On the Modernist Doctrine of Religious Immanence
Jan 27, 2019 14:52:01 GMT
Post by Admin on Jan 27, 2019 14:52:01 GMT
The Angelus - August 1979
The Conciliar Church Speaks:
" ...for fifty years, I have observed with fervent satisfaction the development of what has been called, in the precise sense of the word, 'social Christianity'....
Today, with many people, I observe an appreciable evolution, according to which major importance is now attributed in value and in method, to the living experience of ecclesial communities, in opposition to an abstract and universal teaching, which was not untouched by ideology. Started by John XXIII, in particular in the encyclical Pacem in Terris, which set out to distinguish the 'signs of the times,' this evolution became explicit at the second Vatican Council, in the constitution Gaudium et Spes, deliberately drawn up in this perspective. Pope Paul VI's Letter to Cardinal Roy (May 1971), on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, is situated in this line....Paul VI, however, covers with his authority the new procedure, based no longer on deduction from a pre-established, immutable and non-temporal doctrine in a sacred 'model,' but on an empirical analysis of situations, according to the multiform variety of places and times. For it is impossible to determine social practice by taking an ideal world, which is supposed to reflect divine glory, as a common reference for all men: sacralizing in actual fact a contingent structure of a momentary social order.
Observing with sympathy and confidence the copious and urgent new problems raised by the hope of men, the Pope defined, as follows, the method to be adopted.
Thus the historical dimension, implied in Christian economy, which does not develop as an abstract ideology but as a 'sacred history,' is integrated in the understanding of faith, in progress in Christian communities. It is a reversal of procedure, which is no longer based on reference to immutable natural law alone, affirmed as a divine right, but directly on the Word of God listened to and heard on the basis of experience. Christian morality is thus linked with the dynamic of social change, takings its source in the Mystery on which Christianity is founded.
In this way the consistency, sometimes ambiguous, but always inspiring, between the renewal of the world and the historicity of the Kingdom of God, is manifested....In his famous address to U.N. (4 Oct. 1965), Paul VI said:
The Roman Catholic Church Teaches:
"...the positive part [of the system of the Modernists] consists in what they call vital immanence....Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when natural theology has been destroyed, and the road to revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside of man himself. It must, therefore, be looked to in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. In this way is formulated the principle of religious immanence. Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon—and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category—is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances, cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness....
...Modernists find in this sense not only faith, but in and with faith, as they understand it, they affirm that there is also to be found revelation....
From this, Venerable Brethren, springs that most absurd tenet of the Modernists, that every religion....must be considered as both natural and supernatural. It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous. 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, 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.
....
It is thus that 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. 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. This, then, is the origin of all, even of supernatural religion. For religions are mere developments of this religious sense. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, and by no other way, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be. In hearing these things we shudder indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers. There are Catholics, yes, and priests, too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings!"
On the Modernist Doctrine of Religious Immanence
Edited by Dr. Mary Buckalew
The Conciliar Church Speaks:
" ...for fifty years, I have observed with fervent satisfaction the development of what has been called, in the precise sense of the word, 'social Christianity'....
Today, with many people, I observe an appreciable evolution, according to which major importance is now attributed in value and in method, to the living experience of ecclesial communities, in opposition to an abstract and universal teaching, which was not untouched by ideology. Started by John XXIII, in particular in the encyclical Pacem in Terris, which set out to distinguish the 'signs of the times,' this evolution became explicit at the second Vatican Council, in the constitution Gaudium et Spes, deliberately drawn up in this perspective. Pope Paul VI's Letter to Cardinal Roy (May 1971), on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, is situated in this line....Paul VI, however, covers with his authority the new procedure, based no longer on deduction from a pre-established, immutable and non-temporal doctrine in a sacred 'model,' but on an empirical analysis of situations, according to the multiform variety of places and times. For it is impossible to determine social practice by taking an ideal world, which is supposed to reflect divine glory, as a common reference for all men: sacralizing in actual fact a contingent structure of a momentary social order.
Observing with sympathy and confidence the copious and urgent new problems raised by the hope of men, the Pope defined, as follows, the method to be adopted.
'The social teaching of the Church accompanies men in their research with all its dynamism. If it does not intervene to authenticate a given structure or to propose a prefabricated model, neither does it limit itself to recalling some general principles. It develops through reflection prompted by contact with the changing situations of this world, under the impulse of the Gospel as a source of renewal, when its message is accepted in its entirety and in its exigencies....In this way it draws upon the rich experience of several centuries which allows it to assume, in the continuity of its permanent concerns, the bold and creative innovation that the present situation of the world requires.'
Thus the historical dimension, implied in Christian economy, which does not develop as an abstract ideology but as a 'sacred history,' is integrated in the understanding of faith, in progress in Christian communities. It is a reversal of procedure, which is no longer based on reference to immutable natural law alone, affirmed as a divine right, but directly on the Word of God listened to and heard on the basis of experience. Christian morality is thus linked with the dynamic of social change, takings its source in the Mystery on which Christianity is founded.
In this way the consistency, sometimes ambiguous, but always inspiring, between the renewal of the world and the historicity of the Kingdom of God, is manifested....In his famous address to U.N. (4 Oct. 1965), Paul VI said:
'We must accustom ourselves to thinking of man in a new way, of men's lives in common in a new way, and finally of the ways of history and the destinies of the world in a new way.' "
(M.D. Chenu, O.P., "Evolution in Christian Approach to Life," L'Osservatore Romano, September 29, 1977.)
The Roman Catholic Church Teaches:
"...the positive part [of the system of the Modernists] consists in what they call vital immanence....Religion, whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when natural theology has been destroyed, and the road to revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside of man himself. It must, therefore, be looked to in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man. In this way is formulated the principle of religious immanence. Moreover, the first actuation, so to speak, of every vital phenomenon—and religion, as noted above, belongs to this category—is due to a certain need or impulsion; but speaking more particularly of life, it has its origin in a movement of the heart, which movement is called a sense. Therefore, as God is the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and foundation of all religion, must consist in a certain interior sense, originating in a need of the divine. This need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favorable circumstances, cannot of itself appertain to the domain of consciousness, but is first latent beneath consciousness....
...Modernists find in this sense not only faith, but in and with faith, as they understand it, they affirm that there is also to be found revelation....
From this, Venerable Brethren, springs that most absurd tenet of the Modernists, that every religion....must be considered as both natural and supernatural. It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous. 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, 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.
....
It is thus that 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. 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. This, then, is the origin of all, even of supernatural religion. For religions are mere developments of this religious sense. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, and by no other way, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be. In hearing these things we shudder indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers. There are Catholics, yes, and priests, too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings!"
(St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, 7-10.)
"The general idea of moderism may be best expressed in the words of Abbate Cavallanti, though even here there is a little vagueness: 'Modernism is modern in a false sense of the word; it is a morbid state of conscience among Catholics, and especially young Catholics, that professes manifold ideals [ideals?], opinions, and tendencies. From time to time these tendencies work out into systems, that are to renew the basis and superstructure of society, politics, philosophy, theology, of the Church herself and of the Christian religion.' A remodeling, a renewal according to the ideas of the twentieth century—such is the longing that possesses the modernists. 'The avowed modernists,' says M. Loisy, 'form a fairly definite group of thinking men united in the common desire to adapt Catholicism to the intellectual, moral and social needs of today' (op. cit., p. 13). 'Our religious attitude,' as 'Il programma del modernisti' states (p. 5 note 1), 'is ruled by the single wish to be one with Christians and Catholics who live in harmony with the spirit of the age.' The spirit of this plan of reform may be summarized under the following heads: (a) A spirit of complete emancipation, tending to weaken ecclesiastical authority.... (b) A spirit of movement and change, with an inclination to a sweeping form of evolution such as abhors anything fixed and stationary; (c) A spirit of reconciliation among all men through the feelings of the heart...."
(A. Vermeersch, "Modernism," Catholic Encyclopedia, X [1911], 415-416.)
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]