 Section 2 of Beshendi Dominici Greigis on the Errors of the Modernists by Pope St. Pius X. Translated by Thomas E. Judge. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Encyclical Part 2 The Church A wider field for comment is opened when you come to treat the vagaries devised by the modernist school concerning the church. You must start with the supposition that the church has its birth in a double need, the need of the individual believer, especially if he has had some original and special experience to communicate his faith to others, and the need of the mass, when the faith has become common to many, to form itself into a society and to guard, increase and propagate the common good. What then is the church? It is the product of the collective conscience, that is to say, of the society of individual consciences which, by virtue of the principle of vital permanence, depend on one first believer who, for Catholics, is Christ. Now every society needs a directing authority to guard its members towards the common end, to conserve prudently the elements of cohesion which, in a religious society, are doctrine and worship, hence the triple authority in the Catholic Church, disciplinary, dogmatic, liturgical. The nature of this authority is to be gathered from its origin and its rights and duties from its nature. In past times it was a common error that authority came to the church from without, that is to say directly from God, and then it was rightly held to be autocratic. But this conception has now grown obsolete, for in the same way as the church is a vital emanation of the collectivity of consciences, so too authority emanates vitally from the church itself. Authority, therefore, like the church, has its origin in the religious conscience, and that being so, is subject to it. Should it disown this dependence it becomes a tyranny, for we are living in an age when the sense of liberty has reached its fullest development, when the public conscience has, in the civil order, introduced popular government. Now there are not two consciences in man any more than there are two lives. It is for the ecclesiastical authority, therefore, to shape itself to democratic forms, unless it wishes to provoke and foment an intestine conflict in the consciences of mankind. The penalty of refusal is disaster, for it is madness to think that the sentiment of liberty, as it is now spread abroad, can surrender. Where it forcibly confined and held in bonds, terrible would be its outburst, sweeping away at once both church and religion. Such is the situation for the modernists, and their one great anxiety is in consequence, to find a way of conciliation between the authority of the church and the liberty of believers. The relations between church and state. But it is not with its own members alone, that the church must come to an amicable arrangement. Besides its relations with those within it, it has others outside. The church does not occupy the world all by itself. There are other societies in the world with which it must necessarily have contact and relations. The rights and duties of the church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined. And determined, of course, by its own nature, as the modernists have already described it. The rules to be applied in this matter are those which have been laid down for science and faith. Though in the latter case the question is one of objects, while here we have one of ends. In the same way then, as faith and science are strangers to each other, by reason of the diversity of their objects, church and state are strangers by reason of the diversity of their ends. That of the church being spiritual, while that of the state is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the temporal to the spiritual, and to speak of some questions as mixed, allowing to the church the position of queen and mistress in all such, because the church was then regarded as having been instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this doctrine is today repudiated, alike by philosophers and historians. The state must, therefore, be separated from the church and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its councils, its orders, today, even in spite of its reprimands. To trace out and prescribe for the citizen any line of conduct, on any pretext whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of ecclesiastical authority, against which one is bound to act with all one's might. The principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by our predecessor Pius VI The Magisterium of the Church But it is not enough for the modernist school that the state should be separated from the church, for as faith is to be 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, proceeds to external acts, such, for instance, as the administration or reception of the sacraments, these will fall under the control of the state. What will then become of ecclesiastical authority, which can only be exercised by external acts? Obviously, it will be completely under the dominion of the state. It is this inevitable consequence, which impels many, among liberal Protestants, to reject all external worship. Nay, all external religious community, and makes them advocate what they call individual religion. If the modernists have not yet reached this point, they do ask the church, in the meanwhile, to be good enough to follow spontaneously where they lead her, and adapt herself to the civil forms in vogue, such are their ideas about disciplinary authority. But far more advanced, and far more pernicious, are their teachings on doctrinal and dogmatic authority. This is their conception of the Magisterium of the church. No religious society, they say, can be a real unit, unless the religious conscience of its members be one, and one also the formula which they adopt. But this double unity requires a kind of common mind, whose office is to find and determine the formula that corresponds best with the common conscience, and it must have, moreover, an authority sufficient to enable it to impose upon the community the formula which has been decided upon. From the combination, and as it were, fusion of the common mind which draws up the formula, and the authority which imposes it, arises, according to the modernists, the notion of the ecclesiastical Magisterium, and as this Magisterium springs in its last analysis from the individual consciences, and possesses this mandate for their benefit. It follows that the ecclesiastical Magisterium must be subordinate to them, and should therefore take democratic forms. To prevent individual consciences from revealing freely and openly the impulses they feel, to hinder criticism from imperiling dogmas towards their necessary evolutions, this is not a legitimate use, but an abuse of a power given for the public utility. So, too, a due method and measure must be observed in the exercise of authority, to condemn and proscribe a work without the knowledge of the author, without hearing his explanations, without discussion, assuredly savers of tyranny. And thus, here again, a mean must be found to save the full rights of authority, on the one hand, and of liberty, on the other. In the meanwhile, the proper course for the Catholic will be to proclaim publicly his profound respect for authority, and continue to follow his own bend. Their general directions for the Church may be put in this way. Since the end of the Church is entirely spiritual, the religious authority should strip itself of all that external pomp which adorns it in the eyes of the public. And here they forget that while religion is essentially for the mind, it is not exclusively for the mind, and that the honour paid to authority is reflected back on Jesus Christ who instituted it. The Evolution of Doctrine To finish with this whole question of faith and its shoots, it remains to be seen, venerable brethren, what the modernists have to say about their development. First of all, they laid out the general principle that in a living religion everything is subject to change, and must in fact change. And in this way they pass to what may be said to be, among the chief of their doctrines, that of evolution. To the worship of evolution everything is subject, dogma, church, worship, the books we revere as sacred, even faith itself. And the penalty of disobedience is death. The enunciation of this principle will not astonish anybody who bears in mind what the modernists have had to say about each of these subjects. Having laid down this law of evolution, the modernists themselves teach us how it works out. And first, with regard to faith. The primitive form of faith, they tell us, was rudimentary and common to all men alike, for it had its origin in human nature and human life. Vital evolution brought with it progress, not by the accretion of new and purely eventitious forms from without, but by an increasing penetration of the religious sentiment in the consciousness. This progress was of two kinds, negative by the elimination of all foreign elements, such, for example, as a sentiment of family or nationality, and positive by that intellectual and moral refining of man, by means of which the idea of the Divine was enlarged and enlightened, while the religious sentiment became more elevated and more intense. For the progress of faith no other causes are to be assigned than those which are reduced to explain its origin. But to them must be added those religious geniuses whom we call prophets, and of whom Christ was the greatest, both because in their lives and their words there was something mysterious which faith attributed to the divinity, and because it fell to their lot to have new and original experiences fully in harmony with the needs of their time. The progress of dogma is due chiefly to the obstacles which faith has to surmount, to the enemies it has to vanquish, to the contradictions it has to repel. Add to this a perpetual striving to penetrate ever more profoundly its own mysteries. Thus to omit other examples, as it happened in the case of Christ, in him that divine something which faith admitted in him expanded in such a way that he was at last held to be God. The chief stimulus of evolution in the domain of worship consists in the need of adapting itself to the uses and customs of peoples, as well as the need of availing itself of the value which certain acts have acquired by long usage. Finally, evolution in the church itself is fed by the need of accommodating itself to historical conditions and of harmonising itself with existing forms of society. Such is religious evolution in detail. And here, before proceeding further, we would have you note well this whole theory of necessities and needs, for it is at the root of the entire system of the modernists, and it is upon it that they will erect that famous method of theirs called the historical. Still continuing the consideration of the evolution of doctrine, it is to be noted that evolution is due, no doubt, to those stimulants' styled needs. But if left to their action alone, it would run a great risk of bursting the bounds of tradition, and thus, turned aside from its primitive vital principle, would lead to ruin instead of progress. Hence, studying more closely the ideas of the modernists, evolution is described as resulting from the conflict of two forces, one of them tending towards progress, the other towards conservatism. The conserving force in the church is tradition, and tradition is represented by religious authority, and this both by right and in fact. For by right it is in the very nature of authority to protect tradition and in fact, for authority, raised as it is above the contingencies of life, feels hardly, or not at all, the spurs of progress. The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs, lies in the individual consciences and ferments there, especially in such of them as are in most intimate contact with life. Note here, venerable brethren, the appearance already of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity a factor of progress in the church. Now it is by species of compromise between the forces of conservatism and of progress, that is to say, between authority and individual consciences that changes and advances take place. The individual consciences of some of them act on the collective conscience which brings pressure to bear on the depositories of authority until the latter consent to a compromise and, the pact being made, authority sees to its maintenance. With all this in mind one understands how it is that the modernists express astonishment when they are reprimanded or punished, what is imputed to them as a fault they regard as a sacred duty. The needs of consciences no one knows better than they since they are in closer touch with them than even the ecclesiastical authority. Having a voice and a pen they use both publicly for this is their duty, that authority rebuke them as much as it pleases. They have their own conscience on their side and an intimate experience which tells them with certainty that what they deserve is not blame but praise. Then they reflect that after all there is no progress without a battle and no battle without its victim and victims they are willing to be like the prophets and Christ himself. They have no bitterness in their hearts against the authority which uses them roughly for, after all, it is only doing its duty as authority. Their sole grief is that it remains deaf to their warnings because delay multiplies the obstacles which impede the progress of souls but the hour will most surely come when there will be no further chance for termization for if the laws of evolution may be checked for a while they cannot be ultimately destroyed and so they go their way, reprimands and condemnations notwithstanding, masking an incredible audacity under a mock semblance of humility while they make a show of bowing their heads their hands and minds are more intent than ever on carrying out their purposes and this policy they follow willingly and wittingly both because it is a part of their system that authority is to be stimulated but not dethroned and because it is necessary for them to remain within the ranks of the church in order that they may gradually transform the collective conscience thus unconsciously avowing that the common conscience is not with them and that they have no right to claim to be its interpreters. Thus then, venerable brethren, for the modernists both as authors and propagandists there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the church nor indeed are they without precursors in their doctrines for it was of these that our predecessor, Pius IX, wrote These enemies of divine revelation extolled human progress to the skies and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man the kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts. On the subject of Revelation and dogma in particular the doctrine of the modernists offers nothing new we find it condemned in the syllabus of Pius IX where it is enunciated in these terms Divine revelation is imperfect and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress corresponding with the progress of human reason and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council. The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system but as a divine deposit entrusted to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence the sense too of the sacred dogmas is that which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth nor is the development of our knowledge even concerning the faith impeded by this pronouncement on the contrary it is aided and promoted for the same Council continues that intelligence and science and wisdom therefore increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church throughout the ages and the centuries but only in its own kind that is according to the same dogma the same sense, the same acceptation. The Modernist as Historian and Critic After having studied the Modernist philosopher, believer and theologian it now remains for us to consider him as Historian, Critic, Apologist, Reformer. Some Modernists devoted to historical studies seem to be greatly afraid of being taken for philosophers. About philosophy they tell you they know nothing whatever and in this they display remarkable astuteness for they are particularly anxious to be suspected of being prejudiced in favour of philosophical theories which would lay them open to the charge of not being objective to use the word in vogue. And yet the truth is that their history and their criticism are saturated with their philosophy and that their historical critical conclusions are the natural fruit of their philosophical principles. This will be patent to anybody who reflects. Their first three laws are contained as three principles of their philosophy already dealt with. The principle of agnosticism the principle of the transfiguration of things by faith and the principle which we have called of disfiguration. Let us see what consequences flow from each of them. Agnosticism tells us that history like every other science deals entirely with phenomena and the consequence is that God reintervention of God in human affairs is to be relegated to the domain of faith as belonging to it alone. In things where a double element the divine and the human mingles in Christ for example or in the church or the sacraments or the many other objects of the same kind a division must be made and the human element assigned to history while the divine will go to faith. Hence we have that distinction so current among the modernists between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith between the church of history and the church of faith between the sacraments of history and the sacraments of faith and so on. Next we find that the human element itself which the historian has to work on as it appears in the documents has been by faith transfigured that is to say raised above its historical conditions. It becomes necessary therefore to eliminate also the accretions which faith has added to assign them to faith itself and to the history of faith. Thus when treating of Christ the historian must set aside all that surpasses man in his natural condition either according to the psychological conception of him or according to the place or period of his existence. Finally by virtue of the third principle even those things which are not outside the sphere of history they pass through the crucible excluding from history and relegation to faith everything which in their judgment is not in harmony with what they call the logic of facts and in character with the persons of whom they are predicated. Thus they will not allow that Christ things which do not seem to be within the capacity of the multitudes that listened to him. Hence they delete from his real history and transfer to faith all the allegories found in his discourses. Do you inquire as to the criterion they adopt to enable them to make these divisions? The reply is that they argue from the character of the man from his condition of life from his education circumstances under which the facts took place. In short, from criteria which if one considers them well are purely subjective. Their method is to put themselves into the position and person of Christ and then to attribute to him what they would have done under like circumstances. In this way absolutely are priority enacting on philosophical principles which they admit they hold by which they affect to ignore. They proclaim that Christ according to what they call his real history was not God and never did anything divine, and that as man he did and said only what they, judging from the time in which he lived, can admit him to have said or done. Criticism and its principles and as history receives its conclusions ready made from philosophy so too criticism takes its own from history. The critic on the data furnished him by the historian makes two parts of all his documents. Those that remain after the triple elimination above described go to form the real history. The rest is attributed to the history of the faith or as it is styled to internal history. For the modernists distinguish very carefully between these two kinds of history and it is to be noted that they oppose the history of the faith to real history precisely as real. Thus we have a double Christ a real Christ and a Christ the one of faith who never really existed a Christ who has lived at a given time and in a given place and a Christ who has never lived outside the pious meditations of the believer the Christ for instance and we find in the Gospel of St John which is pure speculation from beginning to end. But the dominion of philosophy over history does not end here given that division of which we have spoken of the documents into two parts the philosopher steps in again with his principle of vital immanence and shows how everything in the history is to be explained by vital emanation and since the cause or condition of every vital emanation whatsoever is to be found in some need it follows that no fact can antedate the need which produced it. Historically the fact must be posterior to the need. See how the historian works on this principle he goes over his documents again whether they be found in the sacred books or elsewhere draws up from them his list of the successive needs of the church whether relating to dogma or liturgy or other matters and then he hands his list over to the critic the critic takes in hand the documents dealing with the history of faith and distributes them period by period so that they correspond exactly with the list of needs always guided by the principle that the narration must follow the facts as the facts follow the needs it may at times happen that some parts of the sacred scriptures such as the epistles themselves constitute the fact created by the need even so the rule holds that the age of any document can only be determined by the age in which each need has manifested itself in the church further a distinction must be made between the beginning of a fact and its development for what is born on one day requires time for growth hence the critic must once more go over his documents range as they are through the different ages and divide them again into two parts separating those that regard the first stage of the facts from those that deal with their development and these he must again arrange according to their periods then the philosopher must come in again to impose on the historian the obligation of following in all his studies the precepts and laws of evolution it is next for the historian to scrutinize his documents once more to examine carefully the circumstances and conditions affecting the church during the different periods the conserving force she has put forth the needs both internal that have stimulated her to progress the obstacles she has had to encounter in a word everything that helps to determine the manner in which the laws of evolution have been fulfilled in her this done he finishes his work by drawing up in his broad lines a history of the development of the facts the critic follows and fits in the rest of the document with this sketch he takes up his pen the history is made complete now we ask here who is the author of this history the historian the critic assuredly neither of these but the philosopher from beginning to end everything in it is a priori an a priori in a way that reeks of heresy these men are certainly to be pityed and of them the apostle might well say they became vain in their thoughts professing themselves wise they became fools later to the romans chapter 1 verses 21 and 22 but at the same time they excite just indignation when they accuse the church of torturing the texts arranging and confusing them after it's own fashion and for the needs of it's cause in this they are accusing the church of something for which their own conscience plainly reproaches them how the bible is dealt with the result of this dismembering of the sacred books and this partition of them throughout the centuries is naturally that the scriptures can no longer be attributed to the authors whose names they bear the modernists have no hesitation in affirming commonly that these books and especially the Pentateuch and the first three gospels have been gradually formed by additions to a primitive brief narration by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretation by transitions by joining different passages together this means briefly that in the sacred books we must admit a vital evolution springing from and corresponding with the evolution of faith the traces of this evolution they tell us are so visible in the books that one might almost write a history of them indeed this history they do actually write and with such an easy security that one might believe them to have with their own eyes seen the writers at work through the ages amplifying the sacred books to aid them in this they call to their assistance that branch of criticism which they call textual and labor to show that such a fact or such a phrase is not in its right place and adducing other arguments of the same kind they seem in fact to have constructed for themselves certain type or narration and discourses upon which they base their decision as to whether a thing is out of place or not judge if you can such a system are fitted for practicing this kind of criticism 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 no one ever even glanced through the pages of scripture whereas the truth is that a whole multitude of doctors infinitely superior to them ingenious in erudition 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 he is a divine bounty in having felt safe to speak thus to men unfortunately these great doctors did not enjoy the same age to study that are possessed by the modernists for their guide and rule a philosophy borrowed from the negation and a criterion which consists of themselves we believe then that we have set forth with sufficient clearness the historical methods of the modernists the philosopher leads the way the historian follows and then in due order come internal and textural criticism and since it is characteristic of the first cause to communicate its virtue to secondary causes it is quite clear that the criticism we are concerned with is an agnostic immanentist and evolutionist criticism hence anybody who embraces it and employs it makes profession thereby of the errors contained in it and places himself in opposition to Catholic faith this being so one cannot but be greatly surprised by the consideration which is attached to it by certain Catholics the causes may be assigned for this first the close alliance independent of all differences of nationality or religion which the historians and critics of this school have formed among themselves second the boundless frontery of these men let one of them but open his mouth and the others applaud him in chorus proclaiming that science has made another step forward let an outsider but hint that they 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 in this way they win over many who did they but realise what they are doing would shrink back with horror the impudence and the domineering of some and the thoughtlessness and imprudence have combined to generate a pestilence in the air which penetrates everywhere and spreads the contagion but let us pass to the apologist the modernist as apologist the modernist apologist depends in two ways on the philosopher first indirectly in as much as his theme is history history dictated as we have seen by the philosopher and second directly in as much as he takes both his laws and his principles from the philosopher hence that common precept of the modernist school that the new apologetics must be fed from psychological and historical sources the modernist apologists then enter the arena by proclaiming to the rationalists that though they are defending religion they have no intention of employing the data of the sacred books or the histories in current use in the church and composed according to old methods but real history written on modern principles and according to rigorously modern methods in all this they are not using an argumentum ad hominem but are stating the simple fact that they hold that the truth is to be found only in this kind of history they feel that is not necessary for them to dwell on their own sincerity in their writings they are already known to and praised by the rationalists as fighting under the same banner and they not only plune themselves on these encomiums which are a kind of salary to them but would only provoke nausea in a real catholic but use them as an offset to the reprimands of the church but let us see how the modernist conducts his apologetics the aim he sets before him however attained that experience of the catholic religion which according to the system is the basis of faith there are two ways open to him the objective and the subjective the first of them proceeds from agnosticism it tends to show that religion and especially the catholic religion is endowed with such vitality as to compel every psychologist and historian of good faith to recognise that its history hides some unknown element to this end it is necessary to prove that this religion as it exists today is that which was founded by Jesus Christ that is to say that it is the product of the progressive development of the germ which he brought into the world hence it is imperative first of all to establish what this germ was and this the modernist claims to be able to do by the following formula Christ announced the coming of the kingdom of God which was to be realised within the brief lapse of time and of which he was to become the messiah the divinely given agent and ordainer then it must be shown how this germ always imminent and permanent in the bosom of the church has gone on slowly developing in the course of history adapting itself successively to different mediums through which it has passed borrowing from them by vital assimilation all the dogmatic, cultural ecclesiastical forms that served its purpose whilst on the other hand it surmounted all obstacles vanquished all enemies and survived all assaults and all combats anybody who well and duly considers this mass of obstacles adversaries, attacks and the vitality and fecundity which the church has shown throughout them all must admit that if the laws of evolution are visible in her life they fail to explain the whole of her history the unknown rises forth from it and presents itself before us thus do they argue never suspecting that their determination of the primate of germ is an up-priori of agnostic and evolutionist philosophy and that the formula of it has been gratuitously invented for the sake of buttressing their position but while they endeavor by this line of reasoning to secure access for the Catholic religion into souls these new apologists are quite ready to admit that there are many distasteful things in it nay they admit openly and with ill-concealed satisfaction that they have found that even its dogma is not exempt from violence and contradictions they add also that this is not only excusable but curiously enough even right and proper in the sacred books there are many passages referring to science or history where manifest errors are to be found but the subject of these books is not science or history but religion and morals in them history and science serve only as a species of covering to enable the religious and moral experiences wrapped up in them to penetrate more readily among the masses the masses understood science and history as they are expressed in these books and it is clear that had science and history been expressed in a more perfect form this would have proved rather a hindrance than a help then again the sacred books being essentially religious are consequently necessarily living now life has its own truth and its own logic quite different from rational truth and rational logic belonging as they do to a different order that is, truth of adaptation and of proportion both with the medium in which it exists and with the end towards which it tends finally the modernists losing all sense of control go so far as to proclaim true and legitimate everything that is explained by life we, venerable brethren for whom there is but one and only truth who hold that the sacred books written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost have God for their author dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith of Revelation, canon 2 to clear that this is equivalent to attributing to God himself the lie of utility the officious lie and we say, with Saint Augustine in an authority so high admit but one officious lie and there will not remain a single passage of those apparently difficult to practice or to believe which on the same most pernicious rule may not be explained as a lie uttered by the author willfully and to serve a purpose Epistle 28 and thus it will come about to continues that everybody will believe and refuse to believe what he likes or dislikes but the modernists pursue their way gaily they grant also that certain arguments adduced in the sacred books like those for example which are based on the prophecies have no rational foundation to rest on but they will defend even these as artifices of preaching which are justified by life do they stop here? no indeed for they are ready to admit nay to proclaim that Christ himself manifestly erred in determining the time when the coming of the kingdom of God was to take place and they tell us that we must not be surprised at this since even Christ was subject to the laws of life after this what is to become of the dogmas of the church the dogmas brim over the flagrant contradictions but what matter that since apart from the fact that vital logic accepts them they are not repugnant to symbolical truth are we not dealing with the infinite and has not the infinite an infinite variety of aspects in short to maintain and defend these theories they do not hesitate to declare that the noblest homies that can be paid to the infinite is to make it the object of contradictory propositions but when they justify even contradictions what is it that they will refuse to justify subjective arguments but it is not solely by objective arguments that the non-believer may be disposed to faith there are also subjective ones at the disposal of the modernists and for those they return to their doctrine of immanence they endeavour in fact to persuade their non-believer that down in the very depths of his nature and his life lie the need and the desire for religion and this not a religion of any kind but the specific religion known as Catholicism which they say is absolutely postulated by the perfect development of life and here we cannot but deplore once more and grievously that there are Catholics who immanence as a doctrine employed as a method of apologetics and who do this so imprudently that they seem to admit that there is in human nature a true and rigorous necessity with regard to the supernatural order and not merely a capacity and a suitability for the supernatural such as has at all times been emphasised by Catholic apologists truth to tell it is only the moderate modernists who make this appeal to an exigency for the Catholic religion as for the others who might be called integralists they would show to the non-believer hidden away in the very depths of his being the very germ which Christ himself bore in his conscience and which he bequeathed to the world such venerable brethren is a summary description of the apologetic method of the modernists in perfect harmony as you may see with their doctrines methods and doctrines brimming over with errors made not for edification but for destruction not for the formation of Catholics but for the plunging of Catholics into heresy methods and doctrines that would be fatal to any religion the modernist as reformer it remains for us now to say a few words about the modernist as reformer from all that has preceded some idea may be gained of the reforming mania which possesses them in all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing upon which it does not fasten reformer philosophy especially in the seminaries the scholastic philosophy is to be relegated to the history of philosophy among obsolete systems and the young men are to be taught modern philosophy true and suited to the times in which we live reform of theology rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation and positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma as for history it must be for the future written and taught only according to their modern methods and principles dogmas and their evolution are to be harmonized with science and history in a catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been duly reformed and are within the capacity of the people regarding worship the number of external devotions is to be reduced or at least steps must be taken to prevent their further increase though indeed some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic parts its spirit and its external manifestations must be put in harmony with the public conscience which is now wholly for democracy a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity an authority should be decentralized the roman congregations and especially the index and the holy office are to be reformed the ecclesiastical authority must change its line of conduct in the social and political world while keeping outside political and social organization it must adapt itself to those which exist in order to penetrate them with its spirit with regard to morals they adopt the principle of the Americanists that the act of virtues is more important than the passive both in the estimation in which they must be held and in the exercise of them the clergy are asked to return to the ancient lowliness and poverty and in their ideas and action are to be guided by the principles of modernism there are some who echoing the teaching of their Protestant masters would like the suppression of ecclesiastical celibacy which is not to be reformed according to their principles modernism and all the heresies it may be venerable brethren that some may think we have dwelt too long on this exposition of the doctrines of the modernists but it was necessary both in order to refute their customary charge that we do not understand their ideas and to show that their system does not consist in scattered and unconnected theories but in a perfectly organized body all the parts of which are solidly joined so that it is not possible to admit one without admitting all for this reason too we've had to give this exposition a somewhat didactic form and not to shrink from employing certain uncouth terms in use among the modernists and now can anybody who takes a survey of the whole system be surprised that we should define it as a synthesis of all heresies we're one to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate the sap and substance of them all into one he could not better succeed than the modernists have done nay, they have done more than this for, as we have already intimated their system means the destruction not of the catholic religion alone but of all religion with good reason do the rationalists applaud them for the most sincere and the frankest among the rationalists warmly welcome the modernists as their most valuable allies for let us return for a moment venerable brethren to that most disastrous doctrine of agnosticism by it every avenue that leads the intellect to God is barred the rationalist would seek to open others available for sentiment and action vain efforts for, after all what is sentiment but the reaction of the soul on the action of the intelligence or the senses take away the intelligence and demand already inclined to follow the senses becomes their slave vain too from another point of view for all these fantasies on the religious sentiment we will never be able to destroy common sense and common sense tells us that emotion and everything that leads the heart captive proves a hindrance instead of a help to the discovery of truth we speak of course of truth in itself as for that other purely subjective truth the fruit of sentiment and action if it serves its purpose for the jugglery of words it is of no use to the man though above all things whether outside himself there is a God into whose hands he is one day to fall true the modernists do call in experience to eke out their system for what does this experience add to sentiment? absolutely nothing beyond a certain intensity and a proportionate deepening of the conviction of the reality of the object but these two will never make sentiment into anything but sentiment nor the private of its characteristic which is to cause deception when the intelligence is not there to guide it on the contrary they but confirm and aggravate this characteristic for the more intense sentiment is the more it is sentimental in matters of religious sentiment and religious experience you know venerable brethren our necessary is prudence and our necessary too the science which directs prudence you know it from your own dealings with souls and especially with souls in whom sentiment predominates you know it also from your reading of ascetical books books which the modernists have but little esteem but which testify to a science and a solidity very different from theirs and to a refinement and subtlety of observation of which the modernists give no evidence is it not really folly or at least sovereign imprudence to trust oneself without control to modernist experiences let us for a moment put the question if experiences have so much value in their eyes why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the modernists are on the wrong road is it perchance that all experiences except those felt by the modernists are false and deceptive the vast majority of mankind holds and always will hold firmly that sentiment and experience alone were not enlightened and guided by reason do not lead to the knowledge of God what remains then but the annihilation of all religion atheism certainly it is not the doctrine will save us from this for if all the intellectual elements as they call them of religion are pure symbols will not the very name of God or divine personality be also a symbol and if this be admitted will not the personality of God become a matter of doubt and the way opened to pantheism and to pantheism that other doctrine of divine immanence leads directly does it we ask leave God distinct from man or not if yes in what way does it differ from Catholic doctrine and why reject external revelation if no we are at once in pantheism now the doctrine of immanence in the modernist exception holds and professes that every phenomenon of conscience proceeds from man as man the rigorous conclusion from this the identity of man with God which means pantheism the same conclusion follows from the distinction modernists make between science and faith the object of science they say is the reality of the knowable the object of faith on the contrary is the reality of the unknowable now what makes the unknowable unknowable is its disproportion with the intelligible a disproportion which nothing whatever even in the doctrine of the modernist can suppress hence the unknowable remains and will eternally remain unknowable to the believer as well as to the man of science therefore if any religion at all is possible it can only be the religion of an unknowable reality and why this religion might not be that universal soul of the universe of which a rationalist speaks is something we do not see certainly this suffices to show super abundantly by how many roads modernism leads to the annihilation of all religion the first step in this direction was taken by Protestantism the second is made by modernism the next will plunge headlong into atheism end of part two of encyclical letter on the eras of the modernists section 3 of on the eras of the modernists by Pope Saint Pius X translated by Thomas E. Judge this Libby Box recording is in the public domain encyclical continued part two the cause of modernism to penetrate still deeper into modernism and to find a suitable remedy for such a deep sore it behooves us venerable brethren to investigate the causes which have engendered it and which foster its growth that the proximate and immediate cause consists in a perversion of the mind cannot be open to doubt the remote causes seem to us to be reduced to two curiosity and pride curiosity by itself if not prudently regulated suffices to explain all eras such is the opinion of our predecessor Gregory XVI who wrote a lamentable spectacle is that presented by the aberrations of human reason when it yields to the spirit of novelty when against the warning of the apostle it seeks to know beyond what it is meant to know when relying too much on itself it thinks it can find the truth outside the church wherein truth is found without the slightest shadow of error encyclical Singularinos July 1834 but it is pride which exercises an incomparably greatest way over the soul to bind it and plunge into error and pride sits in modernism as in its own house finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and an occasion to flaunt itself in all its aspects it is pride which fills modernists with that confidence in themselves and leads them to hold themselves up as the rule for all pride which puffs them up with that vain glory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possesses of knowledge and makes them say inflated with presumption we are not as the rest of men and which, to make them really not as other men leads them to embrace all kinds of the most absurd novelties it is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty it is pride that makes of them the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves and which begets the absolute want of respect for authority not accepting the supreme authority no, truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to modernism as pride when a Catholic layman or a priest forgets that precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Jesus Christ who selects to tear pride from his heart ah but he is a fully ripe subject for the errors of modernism hence venerable brethren it will be your first duty to thwart such proud men to employ them only in the lowest and obscurest offices the higher they try to rise the lower let them be placed so that their lowly position is the power of causing damage sound your young clerics too, most carefully by yourselves and by the directors of your seminaries and when you find the spirit of pride among any of them reject them without compunction from the priesthood would to God that this had always been done with the proper vigilance and constancy if we pass from the moral to the intellectual causes of modernism the first which presents itself and the chief one is ignorance yes these very modernists who pose as doctors of the church who puff out their cheeks when they speak of modern philosophy and show such contempt for scholasticism have embraced the one with all its false glamour because the ignorance of the other has left them without the means of being able to recognize confusion of thought and refute their whole system with all its errors has been born of the alliance between faith and false philosophy methods of propagandism if only they had displayed less zeal and energy in propagating it but such is their activity and such their unwearing capacity for work on behalf of their cause that one cannot but be pained to see them waste such labour in endeavouring to ruin the church when they might have been of such service to her had their efforts been better employed their artifices to delude men's minds are of two kinds the first to remove obstacles from their path the second to devise and apply actively and patiently every instrument that can serve their purpose they recognize that the three chief difficulties for them are scholastic philosophy the authority of the fathers and tradition and the magisterium of the church and on these they wage unrelenting war for scholastic philosophy and theology they have only ridicule and contempt whether it is ignorance or fear or both that inspires this conduct in them certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism and there is no sure sign that a man is on his way to modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for this system modernists and their admirers should remember the proposition condemned by pious the ninth the method and principles which have served the doctors of scholasticism when treating of theology no longer correspond with the exigencies of our time or the progress of science syllabus of errors 13 they exercise all their ingenuity in diminishing the force and falsifying the character of tradition so as to rob it of all its weight but for Catholics the Second Council of Nicaea will always have the force of law where it condemns those who dare after the empires fashion of heretics to derive the ecclesiastical traditions to invent nobilities of some kind however by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church and Catholics will hold for law also the profession of the Fourth Council of Constantinople we therefore profess to conserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by the Holy and most illustrious apostles by the Orthodox councils by general and local by every one of those divine interpreters the Fathers and Doctors of the Church wherefor the Roman Pontips Pius IV and Pius IX order the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church the modernists pass the same judgement as those Holy Fathers of the Church as they pass on tradition decreeing with amazing effrontery that while personally most worthy of all veneration they were entirely ignorant of history and criticism for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived finally the modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium in itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin character and rights and by freely repeating the calamities of all its adversaries to all the band of modernists may be applied those words which our predecessor wrote with such pain to bring contempt and odium on the mystic spouse of Christ who is the true light the children of darkness have been won't to cast in her face in the world a stupid calamity and perverting the many and force of things and words to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance and the enemy of light, science and progress Motu Propio, Ut Mysticum 14th of March, 1891 This being so venerable brethren no wonder the modernists vent all their gall and hatred on Catholics as they fight the battles of the church but of all the insults they heap on them those of ignorance and obstinacy are the favourites when an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that render him redoubtable they try to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack while in flagrant contrast with this policy towards Catholics they load with constant praise the writers who range themselves on their side hailing their works exuding novelty in every page with choruses of applause for them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium when one of their number falls under the condemnations of the church the rest of them to the horror of good Catholics gather round him he public praise upon him venerate him almost as a martyr to truth the young excited and confused by all his clamour of praise and abuse some of them afraid of being branded as ignorant others ambitious to be considered learned and both classes goaded internally by curiosity and pride often surrender and give themselves modernism and here we have already some of the artifices employed by modernists to exploit their wares what efforts they make to win new recruits they seize upon chairs in the seminaries and universities and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence from these sacred chairs they scatter though not always openly the seeds of their doctrines they proclaim their teachings without disguise in congresses they introduce them and make them the vogue in social institutions under their own names and under pseudonyms they publish numbers of books, newspapers, reviews and sometimes one and the same writer adopts a variety of pseudonyms to trap the unconscious reader into believing in a whole multitude of modernist writers in short they leave nothing untried in action discourses, writings as though there were a frenzier propaganda upon them and the results of all this we have to lament at the sight of many young men once full of promise and capable of rendering great services to the church now gone astray and there is another sight that saddens us too that of so many other Catholics who, while they certainly do not go so far as the former have yet grown into the habit as though they had been breathing a poisoned atmosphere of thinking and speaking and writing with a liberty that ill becomes Catholics they are to be found among the laity and in the ranks of the clergy and they are not wanting even in the last place where one might expect to meet them in religious institutes and read of biblical questions it is upon modernist principles if they write history it is to search out with curiosity and to publish openly on the pretext of telling the whole truth and with a species of ill concealed satisfaction everything that looks to them like a stain in the history of the church under the sway of certain a priori rules they destroy as far as they can the pious traditions of the people and bring ridicule on certain relics highly venerable from their antiquity they are possessed by the empty desire of being talked about and they know that they would never succeed in this were they to say only what has been always said it may be that they have persuaded themselves that in all this they are really serving God and the church in reality they only offend both less perhaps by their works themselves than by the spirit in which they write and by the encouragement they are giving to the extravagances of the modernists part 3 remedies against this host of grave eras and its secret and open advance our predecessor Leo XIII of happy memory worked strenuously especially as regards to the Bible his words and his acts but as we have seen the modernists are not easily deterred by such weapons with an affectation of submission and respect they proceeded to twist the words of the pontiff to their own sense and his acts they described as directed against others than themselves and the evil has gone on increasing from day to day we therefore venerable brethren have determined to adopt at once the most efficacious measures in our power and we beg and conjure you to see to it that in this most grave matter nobody will ever be able to say that you have been in the slightest degree wanting invigilance zeal or firmness and what we ask of you and expect of you we ask and expect also of all other pastors of souls of all educators and professors of clerks and in a very special way of the superiors of religious institutions one the study of scholastic philosophy in the first place with regard to studies we will and ordain that scholastic philosophy be made the basis of the sacred sciences it goes without saying that if anything is met with among the scholastic doctors which may be regarded as an excess of subtlety or which is altogether a destitute of probability we have no desire whatever to propose it for the imitation of present generations Leo XIII encyclical the attorney patris and let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy we prescribe is that which the angelic doctor has bequeathed to us and we therefore declare that all the ordinances of our predecessor on this subject continue fully in force and as far as may be necessary we do decree anew and confirm and ordain that they be by all strictly observed in seminaries where they may have been neglected let the bishops impose them and require their observance and let this apply also to the superiors of religious institutions further let professors remember that they cannot set Saint Thomas aside especially in metaphysical question without grave detriment on this philosophical foundation the theological edifice is to be solidly raised promote the study of theology venerable brethren by all means in your power so that your clerics on leaving the seminaries desire and love it and always find their delight in it for in the vast and varied abundance of studies opening before the mind desirous of truth everybody knows how the old maxim describes theology as so far in front of all others that every science and art should serve it and be to it as handmaidens let the 13th Apostolic Letter of the 10th 1889 we will add that we deem worthy of praise those who with full respect for tradition the Holy Fathers and the ecclesiastical Magisterium undertake with well balanced judgment and guided by Catholic principles which is not always the case seek to illustrate positive theology by throwing the light of true history upon it certainly more attention must be paid to positive theology than in the past but this must be done without detriment to scholastic theology and those are to be disapproved of as modernist tendencies who seek to exalt positive theology in such a way as to seem to despise the scholastic with regard to profane studies suffice it to recall here what our predecessor has admirably said apply yourselves energetically to the study of natural sciences the brilliant discoveries and the bold and useful applications of them made in our times which have won such applause by our contemporaries will be an object of perpetual praise for those that come after us Lear the 13th Allocution, March the 7th 1880 but this do without interfering with sacred studies is our predecessor in these grave words prescribed if you carefully search for the cause of those errors you will find that it lies in the fact that in these days when the natural sciences absorbed so much study the more severe and lofty studies have been proportionately neglected some of them have almost passed into oblivion some of them are pursued in a half-hearted or superficial way and, sad to say now that they are fallen from their oldest state they have been disfigured by perverse doctrines and monstrous errors we ordain therefore that the study of natural science in the seminaries be carried on under this law 2. Practical Application All these prescriptions and those of our predecessor are to be borne in mind whenever there is question of choosing directors and professors for seminaries and catholic universities anybody who in any way is found to be imbued with modernism is to be excluded without compunction from these offices and those who already occupy them are to be withdrawn the same policy is to be adopted towards those who favour modernism either by extolling the modernists or excusing their culpable conduct by criticising scholasticism the fathers or by refusing obedience to ecclesiastical authority in any of its depositories and towards those who show a love of novelty in history, archaeology biblical exegesis and finally towards those who neglect the sacred sciences or appear to prefer to them the profane in all this question of studies and in all brethren you cannot be too watchful or too constant but most of all in the choice of professors for as a rule the students are modelled after the pattern of their masters strong in the consciousness of your duty act always prudently but vigorously equal diligence and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for holy orders far the clergy be the love of novelty God hates the proud and the obstinate for the future the doctorate of theology and canon law must never be conferred on anybody who has not made the regular course of scholastic philosophy if conferred it shall be held as null and void the rules laid down in 1896 by the sacred congregation of bishops and regulars for the clerics both secular and regular of Italy concerning the frequenting of the universities we now decree to be extended to all nations clerics and priests inscribed in the Catholic Institute or university must not in the future follow in civil universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic Institutes to which they belong if this has been permitted anywhere in the past we ordain that it be not allowed for the future let the bishops who form the governing board of such Catholic Institutes or universities watch with all care that these our commands be constantly observed 3. Episcopal Vigilance over Publications it is also the duty of the bishops to prevent writings infected with modernism or favourable to it from being read when they have been published and to hinder their publication when they have not no book or paper or periodical of this kind must ever be permitted to seminarists or university students the injury to them would be equal to that caused by immoral reading nay, it would be greater for such writings poison Christian life at its very fount the same decision is to be taken concerning the writings of some Catholics who, though not badly disposed themselves but ill instructed in theological studies and imbued with modern philosophy strive to make this harmonise with the faith and, as they say to turn it to the account of the faith the name and reputation of these authors cause them to be read without suspicion and they are therefore all the more dangerous in preparing the way of modernism to give you some more general directions venerable brethren in a matter of such moment we bid you do everything in your power to drive out of your diocese even by solemn interdict any pernicious books that may be in circulation there the holy sea neglects no means to put down writings of this kind but the number of them has now grown to the point that it is impossible to censure them all hence it happens that the medicine sometimes arrives too late for the disease has taken root during the delay we will therefore that the bishops putting aside all fear and the prudence of the flesh despising the outcries of the wicked gently by all means but constantly do each his own share of this work in the apostolic constitution officiorum let the ordinaries acting in this also as delegates of the apostolic sea exert themselves to prescribe and put out of reach of the faithful endures books or other writings printed or circulated in their diocese in this passage the bishops it is true, receive a right but they have also a duty imposed on them let no bishop think that he fulfills this duty by denouncing to us one or two books what a great many others of the same kind are being published and circulated nor are you to be deterred by the fact that a book has obtained the imprimatur elsewhere because both this may be merely stimulated and because it may have been granted through carelessness or easiness or excessive confidence in the author as may sometimes happen in religious orders besides just as the same food does not agree equally with everybody it may happen that a book harmless in one place may, on account of the different circumstances be hurtful in another should a bishop therefore after having taken the advice of prudent persons deem it right to condemn any of such books in his diocese we not only give him ample faculty to do so but we impose it upon him as a duty to do so of course it is our wish that in such action proper regard be used and sometimes it will suffice to restrict the prohibition to the clergy but even in such cases it will be obligatory on Catholic booksellers not to put on sale books condemned by the bishop and while we are on this subject of booksellers it is clear to it that they do not through desire for gain put on sale unsound books it is certain that in the catalogues of some of them the books of the modernists are not unfrequently announced with no small praise if they refuse obedience let the bishops have no hesitation in depriving them of the title of Catholic booksellers so too and with more reason for booksellers and if they have that, a pontifical let them be denounced to the apostolic see finally we remind all of the 26th article of the above mentioned constitution of Ishiorum all those who have obtained an apostolic faculty to read and keep forbidden books are not thereby authorised to read books and periodicals forbidden by the local ordinaries thus the apostolic faculty expressly concedes permission to read and keep books condemned by anybody but it is not enough to hinder the reading and sale of bad books it is also necessary to prevent them from being printed hence let the bishops use the utmost severity in granting permission to print under the rules of the constitution of Ishiorum many publications require the authorisation of the ordinary and in some dioceses it has been made the custom to have a suitable number of official censors for the examination of writings we have the highest praise for this institution we not only exhort but we order that it be extended to all dioceses in all episicable curious therefore let censors be appointed for the revision of works intended for publication and let the censors be chosen from both ranks of the clergy secular and regular men of age, knowledge and prudence who will know how to follow the golden mean in their judgements it shall be their office to examine everything which requires permission for publication according to articles 41 and 42 of the above mentioned constitution the censor shall give his verdict in writing if it be favourable the bishop will give the permission for publication by the word imprimatur which must always be preceded by the nihil obstut and the name of the censor in necuria of Rome official censors shall be appointed just as elsewhere and the appointment of them shall appertain to the master of the sacred palaces after they have been proposed to the cardinal vicar appointed by the sovereign pontiff it will also be the office of the master of the sacred palaces to select the censor for each writing permission for publication will be granted by him as well as by the cardinal vicar or his vice regent and this permission, as above prescribed must always be preceded by the nihil obstut and the name of the censor only on very rare and exceptional occasions and on the prudent decision of the bishop shall it be possible to omit mention of the censor the name of the censor shall never be made known to the authors until he shall have given a favourable decision so that he may not have to suffer annoyance either while he is engaged in examination of a writing or in case he should deny his approval censors shall never be chosen from the religious orders unless the opinion of the principal or the firm of the general has been privately obtained and the provincial or the general must give a conscientious account of the character, knowledge and orthodoxy of the candidate we admonish religious superiors of their solemn duty never to allow anything to be published by any of their subjects with our permission from themselves and from the ordinary finally we affirm and declare that the title of censor is of no value and can never be adduced to give credit to the private opinions of the person who holds it priests as editors having said this much in general we now ordain in particular a more careful observance of article 42 of the above mentioned constitution officiorum it is forbidden to secular priests without the previous consent of the ordinary to undertake the direction of papers or periodicals this permission shall be withdrawn from any priest who makes a wrong use of it after having been admonished with regard to priests who are correspondents or collaborators of periodicals as it happens not infrequently that they write matter infected with modernism for their papers or periodicals let the bishops see to it that this is not permitted to happen and should it happen let them warn the writers or prevent them from writing the superiors of religious orders too, we admonish with all authority to do the same and should they fail in this duty let the bishops make due provision with authority delegated by the supreme pontiff let there be as far as this is possible a special censor for newspapers and periodicals written by Catholics it shall be his office to read in due time each number after it has been published and if he find anything dangerous in it, let him order that it be corrected the bishop shall have the same right even when the censor has seen nothing objectionable in a publication we have already mentioned congresses and public gatherings as among the means used by the modernists to propagate and defend their opinions in the future bishops shall not permit congresses of priests except on very rare occasions when they do permit them it shall only be on condition that matters appertaining to the bishops or the apostolic see be not treated in them and that no motions or postulates be allowed that would imply usurpation of sacred authority and that no mention be made in them of modernism or laicism congresses of this kind which can only be held up if permission in writing has been obtained in due time and for each case it shall not be lawful for priests of other dioceses to take part without the written permission of their ordinary further, no priest must lose sight of the solemn recommendation of Leo XIII let priests hold as sacred the authority of their bishops to them take it for certain that the satchodotal ministry if not exercised under the guidance of the bishops can never be either holy or very fruitful or respectable and cyclical letter Nobolissima Gallorum 10th of February 1884 6. Diocesan Watch Committees But of what avail, venerable brethren will be all our commands and prescriptions if they be not dutifully and firmly carried out and in order that this may be done it has seemed expedient to us to extend to all dioceses the regulations laid down with great wisdom many years ago by the bishops of Umbria for theirs in order they say to extirpate the errors already propagated and to prevent their further diffusion and to remove those teachers of impiety through whom the pernicious effects of such diffusion are being perpetuated this sacred assembly following the example of Saint Charles Borromeo has decided to establish in each of the dioceses a council consisting of approved members of both branches of the clergy which shall be charged with the task of noting the existence of errors and the devices by which new ones are introduced and propagated to inform the bishop of the whole so that he may take council with them as to the best means of nipping the evil in the bud and preventing it spreading for the ruination of souls or worse still gaining strength and growth acts as the congress of the bishops of Umbria November 1849 Title II Article VI we decree therefore that in every diocese a council of this kind is to name the council of vigilance be instituted without delay the priests called to form part in it shall be chosen somewhat after the manner above prescribed for the censors and they shall meet every two months on an appointed day under the presidency of the bishop they shall be bound to secrecy as to their deliberations and decisions and their function shall be as follows they shall watch most carefully for every trace and sign of modernism both in publications and in teaching and to preserve from it the clergy and the young they shall take all prudent prompt and efficacious measures let them combat nobilities of words remembering the admonitions of Leo XIII instruction SCNNEE EE January 1902 it is impossible to approve in Catholic publications of a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to derive the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life on new directions of the church on new aspirations of the modern soul on a new vocation of the clergy on a new Christian civilization language of this kind is not to be tolerated either in books or from chairs of learning the councils must not neglect the books treating of the pious traditions of different places or of sacred relics let them not permit such questions to be discussed in periodicals destined to stimulate piety neither with the expression saving of mockery or contempt nor by dogmatic pronouncements especially when, as is often the case, what is stated as a certainty either does not pass the limits of probability or is merely based on prejudiced opinion concerning sacred relics let this be the rule when bishops who alone are judges in such matters know for certain that a relic is not genuine let them remove it at once from the veneration of the faithful if the authentications of a relic happen to have been lost through civil disturbances or in any other way let it not be exposed for public veneration until the bishop has verified it the argument of prescription or well-founded presumption is to have weight only when devotion to a relic is commendable by reason of its antiquity according to the sense of the decree issued in 1896 by the congregation of indulgences and sacred relics ancient relics are to retain the veneration they have always enjoyed except when in individual instances there are clear arguments that they are false or suppositious in passing judgment on pious traditions be it always born in mind that in this matter the church uses the greatest prudence and that she does not allow traditions of this kind to be narrated in books except with the utmost caution and with the insertion of the declaration imposed by Urban VIII and even then she does not guarantee the truth of the fact narrated she simply does not forbid belief in things for which human arguments are not wanting on this matter the sacred congregation of rights 30 years ago decreed as follows these apparitions and revelations have neither been approved nor condemned by the Holy See which has simply allowed that they be believed on purely human faith on the tradition which they relate corroborates about testimonies and documents worthy of credence decree March the 2nd 1877 anybody who follows this rule has no cause for fear for the devotion based on any apparition insofar as it regards the fact itself that is to say in as far as it is relative always implies the hypothesis of the truth of the fact while in as far as it is absolute it must always be based on the truth seeing that its object is the persons of the saints who are honoured the same is true of relics finally we entrust to the Councils of Vigilance the duty of overlooking assiduously and diligently social institutions as well as writings on social questions so that they may harbour no trace of modernism but obey the prescriptions of the Roman Pontiffs 7. Triennial Returns Lest what we have laid down thus far should fall into oblivion we will and ordain that the bishops of all dioceses a year after the publication of these letters and every three years thenceforward furnished the Holy See with a diligent and sworn report on all the prescriptions contained in them and on the doctrines that find currency among the clergy and especially in the seminaries and other Catholic institutions and we impose the like obligation on the generals of religious orders with regard to those under them this venerable brethren is what we have thought in our duty to write to you for the salvation of all who believe the adversaries of the church and all doubtless abuse what we have said to refurbish the old calumny by which we are produced as the enemy of science and of the progress of humanity in order to oppose a new answer to such accusations which the history of the Christian religion refutes by never failing arguments it is our intention to establish and develop by every means in our power a special institute in which through the cooperation of those Catholics who are most imminent for their learning the progress of science and other realms of knowledge may be promoted under the guidance and teaching of Catholic truth God grant that we may happily realize our design with the ready assistance of all those who bear sincere love for the Church of Christ but of this we will speak on another occasion meanwhile venerable brethren fully confident in your zeal and work may the seeds for you with our whole heart and soul the abundance of heavenly light so that in the midst of this great perturbation of men's minds from the insidious invasions of error on every side you may see clearly what you ought to do and may perform the task with all your strength and courage may Jesus Christ the author and finisher of our faith be with you by his power and may the immaculate virgin the destroyer of all heresies be with you by her prayers and aid and we, as a pledge of our affection and of divine assistance in adversity grant most affectionately and with all our heart to you, your clergy and people the apostolic benediction given at St Peter's Rome on the 8th day of September 1907 the fifth year of our pontificate Pius X Pope End of encyclical letter Beshendi Dominici Greigis on the Errors of the Modernists