THE POPE ON MODERNISM.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 72, 18 December 1907, Page 7

THE POPE ON MODERNISM.

i A DANGER WITHIN. BETTER IF IT- WERE FRANKLY AN . ' ENEMY. . . 8T TEIEQEAPB—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPTHIOHT, (Reo. Dec. 17, 10.35 p.m.) • ( Rome, December 17. The Pope, in his allocution to the Consistory on the occasion of the - creation, of four Cardinals (including the Archbishops of R-beims and Marseilles) deplored the' disastrousvpropaganda- of Modernism lin the bosom of CathdUeifei&>ftsalfox|o°4-4 a io .iiy,,:', If the Modernists frankly joined' tho enemies of the Church,, the evil would be less. - Mights God- enlighten, thoso v/ho' wefebeing misled!, The Popo .added that the. Episcopate had greeted the Papal directions with eagerness. In connection with the Pope's suggestion that the . Modernists should leav'e the Roman Catholic Church, it may bo mentioned that tho leaders of the party claim to bo thoroughly loyal to Catholic principles. Father Tyrrell recently stated that "no so-called Modernist who-understands the logic of his own position, who is proud of his spiritual ancestrv, who realises .that union with tho Church depends on inward reality more than 011 outward form, will be moved ; from his Catholicism by any act of juridical violence - of which he may be the object; _ His faith is not something that can ba annihilated in a moment by the word of an angry Bishop. Much as he may prize the sacramental bread of life, he prizes still more the- unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. To. secede would bo to allow that his calumniators were in tho right;, that Catholicism was bound hand and foot to its scholastic interpretation and to its medieval Chiirch polity; that tho Pope had no duties and the people no rights. It would be to abandon what ho believes to be the truth at the moment of its greatest, betrayal."