Centennial of "Pascendi"

Yesterday was the one hundredth anniversary of the encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis of Pope St. Pius X, condemning modernism. The holy pope called modernism the "synthesis of all heresies." Every Catholic should read what he had to say. St. Pius X was a prophet as well as a pope, as can be seen in the following words when he describes Catholic modernists who deceive as wolves in sheep's clothing:


And here we have already some of the artifices employed by Modernists to exploit their wares. What efforts do they not make to win new recruits! They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence. In sermons from the pulpit they disseminate their doctrines, although possibly in utterances which are veiled. In congresses they express their teachings more openly. In their social gatherings they introduce them and commend them to others. Under their own names and under pseudonyms they publish numbers of books, newspapers, reviews, and sometimes one and the same writer adopts a variety of pseudonyms to trap the incautious reader into believing in a multitude of Modernist writers. In short, with feverish activity they leave nothing untried in act, speech, and writing. And with what result? We have to deplore the spectacle of many young men, once full of promise and capable of rendering great services to the Church, now gone astray. It is also a subject of grief to Us that many others who, while they certainly do not go so far as the former, have yet been so infected by breathing a poisoned atmosphere, as to think, speak, and write with a degree of laxity which ill becomes a Catholic. They are to be found among the laity, and in the ranks of the clergy, and they are not wanting even in the last place where one might expect to meet them, in religious communities If they treat of biblical questions, it is upon Modernist principles; if they write history, they carefully, and with ill-concealed satisfaction, drag into the light, on the plea of telling the whole truth, everything that appears to cast a stain upon the Church. Under the sway of certain a priori conceptions they destroy as far as they can the pious traditions of the people, and bring into disrespect certain relics highly venerable from their antiquity. They are possessed by the empty desire of having their names upon the lips of the public, and they know they would never succeed in this were they to say only what has always been said by all men. Meanwhile it may be that they have persuaded themselves that in all this they are really serving God and the Church. In reality they only offend both, less perhaps by their works in themselves than by the spirit in which they write, and by the encouragement they thus give to the aims of the Modernists.


In the Motu proprio, Sacrorum Antistitum of September, 1910 Pope St. Pius mentions the conspiracies of "secret associations." Many very sophisticated Catholics ridicule any mention of secret societies and conspiracy theories. However, any one with more than a cursory knowledge of history knows that there have been conspiracies which changed the course of history. The Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence had quite a conspiracy going, as King George III was to discover to his dismay. To quote from an article about Pascendi:


In dealing with historical conspiracies, there are two errors. One is the simplistic error of reducing everything to mere conspiracies. The second is to also deny, a priori, the possibility of any conspiracies. By his very nature, man tends to associate with those who think like him or share the same interests or goals, as the old Latin adage says, similis simili gaudet (like rejoices in like). This natural tendency often gives rise to groups, organizations or movements of people who gather not only to discuss their interests but to coordinate their efforts for victory. History has seen all kinds of conspiracies, cabals, political machinations, military plots, theologians’ factions, and so forth. Thus, speaking of a modernist conspiracy whose goal is to change the Church is hardly absurd. Saint Pius X himself speaks of a “secret society.” Share