It was great listening to Pascendi read by the late Fr. Thwaite, S.J.; it's been at least 4 years since I've read, in its entirety, this extremely important 20th century encyclical by saintly Pope Pius X.

Some parts that I didn't notice on my first reading of Pascendi Dominici Gregis:

Modernists have a threefold understanding of immanence:

Concerning immanence it is not easy to determine what Modernists mean by it, for their own opinions on the subject vary.

• Some understand it in the sense that God working in man is more intimately present in him than man is in even himself, and this conception, if properly understood, is free from reproach.
• Others hold that the divine action is one with the action of nature, as the action of the first cause is one with the action of the secondary cause, and this would destroy the supernatural order.
• Others, finally, explain it in a way which savours of pantheism and this, in truth, is the sense which tallies best with the rest of their doctrines.

In the section "The Evolution of Doctrine", this "pernicious doctrine" reminds me of Vatican II's Apostolicam Actuositatem and the abolition of the Index:

Note here, Venerable Brethren, the appearance already of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity a factor of progress in the Church.
…
Ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic parts. Its spirit with the public conscience, which is not wholly for democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy, and even to the laity, and authority should be decentralised. The Roman Congregations, and especially the index and the Holy Office, are to be reformed.

Wow, this is exactly what Vatican II did, far beyond just renaming the congregations!
 And:

The dogmas brim over with flagrant contradictions, but what matter that since, apart from the fact that vital logic accepts them, they are not repugnant to symbolical truth. Are we not dealing with the infinite, and has not the infinite an infinite variety of aspects? In short, to maintain and defend these theories they do not hesitate to declare that the noblest homage that can be paid to the Infinite is to make it the object of contradictory propositions! [sounds like Muslim's Allah…]But when they justify even contradiction, what is it that they will refuse to justify?

Denial of the law of non-contradiction is the basis of relativism.
No more contemplation:

With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, both in the estimation in which they must be held and in the exercise of them.

And a bit humorous part I totally glossed over on my first reading of Pascendi years ago:

Let us for a moment put the question: if experiences have so much value in their eyes, why do they not attach equal weight to the experience that thousands upon thousands of Catholics have that the Modernists are on the wrong road? It is, perchance, that all experiences except those felt by the Modernists are false and deceptive?

The "dogma" of Modernism and "dogma of relativism" are certainly similar. Someone told me that our current Holy Father is fighting Modernism because he is fighting relativism, but I don't really see how that's so because he still eschews St. Thomas and adopts Kantian a priori philosophy: "From beginning to end everything in it {i.e., agnostic, idealist philosophy, from which originates the Modernists' history and theology} is a priori, and a priori in a way that reeks of heresy." (Reminds me of Pope St. Pius X's Doctoris Angelici: "we must reject that old opinion which held as irrelevant for the faith what anyone thinks about creatures, if he thinks rightly about God." A priorism disregards creatures.)

Wow! I totally forgot St. Pius X was so explicit here regarding St. Thomas's preeminence!

certain it is that the passion for novelty is always united in them with hatred of scholasticism*, and there is no surer sign that a man is on the way to Modernism than when he begins to show his dislike for this system.
*[He clarifies that by scholasticism he means Thomism: "let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy We prescribe is that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us]

The following is historicism and the "New Theology"!:

The Modernists pass the same judgment on the most holy Fathers of the Church as they pass on tradition; decreeing, with amazing effrontery that, while personally most worthy of all veneration, they were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived.

Wow:

They seize upon chairs in the seminaries and universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence [pestilentiae cathedras].

I wonder if the SSPX thinks this applies to the FSSP and Institute?

And there is another sight that saddens Us too: that of so many other Catholics, who, while they certainly do not go so far as the former, have yet grown into the habit, as though they had been breathing a poisoned atmosphere, of thinking and speaking and writing with a liberty that ill becomes Catholics. They are to be found among the laity, and in the ranks of the clergy, and they are not wanting even in the last place where one might expect to meet them, in religious institutes.

I certainly remember this part:

And let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy We prescribe is that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us … let Professors remember that they cannot set St. Thomas aside, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave detriment.

I love section 47.; which seminaries today study the natural sciences? That's very unfortunate they don't for the reason given by the Doctoris Angelici quote I gave above.

We ordain, therefore, that the study of natural science in the seminaries be carried on under this law.

And my favorite quote:

Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty! God hates the proud and obstinate mind.

He's also quite aware of the pestilent chairs in all universities, secular or Catholic:

For the future the doctorate of theology and canon law must never be conferred on anybody who has not made the regular course of scholastic philosophy; if conferred it shall be held as null and void. The rules laid down in 1896 by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars for the clerics, both secular and regular, of Italy concerning the frequenting of the Universities, We now decree to be extended to all nations. Clerics and priests inscribed in a Catholic Institute or University must not in the future follow in civil Universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic Institutes to which they belong. If this has been permitted anywhere in the past, We ordain that it be not allowed for the future. Let the Bishops who form the Governing Board of such Catholic Institutes or Universities watch with all care that these Our commands be constantly observed.

In "Episcopal Vigilance Over Publications" (do even SSPX bishops do this enough?), Pope St. Pius X uses a very apt phrase, "prudence of the flesh" to describe a sort of "human respect equivalent" to prudence:

We will, therefore, that the Bishops, putting aside all fear and the prudence of the flesh [prudentia carnis], despising the outcries of the wicked, gently by all means but constantly, do each his own share of this work [of censuring Modernist publications.]

Pope St. Pius X, pray for us!

I knew Fr. Thwaites for 30 years. I was 14 when I volunteered to run his Saturday club for deprived Jamican boys in Brixton. One year after the Brixton Riots.

Went to his funeral last year. The licence plate on the Rolls Royce Hearse, was TLR1

WHat does TLR1 mean?

or something like that.  He had a fascinating life story.

He responded to someone asking why God created the universe, and Fr. Thwaites said (I paraphrase.): "God created the universe for no better reason than to create His Blessed Mother."

I was reading through Pascendi yesterday, and though I find the docuмent difficult to understand for the most part, one part in particular stood out as though it was directed at the new reforms that the current pope is trying to achieve. I think the OP mentioned some of this already, but I just wanted to further touch upon some of my concerns.

In #38 of Pascendi, "Modernist as Reformer," Pope Pius X writes:

"The Roman Congregations and especially the index and Holy Office are to be reformed."

Well, Francis seems to be going full fornce to reform the Holy Office, though I think that this started by JP2.

Pope Pius X also writes:

"With regards to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, both in the estimation in which they must be held and in their exercise of them. The clergy are asked to return to thei ancient lowliness and poverty, and in their ideas and actions, are to be guided by the principles of modernism."

Well, Francis seems to be doing exactly this, in that he holds taking care of the poor and downtrodden to be the utmost priority of Catholics, and that priests (and bishops) are to return to lowliness and poverty. I saw one one blog that described this as Francis trying to turn counsel into precept, which was described as taking one teaching (and option) of the Church in its need to care for the poor, and tuning it into a sort of mandate, which it was never meant to be.

Thank goodness Pope Pius X saw these problems and addressed them.

Vatican link to Pascendi:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_x/encyclicals/docuмents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis_en.html

Thanks, Geremia, for the link to the Catechism on Modernism, and I see that you also posted it in the Library section here. I'll check it out.

thanks for posting the link! I downloaded it and listened to it this week at work.  I also grabbed a few more Humani Generis and the Gospels/Acts.  What a great thing to have on my phone!

Luke

Maybe this is a topic for a different or new thread, but in reading Pascendi, I think that there are a lot of neo-trads (which describes me, too) who haven't really thought about what modernism really is.

It's "the synthesis of all heresies." It's philosophical root is relativism/agnosticism. It subjects faith to reason yet says they're independent.

And it seems that there may be different ways of interpreting St. Thomas Aquinas.

Yes, there are many schools of "Thomism," but there is only one Thomism. Not all are "drawn from his [St. Thomas's] own fountains, or at least from those rivulets which, derived from the very fount, have thus far flowed, according to the established agreement of learned men, pure and clear," as Pope Leo XIII says in Æterni Patris. See: The Thomistic Tradition (part 1) and The Thomistic Tradition (part 2) for some schools of Thomism or "Thomism."

Is it possible that some are trying to put a modernist spin on Scholasticism?

Yes, definitely
Rahner's "Transcendental 'Thomism'" is not Thomism whatsoever because the heretic tries to reconcile Kant's idealism with St. Thomas's moderate realism.

See also Gerald McCool, S.J.'s criticism of "Neo-Thomism:"
• Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method
• From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism
 
Unfortunately, McCool doesn't give much treatment at all of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.'s "strict observance Thomism," possibly because if McCool did give it a fair treatment, he'd refute his own thesis that "Neo-Thomism" was a self-defeating endeavor and thus Pope Leo XIII's call in Æterni Patris to restore Thomistic philosophy and theology was a futile pipe-dream.

Personally, I'm a big fan of Aristotelian Thomism (a.k.a. River Forest Thomism) and Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's "strict observance Thomism".

In part I, page 11, in the Catechism of Modernism, this question is asked:

Q--Where, then, according to them [Modernists], is to be found the need for the divine?

A--It is first latent beneath the consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosohy, in the subconciousness, where also its root lies hidden and undetected.

My take on this is that if the divine, or need for the divine, can firstly be detected latent in the subconcious, then I would think that all that would be needed to experience the divine would be to tap into this subconsience in order to find truth and reality. What need would there be for a Church with its expectations and rules? Just tap the subconscious, and its all good. Some people (especially new-agers) will use tarot cards, I-ching, and astrology to obtain truth, and though some use this in a divinatory manner, they can also be used in a supposedly more scientific and psychological way by thinking that they are tapping in the the subconscious, or conscious collective in order to arrive at supposed "Truth."

Some new-agers, for example, refer to the subconcious as the 'higher self,' or 'soul,' as if the soul has all knowledge, and we just have to get into contact with it to know truth. Yoga mediatation groups use this same method as well. And the Charismatics do something similar, except that they think it's the Holy Ghost that's giving them special info. All a lot of nonsense, but it seems that some modernists believe that this type of subjective truth has meaning, when it doesn't.

The Modernists' "vital immanence" destroys the necessity of grace, since, according to them, it's just latent in human nature.

Grace is something freely given, not something human nature necessitates. Human nature doesn't even necessitate the desire for grace, which only God can elicit (cf. Dr. Lawrence Feingold's According to St Thomas and His Interpreters and this review of it).