Modernism

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 22, 4 June 1908, Page 22

Modernism

The wisdom of the Papal Encyclical on Modernism seems to be more and more realised by thoughtful Protestants as time runs on. We have already quoted many opinions in point. The ' Princeton Theological Quarterly ' has lately been flailing Modernism, which (judging by the writings .of its exponents, Houtin and Loisy) it describes as ' anti-supernaturalism \ clt is not the Catholic Church alone which the Encyclical protects ', says Archbishop Ireland -in the April number of the ' North American Review ' ; 'it is the whole Christian religion and its vital principles '. ' An Evangelical Dean, quoted by ' Wayfarer- in the ' Church Times ' (Anglican)*, said recently :—: — ' When I read the Pope'& Encyclical I was overpowered' by a sense of shame. We accuse the Church ot Rome, with too little reason, of, corrupting . the " simplicity of the Gospel with accretions, of human thought; but now. we see that same Church standing" firm against new errors, while in ,our own communion, the greater purity of which has .been our confident boasting, the same errors are freely propagated by men who speak in the name of the Christian'' ministry. 1 ' N " • The 'Catholic Weekly', in "its issue of April 16,' takes the following editorial opinio^l* in regard to the excommunication of . the Abbe Loisy, from the ' British Weekly ', the leading Nonconformist organ in England :—: — "..... ' Without presuming to express any. opinion about M. Loisy - personally, we venture to think that few readers of his huge book, on . the Synoptic Gospels will come to any other conclusion about it than that which

has" led to liis removal froni the Church of Rome. So far as its relation to the facts, ■or alleged facts, of the Gospel history is concerned, there is no practical difference between it and - Strauss 's " The Old Faith and thd New ". The only difference is that the clearheaded. Strauss wrote his book to prove that, those who shared his opinions were' no longer Christians, whereas M. Loisy, after writing his, not only claims to be a true Christian, but avows himself a loyal member of the Roman Catholic Church. Strauss would have delighted to comment on the situation,- but "what astonishes the ordinary onlooker is not' so much that the Church of Rome has expelled M. Loisy, as that M. Loisy left it to the Church to do. It seems, after all, but the recognition of an already accomplished, fact. . . We can only repeat that it is not the Pope we Avonder at, but the Modernist, critic. Christianity in this actual world is a .vast and arduous enterprise-, and the Church in all its branches knows by instinct and experience that it can never be carried on upon the meagre capital which is all that M. Loisy leaves **•' -IHfci-i | According to an interview published in the ' Avvenire d'ltalia ', Father Tyrrell (an English convert of the Modernist school), seems now to realise that Modernism is going the way of all heresies and getting shivered into hostile fragments. Father Tyrrell (says the Rome coirespondent of the ' Glasgow Observer ', summarising the interview) ' blames the excesses df Houtin and Loisy'. 'Houtin seems especially to have enraged his' fellow-Modernist by allying himself with a French party that is practically atheistic, and Loisy by the brutality of his negations. The latter, according to him, had in this way lost the sympathy ' of the most advanced Modernists. One can understand- the annoyance Father Tyrrell must experience at seeing his favorite theories worked out to their logical conclusion, and also at realising that his old allies are abandoning him. But in the light of history he ought not to expect his particular heresy to have any better fortune than those which have gone before. If history teaches anything it is that there is only one permanently united Church, and that that Church has a visible Head whose authority its members are bound in conscience to obey.'