From the bulletin of March 28, 2021
Continuing our look at the heresy of Modernism, we come to how they view the Church’s authority. Since Modernists say that Christ is only human and that all religion is the product of a vague internal “religious sense,” they go on to reject the idea that the Church has real authority coming from God. They see the Church’s authority as the product of the “collective conscience” of all believers. In other words, they argue that the Church should be democratic about it’s beliefs because it’s authority is really based on the opinion of the people, not some objective divine standard.
The truth is that the Church’s authority is objective and divine. Jesus himself says very clearly “what you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” (Matt 16:19). He tells the Apostles, “as the Father sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). He teaches that “whoever rejects you, rejects me” (Luke 10:16). The Apostles spent their lives – and most of them were killed – proclaiming a truth that was revealed to them. They taught what God said, not what their own consciences and opinions made up. Of course, because Modernism starts with the assumption that all supernatural things (like God actually becoming human) are impossible and that God is out of our reach, they simply misinterpret scripture as if it wasn’t really God talking. It does raise the question why they bother to identify as Catholic or Christian, yet their influence persists from within the Church as well as in the wider culture.
The confusion continues when it comes to relations between Church and State. Because they reduce religion to a vague “religious sense,” modernists tend to elevate science above religion because science is objective while faith is subjective. Rather than dealing with the complicated intersections between faith and science, modernists simply put science first. Likewise, they say that because the Church is based on these subjective things, the government is a more reliable authority and the Church should submit to the government for the sake of the common good. They seem to disregard the fact that both science and government have been terribly wrong and that they can’t answer all questions. Again, because of the denial of the possibility that God intervenes in the world or that supernatural things are real, modernism finds itself stuck with these ideas.
The reality is that science and faith, government and Church do have a complicated relationship. You can’t simply use one to completely ignore the other. Still, if we focus on ultimate realities – the meaning of life, death, salvation, etc. – then Catholics are right to hold faith and the Church in a higher place. And by “Church,” we don’t just mean old white men in charge of everything. We mean the institution founded by Jesus Christ and protected by the Holy Spirit. We mean the body of Christ which includes all believers, but is also a mystical reality. We mean the organization that Jesus promised would not be defeated. God has chosen to work through people – often sinful and broken people. Still, his faithfulness means that we can trust the Church to succeed in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel even while its leaders are corrupt and untrustworthy. Our faith is in God, not men.
Pope Pius X’s document is long and detailed in it’s response to the idea of modernism, so there is a lot more than can be said. Obviously, the pope’s primary response is negative because he is reacting against dangerous errors, the main points of which we’ve looked at. The primary problem is this idea of reducing everything to the natural level. The negative effects of that should be clear to anyone of faith. These ideas did lead some people on the path of thinking more critically and digging deeper. Methods of historical and scriptural research came from this and produced some valuable insights. As time went on, people like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI) engaged with these methods to learn their insights, but also to guard against the influence of agnosticism and atheism. We should be skeptical of scriptural interpretations that immediately deny miracles. But, we should also be careful about being too gullible when it comes to spiritual matters. The bottom line is this: faith and reason work together. God created nature, but he also intervenes in supernatural ways. Jesus is both God and Man and the Catholic Church is the one he founded and promised to protect. That truth has not changed and it will not.
In Christ,
-Fr. Albert