MODERNISM.
[TO TRIO EDITOR OF TIER SPECTATOR."] SIR,—A few there are of the "multitude of the Catholic simple" who read their Spectator every week. What. is Modernism to them ? May I, as one of the rank-and-file of English Catholic laymen, trespass a little , on your space? The tests which a loyal Catholic must apply to all new religious ideas now as in past ages are, firstly, the sanction of his teachers in the Church ; and secondly, the authority of his own heart. There is no doubt about the condemnation of Modernism by our teachers, root and branch. What have our hearts to say in the matter? Has the Modernist anything positive to offer us,—anything that we can love more than the age-long teaching of Mother Church, anything which stirs the pulse, or would rouse a martyr's spirit within us ? I think not. So far as an average Catholic can grasp the ideas of Modernists, he finds himself left very cold thereby. There is nothing to command our love. We may admire the good life of M. Loisy, but we cannot carry on our admiration to his new ideas. After all, what is it that constitutes a practising Catholic a loyal son of the Church F Surely it is the love far his Holy Mother and her teaching. Why do we hear Mass every Sunday ? Firstly, because authority commands us so to do. Secondly, because we love the Mass. Hoc eat enim corpus meum. Those dreadful words have but one meaning for us, and that meaning the sanction of authority down the ages has given them. We cannot conceive of any person assisting at Mass who does not accept the Church's whole teaching in relation thereto. We cannot conceive of any man professing to be a son of the Church holding Jesus Christ to be less than God. For the loyal Catholic the Creed is a statement of facts. For the loyal Catholic an image of Our Lady in his church represents the Virgin Mother of God, nothing less. What is it that gives that splendid solidity to the demands of Catholics for their schools in England ? New ideas ? Most surely not. It is nothing but their love for the Church and the desire that in the hearts of their children shall be rooted that faith for which such men as Thomas More and Bishop Fisher gave their lives. Call us narrow-minded, stubborn, a multitude of the simple. Stith, kneeling at the feet of the Apostles (simple men also), we desire and are proud to be ! We read that the Church and the stream of the world's life are moving in different directions. In a measure this is most true. It is the mission of the Church in this queer world to pull us up sharply, to remind us with hard knocks that there is some- thing beyond things material demanding our attention, and that Christianity is indeed a fact. No wonder a world largely educated by a halfpenny Press finds itself out of touch with things spiritual. That the Church of 'which Pius X. is the august head can ever open her ears to new idea! s (if such subvert the faith in a miraculous origin of Christlanity) is
unthinkable. Do the faithful Joel( on unmoyed when such men as M. Loisy are excommunicated ? Indeed no ! In so,rrow we reed of the solemn sentence. But We know that such things must be if the faith is to be preserved intact. That new methods will be found by the priesthood to instil the old ideas is certain. In Franee there are now signs of such methodical efforts. The old wine from the old bottles it must be. In the method of pouring out will be the change. My final sentences in closing this letter must contain words of apology in that I am not a theologian, and can therefore offer no theological arguments for the "faith that is in me." - My only argument is that of the heart. The Catholic religion is for me, as for so many other simple folks, the citadel of my life,—the one impregnable stronghold. Nothing other than the miraculous Christ, the Christ of tradition, the Christ of Pius X., nothing other than the Mass in all its full traditional meaning, can satisfy the longings or command the veneration of loyal
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