Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Pope St. Pius X was Pope from 1903 to 1914, so for 11 years, and one of his major accomplishments during that time of his pontificate was the establishment of what we call the oath against modernism.
So St. Pius X realized the danger that this heresy called modernism posed to the Church, so he required of all those who would hold office in the Church, especially teaching offices, that they take this oath against this heresy, that they realize what this heresy is, and they would denounce, renounce, reject its propositions, and commit to not teaching those erroneous propositions, to not transmitting those erroneous propositions to the faithful, especially the lay faithful.
This oath against modernism has many parts, and one of the propositions of the oath goes like this.
So everybody, again, so those who would be teaching, those who would hold office in the Church, had to recite this oath, and mean it, of course, they had to say, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the Apostles through the Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport.
Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another, different from the one which the Church held previously.
I entirely reject the heretical misrepresentation that dogmas evolve.
They change meaning. Basically, they meant one thing at some point in the past.
Today, we might use the same language, but we really mean something different, and that is erroneous.
And modernism is just a collection of a lot of mistaken ideas about God, about man, about the world, about the faith.
This is one of the mistakes.
So let's focus on that for just a brief moment, because, well, the faithful should all be, basically, should be equipped so that they can recognize when a teaching or an opinion is in contradiction to the faith, to the mind of the Church.
The faithful should be able to recognize it, or at least to suspect it, to realize, oh, something is just not compatible with this theological opinion, with this theological proposition, with this idea.
So the faithful should be able to spot an error, or at least to suspect one.
And this basic skill requires us to be able to identify contradictions, contradictory propositions.
So when some teaching is in contradiction with what we know for sure to be the teaching of the Church, the mind of the Church, what God has revealed, we can know for sure that it is erroneous, that it is wrong, that it is not a development of doctrine, but rather a corruption of doctrine.
Even though it might call itself development, even though it might call itself Catholic, even though it might call itself true, if it is nevertheless in a relationship of contradiction, it's known in Church teaching, it is corrupt, it is erroneous, it is to be rejected.
So again, sometimes we'll spot contradictions, sometimes we'll have doubts.
What do we do in each case?
When we spot a contradiction, well, we can be sure, we can be sure it's not Catholic doctrine.
For example, we know by Catholic doctrine, to receive forgiveness of sins from God, we have to have a firm purpose of amendment.
A person, to be forgiven, has to have his mind made up, I don't want to commit this sin again.
That's a firm purpose of amendment.
My mind is made up.
I've made a decision.
I don't want this sin to be a part of my life anymore.
So when a proposition is taught that says, well, no, in some cases, you can want to keep sinning and still be forgiven.
In some cases, God doesn't really want you to give up your sin, and He will still forgive you.
That's in contradiction.
Catholic teaching says, A, the error says the exact opposite of A, but we know that it's not a development, it's a corruption.
So even though somebody, again, may call it, oh, this is just a development of doctrine, I'm just developing doctrine here, no, you're corrupting it, because it's in a contradiction.
So that's just one example, we could give many more, but again, contradictions are something that we should be able to spot.
And when we spot them, the surer the Catholic doctrine that is being contradicted, the surer we can be that the error is an error.
So if the doctrine of the church is infallible, the error is infallibly wrong, just to use that expression.
Now that happens sometimes.
A lot of other times, what might happen is we might realize that, okay, we're faced with an ambiguous teaching, ambiguous opinion, ambiguous proposition.
What do we do then?
Well, again, same thing, be able to spot something, okay, I don't know, that doesn't sound like Catholic doctrine.
If the Catholic doctrine says A, this could be saying A, this could be saying the opposite of A, I don't know what it's saying.
What should we do then?
Well, I suggest doing this, try to, our default mode of operating should be to try to always interpret people, theologians, whoever it is, according to the mind of the church.
So if we don't know how to take somebody's opinion, somebody's teaching, well, take it according to the mind of the church.
Presume that they're not trying to contradict Catholic doctrine, presume that they're trying to teach in continuity with it, maybe haven't expressed themselves precisely, maybe you haven't thought about what they're saying clearly enough yet, but presume they're not contradicting it.
Why is that a good approach?
Because, again, those who are sincerely trying to develop doctrine won't thank you because they'll say, okay, yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say, I was trying to not contradict A, I was trying to teach in continuity with A, and thank you because you gave me the benefit of the doubt, I'm not trying to contradict anything here.
Okay, and that happens, and then theology can be clarified, made more precise, made more accurate, and that's good.
You practice charity, et cetera.
If, on the other hand, the teacher of error is really such and is not sincere, well, you'll thwart his stealthy plans.
In what sense?
That modernists, leftists, we call them sometimes today, just to use that oversimplified label, but modernists don't usually come out as modernists.
They don't say, hey, I'm a modernist, I'm about to contradict Catholic doctrine.
No, they're stealthy people.
And what they do is they say something that can be interpreted as a corruption of Catholic doctrine, that is a step away from being a contradiction of Catholic doctrine, and then you just have to fill in the blank.
It's as if, hey, you know what I mean, I'm not going to be stupid enough to actually contradict Catholic doctrine and be labeled a heretic, but I'm going to come really close, and come on, you know what I mean, fill in the blank, you know what's on my mind.
So, a smart way to respond to that is to say, well, I'm not going to fall for that.
If you want to be ambiguous, I won't interpret you according to your mind, but according to the mind of the church instead.
If you're going to be ambiguous, if you're not going to be bold enough to be an open heretic, well, guess what?
I'll interpret you according to the mind of the church.
And that's the best way to thwart the plans of modernists, you know, by practicing charity also at the same time.
As St. Paul says, you'll heap burning hot coals upon their head, and that's the best way to go about it.
If we're not sure, okay, is this person going against the teaching of the church?
How should I take it?
Well, thwart their plans.
Keep what they're saying within the mind of the church.
They won't accomplish what they want to accomplish.
You won't lose the virtue of charity.
So, modernism, it's still something that's always been something that is a danger to the faith.
Hence, it is also today.
Let's be on our guard against it.
And let's, above all, pray to our Blessed Lady to keep us from falling into it, because she is a guardian of the faith.
And St. Pius X also knew that.
To her, he was sincerely devoted, and so should we be as well.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.