O tempora o mores! Thus did Cicero famously lament the affairs of men in his own day. And while the First Catiline Oration might seem a strange place to begin a piece on condemning modernity (it being part of antiquity, after all), there is a peculiar appropriateness. Cicero lamented that Catiline had not been executed, even though there was much evidence against him as a conspirator against the Republic; whereas, in Rome’s earlier history, comparatively flimsy evidence for treason had been seen as grounds for execution. If we replace “execution” with “condemnation,” and if we consider how heresies and heretics in our own day get such an easy pass, we can shout with Cicero, “Oh what times! Oh what customs!”
Having previously given a little catalogue of “Evil -ISMS and other Boogeymen of Modern Thought,” I now purpose to show how the Church responded to these boogeymen when they reared their ugly heads. In doing so, I will reference primarily the Popes, but also other great thinkers of the nineteenth century — called by a wise man, “the Great Nineteenth.”
The ideologies we catalogued found themselves largely condemned or strongly censured by a series of pontifical acts from Gregory XVI (1831-1846), Blessed Pius IX (1846-1878), and Leo XIII (1878-1903). It is chiefly these papal interventions, mostly concentrated in Blessed Pio Nono’s long reign, which justify the claim sometimes made that the Catholic Reformation (or Counter-Reformation) came to its complete flowering in the nineteenth century.
Pope Gregory XVI condemned the indifferentism of Félicité de Lamennais in the encyclical Mirari Vos (August 15, 1832) and again in Singulari Nos (June 25, 1834). He also received the submission of a French priest named Louis Eugene Bautain, who had held various errors regarding faith and reason called Fideism and Traditionalism. These were religiously motivated forms of skepticism. Included in that penitent’s profession of faith were the notions that reason can prove the existence of God, that the miracles of Our Lord are still viable proofs for the Gospel, and that human reason can and should lead us to faith, even though original sin has weakened our mental clarity.
Blessed Pius IX returned to the theme of faith and reason several times in his pontificate, reissuing the condemnations of rationalism while asserting the capacity of the intellect to know truth (against Kantianism and skepticism). The encyclical Qui Pluribus (November 9, 1846), the Syllabus of Modern Errors (December 8, 1864), and Vatican I’s Dei Filius (April 24, 1870) were among the vehicles for this. Pio Nono also condemned rationalism and indifferentism in Singulari Quadem (Dec. 9, 1854) and Quanto Conficiamur (August 10, 1863). In the encyclical, Quanta Cura (December 8, 1864), he condemned Naturalism, Communism, and its close ally, Socialism.
The 1864 Syllabus of Modern Errors, excerpted from thirty-two allocutions, encyclicals, and letters of Blessed Pius, condemned a whole panoply of modernity’s false ideas. As the name would suggest, it is something of a locus classicus for studying the authoritative and authentic nineteenth-century Catholic response to modernity. Some excerpts from this are, therefore, in order. (All Syllabus citations are from Denz. 1700-1780.) Bear in mind that these propositions were condemned:
On rationalism: “All action of God upon men and the world must be denied” (No. 2). “[R]eason is the chief norm by which man can and should come to a knowledge of all truths of whatever kind” (No. 4). On “modified rationalism” (and scientism): “The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman Congregations hinder the free progress of science” (No. 12). On indifferentism: “In the worship of any religion whatever, men can find the way to eternal salvation, and can attain eternal salvation” (No. 16). On religious liberty: “The Church is to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (No. 55). On liberalism: “The Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile and adapt himself to progress, liberalism, and the modern civilization” (No. 80).
Pope Leo XIII condemned socialism (Quod Apostolici of December 28, 1878) and further advanced the Church’s social teaching against religious liberty, (immoderate) democracy, and liberalism in Immortale Dei (November 1, 1855) Libertas Praestantissimum (June 20, 1888), and many other works. The beginnings of Biblical Modernism (based on historicism, rationalism, and positivism) were censured in his Providentissimus Deus (November 1893). He denounced a host of errors in mystical theology (which exalted exterior activity over interior contemplation) as “Americanism” in Testem Benevolentiae (January 22, 1899). What most interests us about Americanism is its foundational notion, namely, that the Faith in America could somehow be different than it was elsewhere. This idea was a concentration of many of the trends we catalogued above, since America was viewed as a very progressive, democratic nation with religious liberty (i.e., liberalism), pluralism, and cultural relativism integrated into its very fabric. The prolific Pope Leo also encouraged a revival of scholastic philosophy in his encyclical Aeterni Patris (August 4, 1879).
While, on the whole, the Popes strongly combated the currents which define modernity, there were Catholic thinkers who were for a more accommodating approach, and not all of these were themselves liberal. Cardinal Newman was an “inopportunist” at Vatican I, averring that the definition of papal infallibility was untimely as it could unduly alienate those on the verge of conversion in his native England. (He did gladly submit once it was defined.) Many Catholic intellectuals, including bishops, were of this mind. Others were simply opposed to the dogma on theological grounds.
Thankfully, what won the day was the militant ultramontane theology and philosophy of men like Louis Veuillot, Edouard Cardinal Pie, Dom Prosper Guéranger, Venerable Emmanuel d’Alzon, Joseph de Maistre, Louis de Bonald, and Juan Donoso Cortes. It is because of these men and others like them, writing extensively on Christian social principles, that “Social Catholicism,” i.e., the effort to bring the political and economic realms (as well as individuals and families) under dominion of Jesus Christ, came into such prominence in the nineteenth century. Their work did much to lay the foundations of the counter-revolutionary actions of the popes.
The fact that all on this list were French (except the Spaniard, Cortes) shows us that the nineteenth-century Catholic revival was largely a phenomenon of the Eldest Daughter of the Church. Recalling that the movement was a spiritual one primarily, we could augment the catalogue with names such as St. Peter Julian Eymard, St. John Vianney, St. Bernadette Soubirous, St. Catherine Labouré, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, St. Peter Mary Chanel, St. Theophane Venard, and St. Thérèse of the Infant Jesus — counter-revolutionaries all.
Someone is sure to tell me — unless this little paragraph forestalls him — “You have not mentioned Pope Saint Pius X!” It is not for want of love and devotion. The intention was, rather, to show how the stage was set for the great anti-modernist saint.
May he, and all the saints, blesseds, and venerables we have herein mentioned, pray that we in the Church militant might carry on their glorious combat against the errors of modernity, with or without the help of our clergy — for whom, may they especially pray!
