The 150 Points of the Phalange, Catholic, Royal, and Communitarian - Point 10

Point 10. Against Modernism.

The greatest danger for the Catholic Faith has at all times been a declared or dissembling negation of the divinity of Christ, God and perfect man. Arianism and Nestorianism were but extreme manifestations of a rationalist trend which, whether outside the Church or within her, persists in regarding Jesus of Nazareth as a man, albeit undoubtedly exceptional, Who during His life supposedly had intimate and prolonged intercourse with God. Judaism has always clandestinely supported this heretical trend, since it is its justification.

1. The Phalangist unmasks this major heresy in Modernism, which perfidiously accords the “ Christ of faith” – a personage of no substance and a creation of inner experience and individual sentiment – all the titles that the Church ascribes to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, but refuses them, in the name of reason and critical science, to the “ Jesus of history”. This dichotomy, originating in Kantianism and of a consummate hypocrisy, was solemnly denounced by Saint Pius X. It feigns to keep the whole Christian Faith, while at the same time rejecting it as unreal, irrational, and irrelevant.

2. The Phalangist will stand up against Modernism with all the strength of his intelligence by proclaiming the perfect harmony that exists between faith, reason, and the chain of historical facts which link the past and the present. Everything indicates and proves that there is, concerning Jesus Christ, man of our history, but a single reality. He said and proved superabundantly through prophecy and miracle that He was and is the Son of God, the Saviour. Such is the unique and full truth of His mystery, outside of which everything is incomprehensible.

3. The Phalangist will tear their masks from the Modernists, those ravenous wolves and rapacious foxes in sheep’s clothing, sometimes holding the shepherd’s crook, who corrupt the Faith of the faithful with their false science, whilst retaining the appearances of piety and zeal. He will refute them on their own ground, that of science and philosophy, with the authority of the Church’s teaching. He will denounce them to the Pastors of the flock and demand their excommunication, the only way to prevent them from doing harm.

For they are not entitled to be called Christian. They have no place in the Church, ensconced in her professorial chairs and bishoprics, from whence one calls to the other, plotting darkly against God and His Anointed One, Jesus Christ the Son of God, in Whom they do not believe.