Yesterday on the blog we looked at what Pope Pius XII had to say, in his 1950 encyclical
Humani Generis, about the Theory of Evolution. Today let's see what Pius has to say about "watering down" the Faith. Pius saw two major groups of Catholics who were distorting the Faith for different ends. The first group, those with "an imprudent zeal for souls" were the forefathers of a certain type of ecumenism, the kind of ecumenism that seeks to ignore, or altogether abolish, the real differences that exist between Catholics and those Christians outside of the Church. The other group are those who were seeking to water down the Faith to paper over the differences between Catholic doctrine and the fads of modern thought, these are the proponents of the "new theology". These errors are still very much with us today, perhaps even more so than in Pius' day. Let's see what advice Papa Pacelli can give us as we continue to struggle against modernism.
Venerable Brethren,
Greetings and Apostolic Benediction...
11. ...There are many who, deploring
disagreement among men and intellectual confusion, through an
imprudent zeal for souls, are urged by
a great and ardent desire
to do away with
the
barrier that
divides good and honest men; these advocate an
"eirenism" according to which, by setting aside the questions which
divide men, they aim not only at joining forces to repel the attacks of
atheism, but also at reconciling things opposed to one another in the field of
dogma. And as in former times
some
questioned whether the traditional apologetics of the Church did not constitute
an obstacle rather than a help to the
winning of
souls for Christ, so today
some are presumptive enough to question seriously whether theology and
theological methods... should... be... completely
reformed, in order to promote the more efficacious propagation of the kingdom
of Christ everywhere throughout the world among men of every culture and
religious opinion.
(this is a false
ecumenism, which wants to water down the Faith in order
to unite those Christians separated from the Church.)
12. Now if these only aimed at adapting ecclesiastical teaching and methods
to modern conditions and requirements, through the introduction of some new
explanations, there would be scarcely any reason for alarm.
(It is okay to update the way we explain the Faith to better suit modern men.) But some through enthusiasm for an
imprudent "eirenism" seem to
consider
as an obstacle to the restoration of fraternal union
, things founded on the laws and principles given by Christ and
likewise on institutions founded by Him, or which are the defense and support
of the integrity of the faith, and
the
removal of which would bring about the union of all, but only to their
destruction.
14.
In theology some want to reduce
to a minimum the meaning of dogmas...
They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped... it will compare advantageously with
the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church
and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of
Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.
(the idea being that the truth is somewhere between what the Church has always taught and what the "dissidents" teach.)
15. Moreover, they assert that
when
Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found
to
satisfy modern needs, that will
permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy,
whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system...
16. It is evident... that such tentatives not
only lead to what they call
dogmatic
relativism (what Pope Benedict XVI called the "dictatorship of relativism"), but that they actually contain it.... It is also manifest that the Church cannot
be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of
time. Nevertheless,
the things that have
been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the
centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on
any such weak foundation (especially St. Thomas and the Scholastics). These things are based on principles and notions
deduced from
a true knowledge of created things....
(relativism is counteracted by building on the faith of our ancestors, not trying to start over from the beginning)
18. Unfortunately these advocates of novelty
easily pass from
despising
scholastic theology to the neglect of and even
contempt for the
Teaching
Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to
scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as
a
hindrance to progress and
an obstacle in the way of science. Some non-Catholics
consider it as an
unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians
from reforming their subject....this
sacred Office of Teacher in
matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and
universal criterion of
truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord
the whole deposit of faith...
20. ....
if the Supreme
Pontiffs in their
official documents
purposely
pass judgment on a matter
up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter...
cannot be
any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.
(women priests for example)
21. God has
given to His Church a
living Teaching Authority to elucidate and explain what
is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely and implicitly.
(the Church is mater et magistra today, not just in the documents of her past) This
deposit of faith our Divine Redeemer
has given for
authentic interpretation
not to each of the faithful, not even to theologians, but only to the Teaching
Authority of the Church...
22. To return, however, to the new opinions... a number of
things are proposed or suggested by
some
even against the divine authorship of Sacred Scripture. For
some go so far as to... put forward again the opinion...which asserts
that
immunity from error extends only to
those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters.
They even wrongly speak of a
human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a
divine sense, which they say is
the only infallible meaning, lies hidden.
(this amounts to nothing less the Gnosticism) In
interpreting Scripture, they will
take
no account of the analogy of faith and
the
Tradition of the Church...
23. Further, according to their
fictitious
opinions, the literal sense of Holy Scripture and its explanation,
carefully worked out under the Church's vigilance by so many great exegetes,
should yield now to
a new exegesis,
which they are pleased to call
symbolic
or spiritual. By means of this new exegesis of the Old Testament,... they say, all difficulties vanish, difficulties which
hinder only those who adhere to the literal meaning of the Scriptures
(i.e. only those who actually believe the Bible).
25. It is not surprising that novelties of this kind have already borne their
deadly fruit in almost all branches of theology. It is now doubted that human
reason... can... prove the existence of a personal
God; it is
denied that the world had a
beginning; it is argued that the
creation
of the world is necessary...; it is
denied that God
has eternal and infallible foreknowledge of the free actions of men - all
this in contradiction to the decrees of the Vatican Council.
26. Some also question whether
angels
are personal beings, and whether matter and spirit differ essentially.
Others destroy the gratuity of the supernatural order, since God, they say,
cannot create intellectual beings without ordering and calling them to the
beatific vision. Nor is this all...some
pervert the very
concept of original sin,
along with the concept of sin in general as an offense against God, as well as
the idea of satisfaction performed for us by Christ. Some even say that the
doctrine of transubstantiation ... should be
so modified that the real presence of
Christ in the Holy Eucharist be
reduced
to a kind of symbolism, whereby the consecrated species would be merely
efficacious signs of the spiritual presence of Christ and of His intimate union
with the faithful members of His Mystical Body.
27. Some say they are
not bound by
the doctrine... which teaches that
the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and
the same thing (Stop and re-read that line. This is still Catholic teaching today. Vatican 2 did not, in fact could not, change that.).
Some reduce to a
meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order
to gain eternal salvation.
(extra ecclesiam nulla salus) Others finally belittle the reasonable character of
the credibility of Christian faith.
32. ...While
scorning our
philosophy, they
extol other
philosophies of all kinds,
ancient
and modern,
oriental and occidental,
by which they
seem to imply that any
kind of philosophy or theory, with a few additions and corrections if need
be,
can be reconciled with Catholic
dogma...
43. ...finally,
let them not think...
that the
dissident and the erring can happily be brought back to the bosom of the
Church, if the whole truth found in the Church is not sincerely taught to all
without corruption or diminution.
(That is the key right there. Not only is abandoning the truth for the sake of bringing people into the Church simply wrong, it also is destined to fail.)
44. ...We impart
with all Our heart to each and all of you, Venerable Brethren, and to your
clergy and people the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at Rome,
at St. Peter's, 12 August 1950, the twelfth year of Our Pontificate.
PIUS
XII
