Is Pope St. Pius X’s Condemnation of Modernism Still Valid Today?

Is religion nothing more than one’s personal or collective experience? Is there an objective truth revealed by God to the human race, or, any reasonable basis for establishing believability in the Christian Faith?

The Catholic Dictionary characterizes Modernism, or the Modernist, as one who minimalizes the very idea of God, the One True Eternal God who exists outside of all time, space, and matter:

There is no objective revelation from God to the human race, on which Christianity is finally based, nor any reasonable grounds for credibility in the Christian faith, based on miracles or the testimony of history. Faith, therefore, is uniquely from within. In fact, it is part of human nature, “a kind of motion of the heart,” hidden and unconscious. It is, in Modernist terms, a natural instinct belonging to the emotions, a “feeling for the divine” that cannot be expressed in words or doctrinal propositions, an attitude of spirit that all people have naturally but that some are more aware of having.[1]

Thus, faith is reduced to an emotional connection, held to a greater or lesser degree within each person, and the Truth, “takes its form only as the collective consciousness of the current era.”[2] And, if the Truth – takes its form only as the collective consciousness of the current era – then the Truth is relative.

This philosophical movement began in the 19th century but that had its roots in the Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries), which is when scholars and artists took inspiration from classic Greek and Roman works. Concurrently with this Renaissance trend, an intellectual movement rose, called Humanism, that placed emphasis on the ability of “humans to give shape and meaning to their own lives” (cf. General Assembly of Humanists International, IHEU Minimum Statement on Humanism (1996), Accessed on 29 January 2024, www.humanists.international/policy/iheu-minimum-statement-on-humanism/). This, in turn, began to deemphasize the importance of God and religion in shaping human lives.

During the Age of Enlightenment (17th and 18th Centuries), humanist ideas progressed.  “Science and intellectualism advanced, and humanists argued that rationality could replace deism as the means with which to understand the world” [cf. Wikipedia, s.v. “Humanism,” summarizing from Jeaneane D. Fowler, Humanism: Beliefs and Practices (Portland OR: Sussex Academic Press, 1999), 16–18, Accessed on 3 February 2024, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism].

In the 19th century, humanist ideas blossomed fully into modernism, a movement that affected not only philosophy and religion, but also commerce, industry, technology, architecture and all the art forms. Building on its humanistic roots of self-consciousness, modernism “encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence… with the goal of finding that which was holding back progress, and replacing it with new ways of reaching the same end” (cf. Wikipedia, s.v. “Modernism,” Accessed on 29 January 2024, www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism).

Applied to the Catholic faith, modernism also challenged every aspect of the Church’s existence, rejecting the idea that truth is absolute and adopting the position that truth must be redefined in every age in order to meet the needs of that age. Since God is Truth (cf. Joh 14:6) and God is immutable (cf. Thomas Aquinas, “The immutability of God,” Summa Theologiae, I., Q. 9. Accessed on 30 January 2024, www.newadvent.org/summa/1009.htm), if truth is not absolute, that is, if it must be redefined constantly, then there is no God. At its root, then, modernism is atheistic.[3]

Humanism not only brought the focus upon the human person and his rational nature, but placed an emphasis on the ability of humans to give shape and meaning to their own lives. Therefore, as [s]cience and intellectualism advanced, humanists argued that rationality could replace deism as the means with which to understand the world. And, over time, the ideas of humanism gave way to Modernism. A Modernism, which bases itself upon the idea of humanistic self-consciousness, encouraging the re-examination of every aspect of existence – effectively, relating faith, religion and tradition, with the lack of human progress. Thus, the Modernist is Agnostic, he or she places the foundation of religious philosophy in that doctrine… called Agnosticism. According to this teaching human reason is confined entirely within the field of phenomena, that is to say, to things that are perceptible to the senses, and in the manner in which they are perceptible; it has no right and no power to transgress these limits[4]

If this phenomena cannot be observed as real, or true, according to one’s ability to perceive them through the senses, then it does not exist – rationality replaces deism as the means with which to understand the world.

Toward this end:

religion whether natural or supernatural, must, like every other fact, admit of some explanation. But when Natural theology has been destroyed, the road to revelation closed through the rejection of the arguments of credibility, and all external revelation absolutely denied, it is clear that this explanation will be sought in vain outside man himself. It must, therefore, be looked for in man; and since religion is a form of life, the explanation must certainly be found in the life of man.

Science and history, they say, are confined within two limits, the one external, namely, the visible world, the other internal, which is consciousness. When one or other of these boundaries has been reached, there can be no further progress, for beyond is the unknowable. In presence of this unknowable, whether it is outside man and beyond the visible world of nature, or lies hidden within in the subconsciousness, the need of the divine, according to the principles of Fideism, excites in a soul with a propensity towards religion a certain special sentiment, without any previous advertence of the mind: and this sentiment possesses, implied within itself both as its own object and as its intrinsic cause, the reality of the divine, and in a way unites man with God. It is this sentiment to which Modernists give the name of faith, and this it is which they consider the beginning of religion. [5]

If one does not possess the ability through one’s rational nature to derive knowledge of God, His Existence and Attributes from the world of nature, and he is unable to accept God’s Revelation through his rejecting arguments of credibility, the Modernist must look solely within himself for the origin of religion and the divine.

The sentiment, which was at first only rudimentary and almost formless, gradually matured, under the influence of that mysterious principle from which it originated, with the progress of human life, of which, as has been said, it is a form. This, then, is the origin of all religion, even supernatural religion; it is only a development of this religious sentiment. Nor is the Catholic religion an exception; it is quite on a level with the rest; for it was engendered, by the process of vital immanence, in the consciousness of Christ, who was a man of the choicest nature, whose like has never been, nor will be. Those who hear these audacious, these sacrilegious assertions, are simply shocked! And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of infidels. There are many Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings! There is no question now of the old error, by which a sort of right to the supernatural order was claimed for the human nature. We have gone far beyond that: we have reached the point when it is affirmed that our most holy religion, in the man Christ as in us, emanated from nature spontaneously and entirely.… [T]here is surely nothing more destructive of the whole supernatural order. Wherefore the Vatican Council most justly decreed

If anyone says that man cannot be raised by God to a knowledge and perfection which surpasses nature, but that he can and should, by his own efforts and by a constant development, attain finally to the possession of all truth and good, let him be anathema (cf. De Revel., can. 3).[6]

With all of this in mind, the Catholic Church has always taught:

By natural reason man can know God with certainty, on the basis of his works. But there is another order of knowledge, which man cannot possibly arrive at by his own powers: the order of divine Revelation (cf. Dei Filius: DS 3015). Through an utterly free decision, God has revealed himself and given himself to man. This he does by revealing the mystery, his plan of loving goodness, formed from all eternity in Christ, for the benefit of all men. God has fully revealed this plan by sending us his beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.[7]

And, what moves one to believe in God is quite beyond natural reason:

What moves us to believe is not the fact that revealed truths appear as true and intelligible in the light of our natural reason: we believe “because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived” (cf. Dei Filius 3: DS 3008). So “that the submission of our faith might nevertheless be in accordance with reason, God willed that external proofs of his Revelation should be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit” (cf. Dei Filius 3: DS 3009). Thus, the miracles of Christ and the saints, prophecies, the Church’s growth and holiness, and her fruitfulness and stability “are the most certain signs of divine Revelation, adapted to the intelligence of all”; they are “motives of credibility” (motiva credibilitatis), which show that the assent of faith is “by no means a blind impulse of the mind” (cf. Dei Filius 3: DS 3008–10; cf. Mar 16:20; Heb 2:4).[8]

God possesses this ultimate authority because He is God – He can neither deceive nor be deceived – He is Truth itself.

The Old Testament attests that God is the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His Law is truth. His “faithfulness endures to all generations” (cf. Psa 119:90; cf. Pro 8:7; 2 Sam 7:28; Psa 119:142; Luk 1:50). Since God is “true,” the members of his people are called to live in the truth (cf. Rom 3:4; cf. Psa 119:30).[9]

Herein lies the fallacy of Modernism, the belief that men can utilize the God given gift of reason, a spiritual faculty, completely autonomous from Him. That there is no dependence upon God for its operation.

Catholic philosophers, however they differ on minor points, as a general body have held that intellect is a spiritual faculty depending extrinsically, but not intrinsically, on the bodily organism. The importance of a right theory of intellect is twofold: on account of its bearing on epistemology, or the doctrine of knowledge; and because of its connection with the question of the spirituality of the soul.[10]

As well as the misguided conviction that what is objectively True – God Himself – could possibly be redefined in every age in order to meet the needs of that age.

The fact is, the philosophical movement of Modernism remains the heresy it has always been, and God – Who is the Truth – will never change: “For I, the LORD, do not change, and you, sons of Jacob, do not cease to be.”[11] “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”[12]

[1] Hardon, John A. 1980. Modern Catholic Dictionary. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday., p. 356.

[2] Catholic Culture. Peter Mirus. Manifestations of Modernism. What Is Modernism? para. 2. Accessed October 1, 2026. www.catholicculture.org/commentary/manifestations-modernism/

[3] OnePeterFive. Edward Schaefer. Chapter 6: Modernism. Definition. para. 2–5. Accessed October 1, 2026. onepeterfive.com/chapter-6-modernism/#_ftn2

[4] Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (September 8, 1907), Agnosticism its Philosophical Foundation, para. 6. www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html

[5] Ibid., Vital Immanence., para. 7.

[6] Ibid., Deformation of Religious History the Consequence., para 10.

[7] Catholic Church. Catechism of the Catholic Church: Revised in Accordance with the Official Latin Text Promulgated by Pope John Paul II, 2nd ed. (Vatican City; Washington, DC: Libreria Editrice Vaticana; United States Catholic Conference, 1997), 50.

[8] Ibid., 156.

[9] Ibid., 2465.

[10] Catholic Answers. Encyclopedia. Intellect: Treatment of the Faculty of Thought. para. 1. Accessed October 1, 2026. www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/intellect

[11] Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Catholic Church. Saint Joseph Edition of the New American Bible (Washington, D.C. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Totowa, NJ: Catholic Book Publishing Co. 2011)., Mal 3:6.

[12] Ibid., Heb 13:8.