Sunday, September 6, 2009

Paul VI on Modernism: Does It Still Exist?

Now and then even a doctor of the sacred science will announce in a classroom aula that modernism is a myth, does not exist, never did exist or is no longer a threat to the life of the Church.

But what does Paul VI have to say on this topic?  During the 1960s?  During the Vatican Council?  From his first encyclical let's take a look:

"Was not the phenomenon of modernism, for example, which still crops up in the various attempts at expressing what is foreign to the authentic nature of the Catholic religion, an episode of abuse exercised against the faithful and genuine expression of the doctrine and criterion of the Church of Christ by psychological and cultural forces of the profane world?  Now it seems to us that to check the oppressive and complex danger coming from many sides, a good and obvious remedy is for the Church to deepen her awareness of what she really is according to the Mind of Christ, as preserved in Sacred Scripture and in Tradition, and interpreted and developed by the authentic tradition of the Church."

-Ecclesiam Suam, 1964.

2 comments:

  1. so good
    much love
    Mom

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  2. "...a good and obvious remedy is for the Church to deepen her awareness of what she really is according to the Mind of Christ, as preserved in Sacred Scripture and in Tradition, and interpreted and developed by the authentic tradition of the Church."

    And yet ironically, Paul VI later not only virtually suppressed the Usus Antiquior that could best demonstrate the Catholic identity and sacred tradition, but also allowed the fabrication of a tradition of New Order, which further deepened the damages caused by modernism.

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