The last personality of the Modernist is the Reformer. Pope St. Pius X spends only one section on this personality, and it is basically just a list of everything that the Modernists want to reform:

• Philosophy, especially in the seminaries
  • Scholastic philosophy ought to be abandoned as too absolutist, in contrast to modern philosophy which is better suited to the times.
• Theology
  • Rational theology should be based on modern philosophy, and postive theology on the history of dogma.
• History
  • Any history taught must rely on modernist principles discussed earlier.
• Dogmas and their evolution are to be harmonized with science and history.
  • “In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people.”
• Worship:
  • The number of external devotions is to be reduced.
  • Steps must be taken to prevent their further increase.
• Church governance:
  • All branches, but especially disciplinary and dogmatic departments, should be made more democratic.
  • “a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized.”
  • The Roman Congregations and the index and the Holy Office must be modified.
• When engaging with the political world and society, the Church “must adapt itself to them in order to penetrate them with its spirit”
• In the area of morals, the active virtues are more important than the passive, and should be encouraged more.
• Clergy should return to their primitive humility and poverty, and in ideas and action should admit the principles of Modernism.
  • Some desire the suppression of clerical celibacy.

If you change all this, what do you have left?

This post is part of a series on Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Click here for more posts on Pascendi and Modernism.

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