I see Modernism and Modernists thrown around this forum often.
Just exactly what do these terms mean and how do they apply to our lives in 2011?
Is anyone who accepts Vatican II a “Modernist”? I really do not understand.
Are all those who attend the OF a modernist?
Please define these terms in your own words and not copy and paste of Church Documents. Thank You.
To the Church, Modernism was identified as a threat. Luther was part of the problem. Followed by the free thinkers. A mindset that re-thought our relationship with God. Not at all conservative, and not what the Church taught. It was condemned. Priests took an oath against it. Modernism strays from Church teaching in other areas as well.
A modernist promotes the mindset, against the grain so to speak. He knows his thinking and ideals are condemned by the Church. The majority of laity are not modernists. That would be an unfair label. They have no idea of this mindset that has crept into every organization on the globe. Attending the OF doesn’t make one a modernist, and in fact, one who is sternly against modernism may attend the OF.
VII did not produce modernists. There were modernists there though, and they did what they could. There were conservative/orthodox bishops there as well. VII just happened to come at a time when modernist thought was spreading in the Church. The popes kept writing against moderism right up until VII. Bl John XXIII wrote Veterum Sapientia in 1962 iirc, decreeing and commanding Latin be retained in the Liturgy, and remain taught in the seminaries. In VS, he forbid the thought and writing against Latin in the Liturgy.
FF to today. How does it pertain to us today ?
- Is there division within the Church ? yes
- Is there division among us here on the forum ? yes
- Do all Catholics believe the same thing regarding ALL matters addressed by the Church ? no
There we have the fruits of modernism. Two Catholic world views, the orthodox Roman Catholic one (no compromise on Dogma or Doctrine here), and the rest…the distorted ones born of modernism.
We can forget names of Councils, the labels of trad and liberal. We can lower our fingers from where they are pointing. No pope can make the Church a modernist one. There is no triumphant moment in time modernism claims the Church. It can’t. Christ promised it.
Modernism is growing everyday though. We live in times where bishops question a pope’s actions when he is doing nothing wrong. Summorum Pontificum and the lifting of excomunications on four bishops who represent much about Roman Catholicism the modernist rejects/discards. The reaction itself… well, it speaks for itself.
It’s here to stay, this cancer of modernism, dragging powerful men safely away from the Church. Tugging at those in the Church away from Tradition. Though deemed to fail by Christ, they’ll never give up.
As individuals in these times, we can find hope in Our Lord through Mary, and pray for those unaware of the sorrows they cause her.