The turmoil surrounding the Second Vatican Council was in
no wise different from that of the First.
Problems facing John Paul I as the first “post Vatican II pope” were
similar, even in many cases the same as those facing Leo XIII. This makes sense, for Vatican II was
construed as a continuation of Vatican I, although so many interpretations have
been forced on to Vatican II that many people forget what the whole thing was
about.
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| Pope Pius IX |
And that was, as we saw in the previous posting in this series, with the twin definitions of papal infallibility and the primacy of
reason in the First Vatican Council, to “take back” religion from the
socialists, modernists, and New Agers.
That is why the Catholic Church went on the “offensive” (so to speak) starting
with Leo XIII and moved into the forefront of the battle with the “new things”
of the modern world.
Pius IX, knowing full well he would not live forever, had
done his best to prepare for what, with no fear of exaggeration, could be termed
a titanic struggle. John XXIII and Paul
VI, who saw the beginning of the renewed offensive by adherents of the “new
things,” did the same, which may be the chief reason John Paul I and his
immediate successor chose the name they did.
At stake is the very nature of existence itself. This affects not merely the Catholic Church,
nor is it confined to religious society.
Most, if not all, of the aberrations in Church, State, and now in the
early twenty-first century the Family, have their origin in the revolt against
reason in the early nineteenth century — ironically, a rebellion frequently
carried out in the name of reason.
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| Dr. Heinrich A. Rommen |
Whether law, finance, religion, even what constitutes
marriage and family, all of it results from a shift from nature (in Thomist
philosophy, God’s Nature reflected in that of each human being and discernible
by reason), to supernature without a grounding in justice. Supernature, a matter of opinion so far as
civil society is concerned, is necessarily based on whoever has the ability to
persuade by reason (rejected by the New Christian movement), or the power to force
his or her will on others.
As Heinrich Rommen observed as the inevitable end of this
movement in his book on the natural law, “might makes right.” Most simply put, this was a shift from the
Intellect (reason) to the Will (faith) in discerning truth, a change that, when
successful, ends in the Triumph of the Will.
Thus,
with the death of Pope Pius IX in February of 1878, both liberals and
conservatives thought the way was cleared for them to have the kind of Catholic
Church they had been prevented from having under Pius. As we might expect, the liberals wanted a
less “authoritarian” and more “authoritative” Church, i.e., one that would make recommendations and suggestions, but basically
let people do whatever they wanted if they felt strongly enough about it.
The
conservatives wanted to return to an imaginary time when everything the Church
said (or, at least, their interpretation of it) was regarded as unchanging and
unchangeable, whether that meant strict Trinitarian doctrine, or the color of
vestments during the celebration of the liturgy. Neither party was willing to accept the fact
that while essential doctrine must be unchanging, “disciplines” — applications
of doctrine — are subject to change and, in fact, must change to adapt the application
of essential teachings to an ever-changing world.
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| Pope Leo XIII |
During
the conclave, not able to compromise or come to a decision as to which
candidate would best realize the contradictory goals of both liberals and
conservatives, the cardinals elected the elderly and frail Gioacchino
Vincenzo Pecci, Cardinal Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia. As Cardinal Pecci was not expected to live
very long (it was thought he would die even before being installed), members of
both parties believed this would give them time to marshal their forces, gather
allies, and be in a good position to elect a candidate more favorable to their
respective agendas.
Surprising everyone (most of all himself), Pecci — who chose
the name Leo XIII — frustrated the various factions who wanted to remake the
Church into their own images and likenesses and went on to have the second longest
pontificate in history up to that time.
From his first encyclical, Inscrutabili
Dei Consilio,
issued two months after his election, he condemned the liberal agenda as “the
Evils Affecting Modern Society,” and signaled his intention to take Christianity
back from the socialists, modernists, and New Agers (we use these terms for
convenience, although they are anachronistic; “modernism” and “the New Age” date
from the early 1800s, but were not so called that until the latter part of the
century).
In his second encyclical eight months later, Quod Apostolici Muneris, Leo XIII specified
“Socialism, Communism, and Nihilism” as chief among the dangers to which he
referred. Six months after that he
issued an encyclical identifying the principal cause of those evils: the
massive confusion between the roles of reason and faith — of nature and supernature. This was Æterni
Patris.
Thereafter followed a series of encyclicals identifying specific
problems and explaining the errors involved.
Unfortunately, matters had degenerated to the point where the old tactic
of simply pointing out what was wrong and explaining why it was wrong was no
longer effective.
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| Father Edward McGlynn |
This is similar to what has happened in our day, when
encyclicals have fallen into a pattern of saying “more and more about less and
less.” There is a very good reason for
this, as will be explained later in this series — but the tactic of having
longer and longer encyclicals does not appear to be effective.
This may be because encyclicals have gotten so lengthy
trying to say too much that it becomes easy for anyone with an agenda to find
something in them to twist and distort.
At the same time, it has become much more difficult for honest readers
to get the point. In the opinion of this
writer, the strategy is right, but the tactic has gotten off track.
What appears to have brought this home to Leo XIII and
inspired him to take a much more proactive approach, one more in keeping with
his personal leadership philosophy, was the notorious “McGlynn Affair.” This scandalized orthodox Christians of all
churches and right-thinking people of all faiths and philosophies in the late
1880s and early 1890s.
Very briefly (for the relevant details and documentary
support for the story are in an upcoming book, as yet untitled), there was a
renegade priest of the New York Archdiocese who was an avid supporter of the
New Christianity. This was Father Edward
McGlynn, who became extremely vocal in his support for socialism and vindictive
and malicious in his attacks on the Catholic Church in general, and the
hierarchy in particular, in those intervals when he wasn’t attacking the new Catholic
school system.
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| Henry George |
Matters came to a head during the New York City mayoral
campaign of 1886 when McGlynn was active in his support for the candidacy of
the agrarian socialist Henry George.
George, the author of Progress and
Poverty (1879) — one of the two most influential socialist books written in
America in the nineteenth century — regarded McGlynn as a “prophet” of the New
Christianity, and McGlynn returned the favor.
Although McGlynn was silenced for most of the campaign by
Archbishop Michael Corrigan, McGlynn and George exploded in fury once an open
attack on the Church could no longer hurt George’s election chances. They blamed George’s loss to the Democrat Abram
Hewitt on interference by the Catholic Church and voter fraud by the Republican
Party (the Old Guard of which, to prevent a socialist from being elected,
instructed Republicans to vote for Hewitt instead of Theodore Roosevelt, for
which Roosevelt never forgave them), even though objective commentators have stated
that neither was a factor.
Such was McGlynn’s vitriol that he was summoned to the
Vatican to explain his actions. He
probably would have gone after the first summons, but George interfered and
persuaded McGlynn that Leo XIII was infringing on his rights as an American
citizen.
Finally, in May of 1887, after McGlynn had ignored two
previous orders issued by the Propaganda
Fide, the pope himself commanded McGlynn to appear within forty days, or he
would be excommunicated for disobedience.
Although McGlynn complained that he was too ill to travel (and
immediately took a trip to the western frontier to avoid being in town to
receive the notice of excommunication), Archbishop Corrigan excommunicated
McGlynn as ordered on July 5, 1887.
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| Archbishop Michael A. Corrigan |
In the interim between the mayoral campaign and McGlynn’s
excommunication, there are hints that Leo XIII was beginning to consider a
change in tactics. Having seen the ease
with which George, McGlynn, and other New Christian and New Age socialists
persuaded people to accept their new faith, the pope evidently believed
something different was needed. That
something was planned is evident, for on January 22, 1887, Bernard John McQuaid,
Bishop of Rochester, New York, wrote to Corrigan that “The Holy Father will
probably issue a dogmatic decision on the question [of socialism].”
The problem was that Leo XIII had already done so — twice — to no apparent effect. Earlier popes had also been adamant in their
condemnation of “the democratic religion,” and had also been ignored.
It took more than four years, but Leo XIII’s answer to the
problem of socialism, modernism, and the New Age was, while strictly orthodox
and not changing one iota of the smallest part of Catholic doctrine, genuinely
revolutionary. Had the forces of unreason
— socialism, modernism, and the New Age — not been so well-entrenched and had
not the situation continued to evolve so rapidly (as it did following the
Second Vatican Council), the pope’s response would have settled the question
for good.
As it was, Leo XIII was very nearly successful, and threw
adherents of the New Christian/Neo-Catholic movement into a panic. His response was the encyclical Rerum Novarum, “On the Condition of
Labor,” issued May 15, 1891.
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