PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X
ON THE DOCTRINES
OF THE MODERNISTS
To the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops
and other Local Ordinaries in Peace
and Communion with the Apostolic See.
Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock has especially this duty
assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the
faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of
knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the
supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the
enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things"
(Acts xx. 30), "vain talkers and seducers" (Tit. i. 10), "erring and driving into error" (2 Tim.
iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ
has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and
full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly
Christ's kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to
fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We
have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office.
Gravity of the Situation
2. That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that
the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; they
lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the
more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren,
to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks
of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of
philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines
taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves
as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is
most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer,
whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.
3. Though they express astonishment themselves, no one can justly be surprised that
We number such men among the enemies of the Church, if, leaving out of consideration
the internal disposition of soul, of which God alone is the judge, he is acquainted with
their tenets, their manner of speech, their conduct. Nor indeed will he err in accounting
them the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For as We have said, they
put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the
danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the
more certain, the more intimate is their knowledge of her. Moreover they lay the axe not to
the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fires. And
having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the
whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none
that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skilful, none more astute than they,
in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and
Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and since audacity
is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or
which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added
the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the
greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that
they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality. Finally, and this almost
destroys all hope of cure, their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that
they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they
attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.
Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better sense, and to this end we first of
all showed them kindness as Our children, then we treated them with severity, and at last
We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. But you know,
Venerable Brethren, how fruitless has been Our action. They bowed their head for a
moment, but it was soon uplifted more arrogantly than ever. If it were a matter which
concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it: but the security of the
Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore, as to maintain it longer would be a crime, We must
now break silence, in order to expose before the whole Church in their true colours those
men who have assumed this bad disguise.
Division of the Encyclical
4. But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever
artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into
one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and
uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, Venerable
Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the
connexion between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the
errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil.
ANALYSIS OF MODERNIST TEACHING
5. To proceed in an orderly manner in this recondite subject, it must first of all be noted
that every Modernist sustains and comprises within himself many personalities; he is a
philosopher, a believer, a theologian, an historian, a critic, an apologist, a reformer.
These roles must be clearly distinguished from one another by all who would accurately
know their system and thoroughly comprehend the principles and the consequences of
their doctrines.
Agnosticism its Philosophical Foundation
6. We begin, then, with the philosopher. Modernists place the foundation of religious
philosophy in that doctrine which is usually 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. Hence it is incapable of lifting itself up to
God, and of recognising His existence, even by means of visible things. From this it is
inferred that God can never be the direct object of science, and that, as regards history,
He must not be considered as an historical subject. Given these premises, all will readily
perceive what becomes of Natural Theology, of the motives of credibility, of external
revelation. The Modernists simply make away with them altogether; they include them in
Intellectualism, which they call a ridiculous and long ago defunct system. Nor does the
fact that the Church has formally condemned these portentous errors exercise the
slightest restraint upon them. Yet the Vatican Council has defined, "If anyone says that the
one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of
human reason by means of the things that are made, let him be anathema" (De Revel.,
can. I); and also: "If anyone says that it is not possible or not expedient that man be
taught, through the medium of divine revelation, about God and the worship to be paid
Him, let him be anathema" (Ibid., can. 2); and finally, "If anyone says that divine revelation
cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men should be drawn to
the faith only by their personal internal experience or by private inspiration, let him be
anathema" (De Fide, can. 3). But how the Modernists make the transition from
Agnosticism, which is a state of pure nescience, to scientific and historic Atheism, which
is a doctrine of positive denial; and consequently, by what legitimate process of
reasoning, starting from ignorance as to whether God has in fact intervened in the history
of the human race or not, they proceed, in their explanation of this history, to ignore God
altogether, as if He really had not intervened, let him answer who can. Yet it is a fixed and
established principle among them that both science and history must be atheistic: and
within their boundaries there is room for nothing but phenomena; God and all that is
divine are utterly excluded. We shall soon see clearly what, according to this most absurd
teaching, must be held touching the most sacred Person of Christ, what concerning the
mysteries of His life and death, and of His Resurrection and Acension into heaven.
Vital Immanence
7. However, this Agnosticism is only the negative part of the system of the Modernist: the
positive side of it consists in what they call vital immanence. This is how they advance
from one to the other. 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. Hence the principle of religious
immanence is formulated. Moreover, the first actuation, so to say, of every vital
phenomenon, and religion, as has been said, belongs to this category, is due to a certain
necessity or impulsion; but it has its origin, speaking more particularly of life, in a
movement of the heart, which movement is called a sentiment. Therefore, since God is
the object of religion, we must conclude that faith, which is the basis and the foundation
of all religion, consists in a sentiment which originates from a need of the divine. This
need of the divine, which is experienced only in special and favourable circumstances,
cannot, of itself, appertain to the domain of consciousness; it is at first latent within the
consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconsciousness,
where also its roots lies hidden and undetected.
Should anyone ask how it is that this need of the divine which man experiences within
himself grows up into a religion, the Modernists reply thus: 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.
8. But we have not yet come to the end of their philosophy, or, to speak more accurately,
their folly. For Modernism finds in this sentiment not faith only, but with and in faith, as
they understand it, revelation, they say, abides. For what more can one require for
revelation? Is not that religious sentiment which is perceptible in the consciousness
revelation, or at least the beginning of revelation? Nay, is not God Himself, as He
manifests Himself to the soul, indistinctly it is true, in this same religious sense,
revelation? And they add: Since God is both the object and the cause of faith, this
revelation is at the same time of God and from God; that is, God is both the revealer and
the revealed.
Hence, Venerable Brethren, springs that ridiculous proposition of the Modernists, that
every religion, according to the different aspect under which it is viewed, must be
considered as both natural and supernatural. Hence it is that they make consciousness
and revelation synonymous. Hence the law, according to which religious consciousness
is given as the universal rule, to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and to which
all must submit, even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in its teaching
capacity, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline.