CARDINAL NEWMAN AND MODERNISM

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 19, 14 May 1908, Page 11

CARDINAL NEWMAN AND MODERNISM

A PAPAL LETTER

The Right Rev. Dr. O'Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, has received! from the Holy Father a letter in recognition of the able pamphlet (noticed elsewhere in this issue) in which he disposes of the fiction that Cardinal Newman's writings give any countenance to the theories of the Modernists. The following is a translation of the Pope's letter T— To Our Venerable Brother, Edward Thomas, Bishop of Limerick, PIUS P.P. X. Venerable Brother, health and Apostolic Benediction. We would have you know that your pamphlet, in which you show that the writings of Cardinal Newman, so far from differing from Our Encyclical Letter Pascend'i, are in closest harmony with it, has Our strongest approval. You could not, indeed, have done better service alike to the cause of truth, and to the eminent merit of the man. There appears to have been established, amongst those whose errors We have con<demned by that Letter, as it wore a fixed rule that for the very things which they themselves have invented they seek the sanction of the name of a most illustrious man. Accordingly, they freely claim that they have drawn certain fundamental positions from that spring and source, and that, for that reason, We could not condemn the doctrines which are. their very own without at the same time, nay, in priority of order, condemning t^e teaching of so eminent and so great a man. If one did not 1-now what a power the ferment of a puffed-up spirit has of overwhelming! the mind, it would seem incredible that persons should be found who think and proclaim themselves Catholics, while in a m-atter lying at 4he very foundation of religious discipline they set the authority of a private teacher, even though an eminent one, above the majnsterlum of the Apostolic See. You expose not only their contumacy, but, their artifice as well. For if, in what he wrote before he professed the Catholic Faith, there may perchance be found something which bears a certain resemblance to some of the formulas of the Modernists, you justly deny that they are in -any way supported thereby ; both because the meaning underlying the words " is very different, as is also the purpose of the writer, and, the author himself, on entering the Catholic Church, submitted all his writings to the authority of the Catholic Church herself, assuredly, to bo corrected, if it were necessary. As for the numerous and important books whioh he wrote as a Catholic it is hardly necessary to defend them against the suggestion of kindred with heresy. tor amongst the English public, as everybody knows, Henry Newman in his writings, unceasingly championed the cause of the Catholic Faith in such a way that his work was most salutary to bis countrymen, and at the same time most highly esteemed by Our predecessors. Accordingly, he wa s found worthy to be made a Cardinal by Leo XIII., undoubtedly an acute judge of men and things ; and to him thenceforward, throughout all his life, he was deservedly mo^t dear. No doubt in so great an abundance of his works something may be found which may seem to be foreign to the traditional method of the theologians, but nothing which could arouse a suspicion of his faith. And you rightly state that it as not to be wondered at if at a time when no signs of the new heresy had shown themselves, his mode of expression in some plaoes did not display a special caution, but that the Modernists act wrongly and deceitfully in twisting those words to their own meaning in opposition to the entire context. We, therefore, congratulate you on vindicating with eminent success, through your knowledge of all his writings, the mlemory of a most good and wise man ; and at the same time, as far as in you lay, o>n having secured that amonrst your people, especially the English, those who have "been accustomed to misuse that name, already cease to deceive the unlearned. And would that they truly followed Newman, as a teacher, not in the fashion of those who, given up to preconceived opinions, search his voluires, and with deliberate dishonesty extract from them something froim. which they contend that their views recaive support, but that they might Wtoer his principles pure a-nid unimpaired, and his example, and his lofty spirit. From so great a master they may learn, many 1 noble things: m the first place, to hold the magfeterium of the Church sacred, to preserve inviolate the doctrine handed down by the, Fathers and, what is the chief thing for the preservation of Ca4olic truth,, to honor and obey-with the utmost fidelity the successor of the Blessed Peter.

Moreover, Venerable, Brother, We give thanks from Our heart to you, and to your cl.ergy and people, for your dutiful zeal in coming to the aid of Our poverty by sending the , usual donation ; and in, order to win

for you, and first of all for yourself in particular, the .. gifts of the Divine bounty, and also to testify Our goodwill, We most lovingly impart the Apostolic Benediction. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, the 10th day of March, in the year 1908, the fifth of Our Pontificate. PIUS PP. X.