The Modernist Has No Place in the Catholic Church

The Church is the hierarchical, inasmuch as She is governed by the sacred rule of Bishops, in communion with the Sovereign Pontiff, the Bishop of Rome. A simple Priest has no authority except in subordination to some Bishop. Still less have the laity anything to do with the government of the Church. As Christ governed His disciples – Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am,(John xiii. 13) – so He chose out of them twelve, whom He named Apostles ( the name means commissioners, Luke vi.13), to be His substitutes after His departure, and bearing His commission to rule in His stead(Luke x. 16). And they did rule.

The infant church was no democracy. Peter, Paul, and John, the only Apostle of whose action we have detailed notice, were highly Pontifical. What was to be the mind and behavior of subsequent Innocents and Gregorys was their mind and behavior. For St. Peter, see Acts v. 1-11, viii. 20-22, 1 Peter v. 1-5; where the very moderation inculcated in the use of power argues the consciousness of possessing it. Of St. Paul’s dogmatism and habit of command, we have a striking example in Galatians i. 8,9: his epistles are weighty and strong, 2 cor. x. 1-11, xiii. 1-10; 1 cor. v; 1 tim. vi.3. St. John, according to the reading of the Revised Version, lays an excommunication on the ill-advised progressivist, the Modernist of his day (2 John 9,10,110). St. Paul left Titus behind in Crete to correct things amiss, and appoint presbyters in every city (Titus i.5). Similarly he ordained Timothy bishop (2 Tim. i:6), with many directions for the exercise of his power, (1 Tim. v. 22). The seven angels or Bishops, of the churches in Asi Minor are responsible for the correction of abuses there (Apoc. ii., iii).

That everything in the Church centers in the Bishop, that nothing must be done but by His authority, is the essential teaching of St. Ignatius of Antioch and of St. Cyprain. The 4th and 5th  centuries, the great ages of councils, whatever else they show, testify to the pre-eminence of the Episcopal order; and that pre-eminence stands to the present day. Episcopacy is the very life of the Church. In this hierarchical constitution, the modernist sees a remnant of Roman Imperialism or Medieval Feudalism, now destined to yield place to democracy. The modernist is strongly tinged with that dislike of sacerdotalism which marked the protestant revolt of the 16th century. Both Order and Jurisdiction are to him human institutions: in the latter he considers that the layman should bear his share. And why not, if what he calls “the Christian Consciousness”, not the personal institution of Christ, has set up the Church and all that is in it? Why not, if this counsel or work be of men, and not of God (Acts v. 38,39)?

Originally a Catholic, the modernist still holds the name. Even while teaching what the Pope has called “a synthesis of all heresies,”  it is part of his program to remain in the communion of the Catholic Church. Towards that Church he has no loyalty; he cherishes for it a very different sentiment, admiration. He has no mind at all to obey the living Pastors of the Church for her greatness, her antiquity, her ritual, and the splendid services she has rendered mankind, so also do many who own no obedience to Rome. Admiring her, he is bent on reforming her. The modernist has no place in the Catholic Church.

( Joseph Rickaby S.J. ; The Modernist)