DOCTRINE. — In setting forth, in a rapid synthesis, the doctrinal content of the papal document, the author may be considered from a threefold perspective: apologetic, ascetic, and dogmatic.
Apologetic Aspect. — The author came into being under the impulse of an apologetic concern, aiming, as far as possible, to remove all obstacles that might deter modern man from embracing the Catholic faith. The exigencies of the times should induce the Church to restore the prestige of Catholicism in the eyes of contemporary civilization, yielding to new demands what medieval Catholicism transmitted as perishable, departing somewhat from ancient rigorism, softening old formulas, and passing over in silence certain truths too adverse to modern mentality. It will be the task of missionaries and preachers in our lands to be more accommodating toward non-Catholics, insisting more on the truths that bring them closer rather than on the errors that separate them from the Church.
The teaching of the Gospel must be presented in a more sympathetic light and rendered more consonant with the present aspirations of the soul, so as to align better with human understanding. To obey this urgent need for adaptation, the Church must restrict the exercise of its authority and allow each individual the fullest scope for developing private initiatives. All the more so since, after the definition of papal infallibility, the Pope can always intervene effectively to correct any deviations in the thought of individual faithful left more at liberty.
Such a way of thinking is in contrast with Catholic doctrine. The Vatican Council teaches that the truths of faith are immutable and all derive from God. It is evident, therefore, that they must all be taught without attenuation or reserve, and without variation in meaning. Changes are possible only in the disciplinary order and belong exclusively to religious authority. The Vatican definition, aiming rather to prevent than to correct error, has made the bond of dependence on the Roman Pontiff even stricter.
Ascetic Aspect. — In their vain attempt to justify their singular claim to a broader freedom of thought and action, the Americans appeal to the direct interior action of the Holy Spirit, whose influence, being more fruitful than in the past, would render external spiritual direction unnecessary and superfluous. They further maintain that, to attain Christian perfection, all effort must be directed toward the practice of natural virtues and the exercise of great external activity for the good of society.
Natural virtues must be preferred to supernatural ones, and active virtues to passive ones. The latter, such as obedience and humility, were good and necessary in the past, when circumstances obliged the Church to concentrate all its energies in perfect cohesion of intellects and wills, with a view to a more complete triumph over schisms and heresies. But now that conditions have entirely changed, passive virtues prove more an obstacle than a help in attaining perfection and contribute to forming weak and cowardly souls rather than strong and manly ones. Hence the contempt and disdain of the Americans for religious vows, which they declare ill-suited to the modern spirit.
It is easy to see the incompatibility of these opinions with evangelical teaching. It suffices to observe that all virtues, being operative habits, deserve the name of active, especially those that demand a greater effort of will and a greater sacrifice, such as obedience and humility. Their importance does not change with time, any more than does Jesus Christ, who taught them by example and word, making Himself “obedient even unto death, the death of the cross,” and exhorting us to be “meek and humble of heart.” That broader influence of the Holy Spirit, which the author asserts for the present age, while on the one hand is in open contradiction to the contempt for supernatural virtues and to the history of primitive Christianity, on the other hand would render spiritual direction even more necessary to discern divine inspirations from vain human illusions, which are all too common in this sphere.
Dogmatic Aspect. — Although the author remains primarily on the practical ground of action, he is not entirely estranged from the theoretical domain of ideas. At the root of the attitudes and programs of these promoters of innovative opinions lies a latent naturalism, which is in truth the fundamental idea, the dominant motive of the author: a naturalism overrating man’s possibilities to the point of forgetting the intellectual, moral, and above all, the passionate imbalance caused in him by sin, as well as the consequent necessity of grace to attain the supreme end. In addition to this false conception, which aims to humanize Christianity, a strong current of liberalism is to be noted, in which one can see a manifest return to Protestant doctrines on private inspiration.
In sum, the author presents in embryo many errors that were later condemned by Pius X under the collective name of Modernism.