The book is a study of the phenomenon of modernism in Catholicism. The term ‘modernism’ in that meaning had been used since 1907, when the Pope’s encyclic Pascendi Dominici Gregis (Feeding the Herd of God) by Pope Pius X on September 8, 1907, was issued. That message criticized the ideas of renovation in Catholicism. Opposite to the Russian Renovation movement (Obnovlenchestvo) concentrated at the issues of the organization of the ecclesiastic life, and at social problems, the Catholic modernism, first of all, was connected to the Neo-Kantian influence, and the historical criticism in the Biblical studies, so, it was oriented at the renovation of the theological thought. The author declared that a predecessor of that modernism was Pascal, whose ideas were developed by Cardinal Newman. The Modernists tried to lead Catholicism ‘into the accordance with the contemporary worldview’. But that modernism was concerned with the issues of reforming the ecclesiastic life as well (it put it closer to the movement of the Old Catholics). Analyzing the reasons of those modernist trends, K. came to a conclusion, that one of the main reason was Pharisaism in the contemporary life of Catholic Church, stimulated not only with the decisions of the council of 1870, but also with the formal approach to the theological education, and to the development of the theological discipline. A result of such approach to the theological education was in a small quantity of theological magazines. Another reason of modernism was in the desire of the Holy See to make influence at the state politics of West European states, which gave the opposite effect, and became a reason of reforming the relations between State and Church in some countries; the most obvious process were observed in France where the sate was separated from the Church. The author also mentioned that the social politics of the Roman Curia in the late nineteenth – early twentieth centuries was inefficient, and the attempts of making influence at the strategy of workers’ corporations led to conflicts with social-democratic parties; those failures also strengthened modernist moods of the clergy.
Source: Kerensky V. А. Roman Catholic Modernism. Its Origin, Essence, and Significance. Kharkov, ‘Mir. Trud’ Typography, 1911. [2], 58 p.; 24.