modernist of France, was excommunicated.
His simple reflections on the Decree Lamen-
tabili and on Pascendi prompted the Vati
can to take this last step. These reflections,
a book of three hundred pages, close with
an apostrophe to the pope: "Holy Father,
let me tell you that Modernists would take
a far different position toward your censures
and reproaches than they actually take if
they were such men as you brand them to
be. If the one who writes these lines had
" 209

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
really been such an arrogant and proud man,
such as you describe him especially in your
encyclicals, he should never have remained
in the Church to experience such humiliations
during the last fifteen years." Now Loisy
is excommunicated, and all faithful Catho
lics must avoid him. He said his reflections
were not an act of indignation, but of truth.
He would not submit to the Vatican's de
mands, and a reconciliation with the Church
is impossible. Concerning the condition in England
after the publication of the encyclical, George
Tyrrell answered the pope. September 30
and October 1, 1907, he published articles in
the Times. The root-cause of his anger could
be plainly seen when he referred to "La-
mentabili" with its continuous assumption,
indeed, insistence, that official theologians
have a direct authority over historical sci
ence. Tyrrell protested against the manner
in which absolute assent was being expected
of scholars concerning condemnations to
which the condemning authorities did not
bind themselves. As to the "Pascendi," his
anger arose from the everywhere apparent
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
contempt for mysticism and all the dim and
inchoate gropings after God; its wholesale
imputation of bad motives to respectable,
hard-working scholars and thinkers, and its
disciplinary enactments. These last two
characteristics and sections he felt he must
attribute to the pope personally; hence his
tone toward the Eoman pontiff. Father Tyr
rell's personal friend, Friedrich von Fliigel,
says, "The more one attempted to palliate
the disciplinary enactments, the more sure
one was, at least amongst free peoples and
amongst men of liberal education, to arouse
prompt anger and contempt for Church offi
cials." On October 22, 1907, the Bishop of
Southwark received from the pope's secretary
of State the intimation that Father Tyrrell
was, in consequence of his letters to the
Times, debarred from the sacraments, and
that his case was reserved to Eome. On Oc
tober 28, 1907, Tyrrell addressed a dignified
letter to the Bishop of Southwark for trans
mission to Eome. On March 18, 1908, he
writes to a friend, after the major excommu
nication was inflicted upon Abbe Loisy:
"Looking back, our mistake has been our
211

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
zeal to help the disturbed intelligence of the
minority to hold on to the Church. Our
'Synthesis' raised theological difficulties in
solving historical ; the officials have fastened
on the former and have ignored the latter."
From then on Father Tyrrell's tone became
violently anti-Eoman, with but few breaks
until 1909.
In March, 1908, the Archbishop of West
minster, Dr. Bourne, issued a pastoral letter
to his priest concerning the encyclical "Pas
cendi." All of the English bishops accepted
the eneylclical with obliging submission and
assured the Holy Father that there were
very few Modernists in England. Some of
the English Catholic clergy had great sym
pathy for Modernists as men and not for
their doctrines; consequently they were in
danger of being influenced by the men, and
were warned accordingly. Others, who did
not know the importance and consequences
of Modernism, and who were probably in
clined to accept the theological, philosophical,
and historical heresies of Modernism, had
their eyes opened by this letter. A direct
fruit of this Eoman reaction in England is
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STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
undoubtedly the present agitation for a Cath
olic Church, free from Eome. This move
ment has ripened as a result of the struggle
of Pope Pius X against the Modernists. Old
Catholicism was introduced into England
when, on February 18, 1908, seventeen priests
and sixteen lay delegates met for a synod at
Chelsfield, and elected the Eoman priest, Eev.
Arnold Harris Matthew, Earl of Landaff,
consecrated in 1878, as their bishop. He
joined the Utrecht Declaration of the Old
Catholic Episcopacy and was consecrated as
bishop, April 28, 1908, by the Archbishop
of Utrecht, Holland. Bishop Matthew has
in his diocese seventeen priests. The found
ing of the Old Catholic Church in England
is about the only organized opposition the
struggle against Modernists is encountering
in England. Hardly any attention was paid to the en
cyclical "Pascendi" in the United States of
America. ' ' Americanism, ' ' of which we shall
speak later, had nothing to say, while the
Catholic press hardly made mention of it.
When George Tyrrell's "A Much Abused
Letter" had been circulated in New York, the
213

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
Catholic Church of America first noticed
Modernism. Archbishop O'Connell of Bos
ton in a pastoral letter referred to the en
cyclical, stating that the pope was not acting
in opposition to the spirit of the time. Ac
cording to O'Connell, Modernism is nothing
but a system made up of stubborn and se
duced men, who intended to reconcile Cath
olic philosophy with the principles of Eeal-
ism and Eationalism, who further attempted
to accommodate the inflexible truth of God
to the spirit of an ever-increasing godless
generation, and who would bring the Catholic
spiritual and moral ideals in conformity
with a world which is in itself unable to ad
vance to higher possibilities. With such a
rude, realistic, and skeptic spirit of the times
neither the pope nor the Church can come in
conflict as long as the spirit of the times will
remain within its own sphere. But when the
things of a supernatural world are judged
according to the measure of this world, then
the conflict begins. The danger of Modern
ism can not be overestimated, for its philos
ophy coincides with the philosophy of non-
Catholic universities in the United States.
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STEUGGLE OF PUJS X
The same spirit prevails in the scientific and
historical literature of the present age; it
is predominant in schools and colleges; it
also endeavors to weaken historical and tra
ditional Christianity. America is almost en
tirely submerged in practical Hfe; pure and
divine truth has, therefore, little or no in
fluence. Archbishop O'Connell 's statements
must be taken with a grain of salt, especially
the last one about the practical life, which
often blossoms out into a beautiful spirit of
benevolent work, as seen in the great home
and foreign missionary enterprises; this
spirit must rest upon a more secure founda
tion than selfishness.
In Germany two great Catholic papers,
the Kolnische V olkszeitung and the Ger-
mania, had been working zealously for some
time to harmonize the Catholic world and
modern culture. They were greatly disap
pointed, however, when the Syllabus and the
encyclical "Pascendi" appeared. The Ger
man Cathohc bishops met for a conference
December 10, 1907, in Cologne. As a result
of this conference they sent a letter to the
pope December 24, 1907, wherein they de-
215

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
clared themselves willing to execute all papal
demands most conscientiously. Then fol
lowed, in January, 1908, a pastoral letter by
these bishops to their priests, wherein they
stated that Germany had not one priest or
Catholic layman who would not be willing to
fight against the system and principles of
Modernism in all its parts and possibilities,
as plainly outlined in "Pascendi," though
they very naturally took into consideration
that even in Germany the tendencies for
Modernistic theories could creep into the
Catholic Church. They further demanded of
their clergy to obey their superiors most sin
cerely, study Syllabus and "Pascendi" dili
gently, warned them not to be indifferent to
ward the ecclesiastical authority, urged most
profound study as a preventive against the
Modernistic contagion, especially the study
of the philosophy of the classical and scho
lastic age. The Kolnische Volkszeitung re
ported that the episcopal conference sent a
courteous request to the pope, asking him to
take German conditions into consideration,
for the bishops contended that the Eoman
encyclicals were not in every particular
216

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
adapted to German conditions, with special
reference to the theological Catholic faculties
in State universities. Dr. Johannes Kubel
says Catholic authorities denied the bold
statement and requested the paper to retract
its assertions. This leading organ of Ger
man Catholicism, however, for sufficient rea
sons refused to do so.
Bavarian bishops, who had not attended
the episcopal conference at Cologne, sent a
special letter to their priests at the celebra
tion of the golden jubilee of Pius X, com
menting on the mild and friendly character
of the pope, who so zealously had guarded
the doctrine of the Cross, and who had pre
vented all attempts to adapt the Catholic
faith to the present spirit of the age. The
following sentence in the pastoral letter of
the Bavarian bishops is significant in its
message for Protestants as well as Catho
lics: "Eeligion has no fear of science; re
ligion must be studied and well considered;
it asks for research and demands investiga
tion. Christianity never fears scientific
analysis; it only fears ignorance." The
State Department of Ecclesiastical Affairs
217

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
in Bavaria assumed a rather peculiar atti
tude toward the encyclical, according to
which all papal letters are subject to State
ratification. The bishops and the Center
party of Germany, however, contested this
movement. After the publication of the en
cyclical, when the State department had en
deavored to please Catholic authorities and
had requested the archibshop to lay the en
cyclical before them, the prelate heeded this
request, but never asked for ratification.
The department willingly promised its as
sistance in the execution of the demands in
the papal letter, but was very poorly repaid
for its friendly attitude, as the bishops never
even noticed publicly this kindness of the
State. The first victim of the encyclical "Pas
cendi" in Germany was Beneficiary Dr.
Thaddaus Engert, of Ochsenfurt. He had
been a rather industrious scholar of Dr.
Friedrich Delitzsch. When he published the
first part of a larger work, known as "Die
Urzeit der Bibel" ("The Primitive Times
of the Bible"), the first chapter dealt with
"The Creation of the World." Engert was
218

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
soon known as giving the results of later
Oriental research and also the new Protes
tant conception of inspiration. Bishop
Schlor, of Wiirzburg, took Engert earnestly
to task, demanding of him to withdraw the
book from publication and to recant. Eng
ert, however, refused an immediate and un
conditional recantation and asked for an ex
tension of time. Consequently he was ex
communicated and became editor of the
Zwanzigste Jahrhundert in Munich. Soon
after this occurrence the Bishop of Augs
burg, basing his claims upon the encyclical
"Pascendi," would not allow the priests in
his diocese to organize a society which simply
aimed at guarding their own interests. In
other dioceses such already organized socie
ties were forced to dissolve. According to a
common pastoral letter of January, 1908,
only such societies for priests were to be
tolerated which confined their entire efforts
to mutual sick-benefit, hfe insurance, etc.
The real battle about the encyclical
"Pascendi" began through the newly
founded Internationale Wochenschrift fur
Wi'ssenschaft, Kunst und Technik (Inter-
219

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
national Weekly for Science, Art, and Tech
nics). In December, 1907, there appeared
an article by Friedrich Paulsen on "The
Crisis of Catholic-theological Faculties in
Germany. ' ' In January and February, 1908,
several noted Protestant theologians took ex
ception to Syllabus and "Pascendi," then
including such men as Hauck, Troltsch, Herr
mann, Eucken, Walter Kohler, Harnack, and
Paulsen. The articles by these noted schol
ars were doubtless the most important con
sideration of the encyclical on the Protestant
side. Catholic theologians — men hke Pro
fessor Meurer of Wiirzburg, Professors Ehr
hard and Schnitzer of Munich, and Professor
Mausbach of Minister — presented their ob
jections. Albert Ehrhard fearlessly de
scribed the present status of Catholic the
ology ; he regretted the tone and the literary
form of the encyclical, referred to the answer
of the Italian Modernists, contending that
Modernism was something altogether differ
ent from the Vatican's presentation. Should
Cathohc theological faculties retain their po
sition in the organism of German universi
ties, then they must have unconditional free-
220

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
dom in theological views; theological re
search must be granted the right to make it
self felt in the whole sphere of theological
science; this research must also retain the
right to apply modern methods in the field
of empirical, historical, critical, and psycho
logical thought. If Catholic theology avoids
these means, then it consequently looses
every claim to the use of scientific methods
in modern research and commits an unpar
donable sin. Are the methods as recom
mended in the encyclical practically applied,
then the Catholic theological university fac
ulties of Germany are doomed to sink into
the grave of their older sisters. Here Ehr
hard referred to the Catholic faculties in
France and Italy. This would mean the be
ginning of the end. The Germania, a leading
Ultramontane paper, published the whole ar
ticle of Ehrhard, and the anger of Eome was
brought down upon Ehrhard. Pope Pius X
deprived him of the title as a Eoman prelate.
Ehrhard, lacking the Teuton courage of a
Martin Luther, quickly recanted and sub
mitted; he said he regretted very much that
his article, which had been written to serve
221

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
the interests of Catholic theology in Ger
many, had brought forth conclusions to
which, however, he could not submit. So
Ehrhard intended to remain a good and
faithful son of the Church, always willing to
recognize ecclesiastical authority.
Another offender of the radical type who
has caused the pope considerable trouble is
Professor Josef Schnitzer, of Munich. In
him we see the warring of the university pro
fessor against the prelate of the hierarchy,
of the German against the Eoman-Spanish
mind. His articles, and especially his book
"Hat Jesus das Papsttum gestiftet?" ("Did
Christ Found the Papacy?") have given the
Vatican a great deal of trouble and heart
ache. Schnitzer, who still holds the position
of university professor at Munich under the
supervision of the Bavarian Government,
and Engert, formerly editor of the New
Century — since his excommunication study
ing Protestant theology at Jena — are the
only two men among all who protested
against "Pascendi;" they did not yield to
the demands of the Vatican. Schnitzer
writes: "The love of Eome for the universi-
222

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
ties and sciences has ever been selfish and
Platonic. It has supported the sciences and
higher institutions of learning mightily, so
long as they served Eome. But Eome im
mediately changed when the universities
wrenched themselves from Eoman tutelage
and attempted to stand on their own feet;
to-day Eome is indifferent toward the vari
ous sciences; they are only welcome when
they serve Eome's purpose. Eome fondly
imagines it can command the scientist as an
incense-bearer. It has no understanding of
the fidelity of the scientist to his convictions.
From the standpoint of these convictions the
Eoman Catholic Church can not have an in
ner relation toward science at all. Based
upon her doctrine of being always guided by
the Holy Spirit, she has always delighted in
the full possession of divine truth. She has
from the beginning known everything better
than science; she is incapable of fallacies,
and not at all dependent upon human science
and knowledge. Hence she alone, the Eo
man Catholic Church, gives the criterion and
measure for all sciences and estimates of
truth, not only in theological but also in sec-
223

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
ular research. All must conform with her
doctrines. The scholars may search for
years and years, the Eoman monsignore de
cides, even if he understands nothing of the
point in question. And justly so. For the
scholar will and shall find out what is truth ;
the monsignore establishes what is ecclesi
astical. Eoman scholars, the priest, and the
faithful are and remain, no matter how long
they may live, the simple sheep who could
never liberate themselves from the Eoman
yoke. They constitute the Ecclesia discens,
which simply hears and obeys. The Holy
Spirit is the monopoly of the prelates."
These were plain, outspoken German
words, although the language was not Eoman
Catholic any more. In spite of Schnitzer 's
keen and sharp words he was not attacked
on account of such dissertations, for punish
ment could be easier applied for other mat
ters. The February (1908) number of the
Suddeutsche Monatshefte published an ar
ticle, written by Josef Schnitzer, in which he
discussed the "Legendenstudien" of Pro
fessor Giinter, of Tubingen. In his boldness
Schnitzer directed the searchlight of his hy-
224

STEUGGLE OF PIUS X
percritical scrutiny upon the life of Christ
as well as upon the life of the Catholic saints,
claiming to find legendary traits in the Gos
pels touching even the doctrine of the Di
vinity of Christ and the Lord's Supper, and
denying the miraculous. The Suddeutsche
Monatshefte were quickly sent to Eome, his
lectures to theologians in the University of
Munich were forbidden even, while the stu
dents of other faculties flocked to his class
room and gave him tremendous applause.
February 6, 1908, he was immediately a di-
vinis suspended and disciphned. It is out
of question that Schnitzer should ever recant.
He is under the protection of the State, still
teaching in the university, and the State is
not as anxious to dispose of such cases by
quickly dismissing the offending teachers as
are the ecclesiastical authorities.

225

IX
THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
The Catholic press on the continent of
Europe, among other papers the Kblnische
Volkszeitung, points out to its readers that
it was nothing less than an imperative and
inevitable duty on the part of the Holy Fa
ther to enter upon the warfare against Mod
ernism, a warfare which he is conducting so
energetically. The action, of course, was
particularly prompted by the developments
of recent years in Italy. This paper's infor
mation is correct, and undoubtedly inspired
from official sources. It also states that
there are quite a number of places in Italy
where a regular Modernist propaganda is
carried on. Societies are formed for that
purpose ; numerous meetings are held. Mod
ernist systems of study are organized, and
every possible effort is made by the pro
moters of the movement to influence religious
thought and general literature. These Mod-
226

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
ernists, it is stated, deny the authority of the
Church and of the pope ; they keep printing-
presses busy, and send out a large number
of pamphlets, which are circulated among
the people. "We are glad to be able to
say," observes the Kolnische Volksseitung,
"that there is nothing like this in Ger
many." And yet "there is something like that in
Germany," taking the latest developments
in consideration. And the pope will likewise
find it as in his dealings with the men whom
he intended to chain to papal assumptions and
traditions through an oath against all Mod
ernistic tendencies. These, he will see, are
not so easily dealt with; they are Teutons
with the spirit of Luther within them. The
Catholic Citizen, of Milwaukee, rightly thinks
that Eoman Catholic matters in Europe are
likely to be worse before they are better.
Yes, even the Catholics of Germany are wak
ing up to the fact that Eoman Catholicism —
and the emphasis must be placed on "Eo
man" — has forfeited its opportunity as
leader of the modern nations. Catholic ec
clesiastical circles have probably never been
227

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
stirred since the Eeformation as they are at
the present time over the Anti-Modernist
Oath asked by the pope of Catholic priests
and teachers.
Two occurrences of vital importance and
influence, probably not directly connected
with the oath, although greatly influencing
sentiment, must be given brief mention in
this connection.
The German Emperor went on a visit to
his friend, Prince Egon von Fiirstenberg, at
Donauesohingen. He spent some very pleas
ant days hunting in the outskirts of the Black
Forest. On one of his expeditions the Kaiser
called at the neighboring Benedictine Mon
astery of Beuron, where he partook of some
light refreshments and presented the mon
astery with a metal crucifix. After the pre
sentation the monks, with their abbot at the
head, gathered round His Imperial Majesty
and listened to a short address. The Kaiser
has always admired the Benedictine monks,
and whenever he finds himself in the neigh
borhood of one of their establishments he
visits the abbot and speaks words of gracious
recognition of the part which the brethren
228

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
are supposed to have played in the history
of Church art and Hterature.
On this occasion the Kaiser made a speech
which has given great satisfaction in Cath
ohc and Ultramontane circles and the great
est dissatisfaction among the ranks of his
Protestant subjects. Even the Beichsbote,
the organ of Prussian Protestant orthodoxy,
found fault with His Majesty and blamed
him in no uncertain tones for coquetting with
monasticism. The journal in question re
minded the Kaiser that not so very long ago,
in his Borromeo encyclical, the pope bitterly
inveighed against the princes of the German
Eeformation as men without principle, whose
god was their belly. The pope has not re
tracted one word of this Hbel, and yet the
Kaiser goes out of his way to say pleasant
things of an order which, as much as any
other, is identified with papal pretensions.
The Kaiser begged the Abbot of Beuron to
help him in endeavoring to retain rehgion
among the people, to help princes and Chris
tian governments to rule in the fear of the
Lord, to further the strong religious senti
ment implanted in the breasts of Germans,
229

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
and reminded him that Altar and Throne be
long to one another and can not be separated.
The monks of Beuron were told that the
twentieth century had problems to solve
which this union of Altar and Throne would
do much to faciHtate.
One naturally asks what the Kaiser's ally,
the King of Italy, has to say to this address
of his imperial friend. In Italy there is no
apparent union of Altar and Throne, and
the only course open to King Victor Em
manuel, if he wishes to bring about this
union, is to withdraw from his capitol and
leave it in the possession of the Prisoner of
the Vatican. The Kaiser, as a student of his
tory, must know perfectly well that no union
of Altar and Throne is acceptable to Eome
which does not include the supremacy of the
pope's throne over all earthly thrones. The
Kaiser must also surely know that in the
pages of history nothing is written with
clearer letters than the fact that where this
union has existed the condition of the people
has been deplorable and revolution has been
the outcome. One has only to reflect on the
230

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
union of Altar and Throne in France and
what it has done for the maintenance of re
ligion in that country. And the recent his
tory of Spain and Portugal affords fresh
proofs of the part which the monastic orders
have taken in the elevation of nations and in
the retention of religion among them.
Another matter must be reviewed for a
moment, to which not enough attention has
been paid by the world. It is the recent
spectacular flight of Prince Max of Saxony
and his forced recantation of his challenge
of the Eoman Cathohc claims at the feet of
the pope. Prince Max of Saxony is a
younger brother of the king of that land.
He has been a Jesuit priest since 1896, and
for the last five years has held the important
office of professor of Common Law and Lit
urgy at the Swiss University of Freiburg.
Extremely gentle and affable in his manners,
he has ever enjoyed popularity, especially
among the poor, to whom much of his time
had been devoted. He began his ecclesias
tical career as a parish priest, and worked
for some months among the poor of the East
231

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
End of London. He is now a tertiary of the
great Dominican Order, and has always been
known as a strong rock of orthodoxy.
This royal priest has been deeply inter
ested for some time in the union of the East
ern and Western branches of the Catholic
Church. So he has made a journey to
Athens, Constantinople, and the great mon
astic estabHshment of Mount Athos, with the
object of studying the situation and getting
in contact with the leaders of the Eastern
Church, or, as the Catholic News (January
14, 1911) says, to study "the delicate ques
tion of the return of the Greek Church to
the true fold. ' ' His studies were in the field
of Church history, and, as a man of un
doubted learning, he conversed at length with
the scholars of that ancient Greek monastery
and delved deeply in the untrammeled field
of history. On his way home he lectured on
his experiences ; the prince rather made fun
of those Greek and Eussian monks hiding
there among the rocks of Athos. These lec
tures, however, did not seem- to have brought
him reproof or correction, probably because
they were confined to the monks of the Greek
232

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
Church. Had they been Eoman Catholic
monks, Prince Max's freedom of speech
would undoubtedly soon have been curtailed.
When he had returned to his college he
wrote an article setting forth the grounds
upon which hopes might be entertained for
reuniting these long divided branches of the
Church. This article was published in a
Cathohc periodical entitled Borne and the
Orient, edited by a monk of St. Basil, the
Abbot of Pellegrini. The article is chiefly
occupied in removing the hindrances to the
union of the Oriental and Occidental
Churches. It has caused a storm of indig
nation in Eoman circles, and has also caused
the Vatican to summon the illustrious priest
to Eome, there to give an explanation of his
conduct and to recant his views. Prince Max
expressed views in this article which are so
utterly at variance with the accepted papal
teachings that an able writer says it is the
most formidable attack of recent years on
the pretensions of the papacy and its claim
to infallibility. What, then, are the views published by
this German ecclesiastical prince? First, he
233

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
says that throughout the controversy be
tween the two Churches the Eoman popes
have insisted upon the supremacy of their
estabHshment and on the subordinate posi
tion of the Eastern patriarchs. Popes, like
Innocent III, Nicholas I, and Leo IX, have
insisted on this view. It is a view, however,
says Prince Max, which must be given up if
union is to be established. A primacy at
Eome can not be maintained. Equally clear
is Prince Max's remark about the temporal
power. The temporal power is of modern
invention, unknown to the early Church, and
only maintained on the questionable author
ity of false credentials. This is the view
which only a few years ago was described
as accursed by Pope Leo XIII.
Prince Max is equally exphcit concerning
his views on the dogma. If Eome desires
union with the Eastern patriarchs, there
must be no insistence on those particular and
peculiar dogmas and rites "fabricated" by
the Eoman Church alone, and introduced
after the disruption. Not only the primacy
of Eome must be abandoned, but the pe
culiar coloring given to the doctrine of the
234

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
purgatory, the transubstantiation, and con
firmation must not be insisted upon. He de
clared that the claim to infallibility was like
wise a modern invention which would have
to be given up, since it stood squarely in the
way of union. On these dogmas the Oriental
Church has its own views, and liberty must
be given to it to retain them. The belief in
the Immaculate Conception of Mary was not
held or recognized by the saints of the ear-
Hest times. The Apostle Paul must be given
a place of authority, equal to that held by
St. Peter. On the general question of union,
says the prince, there must be no forcing of
the Eastern Churches to accept the Eoman
standards either of polity or dogma; there
must also be no insisting on contributions of
money from the East to the West for the
support of peculiarly Western institutions.
But he did not stop there; for he also
touched the subjects of the Crusades and
showed how they were to some extent the
expeditions of robbers, and how the popes
had been eaten up with the lust of power,
rather than the passion for feeding the flock
of Christ. Trickery had been resorted to by
235

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
certain popes to deceive the Eastern
Churches, and certain councils could not be
regarded as ecumenical. All this is a body
blow to the claims of the Church of Eome to
day; it is a piece of Modernism, pure and
simple. Briefly, this is the substance of the fa
mous article written by this bold Saxon
priest. Indeed, he shattered the clay feet
of the image and challenged the imposture
to come out into the daylight of the world's
public opinion when he formidably attacked
the hollow claims to infallibility. As soon as
the article was published every effort was
made by the Vatican authorities to suppress
the magazine in which it had appeared.
Copies were bought up at any price and de
stroyed. Scarcely one is now in existence.
Hastily Prince Max was sent for. It was
soon made known by the Vatican authorities
"that he is ready to retract all errors pointed
out to him by the Holy See." {Catholic
News, New York, January 14, 1911.) The
papal epistle to the Eastern Churches states
that Prince Maximilian in the presence of
the pope solemnly undertook to teach, reject,
236

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
and condemn what the Church teaches, re
jects, and condemns. It characterizes his ar
ticle as inconsiderate, but written in good
faith. Twelve hours after the prince had
been kneehng before the pope, asking for
giveness and retracting all he had said, the
pope's letter to his bishops condemning the
prince's heresies had been issued and was on
its way to all four quarters of the world.
Probably never before had there been such
a haste at the Vatican.
Although the Vatican has dealt success
fully with far stronger natures than that of
the prince — and we greatly regret the course
of the prince — yet no one believes in Prince
Max's recantation. He is a man of science,
and his conclusions were arrived at after
years of patient study. He has not really
yielded up his beHef. All he has done is to
give his master, the pope, a salve to apply
to anxious spirits throughout the Church.
It is the opinion of a great many careful
watchers in the Catholic and Protestant
Churches in Europe that the foundations of
the Church of Eome are being surely sapped,
and, to change the figure, cracks are begin-
237

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
ning to appear in the clay feet of the co
lossus. Of course, it is now impossible to
obtain a copy of the periodical in which the
prince's article had appeared, and, judging
by the fresh light thrown on the article by
the European press, the prince is a Modern
ist of the blackest type.
In the Saxon home of the prince the in
cident has created most profound excitement.
The Catholic House of Wettin, which rules
in the Protestant land of Saxony, has no
sympathies to spare for the Vatican or the
ways of the Vatican. This was shown rather
effectively recently when the King of Saxony
sent his famous protest to Eome against the
language of the late Borromeo encychcal.
The king himself is said to be in no way at
tached to Eome or the Eoman confession,
and in the capitol of Dresden rumor is per
sistent that the drastic treatment which
Prince Max has suffered at the hands of the
Vatican will move the king one step further
in the direction of secession, to follow the
example of his Protestant forebears of the
glorious Eeformation. The Vatican surely
should know, if past experiences are not ut-
238

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
terly forgotten, that among the proud,
straight-forward, unbending Saxons the
spirit of Martin Luther still lives and moves.
Now, it might too commonly be supposed
that Modernism stands for a violent and bit
ter attack upon the authenticity and author
ity of the Holy Scriptures, and one readily
allows that the great number of books and
pamphlets which have fallen in recent years
upon France and Italy especially would be
sufficient to justify such an opinion. But it
should be remembered that Modernism in the
Eoman Catholic Church means in reality no
more than an examination of the Christian
faith; that is, to separate out of the theo
logical dogma what is merely legendary and
traditional. It is therefore not always the
most reckless and actually unscientific criti
cism; for many of the so-called heretics are
most reverently and devoutly searching the
Scriptures to see what is fundamentally the
"hope of salvation." As we have seen, His
Holiness Pope Pius X, who is simply the
nominal head of the Vatican and surrounded
by his Latin advisers, has experienced con
siderable trouble with the offenders in Italy,
239

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
France, Germany, and England. He deemed
it wise and necessary, from the Ultramontane
standpoint, to use partly inquisitorial meth
ods in dealing with the offenders. Some
yielded to the pressure brought to bear upon
them, while others would never betray the
dictum of their conscience and would rather
live under the ban of excommunication for
the rest of their lives.
In order to stem the tide, which is grow
ing very rapidly — as the Latin countries are
in almost open revolt against the Vatican,
and Eome in many quarters is fighting for its
life with its back to the wall — the Holy Fa
ther has sent out to the Catholic clergy in
Europe and America a circular, requiring all
priests to take an oath against Modernistic
doctrine. Here is a translation of it:
"I accept and firmly embrace everything
that has been defined by the unerring magis-
terium of the Church, whatever has been de
clared and promulgated, especially those doc
trines which are directed against present-day
errors. "In the first place, I profess that God,
the beginning and end of all things, can by
240

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
the natural light of reason be known and
even demonstrated through those things
which have been created; namely, the visible
works of nature, as a cause through its ef
fects. ' ' Secondly, I hold and admit that the ex
ternal arguments of revelation, namely, di
vine works, especially miracles and prophe
cies, as most sure signs of a Christian reli
gion divinely estabhshed, and I hold those
same things to be true for all ages and men,
even of our own time, and that they are
strictly conformable to reason.
"Thirdly, I firmly believe that the
Church, the custodian and teacher of the re
vealed Word, through the very historic
Christ, when He lived among us, was proxi
mately and directly instituted, and this same
Church was founded upon Peter, the prince
of the apostoHc hierarchy, and his successors
to last for ever.
"Fourthly, I sincerely accept the doc
trine of faith in its entirety as it has been
transmitted to our times by orthodox preach
ers; and, moreover, I entirely reject the
heretical dictum of the evolution of dogmas
of those who transfer the meaning of those
dogmas from one sense to another, differing
entirely from that held previously by the
Church. 241

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
"Fifthly, I hold as most certain and sin
cerely profess that faith is not a blind re
sult of a religious breaking forth from a
darkened subconsciousness, and proceeding
from the heart and flexible wiU alone, but
which is conformable to reason and has been
revealed by a personal God, our Creator and
Lord; and we believe it to be true, because
of the authority of God, who is eminently
truthful. "I firmly believe and with due reverence
submit to all the condemnations and declara
tions which are contained in the encycHcal
letters, 'Pascendi,' and the decree 'Lamenta-
bili,' especially concerning that which they
term dogmatic history.
"I likewise reject the error of those that
affirm that the faith proposed by the Church
is repugnant to history, and that Catholic
tenets, in the sense in which they are now
understood, can not be reconciled with more
reliable origins of the Christian religion. I
likewise condemn the opinion of those who
maintain that the learned Christian man
possesses a double personality — the one a
believer, the other an historian.
"I disregard also that system of inter
preting Sacred Scripture which prefers the
methods of rationalists to the tradition of
242

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
the Church, the doctrines of the faith, and
the rules of the Apostolic See.
"Finally and in a word, I profess myself
opposed to the error of the Modernists who
hold that there is nothing divine in sacred
tradition or, what is still worse, admitted in
a Pantheistic sense, so that nothing remains
of it but the bare and simple fact, just as
is the case of other historical facts.
"I promise that I shall faithfully and in
the sincerety of my heart observe all these,
never deviating from them in any way, either
in teaching or in word and writing. So I
promise, so I swear."
The priests of the Catholic world have
taken this stringent oath. The matter was
completed throughout the world before the
31st of December, 1910. The secular press
commented upon the matter, but gave rather
meager accounts of it, for not all of the
facts were given. Considering the condition
in France, for instance, we find that some
priests gave only outer assent to the oath,
while reserving the right to go on reading
the books of this generation, notwithstand
ing their outward, formal, and oathbound
243

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
declaration to the contrary. The reader may
draw his own conclusions concerning the es
sential character of the clerical training and
conscience of the French priests in a joint
letter written by priests in every diocese in
France and sent to every bishop. This let
ter elevated perjury to a virtue ; its morality
is horrible. It plainly shows the widespread
disaffection Pius X is trying so desperately
to crush. Dr. Paul Hyacinthe Loyson, son
of Father Loyson, said of this letter, "Nobler
words were never used to express the deter
mination to commit an infamous action."
Here follows a translation of the joint
letter of the French priests to their bishops :
"Youe Loedship: Profoundly convinced
that the Church should not be identified with
the Curia and the Eoman congregations ; that
the law of nature allows no man to tyrannize
over conscience ; that religion is not produced
by the bludgeon, and that a stroke of the
pen does not suffice to deprive a priest of the
rights which his manhood, his baptism, and
his ordination give him;
"Moved to sorrow by an oath which min
gles together both revealed doctrines and
purely human opinions, and yet demands our
244

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
complete and unqualified assent; recognizing
in this demand a measure which would de
stroy aU liberty among the faithful, and all
sense of self-respect among the priests ; con
vinced that a majority of CathoHcs, led
astray by a press whose bidding for favor
has no Hmits, and whose servility has no
bounds, are too terrorized by threats to com
prehend the necessity of legitimate protest;
wishing to remain in the Church because they
beheve in it and because they love it, because
it is their Father's house and because their
remaining in it is an indestructible obstacle
to the estabHshment of absolute despotism;
acting, moreover, upon the example — ap
proved by the highest religious authority — of
those members of religious orders who,
whenever a civil law appears to them unjust,
never hesitate to affirm before our courts
what is contrary to truth, on the ground that
their action does not bind them but is merely
an external gesture, a mere formaHty;
"Knowing, finally, that according to the
recent decision of the Sacred Consistorial
Congregation, September 25, 1910, each case
of refusal to take this oath must be sent for
judgment to the Inquisition — a tribunal
which has blundered often in the past, and
can blunder again in the present and the fu
ture, but which admits no appeal from its
245

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
sentence and never retracts error, even when
the error is a condemnation of the motion of
the earth — a tribunal which makes the out
rageous claim of judging with hearing and
without even telling a man of what he is
accused ;
"Having also read in these same deci
sions that ecclesiastical superiors are forbid
den to give letters of recommendation to such
of their subordinates as have been refused
permission to preach in any place ; that bish
ops and pastors are likewise prohibited from
inviting to the pulpit any preacher who has
been reproved by a prelate ; and that in con
sequence the honor and even the daily bread
of a priest are placed at the mercy of pos
sible personal spite, and may be sacrificed
to an inculpable mistake;
"For all these reasons, and others too
numerous to mention, a body of priests be
longing to every diocese in France have de
termined to give merely external submission
to the decree 'Sacrorum Antistitum,' and at
present, and also for the future, if similar
circumstances should arise, to go through the
formality of the oath.
"But before submitting to this tyranny
they wish to protest before God, before the
Church, and before your lordship that this
act does not bind them in conscience and does
246

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
not in the least imply a change in their ideas ;
that they remain to-day what they were yes
terday; and that, reserving their interior,
complete, and absolute assent for that alone
which is essential to faith, they will, for all
the rest, confine themselves, so far as they
can, to respectful silence."
The contrast to the attitude of the French
priests can be clearly seen in the treatment
the pope's demand received by certain brave
Italian priests. A recent case will illustrate
this point. Don Luigi Fontana, of Palazzola,
near Milan, in a meeting convened for the
priests in that district, objected to this new
imposition, affirming that he did not believe
the exercise of his own judgment on certain
Modernist questions was incompatible with
a profession of the Christian faith or the
fundamental precepts of the Church. Conse
quently his case was given to Cardinal Fer
rari, of Milan, who rated him soundly for
venturing even to question the orders of the
Vatican given out by the Holy Father. The
young obstinate priest was immediately sus
pended; the cardinal granted him two days
to reconsider the matter and repent. Fon-
247

MODEENISM AND THE VATICAN
tana's answer was also immediately forth
coming. Here is a copy of the letter he sent
to the cardinal at the expiration of the time :
"Youe Eminence : I can not take the oath,
save at the expense of a Hberty which I can
not relinquish. What you call the pride of
a 'good-for-nothing young man' is, as far
as I am concerned, a simple act of honesty.
Sincerity, which seems to count for nothing
with ecclesiastical authorities, my conscience
tells me, is the first of all virtues and the
foundation of a moral life. Consequently I
prefer to suffer any sacrifice which my re
fusal to take the oath may entail, rather than
commit moral suicide, which would rob me
of all peace during the rest of my Hfe.
"Devoutly yours,
"(Signed) Luigi Fontana."
Fontana is only twenty-seven years old,
is well educated, a fluent speaker, sympa
thetic, and of deep religious sentiment. It
appears that it is not his intention to enter
the active ministry, as he prefers to take a
literary diploma in the university, with the
view of securing a government professorship
and devoting himself to education.
Another case of greater importance and
248

THE ANTI-MODEENIST OATH
exceptional gravity is the recent desertion
from the bosom of the Eoman Church of
Monsignore Giobbio, as he is a very intimate
friend of Cardinal Merry del Val, the pope 's
secretary of State, who figured conspicuously
in the HmeHght of the Eoosevelt-Fairbanks
incident. Monsignore Giobbio was professor
of Ecclesiastical Law in the Academy for
Ecclesiastics drawn from the nobility, also
private chaplain to the pope, and under sec
retary of the Congregation of the "Eego-
lari." He had been sent recently as apos-
toHc visitor to reorganize the theological
studies in various provinces in Sicily. He
is well known among Catholic and Protestant
theologians by his three volumes of lectures
on "Ecclesiastical Diplomacy" and his vol
ume on "Conciliation." These documents
are held in high repute. This noted man,
after many years of service, now feels con
strained to abandon the Church of Eome for
a life more in harmony with the dictum of
reason and conscience. His Holiness un
doubtedly suffered many pangs in throwing
this weed over the Vatican's wall.
The situation in Germany among the Ro-
249

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
man clergy is probably of a more serious
nature at present than in any other country.
Signs are becoming visible on all sides that
the wise men of the Vatican, and especially
the Italian advisers of the pope, have made a
profound and rather serious mistake in their
attempts to impose the Anti-Modernist Oath
on German priests and on the Catholic clergy
filling theological chairs in German univer
sities. It was reported in March, 1911, that
twenty-four priests had openly decided not
to take this oath. But how many had de
clined in private to take it is not known and
never will be known. Of the twenty-four,
fourteen belong to Bavaria; the other ten
are either Prussians or belong to South Ger
man States. These men by their courageous
action deprived themselves of all means of
livelihood, and some of them have been
obliged to beg the assistance of benevolent
funds to which they had formerly subscribed.
In one very sad case a priest who was not
entitled to the benefits of the fund worked on
the streets of Munich fourteen days, reports
a European paper, shoveling snow. It is not
only among the priests that this movement
250

THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
has set in against the oath. In four semi
naries for the training of priests a number
of the students have left the institutions on
the ground that the taking of the oath by
their preceptors means an infringement of
their liberty as scientific theologians.
Here follows the confession of a German
priest who has taken the oath against his
own conviction, as he writes in the Neue
Jahrhundert, 1911, No. 2 ; he gives his name
as a Roman priest who would like to be a
German priest: "I have also taken the oath.
With a wounded soul, obeying necessity.
Necessity? Yes, I must consider my relatives
and close friends ; in old age one can not se
lect another calling, even if one is not in
poor circumstances. Who could with an easy
heart liberate himself from everything? Oh,
it was a hard struggle within me. My con
science was fighting against the brutal power
of intellectual suppression. Can a man ever
stand before God who has forbidden his fel
low-men to think? The thoughts come,
whether they should or not ; worse than that,
doubts come, and the suppression of intel
lectual freedom increases such doubts. Yet
251

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
the awful hour is past, only there rests upon
me an awful dream. But I have found one
comfort, one ray of hope fell in the encircling
gloom. While I took the oath Christ stood
before me with His look of compassion. I
saw that He would pardon my sin which I
was forced to commit against Him. I have
heard Him say: 'My son, thy sins are for
given thee. Truth is on its way.' " This
troubled priest closed his confession with
an appeal, to the State, which should protect
the priests against the foreign despotic in
terference of the Roman hierarchy. An old
priest of Augsburg has published an open
letter to the pope in the Augsburger Post-
zeitung, which has been reproduced in many
journals throughout the country. Among
other things' he says: "Jesus Christ Himself
did not punish with expulsion those of His
apostles who doubted. Holy Father, I am
a servant of God, and wish to continue so.
I swear with all my heart to respect the
truth ; but I can not call God to witness that
in the future I will always hold as truth that
which you to-day seek to impose upon me. It
would imply the renunciation of every human
252

THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
writing, and even the teaching of the Apostle
Paul himself, who wrote, 'Prove all things,
hold fast that which is good.' "
When the pope demanded the oath of his
priests, wherein these points are: first, the
supernatural element in rehgion ; second, the
Divinity of Christ; third, the establishment
of the Church by the apostles, and fourth, the
sacredness of the traditions of the Church, —
he expected that the circular of September
25, 1910, would be sufficient. But in order
that some offenders might not escape, an
other circular has been sent out later
throughout Europe, requiring all clerical
professors in colleges and all priests who
have the cure of souls not simply to take an
oath against Modernistic doctrine, but, as if
to make it more binding, to sign a document
to that effect. It had hitherto been supposed,
it seems, that priests who are professors in
universities or teachers in other State insti
tutions would be excused from taking the
oath. And an exemption does, indeed, apply
to priests who are professors exclusively;
but nearly all of these professors are also
preachers and confessors in the dioceses
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
where they live, or are members of ecclesi
astical bodies of some sort. Besides the
Vatican made it plain that it did not look
with favor on those professors who would
take advantage of the exemption. In his let
ter to Cardinal Fischer, of Cologne, the pope
admits that it may be necessary to suspect
the orthodoxy of those taking such advan
tage, but ' ' assuredly they show a lamentable
dependence upon the opinions of men in that
they cowardly do homage to the authority of
those who, not of conviction, but out of
hatred for the Catholic religion, proclaim
that the oath offends against the dignity of
human reason and checks progress in the
sciences." In these words the Protestant
feeling of Germany, as well as the historical
sense of German scholarship, are grievously
affronted, and undoubtedly the letter has ap
preciably darkened the prospects of religious
peace. The last circular has raised a storm of
opposition in clerical circles. Even the Kol-
ner Volkszeitung, which has always been a
defender of Roman methods, refused to be
consoled, when it said, "It is not too late to
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THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
reply to this high-handed policy, 'Thus far
and no farther.' "
Perhaps of the greatest importance and
- significance was the determined attitude as
sumed by the professors in the colleges in
Wurttemberg, Bavaria, Monaco, and other
places. Hugo Koch, with his "Cyprian and
the Roman Primate," and Josef Schnitzer,
with his "Did Christ Found the Papacy?"
are by no means alone. Others who were
affected by the last circular issued by the
Vatican with its Italian advisers, are now
fighting the battle. We mention only a few
of the offenders, noted scholars of Germany.
The rebellion is open, and it seems to be
daily growing in volume. Many German pro
fessors refused most emphatically to sub
scribe to the Anti-Modernist Oath. Most
significant is undoubtedly the refusal of Pro
fessor Leonhard Atzberger, instructor in
Dogmatic Theology at the University of
Munich. He has been an influential scholar
in the Roman Church, was promoted to the
full professorship in 1894, and has written
"Der Glaube," "Die Logoslehre des heiligen
Athanasius," "Handbuch der katholischen
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Dogmatik," and a number of other noted
works. It must also be remembered that
Dr. Atzberger holds a high position in the
Archepiscopal Council. Other distinguished
recalcitrant professors are Professor Knop-
fer, Professor Gieti, Dr. Walter, Professor
Gottberger. These men are united in their
determination to resist to the death this at
tack on their liberty of conscience. Besides
these and many others, the young priests in
the Seminary of San Gaetano, at Monaco,
have refused to take the oath.
More recent news from Germany shows
that the deflections in the Roman Catholic
Church exceed the most pessimistic forecast
and assume proportions truly alarming to
the Vatican. Throughout Baden, and more
especially in Freiburg, it is reported on good
authority, not one of the professors or
priests has consented to take the Anti-
Modernist Oath, and the time limit fixed for
doing so has long passed. In other States
the resisters are increasing in numbers. The
ecclesiastical authorities in Rome maintained
a very suggestive silence on the matter and
sought to hide from the public the grave
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THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
crisis brought about by the pope's action;
but information will ooze out. One Catholic
organ, wishing to make light of the matter,
declared that the result of the circular may
be regarded as one of the victories of the
pohcy pursued by Pius X (victory forsooth !)
in that it has enabled the Holy See to find out
who among the Roman clergy are tainted
with Modernist error. The journal goes on
to say that His Holiness will now be able to
weed his garden and throw over the wall
the noxious plants that disfigure it. But here
is another side of the question. Rome is los
ing her choicest sons, those who stand for
intelligence and culture and all that is spir
itual. It is a struggle of darkness and super
stition against the incoming of light. It is
a determined fight for freedom of thought
and Hberty of conscience, and there can be
no doubt as to the issue. It is all nonsense
talking about the pope weeding his garden!
When wise men weed their gardens they do
not pluck up the flowers. The papacy did
that very thing in the sixteenth century, with
a result known to all students of history, and
if the same course is followed in the twen-
17 257

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
tieth, the result, as far as the Roman Church
is concerned, will be far more disastrous.
Still more significant is the aroused oppo
sition against the Vatican in quarters yet
more important — a determined opposition
which can not but entail the gravest conse
quences for the Roman Church in Germany.
At Leipzig, in a congress of professors con
nected with the various German universities,
a very serious deHberation took place. At
its close a motion was passed unanimously
to exclude from the teaching staff any pro
fessor who may have signed the oath against
Modernism, on the simple ground that such
an act is degrading to reason and altogether
incompatible with a free and sincere exami
nation of the scientific problems of the age.
Even the editors of Catholic newspapers
in Germany had been notified that they will
be expected to write according to the Vati
can's precepts. A long list of instructions
has been sent out to them in which the duties
of a faithful editor are carefully explained.
He is not to permit the expression of any
heretical views in his paper. He is likewise
not permitted to say a word of praise about
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THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
any writer who assails directly or indirectly
the doctrines of the Church. He is not to
criticise or call in question the authority of
the pope or of the Cathohc bishops. He is
to advocate in season or out of season the
temporal authority of the pope, and to con
tinue to point out to the faithful the ter
rible condition of the pope in his imprison
ment. ChanceUor von Bethmann-Hollweg admit
ted in the Prussian Diet that "profound emo
tion had been aroused in Germany by the
decrees recently issued by the Vatican." He
pointed out that the State had nothing to
do with the rehgious affairs of the people,
but when subscription to or refusal to sub
scribe to an oath affected the position of
members of the Roman Catholic faculties at
the universities or of Roman Catholic teach
ers in the State schools, the State must de
fend itself. Chancellor von Bethmann-Holl
weg said that if the Vatican had informed
the Prussian Government beforehand of its
intention to issue these decrees, attention
could have been drawn to the consequent
danger of such action and the present con-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
flicts might have been averted. Seeing that
the Vatican did not adopt such a plan, it
must now take full responsibility for the ef
fect produced by the decrees in Germany.
In respect to counter-measures the minister-
president declined to consider the suggestion
that the Roman Catholic faculties at the uni
versities should be dissolved, but he ex
pressed a decided opinion that the Roman
Catholic clergy and teachers who had given
instructions in State schools as teachers of
German and of history — hitherto to the sat
isfaction of the government — could not do
this after they had subscribed to the Anti-
Modernist Oath. The decision implied in von
Bethmann-Hollweg's statement is of far-
reacning importance, for it also effects the
appointment of district inspectors of schools,
and the threat to carry it into force may
suffice. Taken as a whole, the speech of the
minister-president was an emphatic exhorta
tion and warning to the Vatican, and an in
timation that Prussia has decided to stand
her ground, and to fight to maintain it if
compelled to do so by the Vatican.
The Prussian ambassador at Rome called
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THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
attention to the danger of a disturbance of
the cordial relations then existing between
his country and the Vatican if the oath should
be insisted upon in relation to the Catholic
professors of Theology in Prussian univer
sities. Cardinal Fischer, however, was later
able in his tactful way to persuade the pope
that for Germany the application of the oath
required some modifications and concessions.
It had been pointed out, especially by Prot
estants, that the pope's policy in the different
German States strongly tended to bring
about a separation of Church and State. The
governments of most of the German States
either already have declared or are mani
festly about to declare that it would be in
tolerable for the professors to be thus limited
in their freedom; in particular, to be re
quired to submit the texts of their lectures
to the bishops.
What course will the Vatican, with its
nominal head, Pope Pius X, adopt in the
future in regard to these rebellious priests?
This question arises in many minds. Will
the obstinate priests be removed from their
posts and incur severe ecclesiastical punish-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
ment? Schnitzer, Koch, and Engert, also
many others, know only too weU what that
means. Will the pope persist in his de
mands? Should he persist, considering the
number and quality of the offenders, the Vat
ican will certainly have to face a grave ca
tastrophe in Germany. The situation is ex
tremely delicate and full of peril. Should the
Vatican be unaware and blind as to the spirit
of the times ? Nobody in Prussia or in Ger
many is thirsting for a "Kulturkampf."
German Catholics and Protestants desire
peace, and the Vatican should show adequate
knowledge and due consideration for the sit
uation there. The pope has repeatedly as
sured the German Government that he ear
nestly desired the maintenance of peaceful
relations between the Church and the State.
This desire, however, was frustrated when
there are promulgations like the Borromeo
encyclical or decrees Hke the recent decrees,
which may find a foundation in other coun
tries, but in Germany give grave offense. As
to the situation created by the exaction of
the oath, the government would deal with it
according to circumstances, taking care that
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THE ANTI-MODERNIST OATH
the rights of the State were respected, but
not unduly interfering with those who had
taken it, so long as they gave no offense and
were not engaged in teaching subjects such
as the German language and history, which
could not be entrusted to those who had
bound themselves by the oath.
The Vatican surely knows, if past experi
ences are not fully forgotten, that among
these proud, straight-forward, unbending
Teutons the spirit of the Reformation still
Hves and moves, and yet Rome very care
lessly plays with fire. These Latin council
ors within the walls of the Vatican continue
intransigent even in the face of the dictates
of prudence and common sense. Will the
papal conclave advise the Holy Father to
maintain his intransigent policy? Or will he
temporize in these cases, as he did when con
fronted with the protests of the French prel
ates touching the inadvisability of lowering
the age for taking the first communion?
This is the question uppermost in many
minds to-day. Should he in the future de
cide utterly to disregard the spirit of the
times, then the bark will steadily but surely
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
and inevitably head for the rocks. The
prestige of the Roman Catholic Church
among modern scholars is gone, to a large
extent, and the final result can be easily fore
seen. The attitude which the Protestant
Church in this crisis should assume is clear.
We must perform our duty toward all and
labor so that these illustrious professors and
conscientious priests may steadily move to
ward the clearer Hght of BibHcal Chris
tianity.

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THE UNITED STATES
Less than a year before his death Father
George Tyrrell said, concerning Modernism
in America : "I can not understand America.
With its freedom and intelligence, its repre
sentatives ought to be in the forefront of the
Modernist movement. Yet Modernism has
produced there hardly an echo. The Church
in America is asleep." Other leading Mod
ernists of Europe have expressed a like dis
appointment. On a visit to this country the
scholarly Frenchman Albert Houtin said that
Roman Catholicism in America was all but
bHnd to one of the most momentous move
ments of Christian history. Loisy in his mild
way has wondered at the lack of intellectual
activity among American CathoHcs, while
Albert Ehrhard has expressed himself on the
subject in terms of summary contempt, de
claring in substance that the Church of Rome
in America has yet to show the first sign of
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
the possession of scholarship in the face of
modern problems. A book, written by an
American priest and published in 1910, un
der the title "Letters to His Holiness, Pope
1 Pius X," (by a Modernist; Chicago, Open
Court Publishing Company, 1910), attempts
to tell why Americans have taken so small
part in the movement. First, Modernism is
largely intellectual, and "the Church in this
country is intellectually backward." This
priest declares that in all the voluminous lit-
terature of Biblical criticism, history, and
philosophy "not a single work of competence
and authority has yet been produced by an
American Catholic, and the books that reach
the second class are hardly more than a
dozen." The Catholic University at Wash
ington "has only a handful of students."
Secondly, he states, as charged at a meeting
of Catholic educators in Milwaukee, "the
men sent up to the seminaries by Catholic
colleges are in a condition of almost scanda
lous unfitness for prosecuting the higher
studies of an ecclesiastical course, unable to
grasp the problem, incapable of thinking for
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THE UNITED STATES
The form of Modernism that has ap
peared in America is what Pope Leo XIII
condemned as "Americanism," which is de
scribed by the able German professor, Karl
Holl of Berlin, in his pamphlet on "Mo-
dernismus" as initiative, activity, the sig
nificance of personality, an emphasis on the
active virtues in contrast with those that are
passive. Holl's insight in this characteriza
tion is considerable. American independence
will gradually do for the Roman Catholic
Church in America what Modernism in its
more scholarly phases is accomplishing in
Europe. When the International Congress of Cath
olic Scholars met at Freiburg, Switzerland,
August 16-20, 1897, for its fourth session,
Mgr. O'Connell, rector of the American Col
lege at Rome, deHvered an address on the
new ideas and the Hfe of Father Hecker.
And then for the first time larger circles
within the Catholic Church were made ac
quainted with the new intellectual movement
known as "Americanism. ' ' Who was Father
Hecker? What was his aim? What were
the essential phases of Americanism?
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Isaac Thomas Hecker was born of Ger
man Evangelical Lutheran parents on De
cember 18, 1819, in New York City, where
he also died December 22, 1888. He became
an advocate of the principles of the Work-
ingmen's party, and was led into sympathy
with the Transcendalist movement. In 1843
he entered the community at Brook Farm,
but failed to find himself in harmony with
the community, and within a year went to
the similar community at Fruitlands, where
he felt still less at home. In August, 1843,
he returned to New York and entered busi
ness with his brothers in the manufacture
of flour, but only for a year. The quest after
God had seized his heart. He had long been
drawn toward the Catholic Church, and
after many inward struggles and a search
ing investigation of the claims of the Prot
estant denominations he became, August 1,
1844, a convert to Roman Catholicism. Prot
estantism, with its many-sided phases, ap
peared to him too individualistic, and did not
seem to answer his longings. But the prac
tical sense of mutual participation and the
conformity of the Catholic Church attracted
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him, although he was not at all famiHar with
the doctrines and the rites of Roman Ca
tholicism; the solid and firm organization
seemed to assure him of the truth of the
Roman Church. He had been seeking after
truth, not especially its form or color.
Before his "conditional baptism in the
Cathohc Church, which took place August 1,
1844, although he had been baptized in in
fancy by a Lutheran minister, he went to
Concord, Mass., to study, but soon returned
to New York. Six weeks after his conver
sion, as it had been his determination to en
ter the Redemptionist Order, he went with
two other American converts to the Redemp
tionist Monastery at St. Tron, Belgium.
Here he Hved two years in voluntary rigor
ous asceticism ; in 1846 he took his vows. He
then studied at Wittem, Holland (1846-1848),
and Clapham, England (1848-1849), and in
1849 was ordained to the priesthood by Car
dinal Wiseman. It had been rather difficult
for him to comprehend scholasticism during
the years of his study. He gained, however,
the confidence of his superiors by advocating
the idea constantly that God had appointed
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
him to win America for the Roman Catholic
Church. After a year in mission work
Hecker returned to the United States early
in 1851. On his voyage to this country he
worked very hard for the conversion of a
sailor, the only person on the ship receptive
of his work. For a number of years the
authorities of the Catholic Church engaged
him to lecture at their special mission meet
ings for the people, his addresses being con
fined mostly to dogmatic and ethical themes.
In such work he labored until 1857, particu
larly in the Eastern part of the United
States, although this work never fully satis
fied him, as it had been his desire to win
Protestant America to Catholicism. In order
to place his special mission work before the
people he entered the journalistic field and
wrote two books on "Questions of the Soul,"
also "Aspirations of Nature." These books
were to prove that the Roman Catholic Church
possessed everything to satisfy the moral and
intellectual wants of humanity. In 1857
Hecker and four other American Redemp-
tionists requested the "Congregation" to re
organize Catholic mission work and also or-
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THE UNITED STATES
ganize a headquarter or house in the Ameri
can province of the order, where EngHsh
should be spoken exclusively. This request
was immediately refused; so Hecker went
in the name and commission of his friends
to the superior of the order at Rome. Be
ing branded as disobedient, he was expelled
from the Congregation on simply a technical
violation of his vows. However, Pope
Pius IX and a number of the prelates were
friendly toward Hecker; so on March 8, 1858,
he received honorable discharge from the
Order of the Redemptionists. He likewise
received the permission by the pope to found
the "Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle"
(usually called the Paulist Fathers). In
1859 the foundation of the Church of St.
Paul the Apostle, which still remains the
center of the activity of the Paulist Fathers,
was laid in New York City. The greater
part of the remainder of his life was to be
devoted to the upbuilding of his congrega
tion and the furtherance of its aims. From
1871 until his death Hecker was an invalid.
The object of the order was the conversion
of Protestants, and it was very successfully
271

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
carried out; he was the soul of the enter
prise. Yet it was charged against him that
he presented those doctrines which were com
mon to both branches of the Christian Church
or which were likely to win the acceptance of
Protestants more emphaticaUy than strictly
Roman Catholic teaching. This course was
condemned by Leo XIII, when it was called
to his attention by means of the Italian trans
lation of Father Hecker's Hfe, and led to his
writing to the United States prelates a se
vere letter condemning this method of pre
senting the Church doctrine which he styled
' ' Americanism. ' '
The original five men who constituted the
"Congregation of Missionary Priests of St.
Paul" were Clarence Walworth and Francis
Baker, both former Episcopalian clergymen ;
Augustine Hewitt, who had previously
passed from Congregationalism to the Epis-
copahan Church; George Deshon, a graduate
of West Point, where he had been a class
mate of General Grant, and Isaac T. Hecker.
The two cardinal points insisted upon as
embodying the fundamental spirit of the new
foundation were the personal perfection of
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the members and zeal for souls ; and, in con
nection with the latter, special stress was laid
on the hoped-for conversion of the people of
the United States to the Roman Catholic
faith through the apostoHc labors of the mis
sionaries. Another fundamental character
istic of the new community is worthy of note.
While other congregations laid the main
stress on fideHty to the rules and exercises
of community life as the most important ele
ment, the Paulists give the element of per
sonal individuahty the first place, and give
it free scope as far as is consistent with the
exigencies of the common Hfe. In accordance
with these general principles and avowed in
tentions, the activity of the Paulist Fathers
has. radicated in various directions. They
not only accomplished mission work through
out the country among Catholics and non-
CathoHcs, and gave special attention in their
churches to the proper carrying out of the
liturgical services — and in particular to the
reform of ecclesiastical music, so that they
organized choirs of men and boys and pro
moted congregational singing — but they have
also been strenuous and consistent advocates
18 273

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
of temperance. Their propaganda in favor
of sobriety has been exerted through ser
mons, tracts, articles in their own pubH-
cations, and letters to the public press;
through petitions to the Legislatures and
action at the polls; through the formation
of total abstinence societies, and through
the estabHshment of the Temperance Publi
cation Bureau with its periodical entitled
Temperance Truth. In 1910, besides the
mother house, church, school, etc., in New
York, and a house of studies at the Catholic
University in Washington, the Pauhsts had
stations established in San Francisco, Chi
cago, Winchester, Tenn. ; Berkely, Cal. ; and
Austin, Tex. In the last two named towns
the Paulist communities were established
ehiefly in the interests of the Roman Catholic
students who attend the State universities
there located. The Congregation has a total
of sixty-four fathers, twenty-one students,
and ten postulants.
The missionary work, as stated above,
owes its existence to Father Isaac T. Hecker;
it was his special "American" idea. Hecker
always appeared, even in the most insignifi-
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THE UNITED STATES
cant externals — as to his clothes and beard,
for instance — as a genuine American. His
heart was overflowing with love for his coun
try and its people. But Catholics, especially
many priests, had come to America from for
eign lands, not feeling the responsibihty of
true American citizens. Yet the American!
Constitution, with its ecclesiastical neutrality
of the States and the unconditional freedom
of the individual, as well as the freedom of
human society, serves the promulgation of
Catholicism better than does the ecclesiasti-
cism of the State Church of the Old World.
Catholics, however, should adopt and adapt
themselves to the American spirit, and not
saturate American institutions with the spirit
of Rome which gravely concerns many
thoughtful citizens at the present time. But
the spirit of America is a spirit of freedom,
Hberty, and personal conviction; and this
right of freedom of conscience must be rec
ognized by the Church and should conse
quently be executed. So the prisoner at the
Vatican and his Italian advisers, who are
probably not at all familiar with our condi
tions, will do weU to let America work out
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
her own salvation. Only then can Catholi
cism be a power for the best interests of the
^American people.
The Church could have easily permitted
Hecker to work in the spirit and apply the
methods in which he had begun without con
demning him. If it is God's will that the
natural conditions and needs of humanity
should undergo a change from generation to
generation, then this same God will Hkewise
permit the Church to change her methods in
offering eternal salvation to erring sinners
of the present age, provided these religious
demands are presented in the spirit of the
gospel, clear and forceful, and with unction ;
not in the sense that old and well-tried also
universally adopted Church methods can be
come obsolete, but in the other sense, that
such a method can easily give way to new
ones with our changing conditions and won
derful progress. Our century grants to man
in every direction more liberty than previous
centuries; he must, therefore, make use of
his personality and latent powers; this lib
erty of conscience must consequently take not
only the leadership in life, but also in the
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religious demands of the Church. An iron
clad ancient discipline and uniformity can
not take the place of inner virtues, nor can
obedience toward the external and foreign
authority of a Church supply the power of
the Holy Spirit which rests in every regen
erated soul. Differences here which must
surely and naturally follow should not
frighten men. Johannes Kubel says concern
ing Hecker 's work in this respect: "No two
noses are alike in every detail, and so not
even two souls. God never repeats Himself;
the Eternal Absolute God creates continually
new forms to impress Himself. So Hecker
believed that his principle of freedom would
promptly harmonize with the authority of
the Roman Church, although he plainly
stated that only the man who yields in the
realm of dogma to the authority of the
Church possesses the Holy Spirit in the true
sense of the word." Dogma and hierarchy
were always self-evident for Hecker, yet he
never cared a great deal for either; with him
everything depended on religion. According
to his ideas a corps of free men, who would
love God with their own free will above all
277

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
things, could be the only means to hurriedly
conquer this world.
Hecker in his "Congregation of Mission
ary Priests of St. Paul" educated a corps
of men like unto himself, a congregation of
pious and free men. What the Paulist, Fa
ther Hecker, has done for the congregation
he claimed he had done voluntarily inspired
by the Holy Spirit. Hecker rather tolerates
a surplus of individual freedom than autoc
racy; individuality loses its right of exist
ence if it encroaches upon the spirit and work
of society. Poverty and obedience were not
demanded by Hecker of his Paulists as a spe
cial virtue, but more did he demand as the
first and last duty of the true Pauhst father
the zeal of his soul for apostohc works, by
which he understood the work for the con
version of America. Hecker laid no stress
upon the taking of vows: strong men need
no vows; weak men under the coercion of
the vow will probably reach a certain state
of piety. This sort of piety, however, he
says, is fruitless and is often for the indi
vidual and his society a burden. But is a
congregation or society built upon such a
278

THE UNITED STATES
latter foundation a rehgious or even ecclesi
astical order? Hecker replied, candidly:
"We are not monks in the sense of Christian
antiquity ; our generation is not a generation
of martyrs, hermits, or ascetics. Our con
temporaries live in the market-place, the of
fice, the factory, etc." He knew that there
dwelled human society, and that is the place
where holiness must reach them. Character
grows stronger in its daily struggle with
earthly difficulties and hindrances ; after they
are conquered they will lead the Church to
perfection. Daily cares, labors, duties, re
sponsibilities in daily life, are the pillars
of holiness for the hermits of our time ; only
in this sense will Christian virtue ever be
triumphant. This was Hecker's doctrine.
In 1875 Hecker published a valuable book
on the condition of the Church, entitled "An
Exposition of the Church in View of Recent
Difficulties and Controversies, and the Pres
ent Need of the Age," published at London;
the author's name, however, was not given.
A twofold calamity will visit the earth: the
Germanic races will reject Catholicism, while
Christianity in Romanic races will decay.
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
This calamity can only be prevented if both
races with their special civilization and
strength unite in the Church. Now, Romanic
races lay the stress on externals and f ormaH-
ties; the Germanic practice subjectivity.
Romanic races have crowned their work with
the Vatican Council; a future struggle con
cerning authority in Catholicism is impos
sible. Therefore Germanic races are free to
use their power in the deepening of the inner
life of the Church, which means the release
of personal individuality and activity. Since
the sixteenth century the Cathohc Church has
always opposed with its autocratic principles
the individualistic principles of Protestant
ism; Catholicism, says Hecker, has reaped
wonderful fruits, like uniformity and disci
pline, and has also saved the truth, but it has
lost its energy and weakened the natural
powers and talents of humanity. The future
of the races in the modern world depends
upon their strength and vigilance, on the ini
tiative and the sense of duty of the indi
vidual. The responsibility of the individual
is on a much higher plane. The Church must
take this fact in consideration, and conse-
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quently subordinate passive virtues to active
virtues. Here he means that the Church
must do everything possible to enlarge the
energy and self-confidence of man in the nat
ural plane, so to make room in the spiritual
life for the individual guidance of the soul
by the Holy Spirit. Then Romanic formality
will absorb Germanic subjectivity; Germanic
deepness of spirit will be an ally to Romanic
organization ; the Church is saved, the world
conquered, Christianity has accomplished its
purpose. In these historical and philosophical
thoughts of Isaac T. Hecker the German
Jesuit Otto Pfiilf recognized simply the
dreams of a weak mind, yet Hecker fought
actually for religious profundity, for the
moral power of a national Christianity. On
the twenty-second day of December, 1888,
Hecker died, with a strong faith in the vic
tory of Catholicism. He had not realized
how profoundly Protestant his heart re
mained; much less did he ever anticipate that
his spirit — 'the spirit of a man who had joined
Cathohcism and had fought its battles and
won its victories — would be branded as a
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
dangerous heretic and be excommunicated by
the Church of Rome after his death.
In 1891 the Paulist Father W. Elliott
published a book in New York on ' ' The Life
of Father Hecker" which was rather tran
scendental, but valuable in a religious-scien
tific sense. The introduction, written by
Archbishop Ireland, added to its specific
value. It has never been translated into the
German; although in 1897 a French trans
lation appeared, written by Abbe Felix Klein,
professor at the Catholic Institute in Paris.
Then began the history of "Americanism."
The French clergy Hterally absorbed the
book. Within a few weeks practically four
editions had been sold. At that grave mo
ment the French people faced the great fact
• — a fact which unfortunately in a certain
sense has never left them — that conditions
as they existed could not remain so. The
clergy was in the hands of hierarchical abso
lutism, with no protection whatever, violently
kept away from the influence of modern sci
ence, and Christianity, such as it was, had
no influence upon the rank and file of the
French people. Some individual priests had
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then already voluntarily left the Roman
Church, when Elliott-Klein's new book paved
a way. If such a harmony has been possible
in America to believe as a Catholic and think
as a Modernist, why not in France? The
Vatican had recognized the Paulists in their
peculiarities; Archbishop Ireland was en
thusiastic over Hecker's work. Mgr. O'Con
nell had declared with all certainty that
Americanism would not be a menace to the
belief and morals of the Cathohc Church; it
is no Hberal or schismatic heresy. Felix
Klein published the sixth edition of Hecker's
biography, and to it he could add a letter
of Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, dated
April 14, 1898, wherein Gibbons expressed
his delight that the apostolic mission of Fa
ther Hecker had now found recognition in
Europe. Simultaneously the Jesuits exerted
their special and always successful influence
in referring here to tradition and scholasti
cism, and a Hvely Hterary battle ensued in
France. The German Jesuit, Otto Pfiilf,
said, "Hecker is the product of Kantian
subjectivism, of Methodistic mental disorder,
of ingenuous presumption of modern Yan-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
keeism;" "such a man, however pure and
honorable his motives might be, should not
be proclaimed as the leader of modern intel
lectual life, nor as a teacher and guide for
the Catholic Church." In vain had some
American dignitaries celebrated and con
gratulated him as the "Gem" of American
clerics ; in vain had Cardinal Gibbons given
him this splendid testimony, "A providential
agent for the spread of the Cathohc faith, a
faithful child of the Holy Church, every way
Catholic and entirely orthodox." Traditions
and scholasticism won the victory. January
22, 1899, Pope Leo XHI sent a papal letter
across the Atlantic which contained the polite
but firm stand of the Vatican concerning
Americanism. It had not found favor at
Rome, and was therefore condemned. Of
course, very naturally, what always has hap
pened in history happened here. Cardinal
Gibbons 's letter had another meaning ; Arch
bishop Ireland quickly made a trip to Rome,
and Felix Klein immediately ceased publish
ing his book. Other archbishops of the
United States most politely thanked the pope
for his explanation. Americanism found a
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sequel in the "IdealkathoHzismus" of Her
man Schell in Germany. Both men shared
the same fate after their death.
In a previous chapter mention has been
made of the Old Catholic Church in Austria
and Russian Poland. As this body has quite
a number of adherents in the United States,
so we must mention their work. The dis
content over the Vatican decrees, so pro
nounced in Germany, for instance, was some
what slower in taking organized form in the
United States.
Josef Rene Villate, a priest of French
Canadian ancestry, who has sustained vari
ous relations in connection with various
Protestant societies for mission work among
the foreign population in Wisconsin, had re
ceived the ordination from Bishop Herzog of
the Swiss Christian Catholic Church, and
also received episcopal consecration in 1892
from Archbishop Alvarez of India, Ceylon,
and Goa. But the right of Alvarez to per
form episcopal acts was under question, and
the consecration of Villate was not recog
nized by the Old Catholic bishops of Europe
or by the Protestant Episcopalian bishops in
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
the United States. Hence the attempts made
by Villate to found an Old Catholic Church
in the United States had no permanent re
sult. More successful has been the work
among the Polish immigrants to this coun
try — people of this nationality coming here
with a lively dissatisfaction with the course
of the Roman Catholic Church in their own
land. Many of them had no ecclesiastical re
lations at all, and a movement was begun by
Anthony Koslowski, who died January 14,
1907; a Pole of Italian education, who be
came rector of a Polish congregation in Chi
cago in 1893. The next year he withdrew
from the Roman Catholic communion and be
came a leader in the reform movement. He
was elected a bishop, and received consecra
tion from the Old Catholic Bishop of Switzer
land at Berne, Switzerland, in 1897, found
ing then the Independent (PoHsh) Catholic
Church. The growth of the organization
was remarkable; congregations were estab
lished in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
Cleveland, Buffalo, Jersey City, Fall River,
Mass., and Wilkesbarre, Pa. According to
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the last edition (1910) of the "New Schaff-
Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowl
edge," probably the last available informa
tion, the organization numbered in 1902
twenty-two priests, ten sisters, twenty-six
congregations, eighty thousand adherents,
twenty-six schools with three thousand at
tendants, twenty-six Sunday-schools, and
thirty-one buildings. It had, besides, an edu
cational institution with grammar and high
school and industrial departments in Chi
cago, and connected with it a hospital and
dispensary and a home for the aged.
The Independent (Polish) Catholic
Church made overtures in 1902 to the Prot
estant Episcopal Church of the United States
for recognition and intercommunion on the
basis of the Lambeth "Quadrilatral," but be
yond referring the matter to a committee no
definite action has been taken. In the over
tures the object of the organization was
stated as the wish to serve those who can
not intelligently take part in worship con
ducted in the English tongue, and allegiance
was pledged to the Old Catholic Synod of
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Europe until such time as the Church shall
be received by the Protestant Episcopal
Church as an affiliated body.
The disposition to separate from the Ro
man Catholic Church, illustrated by the
formation of the Polish organization just de
scribed, manifested itself also among Bo
hemians and others of the Slavic race in
America. A number of independent congre
gations nucleated in several cities. It was
felt that these should be united under epis
copal administration; and as the Independ
ent (Polish) Catholic Church desired to re
strict its work to Poles, a separate organi
zation seemed necessary. The advice of the
Old Catholic Bishops of Utrecht and Switzer
land was asked, and in consequence of their
advice, taking into account the largeness of
the country and the possibility of three or
four Old Catholic dioceses, the National
Catholic Church was organized, with Jan F.
Tichy as episcopal administrator (appointed
by the Bishop of Utrecht). This Church is
formed upon the same basis as the Mother
Church in Switzerland, this including theo
retical as well as practical matters. Its at-
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titude is avowedly friendly toward the PoHsh
organization and to the Protestant Episcopal
Church. It derives its apostolic succession
from the Church in Holland. It reported in
1906 nine churches and eleven missions in
the United States and in Canada, seven
priests, and about fifteen thousand members.
It is incorporated in Ohio, and has a cathe
dral and other buildings in Cleveland, with
property valued at about $20,000. Bulletin
103 of the United States Census (Religious
Bodies) gives the National Polish Church in
America twenty-four priests, twenty-four
ministers, 15,473 communicants, and church
property valued at $494,700. Dr. Peter Rob
erts reports in September, 1909, the Inde
pendent (Polish) Catholic Church as having
ninety churches.
While reviewing the Polish question we
must in this connection present another side
of the American Catholic question. An ar
ticle in the Milwaukee Press (Prasa), after
noting that in a competition among Polish
pupils in writing reportorial articles, "all
those whose work was below the required
percentage were born and educated in this
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
country," while the successful competitors
were educated in Europe, asks why this was
so: "Why, then, are they such poor writ
ers?" To its own query this paper then re
plies as follows:
"Because of the poor and faulty educa
tional facilities. Being mostly orthodox
Catholics, Polish parents are compelled to
send their children to Polish parochial
schools. All other schools, especially the
public schools, are denounced from the pulpit
and in the so-called Church press as un
christian, pagan, and demoralizing institu
tions. Parents sending their children to any
other but the parochial school are denounced,
threatened, ostracized, even expelled from
the Church, and their children are perse
cuted. "With the exception of those where the
priest himself is a sincere educator, the pa
rochial schools are poor, many of them very
poor, educational institutions. Reading,
writing, arithmetic, geography, and history
are taught in many of them rather super
ficially. On the other hand many hours every
day are spent reciting catechism and Church
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formulas, which is called teaching religion,
but it is far from being really religion.
"The result of such a poor system of
teaching is that the Polish children, after
spending six or seven years in the parochial
school, can hardly pass an examination for
the fifth grade in the public schools — if they
want to continue their education in those
schools. ' ' The rule in most of the parishes is that
the child shall not leave the parochial school
until after first communion; and no child is
accepted to first communion until after be
ing thirteen years of age. (Of course, this
rule has lately been altered, and probably
must be changed again in order to be adapted
to certain circumstances.) It very often hap
pens that a brighter child finishes all the
grades in the parochial school at the end of
its eleventh or twelfth year, but it is not
allowed to leave the parochial school until it
is over thirteen years of age. It is required
to stay in the parochial school and waste one
or two years doing nothing.
Now, a child being thirteen years of age
and graduating only into the fifth or even
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
sixth grade has three or four more years to
study in order to graduate from the public
school. Therefore the child that attends a
parochial school must study in the common
school until it gets to be sixteen or seventeen,
sometimes even eighteen years of age ; while
the child that attends the public school fin
ishes the same studies when it is about four
teen years of age.
"In some parishes so-called 'high schools'
are established for those who have graduated
from the parochial school. Not much of im
portance is taught in these so-called 'high
schools,' their main object being to keep the
children away from the public school."
Now, of the Polish population of America
about fifty per cent belong to the working-
man's class, and Polish families are quite
large. Therefore very few Polish parents
can afford to send their children to school
after the fourteenth year. The fault here
lies not with the Polish people, but with the
Church authorities, who by such queer means
compel the people to keep their children in
ignorance. The Polish people realize that
more and more. They demand better paro-
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chial schools, but it is said that their de
mands are ignored.
A much more pathetic side of this pic
ture is the free-thought movement among
the Bohemians. About fifteen or twenty per
cent of the Bohemians in the United States
belong to such "Free Thinking Societies."
They were originally all Roman Catholics,
but shook off the Roman yoke, and with it
all rehgious affiliations, and organized their
lodges, which in some degree represent con
gregations. They frequently carry on free-
thought schools, where on Sunday mornings,
Saturday afternoons, and at other leisure
times the children can be trained in Bo
hemian grammar and history, and in the
views of the free-thinkers. For this purpose
a catechism has been written. There is also
a profoundly pathetic little handbook of ad
dresses, they can hardly be called services,
for use at their funerals.
It is judged by some that this movement
is rapidly losing momentum. It is difficult to
keep the interest and enthusiasm of the
young people. They find little to feed on in
teachings so largely merely negative; noth-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
ing in their experience answers to their par
ents ' rancor against the corrupt side of
the priests, as they had seen it in Austria,
and the ties of race and speech, which are
so powerful a bond among the first genera
tion, influence the later born much less. The
free-thought movement is essentially reli
gious, in spite of the crudity of its material
istic philosophy and of its propaganda in
favor of atheism; it is the work of men, as
scholars in the movement assert, men to
whom questions of religious belief are the
supremely important and the supremely in
teresting thing in life, and to whom intel
lectual sincerity and courage are the breath
of their nostrils. The tone of the thought of
these Bohemians at its best may be illus
trated by the following quotation from a lec
ture on ' ' Free Thought in America, ' ' by An
ton Jurka: "Let us be strong. Let us firmly
believe that we are maintaining the position
which answers most loyally to the nobility of
nature. Let us, according to our strength,
draw from deeds both past and present, faith
in a better future, and let us help to build
this better future by faith, hope, and love;
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by faith in the noble final goal of mankind;
by hope that humanity will reach its goal,
and will be thoroughly imbued with a culture
and enlightenment not yet dreamed of by us ;
with a love pure, self-sacrificing to nature,
to man, to humanity as a whole."
Now that the critical and destructive work
is done, there seems to be a great deal of
mere indifference to all religious matters,
and, as one hears, a good deal of self-indulg
ent, rather gross living on the part of some
who are "free-thinkers as much as they are
anything." On the other hand, one also
hears of the children of the old fighters for
free thought joining one or another of the
Protestant Churches, partly perhaps from
social reasons, partly, doubtless, from a hun
ger which negations could not satisfy. One
instance is reported that the free-thinkers,
as such, have affiliated themselves with Uni
tarianism. But we must consider another phase of
Roman Catholic Church life in the United
States in order to form a clear opinion of
the situation. In our country there is no ob
stacle in the way of Catholics leaving the
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
Roman Church when, in the development of
thought, they outgrow its dogmas and find
many practiced superstitions degrading. As
Catholics in European countries are reject
ing Romanism and Vaticanism, that is the
despotic rule of the Curia, the rule of the
Jesuits — and the whole world knows what
Jesuitism signifies — so in this country many
of the best element of the Cathohc people are
leaving the Roman Church. In February,
1911, some Irish nuns arrived in New York
City on their way to Oregon, with a doleful
complaint that they had been expelled from
Portugal last October, with all other mem
bers of the rehgious orders. They said it
was the work of the mob. But this mob was
composed exclusively of Portuguese Catho
lics who had been reared in the precepts of
Roman Catholicism and never knew Protes
tant missionaries, but who had also been op
pressed, swindled, and kept in a state of deg
radation and ignorance by their bishops,
priests, monks, and nuns. Catholics in the
United States will probably not follow the
example of the Portuguese, the French, and
the Italians, and take effective measures to
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express their indignation at the rule of the
Vatican, which is the same for all peoples
who submit to it. But human nature is the
same* in all countries, and outraged human
ity will assert itself. In the meantime many
self-respecting Catholics are becoming like
other Americans and are uniting with the
various Protestant Churches. The fact is
well known by Catholic authorities, and the
evidence is multiplying every day. On Jan
uary 15, 1911, at a great meeting of the
Allegheny County Federation of Catholic
Societies in St. Mary's Lyceum, Mt. Wash
ington, Pittsburgh, the Rev. Thomas F.
Coakly, the secretary of Bishop J. F. Regis
Canevin, of the Pittsburgh Diocese, declared
that, "while the Roman Catholic Church has
made enormous gains in the United States,
the losses have been no less enormous. The
Catholic population ten years ago was eleven
millions, while to-day it is about fifteen mil
lions." Despite these gains he said that dur
ing the last ten years 5,500,000 came to this
country from Europe, and that Catholic sta
tistics do not show the increase that should
be represented by these figures in immigra-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
tion, not speaking of the natural increase
within the own ranks of the Catholic Church
in the United States outside of immigration.
Hundreds of thousands have been lost to the
Catholic Church through the active propa
ganda waged by the disciples of Socialism
and by the inroads made by infidelity and
irreligion. If the United States of America
to-day numbers only about 33,000,000 of ad
herents to the different denominations, while
its population is about 90,000,000, and while
many close observers estimate that Roman Ca
tholicism alone should number at least about
30,000,000 souls in this country, taking the
vast natural increase and the enormous num
ber of Catholic immigrants who came to our
shores in consideration, somewhere in this
great land of ours there must be millions of
Catholics who are no longer loyal to the
prisoner of the Vatican or who have become
entirely irreligious. By no means do all of
them belong to the Protestant Church.
We must again, in this connection, quote
Rev. Thomas F. Coakly, when he says:
' ' Truly this is one of the saddest pages in the
history of the Catholic Church in America.
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To-day we have in round numbers 15,000,000
Catholics in the United States. Had we held
fast to those who came to our shores, we
should have at least 40,000,000 ; for the leak
age has been well-nigh startling. Every
where throughout the length and breadth of
this great land we meet persons bearing an
cient and venerable Catholic names who are
now lined up against Christ and His
Church." This priest concluded his sorrowful la
ment by declaring the Catholic education
alone can save these immigrants to the
Church. But as they had Catholic education
in the countries where they came from, the
outlook for the Church is not very hopeful
in educating them. Noted Catholics in the
United States are doubtless mistaken in say
ing that the CathoHcs who leave the Roman
Church have turned against Christ. Cer
tainly not all of them, for such a condition
would be a sad day for the United States.
Many of them are uniting with the various
Protestant Churches, where Christ is
preached as the Son of God. It is conceded
by men of knowledge that the statement is
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
generally true that former CathoHcs can be
found in all Evangelical Churches. They may
not announce their conversion from the Ro
man faith in season and out of season, and
perhaps never again have referred to it.
In October, 1898, Thomas J. Morgan, cor
responding secretary of the American Bap
tist Home Mission Society, New York City,
who had been Indian commissioner at Wash
ington for four years during the administra
tion of President Benjamin Harrison, sent a
letter to thirty-one Baptist pastors in differ
ent parts of the country. General Morgan
stated publicly that there are few Baptist
churches in the country which do not include
in their membership converted Catholics.
This statement had been sharply contro
verted by the Roman hierarchy. So in order
that some good might be accomplished by
publishing some facts — not in a spirit of con
troversy, but to afford the public informa
tion — he asked in his letter to the Baptist
pastors the following questions : 1. Name and
location of your church. 2. Number of mem
bers. 3. Number formerly members of the
Roman Cathohc Church. 4. Name of one or
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more converted Roman CathoHcs of your ac
quaintance who are persons of intelligence
and position, specifying what place they hold,
indicating whether any of them are Church
officers or not. General Morgan, who had
been distinguished in the army during the
Civil War as the "Christian Soldier," re
ceived the following repHes : Twenty-nine of
these pastors replied that they had 313 con
verted Catholics, varying from two to forty,
in their congregations, and many of them
were prominent in Church, business, and pro
fessional Hfe. The subject was discussed in
the religious press at the time, and much in
terest was manifested. The New York corre
spondent of the Boston Congregationalist,
November 10, 1898, said in that influential
paper: "These twenty-nine Churches are all
American. They are in Boston, Providence,
Lowell, New Haven, New York, St. Paul, De
troit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and many
other cities. It is also shown by General
Morgan that the society of which he is sec
retary has mission congregations of Poles,
French, Bohemians, and Italians, made up
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
wholly of former Catholics, while of the
25,000 German Baptists fully one-fourth
came out of the Roman Communion. At the
same time that General Morgan began his in
vestigation another member of a mission
board in this city began inquiries among pas
tors to know if they had any former Roman
Catholics in their Church membership. They
included Congregationalists, Presbyterians,
Moravians, Methodists, and Episcopalians.
Without exception these forty-seven pastors
replied in the affirmative, and gave numbers
from one to seventy each. Speaking of it,
General Morgan says: 'We ought not to be
surprised at these revelations, even if we
did not know that such changes are going on.
The dominant characteristic of American Hfe
is religious freedom.' "
We will further refer to the small body
of Reformed Catholics which originated in
New York City about 1879. Priests of the
Roman Catholic Church who had left that
communion formed a few congregations,
chiefly in New York, and began evangelistic
work on a Protestant basis and belief. The
leader of the movement was Rev. James A.
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O'Connor, recently deceased, who was editor
of The Converted Catholic, of New York
City, which protested against features of the
Roman system of doctrine, government, dis
cipline, and practice, and taught Protestant
doctrine as understood by the Evangelical
Churches. Opposition to the sacramental
system of the Roman Catholic Church is a
pronounced feature of the Reformed Catho
Hcs. The salvation of the believer is not de
pendent on his relation to the Church, but
comes directly from Christ. Hence there is
no need of intermediaries or other mediators.
All can come directly to God by faith in
Christ,' the only High Priest. The Holy
Spirit is the only teaching power in the
Church. There are six churches, eight min
isters, and about two thousand communi
cants. Rev. James O'Connor said: "I have
helped one hundred and sixty priests and
thousands of the laity, and I know that there
is not a Protestant Church in New York but
has converted Catholics among its members,
and many of them persons of prominence.
It is the same in other cities, and even in the
small towns, as Mr. Camp says. (Mr. Camp
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
is one of the foremost journalists in New
York, a leading member of the Protestant
Episcopal Church, who has filled many offices
in that body. For twelve years he had been
in search of a Church in New York that had
not in its membership former Roman Cath
olics, and had not found one. Nor has he
found any in other cities. He also stated,
under February 16, 1911, that at one time last
year Bishop Greer had fifteen applications
from Roman Catholic priests to be received
into the Protestant Episcopal Church.) The
first large sum of money I received for the
work of Christ's Mission — which, you know,
is specially devoted to the conversion of Ro
man Catholics — was a legacy from a con
verted Catholic, a member of the late Dr.
John Hall's church. I have preached, when
invited, in many churches of all denomina
tions during the last thirty-two years, and
every time I have found converted Catholics.
In some cases the pastor, who had not been
long in charge of that particular church, did
not know that his parishioners who greeted
me so warmly had been Roman Catholics be
fore they were received into membership.
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The emigrants from foreign Catholic
countries come to our shores ; they have their
minds enlightened and developed in our pub
lic schools; the hearts of many are opened
to the love of God by the power of the Holy
Spirit through the Bible; they consequently
become Hke other Christians in our great
Repubhc, and like other citizens who have
made this country what it is. A great many
of them have been kept in ignorance and deg
radation by the Church of Rome in Italy,
Austria, and other countries. In this land
of freedom, where spiritual liberty is the
birthright of every citizen, the chains of spir
itual slavery are broken. All powers of
Rome and all powers of the world can not
stop the march of events that God has set in
motion in this country. It is well known that
the first immigrants to North America were
largely from Protestant countries, the Dutch,
the English, the Irish Presbyterians, and the
Germans. They laid the foundation on which
our Nation is built. But for the last sixty
years the Catholic countries have supplied
the greater part of our immigrants. Ireland
was the first to send forth a stream of hu-
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
manity that seemed to overwhelm the insti
tutions of the country. The emigrants from
that poor, distressed country — the most
faithful to the pope — came by the hundreds
of thousands every year. Then the German-
speaking CathoHcs, the Hungarians, the
French Canadians, the Poles, and the Ital
ians. It has been estimated that if the emi
grants from Catholic countries and their de
scendants for the last sixty years had con
tinued faithful subjects of the Roman pontiff,
one-half of the population of this country
would be Roman Catholics; — Priest Coakly,
whom we have quoted above, says forty mil
lion; Bishop McFaul, of Trenton, N. J., has
declared that twenty-five million Catholics
have been lost to the Roman Church in the
United States. Every Christian in America
must give thanks to Almighty God that many
of them are found in Protestant denomina
tions and are enjoying a greater spiritual lib
erty than in some of the European Catholic
countries, while it is greatly to be regretted
that so many of them are without any Church
affiliation whatever.
Of course, in many quarters there is a
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sort of impatience with any attempt at evan
gelizing the Romanism that is at our door.
This is one of the peculiarities of the Ameri
can religious mind. The average Protestant
says: "Let the Romanists alone." "If he
is a good Catholic, what more can we ask?"
This is the attitude not of what might be
termed the ignorant, but very often of those
who are among the most enlightened, even
the clergy in many instances sharing in this
opinion. The result is that the work carried
on among the Catholics in the United States
lacks those generous proportions which it
ought to have. Be it admitted, not in the
spirit of bigotry, nor with the narrowness
of vision that sees no good in Roman Ca
tholicism, that that phase of Christianity has
certainly many traits that are admirable,
many sons and daughters who are truly de
vout; but one must not be blinded by that
fact to the real facts in the case — the fruits
of the vine. We as Americans can ill afford
to have our American civilization tainted by
that peculiar form of corrupted Christianity
which has given to the world such degenerate
nations as the so-called Cathohc countries.
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It is often said that the Roman Catholicism
that is here in the United States is not the
same as that which we find elsewhere. While
it is all very true that, in its minor phases,
Catholicism changes, chameleon-like, accord
ing to the country where it breeds, it is
equally true that in its chief characteristics
it is ever the same. This is the boast of its
popes and of its leading minds; this is the
testimony of keen observers who have trav
eled. Roman Catholicism produces Spain,
Italy, and South America.
Dr. E. C. E. Dorion, associate editor of
the Zion's Herald, writes: "It is erroneous
also to beheve that, because of the strength
of Protestantism here, another condition of
things must result. In certain quarters it
is claimed that, even as a healthy body can
slough off diseases, so can the American body
politic throw off all the impurities that may
come to it. Up to a certain point this may be
true, but there is such a thing as a healthy
body breaking down after a while — it can
stand so much and no more. Canada is under
British rule, but all of the British power
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can not prevent the priest-ridden condition
of the Province of Quebec. True, the case is
not entirely parallel, but it serves as an illus
tration of what Romanism can do where it
has the upper hand, even when the govern
ment is Protestant."
Not every Protestant realizes what Ro
man Cathohcism — and we place the emphasis
most emphatically on Roman, as it is the for
eign influence against which we must be on
guard — means at home in the United States.
Some Protestants call it the only true Church ;
others are coveting many of her features;
her own leaders are continually crying for
more and more "rights," and are generally
getting them. Is not the present position
of the Roman Church one that demands at
tention? Through the portals of immigra
tion the number of Catholics is constantly in
creasing. They are accompanied by their
own priests and teachers, those who are to
see that they remain, first of all, loyal unto
their Church and her traditions. The Church
Extension Society of the Roman Catholic
Church in the United States, organized Oc-
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tober 18, 1905, is conducted with truly Ameri
can vigor. It began in a very humble way,
but, nevertheless, with great intelligence.
The attitude of the Roman Catholic
Church toward the United States was plainly
shown recently in an address delivered at the
ninth annual convention of the Federation of
Catholic Societies of Louisiana, held in New
Orleans, Sunday and Monday, . April 23-24,
1911, by Hon. James J. McLoughlin, as re
ported by the New World, May 6, 1911. He
said : ' ' Catholicism is going to be — if it is not
already — the religion of the United States.
The Catholic Church in her organization, in
her principles of government, in her methods
of choosing those who are to rule over her,
is essentially democratic. Her priests spring
from all ranks; her bishops, her cardinals,
her popes, are chosen in a mode singularly
democratic. (????) Therefore it is easy, it
is natural, for an American to be a Cathohc.
Consequently the work of the Church Ex
tension Society here simply means that the
dogmas and doctrines of the Catholic Church
have to be placed in intelligent form before
the American people in order to convince
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them that ours is the true faith. All over
the United States, in the mountains of North
Carolina, on the great plains of the West,
in the valleys of the Mississippi, are Hving
the descendants of Catholic settlers who came
to this country from Ireland and Germany
and other parts of Catholic Europe. They
went into the new lands, far from civilization.
There were no priests; there were no
churches. The old folks were faithful while
they lived. Their children found no means
to continue the practice of their rehgion.
The Protestant meeting-house, mixed mar
riages, the sociability of the non-Catholic or
ganizations, and, above all, the absolute im
possibility of obtaining priests to minister to
these scattered CathoHcs, completed the work
of separation, and to-day probably one-half
of the God-fearing native American members
of the non-CathoHc Christian Churches are
the children or grandchildren of Catholic
parents, whom it is our duty to bring back
into their old home. The society is officered
and guided by American men with American
brains. We are using American methods,
and in the scattered and disorganized condi-
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tion of many of the non-Catholic sects it is
not difficult for the compact, well-disciplined
forces of the Catholic Church Extension So
ciety to obtain the victory when the cause of
faith is fought out fairly and squarely before
the American people."
No thinking man, knowing the principles
of Catholicism and Protestantism, will ever
assume with Hon. James J. McLoughlin that
members of Protestant Churches whose par
ents or grandparents had been Roman Catho
lics will return to the Roman fold. Roman
Catholic America may be a long distance in
the future, but the Roman Catholic Church in
America is here, and in some parts of the
country it can only be a short time before her
presence must cause trouble to the estab
lished principles of American civilization.
Often the patriotism of Catholics in the time
of war is quoted, also isolated cases of Cath
olic Americanism are repeatedly referred to ;
yet the real fact remains, Roman Cathohcism,
as it is guided by the Vatican and its Italian
and other advisers, who are not at all fa
miliar with all conditions in this and other
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countries, this Roman Catholicism is not in
harmony with that genius of civilization
which makes America what it is to-day. We
rejoice in the sons of the Church of Rome
who are or have been faithful to the flag and
that for which it stands : in a Bonaparte as a
cabinet officer, a Sherman in war, a Chief
Justice White ; but these men and the Church
of Rome, which is bound to exert her foreign
influence over our free American institutions,
are two, and every intelligent and unbiased
man knows this to be a fact. It is always the
corrupted form of Christianity in Latin Cath
ohc countries of which we as Americans know
so much and of which we are likewise afraid.
The work of reaching Roman Catholics
in America for Protestantism is not a work
that will mean bitter strife and haughtiness
of methods, but a straight-forward, honest
effort to reach our brothers who are in error.
Evangelical Churches have a right to do this.
Roman Catholics themselves do not hesitate
to send through the country some of their
most eloquent and thoughtful preachers to
persuade men to their faith. These men are
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heard respectfully; they are unmolested. In
the same spirit should the work among them
by Protestants be received.
It must be stated to the honor of various
Protestant missions in the larger cities in
the United States that they can not be other
wise but successful, as Catholics are taking
special notice of them. Such missions should
be found everywhere in Catholic centers, and
Protestantism in all of its purity, with its
emphasis upon true Christianity, should be
promulgated. We take the city of St. Louis
for instance. According to the Catholic Citi
zen, February 11, 1911, the Catholic pastors
of St. Louis issued a signed circular which
is significant of an awakening of the Cathohc
conscience to the duty of bringing religion
to the "un-churched." This circular stated
that a large number of CathoHcs from for
eign countries (Hungarians, Lithuanians,
Syrians, Macedonians, Italians) have settled
in certain districts in St. Louis within the
last few years. Nearly all of these were poor
working people, many of them barely able to
live. Lacking priests of their own nationali
ties to look after them, and not used to Amer-
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ican customs, they have not become identified
with any of the Catholic parishes, though the
priests had tried in various ways to attract
them. Meantime the clergy could not help
being astonished at the activity of "our sep
arated brethren" among these poor Catho
lics. Five different establishments, known as
"Mission Settlements," had been planted in
a certain territory, and with large sums of
money at their command and large forces of
men and women working with a zeal "that
would be admirable in another cause," these
missions "have become great centers of ac
tivity for leading our people away from the
faith of their fathers." These Catholic
priests admit that the missions used various
means to attract the people and win their
good will. Day nurseries, kindergartens,
boys' clubs, gymnasiums, moving picture
shows, illustrated lectures, baths, lunch clubs,
playgrounds, music classes, brass bands, par
lor and reading-rooms; through these and
similar attractions these foreign Catholic
people were brought together, and then it was
easy to get them to attend the religious serv
ices. One of these Sunday schools had 595
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
children in attendance during the month of
January, 1911. A large percentage of these,
perhaps one-half, were Catholics. These
mission establishments have made alarming.
inroads among the Catholic poor, not only of
the above named nationalities, but among the
children of the parishes of which these com
plaining priests were pastors. The knowl
edge of such facts has come so convincingly
before the Catholic clergy that they had rea
sons to be alarmed, and consequently they
were earnestly studying to offset the efforts
which they considered an evil.
The Roman Catholic Church in the United
States shows great activity in her "Catholic
Colonization Plan," which is very compre
hensive in its scope. This plan seems to be
considered a practical solution of many of
the questions of Catholic Immigration.
Catholic colonies are to be formed to bring
together Catholics who otherwise would be
scattered among Protestants or, as the Ro
man hierarchy terms it, "unbelievers." So
they intend to reach the industrial laborer,
the day laborer, the farmer, the business
man, and finally the non-Catholic.316

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How about Roman Catholicism and the
free institutions in the United States? We
must briefly consider the attitude of the Ro
man Cathohc hierarchy toward some of the
essential elements of a free government, men
tioning the public school system, which is the
principal civil pillar of our Government. It
is the bulwark of American liberty and the
hope of the future greatness and glory of
our Nation. The doctrinal position of the
Roman Catholic Church denies the right of
the State to educate the young and makes
this exclusively the function of the parent
and the Church, asserting that history em
phatically teaches that to leave the matter of
education to parents means leaving it to the
Church of the parents, and that, especially in
Cathohc countries, the Church invariably
steps in and assumes the parents' alleged
prerogative in the matter. The State can
not, without recreancy to its paramount duty,
yield its right and function of education
either to the parent or to the Church. Amer
ican citizens know very well that in the coun
tries where the Roman Catholic position with
regard to education has obtained the people
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
are buried in illiteracy — as we have shown
above in the case of Portugal — superstition
is rife, and bigotry abounds. The greater the
power of the Church, the less the quantity
and quality of secular instruction.
One argument has repeatedly been ap
plied by the Roman hierarchy in regard to
our public school system : it has been brought
into contempt by abusing and denouncing it
as irreligious and promotive of immorality.
All through the country, wherever Roman
Catholic leaders think it wise to do so, plau
sible propositions or movements to secure the
control of the teaching force are being made.
Naturally they feel bitterly the heavy ex
penses which they have to bear to maintain
their separate schools ; while those who have
taxable property, in addition to what goes to
the Church schools, are obliged to pay their
school taxes for the support of the State
public schools. Catholic leaders know very
well how strongly entrenched the public
school system is, and they further know, in
deed, that by attacking it definitely its foun
dation would only be more securely riveted.
Yet repeatedly the tax question is brought
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into the limelight. This could be seen in the
formal letter by Archbishop Messmer of Mil
waukee, which was read in all the churches
of the archdiocese of Milwaukee, wherein he
opposed the free text-book bills in the Wis
consin Legislature. Of course, as a Catholic
prelate he was naturally opposed to the
American public school, and most emphat
ically he appealed to the Catholic taxpayers,
saying that, according to the statistics pub-
Hshed by the commissioner of education at
Washington, D. C, the average annual ex
pense for each child in the public schools of
our Western States amounts to $34.46. He
says: "At this figure we Catholics, by sup
porting our own schools, save the State of
Wisconsin an annual expense of not less than
$2,311,000." The public school system is further
brought into contempt by securing for the
Roman Catholic parochial schools the largest
possible share of the public school tax funds
wherever this is possible. Thereby other de
nominations are encouraged to start secta
rian schools and to demand public moneys in
payment for the secular instruction given
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
therein. Consequently Catholic majorities
on the public school boards are secured, also
on the teaching staff of the public schools.
In many instances the public school system
has been brought into disfavor by securing
the employment of monks and nuns as public
school teachers, thus preventing normal
school training of public school teachers.
Jeremiah J. Crowley, a former priest and
author of the famous book, "The Parochial
School a Curse to the Church and a Menace
to the Nation," presents many quotations
from Roman Catholic sources in illustration
and confirmation of many of the above men
tioned phases. He states that in many con
versations which he had had with members of
the Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country
during the past twenty-five years with refer
ence to public and parochial school, the ec
clesiastical champions of the latter had ex
pressed confidence that the insistent demands
of the hierarchy for a division of the public
school money would eventually be granted;
that the American people would grow weary
of the school contention and, to escape it,
would adopt the Catholic view; that then
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every effort would be made to secure the
largest possible grants of public money ; that
the other sects would, out of envy, demand
similar grants for their schools, and that they
would be encouraged by Catholic dignitaries
to press their claims; that the consequence
would be the disruption of the public school
system by the competition and antagonism
of such sectarian bodies, and that the ulti
mate result would be the supremacy of the
Cathohc Church in education by virtue of
her strong organization and her various or
ders. Much has been made, by the public press
even, of the amount that is saved the State
by the parochial school system, and immedi
ately the leaders of Catholics demand that
the system, in so far as it relates to them, be
extended. Of course, it would educate Ro
man Catholics. But the public school system
of the United States produces Americans.
Romanism is now largely in control of the
large cities of America, and if the State
should agree to pay for the secular instruc
tion of children in parochial schools in these
cities it would be Catholic officials, prelates,
21 321

MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
priests, and politicians who would fix and
control the compensation and disbursement
of the funds, for in such cities Catholics
would form the majorities of the various
committees and boards.
The masses of the Catholic people of the
United States prefer the public school, and
men familiar with the conditions within the
CathoHc Church declare as their profound
conviction that they are morally certain that
not five per cent of the Catholic laymen of
America indorse at heart the parochial
school. While they may send their children
to these schools, and may be induced to pass
resolutions of approval of them in their con
ventions, Jeremiah J. Crowley declared that
if a perfectly free ballot could be cast by the
CathoHc laymen of America for perpetuity or
suppression of the parochial school, it would
be suppressed by an astounding majority;
and that, "if it were a mere matter of blood,
not one per cent of them would be found out
side the ranks of the defenders of the Amer
ican public school." It is said that priests
and prelates work upon the fears and feelings
of the women and children; so the fathers,
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to have peace in their families, and to avoid
open rupture with the parish priest, yield
and send their children to the parochial
school, though knowing that the public school
— whatever may be said, and much of it
justly, against it as a moral and religious
educator — is vastly superior in its methods,
equipment, and pedagogic talent, and pre
pares their children, as no other school can,
for the keen struggle of American Hfe and
the stern duties of American citizenship.
America must Hkewise protect her free
dom of conscience, speech, and press, and
these are inseparably bound up with a free
school. The liberty to think, speak, and print
whatever one wishes, that is not, of course,
Hbelous, makes possible a conflict of opinions,
and such a contest is essential in the realm
of ideas if progress is to be made. Freedom
of the press will never be abolished in Amer
ica while the people understand the differ
ence between despotism and liberty, stagna
tion and progress. And why should the
CathoHc be so much afraid of it? The keen
observer is convinced that a vast amount of
favorable news to the CathoHc Church finds
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MODERNISM AND THE VATICAN
its way into the public press, and a vast
amount of unfavorable news finds its way
into waste-baskets. The American Roman
Catholic hierarchy has left no stone unturned
in its persistent efforts to control the utter
ances of the newspapers of the land about the
Catholic Church, her aims, her work, and her
priests. The American people with their splendid
heritage of free institutions should set them
selves as a wall of granite against even the
shadow of sectarian interference with the
bulwark of their liberties, the pubhc school,
and the freedom of speech, conscience, and
the press.

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