Saint Francis was at all times faithful to the Church, with an obedience like that of his Master Jesus Christ, that is, even to death (Phil 2:8). He accepted that his ideal of living the Gospel seriously – literally – was not understood or admitted; and he did not mind being taken as an eccentric and extremist. That is why he was treated by the Church with complete fairness and great reverence – to the point of being considered by her, even today, as one of her most radiant Saints.

            Anyway, Saint Francis was a character whose ideals were impractical and exaggerated for his time. That is what the Popes who dealt with him, Cardinal Hugolino, his Protector, and even characters as circumspect as Saint Anthony of Padua (a spiritual son and contemporary of Saint Francis) and Saint Bonaventure himself – soon to succeed Francis as General of the Franciscan Order – thought of him.

            The ensuing Mitigations of the Rule which, out of obedience he was obliged to accept, were always based on the same issue: Given the impossibility of a Gospel taken to the letter, it was necessary to find formulas to make it more reasonable and more capable of being accepted by some followers who, after all, felt themselves to be human beings and not titans.

It is often said, with some plausibility, that History is the Master of life: Maestra. That is why it remains a sad fact that the recurrence of situations is almost never used by men to draw useful lessons; something that happens more frequently than is desirable. Well, we have here a reality that, by an astonishing wonder, has gone unnoticed by scholars: the similarity between the situation faced by Saint Francis and the doctrine advocated by current Modernism, which basically intends to render the Gospel more reasonable and better adapted to the modern mind, so that it can be accepted by modern man.

            Or at least that is how it seems on the part of Modernism; however, the differences between the two situations are too deep to pass unnoticed.

            The fear, or refusal of practical acceptance of the Gospel by those in the Middle Ages is purely external, while the rejection of Revelation on the part of Modernism is entirely internal. This means that in the era of Saint Francis the truth of the Gospel was never doubted (even in all its literalness), although, in any case, it did cast doubts on the capability of men – or at least the vast majority of them – to carry it out; while the rejection accomplished by Modernism reflects the desire to streamline the Gospel, or reduce it to the measurement and interpretation of the categories of today’s human thought.

             At least that is how it appears from a first approach to Modernism. And, truly speaking, this is how that doctrine presents itself; and that is what even those who believe themselves to be most informed about that doctrine think about it. However, this interpretation is not at all the whole truth; in fact, it even contains no truth.

            The Middle Ages was the bearer of an unconditional and absolute Faith in the Revealed Word of God. The heresies – which have existed throughout all ages – attacked few concrete truths of the Faith, and they were easily and promptly condemned and aborted by the Magisterium of the Church. It may be said about Modernism, however, that it attacks all the truths of the Faith at once. Saint Pius X firmly asserted that the Modernist heresy was, in fact, the compendium of all heresies.

            And yet, this is not the whole truth. It would be difficult, and absurd, to imagine Modernism elaborating a list of dogmas and truths of the Faith to deny them one by one, or even all of them as a whole. Such a thing would imply the naïve attitude of simplifying the problem.  What Modernism really does is to attack the very root and foundation of the Faith.[1] In other words, Modernism means the total and absolute denial of the entire supernatural world. The relationship God made Man, accomplished in the Incarnation of the Word and proclaimed by the Faith, has been turned upside down by Modernism into the opposite one of Man made God. 

            It is not a matter of making a Christianity more and better adapted to the mentality of modern man so that it can be accepted by him, nor a matter of a more complete application of the modern techniques of investigation to get a better understanding of Revealed Scripture. Such slogans and similar ones are proclaimed by Modernism with the intention of deceiving the gullible (who, after all, are the species most abundant in the world). The purpose of the New Age Religion is the deification of man and the overcoming of all the myths and beliefs of the past that referred to a transcendent Godhead.

            God is not, in fact, but an Idea that has been developed by Man himself, which has evolved with him, and which now, once man has reached his maturity on this Earth, it is time to be kept in the attic with the rest of the junk.

            The danger – which is immense – of this approach for the Faith of Christians is twofold:

            On the one hand, Modernism is an expert Master in the domain of language. It never presents itself to the community of believers with authentic trappings of its doctrine. The employment of double-meaning language, of ambiguity, of words traditionally used in Christianity which now are given, however, a different significance etc., are techniques perfectly mastered by it.

On the other hand, Modernism has infiltrated today’s Church and has a full force there today because it counts on the most earnest cooperation of much of the Hierarchy, even in its highest ranks. It is not strange, therefore, that much of the Worship which takes place at the present time, as well as an infinite number of Catholics who still consider themselves such, have become, in reality, both the former and the latter, unknowingly Modernist.

The phenomenon is so serious and so poignantly real that it deserves further and more careful consideration.