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Excerpt:
Catechism of Modernism, by abbé J B Lemius. 1908
Translated from the French by Fr. Fitzpatrick.

Imprimatur. * GULIELMUS,
EPISCOPUS ARINDELENSIS, Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII,
die 13 Maii, 1908.

PREFACE from the French Edition:
  The Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis had just been published, radiating its triumphant light to
the Catholic world. She was the subject of all conversations, in the disconcerted camp of the enemies
of the Church, as well as in the ranks of the moved and grateful friends of the truth. In the meantime,
I had gone to visit the new guests at the Château de Poyanne: it was there that the major Seminary of
Aire sur-l'Adour took refuge, after the recent expulsions.

  The distinguished professor, who for fifteen years has been teaching dogma to clerical youth, was
present. Wisely progressive, but enemy of subversive novelties, Father Lahitton has always fought
energetically against any invasion of modernist ideas. I found him radiant.
— What an Encyclical! he cried. Have you read it?
— Yes, I read it! But what priest, holding it, was able to close his eye in the evening without having
looked through it completely? However, it is not enough to read it; it must be studied.
— Yes, he told me, because it is a whole theological program drawn up according to the needs of the
present hour; what am I saying? all the ecclesiastical sciences are displayed there one alongside the
other; and each comes there to receive from the infallible Pontiff the slogan which must ensure its
progress.
“It’s true,” I replied, “and we are in front of a splendid monument. Everyone will have to take it
apart piece by piece to analyze it in detail. But I fear that time and courage are lacking for many."
— Do you know what I was thinking? added the kind professor.
— What?
— Towards the end of the school year, I had my dear students read your catechism on the Encyclical of
Leo XIII,'De Conditione opificuм'. The questions fortunately highlight and make the answers understood.
You should do the catechism of the new Encyclical.
— I had already thought about it, but...
— It has to be done. This will be a service rendered to so many absorbed priests, who will not have the
leisure to analyze the pontifical docuмent; to our seminarians, who will thus have a clear and precise
manual of modernist errors and the responses to oppose them; to the young people of our study circles,
who must also imbibe very pure doctrine; to how many others...
— Yes! but time... apostolic work leaves me with very little left.
— How about we get started right away? - You want?
— Let's go.
    And we immediately grabbed the Encyclical. As we progressed, the questions asked were followed by
luminous, strong, victorious answers. Underlined by our admiring exclamations, we understood the
usefulness of this work. The philosophy professor arrived; he took out a few sheets of paper. After
reading them: These are, he said, jets of powerful light that your questions project into every nook
and cranny of the Pontifical Encyclical; thus nothing escapes intelligence. The venerated Vicar
General, who directs this Major Seminary, declared himself delighted to see things missed during a
first reading.
  Encouraged, we have completed the work and we offer it to anyone who wishes to study easily and dig
deeply into this teaching so timely, so necessary to all contemporary minds. May readers please share
my gratitude for the dear collaborator with whom I spent such pleasant hours, my excellent friend,
Father Lahitton.
Go away! Go away! (Enemies)
J.-B. Lemius.

********************



PURPOSE AND DIVISION
Q. — What is the purpose of the Encyclical and what is its division?
A. — ‘As a tactic of the modernists, a very insidious tactic in truth, is to never expose their
doctrines methodically and as a whole, but to fragment them in a way and scatter them here and there,
which lends itself to making us judge them as wavering and indecisive, when on the contrary, their
ideas are perfectly settled and consistent, it is important here and above all to present these same
doctrines under a single view, and to show the logical link which connects them.

"...Q. What further follows from this?
A. 'It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous’.

Q. From this, finally, what supreme and universal law do they seek to impose?
A. 'From this they derive the law laid down as the universal standard, according to which religious consciousness is to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and that to it all must submit’.

Q. All must submit? even the supreme authority of the Church?
A. Even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in the capacity of teacher, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline.

page14
V. TRANSFIGURATION AND DISFIGURATION OF PHENOMENA THROUGH FAITH.

Q. What more is necessary in order to give a complete idea of the origin of faith and revelation, as these are understood by the Modernists?
A. 'In all this process, from which, according to the Modernists, faith and revelation spring, one point is to be particularly noted, for it is of capital importance, on account of the historico-critical corollaries which they* deduce from it’.

Q. How does the Unknowable of the Modernist philosophy, as this has been above explained, present itself to faith?
A. ‘The Unknowable they speak of docs not present itself to faith as something solitary and isolated; but, on the contrary, in close conjunction with some phenomenon, which, though it belongs to the realms of science or history, yet to some extent exceeds their limits’.

Q. What phenomenon do you mean?
A. ‘Such a phenomenon may be a fact of nature containing within itself something mysterious; or it may be a man, whose character, actions and words cannot, apparently, be reconciled with the ordinary laws of history’.

Q. From the fact of this connexion between the Unknowable and some phenomenon, what happens to faith?
A. ‘Faith, attracted by the Unknowable which is united with the phenomenon, seizes upon the whole phenomenon, and, as it were, permeates it with its own life’.

page15
Q. What follows from this extension of faith to the phenomenon and this penetrating it with life?
A.’ From this two things follow’.

Q. What is the first consequence?
A. ‘The first is a sort of transfiguration of the phenomenon, by its elevation above its own true conditions an elevation by which it becomes more adapted to clothe itself with the form of the divine character which faith will bestow upon it’.

Q. What is the second consequence?
A. ‘The second consequence is a certain disfiguration so it may be called of the same phenomenon, arising from the fact that faith attributes to it, when stripped of the circuмstances of place and time, characteristics which it does not really possess’.

Q. In the case of what phenomena, particularly, according to the Modernists, does this double operation of transfiguration and disfiguration take place?
A. ‘This takes place especially in the case of the phenomena of the past, and the more fully in the measure of their antiquity’.

Q. And, what laws do the Modernists deduce from this double operation?
A. ‘From these two principles the Modernists deduce two laws, which, when united with a third which they have already derived from Agnosticism, constitute the foundation of historical criticism’.

page 16
Q. Can you explain to us these three laws by an example?
A. ‘An example may be sought in the Person of Christ. In the Person of Christ, they say, science and history encounter nothing that is not human. Therefore, in virtue of the first canon deduced from Agnosticism, whatever there is in His history suggestive of the divine must be rejected. Then, according to the second canon, the historical Person of Christ was transfigured by faith; therefore everything that raises it above historical conditions must be removed. Lastly, the third canon, which lays down that the Person of Christ has been disfigured by faith, requires that everything should be excluded, deeds and words and all else, that is not in strict keeping with His character, condition, and education, and with the place and time in which He lived’.

Q. What kind of reasoning is that?
A. ‘A method of reasoning which is passing strange, but in it we have the Modernist criticism’.

VI. ORIGIN OF PARTICULAR RELIGIONS.

Q. Is the religious sense, then, according to the Modernists, the real germ, and the entire explanation, of all religion?
A. ‘The religious sense, which through the agency of vital immanence emerges from the lurking-places of the subconsciousness, is the germ of all religion, and the explanation of everything that has been or ever will be in any religion’.

page 17
Q. How does this religious sense develop?
A. ‘This sense, which was at first only rudimentary and almost formless, under the influence of that mysterious principle from which it originated, gradually matured with the progress of human life, of which, as has been said, it is a certain form’.

Q. Do all religions, then, according to the Modernists, come from this?
A. ‘This is the origin of all’.

Q. Even of supernatural religion?
A. ‘Even of supernatural religion. For religions are mere developments of this religious sense’.

Q. But do they not make an exception for the Catholic religion?
A.’ Nor is the Catholic religion an exception: it is quite on a level with the rest’.

Q. What consciousness, then, served as cradle for the Catholic religion?
A. ‘The consciousness of Christ, they say, who was a Man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be’.

Q. And from what principle do they dare to pretend it was engendered in the consciousness of Christ?
A. ‘It was engendered by the process of vital immanence, and by no other way’.

Q. Is it not a great audacity to say so, and a great blasphemy?
A. 'In hearing these things, we shudder indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege.'

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Q. But, Holy Father, surely it is only unbelievers who maintain such doctrines?
A. The Pope sadly replies: ‘These are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers. There are Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly’.

Q. But what do these, Catholics, these priests, mean by all this?
A. ‘They boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings’.

Q. Does not this Modernism seem to be the ancient error of Pelagius?
A. ‘The question is no longer one of the old error which claimed for human nature a sort of right to the supernatural. It has gone far beyond that’.

Q. In what way?
A. ‘It has reached the point when it is affirmed that our most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature spontaneously and of itself. Nothing assuredly could be more utterly destructive of the whole supernatural order’.

Q. What is, on these points, the doctrine of the Vatican Council?
A. ‘For this reason the Vatican Council most justly decreed: "If anyone says that man cannot be raised by God to a knowledge and perfection which surpasses nature, but that he can and should, by his own efforts and by a constant development, attain finally to the possession of all truth and good, let him be anathema. " ‘ *
* De Bevel., can. 3.

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VII. ACTION OF THE INTELLECT IN FAITH.

Q. You have said that the Modernists find faith in sense has the human intellect, then, no part in faith?
A. ‘So far there has been no mention of the intellect. It also, according to the teaching of the Modernists, has its part in the act of faith. And it is of importance to see how’.

Q. -But did not sense, according to the Modernists, seem to be sufficient to give us God, Object and Author of faith?
A. ‘In that sense of which we have frequently spoken, since sense is not knowledge, they say God indeed presents Himself to man, but in a manner so confused and indistinct that He can hardly be perceived by the believer’.*

Q. What, then, is wanting to this sense?
A. ‘It is necessary that a certain light should be cast upon this sense, so that God may clearly stand out in relief and be set apart from it’.

Q. Is this the task of the intellect in the Modernist’s act of faith?
A. ‘This is the task of the intellect, whose office it is to reflect and to analyse; and by means of it man first transforms into mental pictures the vital phenomena which arise within him, and then expresses them in words. Hence the common saying of Modernists, that the religious man must think his faith’.
*Or, as the Latin may be rendered, that He can hardly or at all be distinguished from the believer which practically comes to the same thing. J. F.

page 20  CATECHISM ON MODERNISM
Q. Can you give us the comparison which the Modernists employ to determine the role they attribute to the intellect in regard to this sense in the act of faith?
A. ‘The mind, encountering this sense, throws itself upon it, and works in it after the manner of a painter who restores to greater clearness the lines of a picture that have been dimmed with age. The simile is that of one of the leaders of Modernism’.

Q. How does the intellect operate in this work of the formation of faith?
A. ‘The operation of the mind in this work is a double one’.

Q. What is the first operation?
A. ‘First, by a natural and spontaneous act it expresses its concept in a simple, popular statement’.

Q. What is the second?
A. ‘Then, on reflection and deeper consideration, or, as they say, by elaborating its thought, it expresses the idea in secondary propositions, which are derived from the first, but are more precise and distinct’.

Q. How, then, do these formulas, the result of the action of the intellect upon its own thought, become dogma?
A. ‘These secondary propositions, if they finally receive the approval of the supreme magisterium of the Church, constitute dogma’.

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VIII. DOGMA.

Q. We have now reached dogma and is not this one of the most important points for the Modernist?
A. ‘Yes. One of the principal points in the* Modernists system (is) the origin and the nature of dogma’.

Q. In what do they place the origin of dogma?
A. ‘They place the origin of dogma in those primitive and simple formulas which, under a certain aspect, are necessary to faith; for revelation, to be truly such, requires the clear knowledge of God in the consciousness. But dogma itself, they apparently hold, strictly consists in the secondary formulas’.

Q. And now, how shall we ascertain what, according to the Modernists, is the nature of dogma?
A. ‘To ascertain the nature of dogma, we must first find the relation which exists between the religious formulas and the religious sense’.

Q. How shall we ascertain this relation?
A. ‘This will be readily perceived by anyone who holds that these formulas have no other purpose than to furnish the believer with a means of giving to himself an account of his faith’.

Q. What do these formulas constitute as between the believer and his faith?
A. ‘These formulas stand midway between the believer and his faith: in their relation to the faith they are the inadequate expression of its object, and are usually called symbols; in their relation to the believer they are mere instruments’.

Q. What may one conclude from this with regard to the truth contained in these formulas?
A. ‘That it is quite impossible to maintain that they absolutely contain the truth’.

page 22
Q. According to the Modernists, what are formulas, considered as symbols?
A.’ In so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man’.

Q. What are they, considered as instruments?
A. ‘As instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense’.

IX. VARIABILITY OF DOGMA.

Q. Are these dogmatic formulas, these symbols of the faith and instruments of the believer, at least invariable?
A. ‘The object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner, he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change’.

Q. But is there not thus substantial change in dogma?
A. ‘Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion’.

Q. Is this substantial change of dogma not only possible, but even necessary?
A. ‘Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists, and clearly flows from their principles’.

page 23
Q. What is the fundamental principle from which the Modernists deduce the necessity of the substantial change of dogma?
A.’ Amongst the chief, points of their teaching is the following, which they deduce from the principle of vital immanence namely, that religious formulas, if they are to be really religious and not merely intellectual speculations, ought to be living and to live the life of the religious sense’.

Q. But, since these formulas ought to live the very life of the religious sense, must they not be constructed with a view to this sense?
A. ‘This is not to be understood to mean that these formulas, especially if merely imaginative, were to be invented for the religious sense. Their origin matters nothing, any more than their number or quality. What is necessary is that the religious sense with some modification when needful should vitally assimilate them’.

Q. What do you mean by this vital assimilation by the sense?
A. ‘In other words, it is necessary that the primitive formula be accepted and sanctioned by the heart; and, similarly, the subsequent work from which are brought forth the secondary formulas must proceed under the guidance of the heart’.

Q. How does the necessity of this vital assimilation entail the substantial change of dogma?
A. ‘These formulas, in order to be living, should be, and should remain, adapted to the faith and to him who believes. Wherefore, if for any reason this adaptation should cease to exist, they lose their first meaning, and accordingly need to be changed’.

page 24
Q. But, then, in what consideration do Modernists hold dogmatic formulas?
A. ‘In view of the fact that the character and lot of dogmatic formulas are so unstable, it is no wonder that Modernists should regard them so lightly and with such open disrespect’.

Q. What do they unceasingly exalt?
A. ‘They have no consideration or praise for anything but the religious sense and the religious life’.

Q. What, with regard to the Church, is the attitude of Modernists in the matter of dogmatic formulas?
A. ‘With consummate audacity, they criticize the Church, as having strayed from the true path by failing to distinguish between the religious and moral sense of formulas and their surface meaning, and by clinging vainly and tenaciously to meaningless formulas, while religion itself is allowed to go to ruin’.

page 25
Q. What final judgment must we pass on the Modernists concerning dogmatic truth?
A. ‘ "Blind"; they are, and "leaders of the blind," puffed up with the proud name of science, they have reached that pitch of folly at which they pervert the eternal concept of truth and the true meaning of religion; in introducing a new system in which " they are seen to be under the sway of a blind and unchecked passion for novelty, thinking not at all of finding some solid foundation of truth, but despising the holy and apostolic traditions, they embrace other and vain, futile, uncertain doctrines, unapproved by the Church, on which, in the height of their vanity, they think they can base and maintain truth itself." ‘ *

CHAPTER II

THE MODERNIST AS BELIEVER

I. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE.
Q. Thus far We have considered the Modernist as a philosopher. Now, if We proceed to consider him as a believer, and seek to know how the believer, according to Modernism, is marked off from the philosopher, what must be done?
A. ‘It must be observed that, although the philosopher recognizes the reality of the divine as the object of faith, still, this reality is not to be found by him but in the heart of the believer, as an object of feeling and affirmation, and therefore confined within the sphere of phenomena; but the question as to whether in itself it exists outside that feeling and affirmation is one which the philosopher passes over and neglects. For the Modernist believer, on the contrary, it is an established and certain fact that the reality of the divine does really exist in itself and quite independently of the person who believes in it’.
* Gregory XVI., Encycl. Singulari Not, 7 Kal. Jul., 1834.

page 26
Q. And now we ask on what foundation this assertion of the believer rests.
A. ‘The modernists reply: On the experience of the individual’.

Q. Is it in that, then, that the Modernists differ from the Rationalists?
A. ‘On this head the Modernists differ from the Rationalists: only to fall into the views of the Protestants and pseudo-Mystics’.

Q. How do they explain that, through individual experience, they arrive at the certitude of the existence of God ..."

Q. And, as regards theological immanence, what is really the meaning of the Modernists?
A. Concerning immanence, it is not easy to determine what Modernists precisely mean by it, for their own opinions on the subject vary.

Q. What are these different opinions of the Modernists, and their consequences?
A. Some understand it in the sense that God working in man is more intimately present in him than man is even in himself, and this conception, if properly understood, is irreproachable. 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 best fits in with the rest of their doctrines.

page 39
II. DIVINE PERMANENCE.

Q. With this principle of immanence is there not, according to the Modernists, another one connected?
A. ‘With this principle of immanence is connected another, which may be called the principle of divine permanence’.

Q. In what does this principle differ from the first?
A. ‘It differs from the first in much the same way as the private experience differs from the experience transmitted by tradition’.

Q. That is not very clear. Will you not explain this doctrine?
A. ‘An example illustrating what is meant will be found in the Church and the Sacraments’.

Q. What do they say about the institution of the Church and the Sacraments?
A. ‘The Church and the Sacraments, according to the Modernists, are not to be regarded as having been instituted by Christ Himself’.

Q. But how is that? How is the immediate institution by Christ of the Church and the Sacraments opposed to the principles of the Modernists?
A. ‘This is barred by Agnosticism, which recognizes in Christ nothing more than a man whose religious consciousness has been, like that of all men, formed by degrees; it is also barred by the law of immanence, which rejects what they call ‘external application’; it is further barred by the law of evolution, which requires for the development of the germs time and a certain series of circuмstances; it is, finally, barred by history, which shows that such, in fact, has been the course of things’.

page 40
Q. In that case the Church and the Sacraments have not been instituted by Christ?
A. ‘Still it is to be held, they affirm, that both Church and Sacraments have been founded mediately by Christ’.

Q. But how? That is, how do the Modernist theologians endeavour to prove this divine origin of the Church and the Sacraments?
A. ‘In this way: All Christian consciences were, they affirm, in a manner virtually included in the conscience of Christ, as the plant is included in the seed. But as the branches live the life of the seed, so, too, all Christians are to be said to live the life of Christ. But the life of Christ, according to faith, is divine, and so, too, is the life of Christians. And if this life produced, in the course of ages, both the Church and the Sacraments, it is quite right to say that their origin is from Christ, and is divine’.

Q. Do the Modernist theologians proceed in the same way to establish the divinity of the Holy Scriptures and of dogmas?
A. ‘In the same way they make out that the Holy Scriptures and the dogmas are divine’.

Q. Is this the whole of the Modernist theology?
A. ‘In this the Modernist theology may be said to reach its completion. A slender provision, in truth, but more than enough for the theologian who professes that the conclusions of science, whatever they may be, must always be accepted! No one will have any difficulty in making the application of these theories to the other points with which We propose to deal. *
* The Sovereign Pontiff seems here to declare that it were superfluous to follow the believer and the theologian as well as the philosopher in what concerns the branches of the faith, as he has done for the faith itself. That is why, after putting under our eyes the hand-baggage of Modernist theology, and showing us how easy it is to follow up the parallelism, he will limit himself, except for some passing indications, to setting forth the Modernist philosophy concerning the branches of the faith. He leaves it to us to apply the principles of theology. AUTHOR.

page 41
CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS
  (Continued) BRANCHES OF THE FAITH

I. DOGMA.

Q. Thus far We have touched upon the origin and nature of faith. But as faith has many branches, and chief among them the Church, dogma, worship, devotions, and the books which we call " sacred," it concerns us to know what do the Modernists teach concerning them?
A. To begin with dogma (We have already indicated its origin and nature), according to them, dogma is born of a sort of impulse or necessity by virtue of which the believer elaborates his thought so as to render it clearer to his own conscience*- and that of others.

*The Latin word conscientia denotes all kinds of consciousness, including that which is concerned with conduct, and is called conscience. Here, perhaps, the word had better be rendered consciousness. J. F.

page 42
Q. In what does this elaboration consist?
A. ‘This elaboration consists entirely in the process of investigating and refining the primitive mental formula’.

Q. Is this elaboration a matter of reasoning and logic?
A. ‘No, they reply; not indeed in itself and according to any logical explanation, but according to circuмstances, or vitally, as the Modernists somewhat less intelligibly describe it’.

Q. What is it that this elaboration produces, according to the Modernist theologians?
A. ‘Around this primitive formula secondary formulas, as We have already indicated, gradually come to be formed, and these subsequently grouped into one body, or one doctrinal construction, and further sanctioned by the public magisterium as responding to the common consciousness, are called dogma’.

Q. Do the Modernists distinguish dogma from theological speculations?
A. ‘Dogma is to be carefully distinguished from the speculations of theologians’.

Q. Of what use are these theological speculations?
A. ‘Although not alive with the life of dogma, these are not without their utility as serving both to harmonize religion with science and to remove opposition between them, and to illumine and defend religion from without, and it may be even to prepare the matter for future dogma’.

page 43
II. WORSHIP.

Q. What is the theological doctrine of the Modernists concerning worship and the Sacraments?
A. ‘Concerning worship there would not be much to be said, were it not that under this head are comprised the Sacraments, concerning which the Modernist errors are of the most serious character’.

Q. Whence, according to them, does worship spring?
A. For them worship is* the resultant of a double impulse or need; for, as we have seen, everything in their system is explained by inner impulses or necessities.

Q. What is this double need of which the Modernist theologians speak?
A. ‘The first need is that of giving some sensible manifestation to religion; the second is that of propagating ** it, which could not be done without some sensible form and consecrating acts, and these are called Sacraments.

Q. What do the Modernists mean by Sacraments?
A. ‘For the Modernists, Sacraments are bare symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy’.
* The Official Translation has, For them the Sacraments are, etc. a particular case, whereas the Latin has Cultum in general. J. F.
**This word is used in the United States; and the French and Italian versions also speak here of propagating, and not of expressing religion which were to repeat the idea of the preceding phrase. J. F.

page 44
Q. To what do the Modernist theologians compare the efficacy of the Sacraments?
A. ‘It is an efficacy, they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as having caught the popular ear, inasmuch as they have the power of putting certain leading ideas into circulation, and of making a marked impression upon the mind. What the phrases are to the ideas, that the Sacraments are to the religious sense’.

Q. Are they only that?
A. ‘That, and nothing more. The Modernists would express their mind more clearly were they to affirm that the Sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith; but this is condemned by the Council of Trent: "If anyone say that these Sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let him be anathema." ‘ *


III. SACRED SCRIPTURE - INSPIRATION.

Q. What, for the Modernist theologians, are the Sacred Scriptures?
A. ‘We have already touched upon the nature and origin of the Sacred Books. According to the principles of the Modernists, they may be rightly described as a summary of experiences, not, indeed, of the kind that may now and again come to anybody, but those extraordinary and striking experiences which are the possession of every religion’.


* Sess. VII., de Sacramentis in genere, can. 5.

page 45
Q. But does this description apply also to our Sacred Scriptures?
A. ‘This is precisely what they teach about our books of the Old and New Testament’.

Q. Experience is always concerned with the present; but the Sacred Scriptures contain the history of the past and prophecies of the future. How, then, can the Modernists call them summaries of experience?
A. ‘To suit their own theories they note with remarkable ingenuity that, although experience is something belonging to the present, still it may draw its material in like manner from the past and the future, inasmuch as the believer by memory lives the past over again after the manner of the present, and lives the future already by anticipation. This explains how it is that the historical and apocalyptic books are included among the Sacred Writings’.

Q. Are not the Sacred Scriptures the word of God?
A. ‘God does indeed speak in these books through the medium of the believer, but, according to Modernist theology, only by immanence and vital permanence’.

Q. What, then, becomes of inspiration?
A. ‘Inspiration, they reply, is in nowise distinguished from that impulse which stimulates the believer to reveal the faith that is in him by words or writing, except perhaps by its vehemence. It is something like that which happens in poetical inspiration, of which it has been said: "There is a God in us, and when He stirreth He sets us afire." It is in this sense that God is said to be the origin of the inspiration of the Sacred Books.

page 46
Q. Do they say that inspiration is general? And what of inspiration, from the Catholic point of view?
A. ‘The Modernists affirm concerning this inspiration, that there is nothing in the Sacred Books which is devoid of it. In this respect some might be disposed to consider them as more orthodox than certain writers in recent times who somewhat restrict inspiration, as, for instance, in what have been put forward as so-called tacit citations. But in all this we have mere verbal conjuring; for if we take the Bible according to the standards of agnosticism, namely, as a human work, made by men for men, albeit the theologian is allowed to proclaim that it is divine by immanence what room is there left in it for inspiration? The Modernists assert a general inspiration of the Sacred Books, but they admit no inspiration in the Catholic sense.

IV. THE CHURCH: HER ORIGIN, HER NATURE, AND HER RIGHTS...."