Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-01
The Religious World

Because modernism is method and
spirit rather than O system, writes
Father Tyrrell. this very difference is
of course a weakness contrasted with
the compact unanimity of its adver-
saries." Modernists, he says, "agree as
to their point of departure, as to the
general method and way; but their
goal is below the horizon; their rate of
advance unequal; their courses by no
means parallel" He adds
Hence not one of them will sub
scribe to all the positions of his fellow
modernists; still less will he accept the
compact system fathered on him by
the encyclical. Not one of them would
die for the modernist Interpretation of
Catholicism which it condemns. But
all of them repudiate the scholastic
nti-historical Interpretation which 1t
implies and imposes. Here is their
unity-a unity of negation. And so far
as this negation permeates all branches
Of the scholastic presentments Of Ca
tholicism 1t is possible to attribute to
modernism a positive and systematic
unity which is simply that of the shad-
ow or negation of scholasticism."
Modernism is movement, a pro-
cess, a tendency, and not, like scholas-
ticism, a systematic term or arrest
of d movement. 1t is movement away
from the scholastic position in a vari-
ETY. of directions. But whereas in for
mer years such movements have been
in quest of some new position to be
accepted as final and permanent, mod
ernism recognizes movement as itself
permanent condition and seeks only
to discover It's laws and determine it's
direction. Growth is it's governing cat
egory. In other words it is an attempt
to reconcile the essentials of Catholic
faith with those indisputable results of
historical criticism which are mani
festly disastrous to the medieval syn
thesis of scholastic theology. 1t does
not demand a new theology, or no
theology at all, but moving, growing
theology-a theology carefully distin-
guished from the religious experience
of which it is the ever-imperfect, ever
perfectible expression. 1t does not de-
mand a new institutional framework
of Catholicism, or no framework at all;
but a recognition that the framework
has grown in the past and should be
suffered to grow in the future under
the guidance of the same life and
spirit.
"As the reformers found out, it is
vain to combat consequences until ones
mind is purged of the principles from
which they spring. 1t is idle to combat
scholasticism or ultramontanism, II one
confounds faith with theology and spir-
itual with juridical authority. If mod
ernists dream that the present juris
co-scholastic system either can or
will commit suicide or reform or limit
itself in any way; or that reasoning
with it will produce any direct effect
upon it, they are Utopians who have
read history to little purpose. 1t is not
a question of brain against brain, but
of brain against the inherent logic of
living system or process, working it.
self out independently of individuals
shaping them rather than shaped by
them. Any concessions a more liberal
pope might make to modernists' re-
quirements could only be concessions
of diplomacy and opportunity, like the
suspension of the medieval theocracy,
or of the burning Of heretics; tempor-
izing concessions to the exigencies of
evil times and contrary to the true
spirit and logic of the system"