LIBERALISM AND MODERNISM
A further preface to Pascendi
Today I continue my introduction to the masterpiece of Pope St Pius X with a brief treatment of a book from 1886.
Titled Liberalism is a Sin, it appeared 21 years before Pascendi.
Here I will compare how this book informs our understanding of the condemnation of modernism as the “Synthesis of all heresies” - and in doing so will try to show that what is meant here by the related concepts of “liberalism” and “modernism”.
I hope by doing so we will better understand the crisis we inhabit in Church and State today - and of course, how best to get out of it.
This book has a banger of a title. It was published by the late Thomas Aquinas Nelson, who died earlier this year. His TAN books, founded in 1967, also published the guide to Pascendi I will use in this series:
Mr Nelson sold these books at a “drastic bulk discount” to ensure as many people could read them as possible.
It is thanks to him these books exist, and that their diagnosis of and remedy for the cultural sickness which plagues our times can be readily transmitted.
If you would like to buy your own copies, you can do so from TAN Books here.
LIBERALISM AND MODERNISM
The opening pages of these books are as a lighted lamp in the noontide of these dark times.
Though both books provide a detailed and clear picture of their subjects, I will give a definition of them to simplify matters.
In his introduction to Liberalism is a Sin, Thomas. A. Nelson tells us this book deals with the Liberalism in religion - not in politics -
“…though it definitely bears on that realm as well”.
Dr. Don Felix Sarda y Salvany was the author of Liberalism Is A Sin. In this neglected classic this Barcelona Catholic priest defines Liberalism as:
“The assumption of the absolute sovereignty of the individual”.
This of course means the individual’s “entire independence from God”, and is promoted through the belief in rationalism. This is the denial of the supernatural, and therefore of any idea of any authority higher than Man himself.
The process this leads to is secularisation, the subtraction of God from all social, moral, political and theological matters. This is explained by The Don here:
The Don, as I shall refer to him, begins his book by explaining the connection between the rejection of God’s authority, His replacement with Reason and human conscience, Protestantism, and the fundamental belief which results:
“That one creed is as good as another”.
This is the same as saying that there is no good in any of them, as The Don points out.
In our times, the ecumenical humanism of the Synodal church supports this view. It has been said that the recent insult to Our Lady is one attempt to reach out to the Protestants, but it seems odd to me to attempt to do so by systematically abolishing any difference between the Catholic religion and all the others.
The real reason this is done is explained by the fact that the liberals and the modernists are now teaching ABC - Anything But Catholicism.
So what is liberalism - and what has it got to do with the modernism in the church condemned by Pope St Pius X?
LIBERALISM AND MODERNISM
Since we are going to look at Liberalism (The Don) and Modernism (Pope St Pius X) here is a brief distinction.
Liberalism sought to liberate mankind through Reason, by making laws and institutions which promised political and economic freedom.
Modernism questions the institutions themselves, along with the liberal idea of progress as well as Reason itself.
It is fair to say that the Liberal idea produced the Modern mind, which has now gone so far as to deny reality and facts completely in the Postmodern Condition.
You could say that Liberalism began with the denial of God over Man, and that Modernism proceeded to do away with everything else - in the name of the Self.
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT POLITICAL LIBERALISM
I think Liberalism has been used to promote an economic system which is advertised through these (false) promises of liberation. This is called “Liberal Democracy”.
Modernism is a name for the culture which is mass produced by this system in my view. The Liberals began as those who believed in a rational Man who could rationalise the world around him. As the techniques of mass society were refined towards the manufacture of mass belief, a Modern culture was promoted which maintains the promise of freedom whilst actually dissolving man, his meaning, his history, religion and his civilisation into himself.
To put this simply I think “liberal democracy” is a marketing term for the creation of a global marketplace bound a common and Godless faith. This ambitious project is sold by promises of freedom - but the basic idea is a complete lack of restraint.
It is fundamentally irresponsible, resulting in the chaos of our times.
The Liberal State does not discharge its duties to its subjects, and nor do its subjects recognise any duties regarding their state in life. Liberalism and modernism have liberated Man from meaning and from responsibility, blinding him to the obvious.
One obvious fact which is largely invisible is that we inhabit the consequences of what we do.
If you connect the dot of what is done to what becomes then you are likely to be reported to the authorities.
This is what happened to the author of Liberalism Is A Sin. Enter The Don.
DON FELIX - THE PRIEST WHO COULDN’T BE CANCELLED
The Don here was a priest in Barcelona.
At the age of 42 he wrote his 1886 book “ El Liberalismo es Pecado ”, which would later be republished in English as “What is Liberalism” in 1899. It would appear in 1993 as “Liberalism is a Sin” thanks to TAN Books.
For this service to the defence of the faith, Fr. Sarda was attacked by his own diocesan bishop.
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