We pass to the position of the Modernists in the Roman Catholic Church.  It is well known that the advisers of Pius X have committed the Papacy to a wholesale condemnation of the new movement.  The reasons for this condemnation are thus summed up by a distinguished ecclesiastic of that Church[81]: 

’Why has the Pope condemned the Modernists? (1) Because the Modernists have denied that the divine facts related in the Gospel are historically true. (2) Because they have denied that Christ for most of His life knew that He was God, and that He ever knew that He was the Saviour of the world. (3) Because they have denied the divine sanction and the perpetuity of the great dogmas which enter into the Christian creed. (4) Because they have denied that Christ Himself personally ever founded the Church or instituted the Sacraments. (5) Because they deny and subvert the divine constitution of the Church, by teaching that the Pope and the bishops derive their powers, not directly from Christ and His Apostles, but from the Christian people.’

The official condemnation is contained in two documents—­the decree of the Holy Inquisition, ‘Lamentabili sane exitu,’ July 3, 1907, and the Encyclical, ‘Pascendi dominici gregis,’ September 8, 1907.  These pronouncements are intended for Catholics; and their tone is that of authoritative denunciation rather than of argument.  In the main, the summary which they give of Modernist doctrines is as fair as could be expected from a judge who is passing sentence; but the papal theologians have not always resisted the temptation to arouse prejudice by misrepresenting the views which they condemn.  We have not space to analyse these documents, nor is it necessary to do so.  It will be more to the purpose to consider whether, in spite of their official condemnation, the Modernists are likely in the future to make good their footing in the Roman Church.

Even before the Encyclical the Modernists had used very bold language about the authority of the Church.

’The visible Church (writes Mr. Tyrrell in his “Much-abused Letter”) is but a means, a way, a creature, to be used where it helps, to be left where it hinders....  Who have taught us that the consensus of theologians cannot err, but the theologians themselves?  Mortal, fallible, ignorant men like ourselves! ...  Their present domination is but a passing episode in the Church’s history....  May not history repeat itself? [as in the transition from Judaism to Christianity].  Is God’s arm shortened that He should not again out of the very stones raise up seed to Abraham?  May not Catholicism, like Judaism, have to die in order that it may live again in a greater and grander form?  Has not every organism got its limits of development, after which it must decay and be content to survive in its progeny?  Wine-skins stretch, but only within measure; for there comes at last a bursting-point when new ones must be provided.’

In a note he explains:  ’The Church of the Catacombs became the Church of the Vatican; who can tell what the Church of the Vatican may not turn into?’