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…

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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?

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.>br> 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.

Before the usual suspects start hooting and hollering about science, please note that the whole point of the article is that the natural order, which science knows and measures, did not even exist during Creation but only began on the Sixth Day with the creation of Adam and Eve. Science has nothing to say about the process of Creation because it was by its very nature outside the natural order altogether. The only response the advocates of "science" have to this is to ask why this should be so, ie, why should they doubt their assumptions. It literally doesn't matter what physical processes are at work today because these processes are not a continuation of Creation but only something that began after Creation was complete.

A lot of Catholics aren't going to like the labeling of evolution as "Protestant." Most "theistic evolutionism" is a simple social prejudice against "inbred trailer trash" and a desire to not be in agreement with such people. Even Serafim Rose, the Orthodox creationist and author of Genesis and Early Man, while defending supernatural Creation and the difference of the original creation from what we know today, nevertheless refused to get into the "age of the earth" issue even though he found out, much to his surprise, that the church fathers he relied on were young earthers. The only possible reason for this is to avoid being associated with "hillbillies."

I note that there are creationist Catholics on this forum--not many, but a few. I also note that none of them ever post an article like this one but insist on ignoring the issue as if it were of no importance whatsoever.

Everyone take a screenshot because I am about to defend Martin Luther - something I rarely do.

The above article says the following:

“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.””

Yet, as far as I know, that quote never came from Luther. It does appear, however, in the passage below from a traditionalist Catholic webpage:

“Luther first overturned the traditional concept of faith. Man, wholly corrupted by original sin, is, for him, incapable of knowing the truth and loving the good. Faith does not lie in the reason and in the will, made putrid by sin, but in “fiducial faith”, which is born from a feeling of deep desperation and has its proper object the mercy of God, instead of the truths revealed by Him. Appealing to this pietistic and individualistic vision of faith, Luther and his followers make religious experience the only criterion of the Christian life. In the evangelical-Protestant tradition as a whole, religion is seen as a salvific “encounter” with God, in which subjective faith absorbs and dissolves objective faith. In the Esquisse d’une philosophie de la religion (1897) written by Auguste Sabatier (1836-1901) this writer follows through to the end the Protestant reduction of faith to feeling. The act of faith is understood as an encounter with the dark and mysterious power on which the soul depends and on which depends its destiny. All that is dogma and theological reflection is nothing other than the symbolic transcription of a collective religious experience in continual evolution.” http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/12/roberto-de-mattei-double-post-meltdown.html

Everything within the Bible is God-given Truth. Some of it is expressed literally, some metaphorically, some allegorically, and some of it is poetic. It is all “literally true”, but it is a mistake to interpret everything literally. We interpret the Virgin Birth literally because it has always been understood to be so; we are not bound to understand the creation account in a literal sense because, from the earliest Christian centuries and before, there has never been consensus to that effect even among the most orthodox of believers. The notion of, “The Bible Says It, I Believe It, That Settles It,” without a firm and extensive understanding on a wide variety of scholarly subjects relating to the Scriptures, its languages, and its historical contexts is fraught with the potential for grievous error.

I’d offer, in fact, that this is a large part of the reason why the Church traditionally limited authorization to read the Scriptures among those who otherwise might have had access to read them. Even the original Protestant Reformers did not view the Bible as a simplistic and literal work to be read without extensive knowledge of language, history, and traditional interpretations. The idea of Book, Believer, and Holy Ghost arose somewhat later.

Even Sola Scriptura, properly understood, does not reject the role of tradition in this sense.

Modernism itself is not the rejection of the notion that the entirety of Scripture must be interpreted literally. Indeed, the idea that the whole of Scripture must be interpreted literally is a modern innovation by noble souls who wished to counter the errors of modernism but who were not fully aware of its nature. Modernism, at its core, is the rejection of tradition as the primary lens through which Scripture must be viewed. It is tradition that teaches us which parts of Scripture are literal and which are metaphor. Tradition has never insisted the creation narrative to be literally true, at least not in terms of the particular details it lays out. That the world was created in seven literal days is far less important than the overall message — that God created the world and all that is in it, that God created Man in His Image, and, perhaps most pertinent to our current condition of all, that man repaid God by sinning against His Command and, as a result, has lost God’s amity and is repaid with the wages of suffering, death, and further sin.

I’d offer that to embrace Biblical Literalism, while certainly well intentioned, is to accept the Modernist world view implicitly because, in essence, it plays by Modernism’s rules.

All this said, while Catholics are at liberty to believe in evolution, Catholics are absolutely not at liberty to embrace a purely atheistic model of evolution that allows for no role of God in the creation of Life or in the special creation of Man in His Image. Christians are not at liberty to deny the reality of the fall, even if they interpret the narrative of the snake and fruit as something emblematic of something more mysterious and profound. Acknowledgement that a story might simply be a finger pointing at the moon is not permission to ignore the finger or not to ponder the object of its attention.

Ho-hum.

Your church fathers were, with the exception of Augustine (who was no evolutionist) literalist young earth creationists. It is now stated ex post facto that "there was no consensus" for two reasons: 1)"we now know" that this never happened, and 2)that's what that trailer trash believe, and dang it, we Catholics are intellectuals! We're not trailer trash!

Serafim Rose (an Orthodox priest-monk) wrote a book entitled Genesis and Early Man which demonstrates that the church fathers were literalists. The author also found out, to his great astonishment, that they were also young earth creationists, but, dang it all, he wasn't going to get involved in that, because he wasn't trailer trash!

You don't have to tell me about the levels of meaning in the Bible. But your claim that no one until the nineteenth century ever interpreted the Bible literally is historical revisionism. And by the way, thanks for your back-door endorsement of the documentary hypothesis (I suppose that's "always been believed" as well?).

Where are you Catholic creationists? Why don't you ever respond to posts like this one? Why are you always so silent? Is it not important to you?

I tend to think that the reason why most of us don't focus on it is because, although the Modernists in the Catholic Church have encouraged/supported the theory of evolution, they have not made it official Church doctrine. Our focus tends to be on Vatican II because it is there where we find formal contradictions with Traditional Catholic theology. I may be wrong, but I do not think evolution is even mentioned in those documents at all.

That is not to say that we don't find issues with evolution and I agree that it does contradict Traditional Catholic beliefs. I'm not sure that I agree that evolution is what initiated and caused Modernism in the Church, but I do think that it is at least another example of how Modernism has crept into the Church.

I will look further into Traditional views on evolution and its connection with Modernism.

Kindly see posts #4 and #14 (posters pinged). These people claim that Catholicism is opposed to the literal interpretation of Genesis. One says that there is no "patristic consensus" on creation vs. evolution. That is not true (it's the worst sort of historical revisionism). The "the fathers never actually taught that" line was invented because "we now know" that the early chapters of Genesis aren't literal history. This and social prejudice against the people associated with Biblical literalism is the totality of the source of these claims.

Don't tell me you don't believe in evolution. Don't tell me you believe evolution is contrary to Catholicism. Tell THEM. And tell any other co-religionist who mouths off with the same revisionist claims.

I'm trying to get you people to discuss this issue among yourselves. I'm trying to get you to see that there are Catholics (in fact, the majority) who actually claim that a belief in literal six day young earth creationism is actually forbidden by the Catholic Church. When they say this, respond, consarn it!!!

Usually never respond to religious posts. Try to follow the adage that tolerance is accepting people for what they are, not what you would hope them to be. However when a post takes a poke at Catholicism, as yours did, occasionally a response is necessary.
Let me give you an example why Catholics do not believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. You of course are familiar with the Passover story. The Pharoh had enslaved the Hebrews. When he refused to free them one of the punishments were that angels came and killed the “first born” of all Egyptians. A truly bloody and devastating punishment. Try to consider this scenario. Imagine there was a forty four year old Egyptian shoemaker and his forty two year old wife.He was a poor but honest man who worked hard. His wife was thought to be barren but at age forty gave birth to a healthy young boy. The child gave them joy and purpose. The shoemaker was illiterate, knew nothing of politics and as far as he knew had never encountered a Hebrew. Now do you really believe that this dutiful mother was sitting feeding her son and suddenly this supernatural creature, not seeing lambs blood on the door, bursts in and mercilessly kills the child? Really?

Let me explain how a Catholic would interpret those passages. Slavery is a terrible injustice. Not only to the slaves themselves but it is harmful to the nation that holds them. In ancient times and to some extent today the “first born” were the future of a family and the nation itself. The first born were expected to inherit not only the goods but the legacy and spirit of a culture. It would then be their responsibility to cultivate it, improve it, preserve it and then pass it on to the next generation. However slavery corrodes a culture. It makes its “first born” dependent on the labor of others for his well being. It fosters cruelty, sloth, insensitivity and bad behavior. When the character of the “first born” is destroyed, the culture itself begins to decay and decline. Hence the passage is an allegory on the lethal effects systemic injustice. Immoral practices, contrary to the laws of God, in fact destroys and “kills” the “first born” and all that depends on them. Wholesale actual killing by angels of innocent children is a bit far fetched.

Fully understand you don’t agree but you might find it useful to understand a different perspective.

I never argued that there is no “patristic consensus” on creation vs. evolution. That would indeed be nonsensical historical revisionism. I actually don’t care much about the “evolution vs. creation” argument — all that matters to me in that regard is that God created the world and everything in it and man betrayed Him. I’m otherwise rather agnostic on the matter. My response was aimed more at what appeared to be an assertion on your part that one either accepts all of scripture literally or none of it. Parts of it are literally true, other parts are metaphor, still others allegory and poetry. You responded earlier in a manner that led me to believe you understood that, so I dropped the matter. I only respond now because I don’t care to be accused of making arguments I didn’t make.

Also, just to be perfectly clear, I certainly don’t look down my nose at you or other brothers and sisters in Christ who accept creationism. Any Christian who believes his brother to be “trailer trash” due to a non-essential belief deserves the latter title more than the former. I came to Christ as a result of my loving grandmother, who certainly believed in creationism herself. I never saw a need to argue with her about it. I simply take issue with the assertion that one MUST embrace it or one is not a faithful Christian; whether you accept it or not is between you and God as far as I’m concerned.

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