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Encylicals Related To Modernism


mortify ii

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mortify ii

Anyone read any of the encyclicals? Mortalium animos on religious unity is an interesting read... Pretty much anti-ecumenism...interesting how positions change!

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It's a poor choice of words to use this umbrella term of "modernism" to condemn a wide array of errors. That implicitely makes the Church "ancientist". Recent Popes have simply called these errors by their real names: relativism, secularism, etc.

 

 

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PhuturePriest

Pope Benedict XVI said that relativism is the greatest issue of our time. I think we've moved on from modernism and gotten into more specific issues like relativism. That's why you don't see the word "modernism" thrown around anymore in encyclicals.

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mortify ii

All I gotta say is read some of the encyclicals...

Read on religious unity or on liberty and ask your self whether modernism went away or whether it succeeded.

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It's a poor choice of words to use this umbrella term of "modernism" to condemn a wide array of errors. That implicitely makes the Church "ancientist". Recent Popes have simply called these errors by their real names: relativism, secularism, etc.

 

Modernism was a useful term when it was first used.  They were making the point that a bunch of seemingly different errors being promoted at the time were actually all connected.  They could all be traced to an assumption that religion is a subjective experience and that is not possible to speak of objective truth.  I agree that it is more useful now to deal with the individual errors and less likely to cause confusion.

 

Another source of confusion is shifts in meanings of terms.  For example, an understanding religious liberty based on modernist assumptions is an error.  It is very wrong to say that people should be free to practice whatever religion they want because all religions are equally valid subjective experiences.  Later, the Church taught an understanding of religious liberty based on Catholic assumptions.  People should not be coerced in order that they may free to seek the objective truth found in the Catholic faith.

Obviously the condemnation of the modernist false understanding of religious liberty does not apply to a Catholic understanding of religious liberty.  However, some people become confused because the term "religious liberty" is used in different places to refer to different things.

 

There is a similar problem with the term "ecumenism".  There is an erroneous understanding based on modernist assumptions which is rightly condemned, but also a Catholic understanding which is good.  So it is no wonder that some people reading older documents (or even worse, out of context quotes from older documents) get the impression that things which were once condemned are now accepted.

 

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PhuturePriest

What are new documents about modernism supposed to look like, anyway?

"Alright, everyone, modernism is still bad. Just thought you should know. I'll write another one of these in two months, and keep doing this every two months for a duration of 20 years, just so everyone is clear on the matter of modernism."

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mortify ii

Like I said, read some of the encyclicals... They can be quite a shock to us in the post-vat ii world

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Like I said, read some of the encyclicals... They can be quite a shock to us in the post-vat ii world

 

I don't think they are shocking when properly understood.  Perhaps they are problematic for people who do not have sufficient background to understand them. 
 

Edited by Perigrina
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mortify ii

I don't think they are shocking when properly understood.  Perhaps they are problematic for people who do not have sufficient background to understand them. 
 

 

From Mortalium Animos:

 

 "Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity? Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His Father that His disciples might be "one."(...)

 

"This undertaking is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are completely destroyed.

 

"Admonished, therefore, by the consciousness of Our Apostolic office that We should not permit the flock of the Lord to be cheated by dangerous fallacies, We invoke, Venerable Brethren, your zeal in avoiding this evil; for We are confident that by the writings and words of each one of you the people will more easily get to know and understand those principles and arguments which We are about to set forth, and from which Catholics will learn how they are to think and act when there is question of those undertakings which have for their end the union in one body, whatsoever be the manner, of all who call themselves Christian.

 

Sections 4 and 5 from the above mentioned Encyclical. Now compare this to Unitatis Redintegratio which uses the very same verse to support Ecumenism that Pope Pius mentions in the beginning of section 4! And amazingly, that verse is interpreted in the very way that Pope Pius describes as a "grave error", one that can "destroy the foundations of the Catholic faith." And so he forbids Catholics to engage in this "dangerous and evil fallacy". 

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