March 2014
Modernism = Darwinism
What has Darwinism got in common with Modernism? Everything! They are two edges of the same blade.
A century ago, how could any Catholic dare question the Church’s dogmatic teaching and not be excommunicated as a heretic? The answer is that natural science has allegedly shown that nothing in the realm of the created world is immutable. It has proved thereby that the Church was wrong in dogmatically declaring that fully operating living beings with stable natures were produced from nothing.
The knowledge now amassed from biology, physics, and chemistry is already sufficient to render the notion of creation ex nihilo totally ridiculous. Magisterial teaching proclaiming such things as revealed truth has to stop! Thanks to Charles Darwin, Catholics have been liberated from centuries of ignorance imposed by the Church. Modernism is doing nothing more than seeking emancipation for the downtrodden. Only this morning, the parish priest told his congregation they had no need to worry, all their sins would be forgiven them (with the caveat regarding sins against the Holy Spirit) on the basis of Mark 3:28: Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter. To follow this logic, no one needed to have gone to church in the first place!
The troubling question remains, of course, whether Darwin got it right. Did he? Ay, there’s the rub…
Caving in to "science"
It appears that data from the disciplines of biology, physics and chemistry — now far more developed than they were in his day — are demonstrating the fatal flaws in the evolutionary hypothesis. Perhaps the God of Creation did not mislead his people for so many thousands of years after all…
Needless to say the hierarchy not only is unaware of this but refuse to listen to anyone who brings it to their attention. Indeed, the Pontifical Academy of Science admits no one to their number who contests evolution, and shields Church leaders from anti-evolution dissidents. Moreover, the seal of obedience of consecrated persons to their superiors guarantees that the hierarchy’s acceptance of Darwinism cannot be questioned. (In any case, how many clerics would want to debate such matters as the existence of pseudo-genes and whether they have a function?) “Leave natural science to trained scientists examining empirical facts,” they are told; “and leave religion to theologians who can discern the supernatural from the natural.”
Looking at the situation today, why are loyal Catholics so dismayed? What is seen today to be a catastrophe is only a natural development of what went almost unnoticed years ago. As the dragon slipped into the unguarded side-gate of Eden, so Darwin under the trappings of “science” got into the Church. Some discerning Catholics saw the signs, but tragically too few.
To accommodate the demands of evolutionary “science” over the years the Church’s hierarchy has become increasingly tolerant of what can now be clearly seen as abuses of Christ’s teaching. It had already reached the point over half a century ago where from the pulpit priests professed God creator of the world and all its contents from nothing, whilst simultaneously denying that doctrine in the schools. Successive generations of intelligent students recognized the blatant hypocrisy of that position and did the logical thing: they abandoned their religion.
Modernist progression
I wonder if readers have read Roberto de Mattei’s incisive writings, sometimes carried in Christian Order, especially his recent articles. He is an Italian historian, much respected in Catholic intellectual circles. I noticed Chris Ferrara referred to him recently in one of his Remnant articles. Mattei sees evolution as the Church’s number one enemy. The interest of his articles is the light they throw upon the current problems facing Catholics. They explain how the terms “Modernist” and “Modernism” apply today to the quasi-totality of Catholics. They show why the shocking statements made by members of the Curia — like Cardinal Kasper’s recent admission that ambiguities were deliberately inserted into the documents of Vatican II — are nothing new. In fact the former render a service by merely articulating more clearly the thinking that has come to shape the views of most of the “faithful.”
In tracing the recent history of Modernism his most significant points are:
1. Dominican, Garrigou-Lagrange, one of the most respected theologians of the 20th century, saw truth being reduced to “religious experience.” He wrote in 1946: “The truth… is no longer the conformity of judgment with objective reality and its immutable laws, but…with the demands of action and human life, which is continually evolving.”
2. Today’s Modernism comes from Luther’s belief: “all that is dogma and theological reflection is nothing other than the symbolic transcription of a collective religious experience in continual evolution.”
3. The replacement of doctrine by “feeling and experience.” As an example, he cites George Tyrell (1861–1909) who after converting from Protestantism became a Jesuit. He then challenged the Order’s teaching. For Tyrell religion is a union of the heart with God that does without the truth of dogmas.
4. Henri Brémond S.J. (1865–1930) befriended Tyrell when the latter was excommunicated. The former wrote to Tyrell that the ideal would be a “clerical life without dogma.”
5. Henri de Lubac L.C. (1896-1991) followed the same line — the possibility of encountering God by one’s own efforts.
The message is clear. The Protestant Revolution of the 16th century has become a prototype for a Modernist/Evolutionist revolution in the Catholic Church today. The latter started at the end of the 19th century with the Biblical School of Jerusalem (Ecole biblique de Jérusalem), and Soviet infiltration of seminaries in the early 1900’s. Evolutionary philosophy was largely promoted at first by the Dominican order, and then by the Jesuits. Finally it encroached upon teaching in Catholic schools, monasteries and convents throughout the Church. No institution was spared.
Evolutionism and Catholicism — irreconcilable!
Although this is perhaps a fair summary of the current situation, it requires more than a basic grasp of Darwinism to bring it into focus.
From the time of the Apostles, all of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Council Fathers in their authoritative teaching held that God created all things by fiat for man and that the natural order did not begin until God had finished creating Adam and Eve as the crowning work of creation.
At the beginning of the so-called Enlightenment, Rene Descartes became the first thinker of note in Christendom to speculate, without evidence, that it would be more reasonable to explain the origins of everything in nature in terms of presently observed material processes, rather than by the creative action of God. As the culmination of more than a century of Enlightenment propaganda, the evolutionary hypothesis purported to explain the origin of the world and living things by natural processes: divine intervention was categorically excluded!
Today, those Catholics who consider themselves members of the Mystical Body of Christ, as traditionally defined, yet still believe in evolution, risk succumbing to a severe psychological disorder. They are obliged to subscribe to two opposing truths. God the omnipotent Creator; and the omnipotence of evolution. The aberration is assumed to be justified by the worn expression; “God used evolution to create.” Those ignorant of orthodox Church teaching could possibly be excused for this incoherence, but not the qualified custodians of the traditional Magisterium.
Evolutionism-as-Modernism — triumphant!
God created alone by his own omnipotent power. No secondary productive causes such as the evolution of existing beings into beings of a different nature were involved. Lateran IV and Vatican I define this as a revealed truth. The majority Modernist creed, however, adds the caveat “unless such assumed truth is preempted by natural science.” The abandonment of the traditional metaphysics of the Catholic tradition, noted by then-Cardinal Ratzinger in 1989, has made it almost impossible for modern theologians to recognize the absurdity of the Modernist’s unsupported assumption that he can extrapolate from the material processes going on in nature today to explain how everything in nature came to be in the beginning!
To make matters worse, for several decades, arguments from the Church’s magisterial teaching have only carried weight with the Catholic hierarchy where there is no clash with evolutionary teaching. In this regard, the present Pope is no more blameworthy than his predecessors. Although they were less outspoken on some issues than Pope Francis, the end result is the same. Modernism fuelled by evolutionism has triumphed within the Church.
It must be remembered that Pius XII did not discount evolutionary cosmology, John Paul II in 1986 said that evolution theory could be reconciled with Genesis, and Benedict XVI’s 2006 meeting at Castel Gandolfo entitled “Creation and Evolution” claimed there was proof for evolution.
The silence on the subject from those in the Church presenting themselves as traditionalists suggests that they have not seen the connection between the success of Darwinism and the Modernist destruction of orthodoxy — or are they too intimidated by scientism?
Geological time-scale invalidated
Happily, one straightforward body of evidence is enough to floor the evolutionary Goliath: and it is ready and waiting for recognition by the Church. It is the research published by the Russian Academy of Sciences (www.sedimentology.fr) invalidating the standard geological time-scale — without which the hypothesis of biological evolution is rendered completely untenable. Had members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences recognized the importance of this research when it was first published, they could have countered some of the negative effects of faith in the evolutionary hypothesis on scientific research.
Modernism has largely eroded traditional Catholic values from society. These were encapsulated in the Beatitudes now swamped and replaced by the pop-culture of materialism. Nonetheless they still represent the way back. For the record, here they are:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.