M. SABATIER AND THE MODERNISTS.
M.SABATIER gave on the 10th of this month at the Passmore Edwards Settlement in TavistoCk Plade the last of three lectures upon the Modernist Movement in the Church of Rome. The subject is deeply interesting to all those who have been watching the struggle between the Church and the sons she is striving to disavow. M. Sabatier is an admirable speaker. His eloquence delighted his audience without, perhaps, altogether satisfying their intellectual curiosity. He told his English hearers a great deal about Pope Pius X., and the things that he and his environment stand for. He talked of his personal humility, his official fanaticism, his incapacity for taking in new ideas, and his cruel attitude towards those who cannot disregard them. He spoke, also, of the growing dissatisfaction of the Latin races both with superstition and scepticism, and of the strong desire of the working class in France and Italy to find a reasonable faith. He told of the philanthropy, the piety, the social enlightenment of the Modernists,—an enlighten- ment so instinct with the spirit of Christian charity that at least one Roman Catholic Bishop who does not sympathise with the direction of their thought has pleaded for them
in ecclesiastical high places on the ground that so much goodness must come only of God.
The only thing M. Sabatier did not tell his hearers was what the Modernists—who are being one by one repudiated by Rome as heretics—really believe. His reticence, we think, disappointed his audience. Yet it was perhaps inevit- able, for " Modernism," be said, " is not a party, a sect, a school, or even a method, but a direction of thought (tine orientation)." It is the point of view of those who, while continuing to declare their allegiance to the Roman Church, assume a right to freedom of thought, believe theology to be a progressive science, and regard the censorious dogmatism of the present Pope and his advisers as a deter- mined effort to maintain religious stagnation. They all agree in defending their right to think freely, but they do not all think alike.
How, then, do they stand towards authority P The question is, of course, a very critical one. According to M. Sabatier, they do not defy the authority of their Church ; they respect it, but they desire to induce the Pope and the Curia to reconsider in the light of present-day knowledge what authority means. By an analogy M. Sabatier threw a light upon a position which cannot be exactly defined. A growing-up son who is devoted to his parents does not defy their authority ; but he does not consider himself bound by the rules and regulations which they made for him as a child; neither can he continue to think their thoughts as he did when they seemed to him to be all-wise. Their influence may indeed direct him till his death ; but it is an inward influence. The sway which was once outward and absolute is now wholly from within. It is interiorise. The analogy has perhaps more force in France than in England. To an Englishman it is difficult to see how such loyal adherence can be called sub- mission to authority at all, or how it differs from the loyal affection felt by Protestants for their chosen Churches, whether Established or Free. M. Sabatier, however, maintains that it does differ. The Protestant is in the matter of religion an individualist, the Roman Catholic is not. Be he Modernist or orthodox, his Church is his country, and he feels towards her a sort of spiritual patriotism. The Modernist, M. Sabatier explained, does not perpetually ask himself whether his Church has always been right in all her past actions. He does not measure his devotion by the number of times he is able judicially to decide in her favour, any more than a good patriot would so measure his devotion to his fatherland. He studies the history of his Church, if his inclination leads him to do so, with a free mind, as he would study the history of his country. It is not necessary to falsify history in order to make men patriotic. He loves his Church, but he believes that the Church, like the Sabbath, was made for man, and not man for the Church. Also, the word " Church" means to him, not a hierarchy of ecclesiastics, but the whole community of the faithful. The Modernist is a religious democrat, and we should imagine that Vox populi vox Dei in matters religious would represent his views at least as nearly as any dogmatic assertion of the Pope's vicegerency. M. Sabatier several times alluded to Father Tyrrell as a notable representative of the Modernist spirit in England. His words about the Church could not but remind those of his audience who were familiar with Father Tyrrell's writings of his (Father Tyrrell's) more specific teaching upon the same subject. In a book published by him last year entitled " Through Scylla and Charybdis " (p. 381) we read :—" One thing, at least, is certain, that democracy has come to stay; that to the genera- tions of the near future any other conception of authority will be simply unthinkable ; that if the authority of Popes, Councils, and Bishops cannot be reinterpreted in that sense, it is as irrevocably doomed as the theologies of man's childhood. The receptivity of the general mind is a fact that priesthoods have to reckon with, and always do reckon with in the long run. They cease to say, nay, they cease to believe, that to which the general ear has become permanently deaf. They would fain seem to lead, but, in fact, they follow the spirit in its developments ; for it is there, and there only, that truth is worked out."
On the question of dogma M. Sabatier spoke little. The Modernists, he said, regard dogma as the least part of Christianity; nevertheless, so far as the Roman dogma is concerned, they " deny nothing." M. Sabatier drew no inference from this statement, though he emuhasised it strongly; but it was impossible for his heareis not to con- sider what his words implied. To think freely, yet deny nothing which the Roman Church teaches, must mean—at least for a priest—the drawing of a very sharp distinction between religious and historical truth. Possible dilemmas sprang unbidden to the minds of M. Sabatier's hearers. The Modernists have produced already one first-class Biblical critic. Would it be possible for a Roman Catholic Biblical student to be convinced that our Lord instituted a com- memorative supper, yet to teach Transubstantiation P to believe that a Jewish woman of no supernatural distinction bore the Saviour, yet to participate in the adoration of the Queen of Heaven P Into such positions the Modernist who denies nothing is certainly in danger of being pushed. But to return to M. Sabatier, whose method of instruction allows of no such crude questions and answers. The Modernists do not ask themselves, he said, at which period of her history the Church was nearest the truth. Her history has been one long period of inevitable development. Again his words sound like an echo of Father Tyrrell, who speaks (p. 77 of " Through Scylla and Charybdis ") of " Catholicism " as " divine with the divinity of a natural process." That is as much as to say—and taking M. Sabatier's lectures as a whole, we gather this to have been their upshot—that the development of Church dogma has kept pace with the development of the human soul, and was and will be its best, its divinely appointed, but ever-changing expression. To arrest that process of development is to oppose the destiny of the Church, and all such opposition, even though it come from a Pope, is doomed to failure.
Is it possible, out of all this negative matter, to come to any affirmative conclusion with regard to the belief of the Modernists P Are they not, in reality, sceptics with a pions inclination ? we imagine some one asking. We think it is possible by a negative process to find an affirmative basis to their thought. Clearly they are not materialists, for they regard man's spiritual life as no less real than his physical. They are not agnostics, for they take it for granted that man's spiritual relation to his Creator can be known and chronicled. They cannot be denied the name of Christians, for they would seem to display an almost Apostolic fervour and consider every question—religious, political, and social—in the light of the teaching of Christ. Plainly they believe in God as revealed by Christ. They are not schismatics, for they are ready to put up with any rebuff rather than separate themselves from the Roman Church. Can they, however, be called Roman Catholics ? That point we must leave for our readers to decide.
The Modernists have our sympathy in no small degree owing to their courage and sincerity, but we cannot help thinking that they must before long be somewhat more explioit in their expressions of faith. Men do not make converts by " denying nothing." Till they affirm something, not only as individuals, but as a body, it is very difficult for outsiders to judge whether the movement is a reaction towards faith—a revival of confidence in God whigh has not as yet found adequate expression—or whether it is but one more evidence of the disintegration of orthodox formulas which has taken place during the last half- century. For the moment the Protestant world, watching the impotent anathemas of the Pope, will be tempted to withhold its judgment, remembering the wise words of Gamaliel : " If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."
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