At the dawn of the 20th Century; several writers who were to become famous under the title of "Modernists" were advancing a deep agenda for reform in the faith and praxis of the Roman Catholic Church. But their agenda met with serious and scholarly opposition from another group of writers; whose essays are here made available in English. They include the historian and university rector Pierre Battifol; the biblical exegete M.J. Lagrange; OP; the Jesuit historical theologians Eugène Portalié and Léonce de Grandmaison; and the philosophers Eugène Franon and Joannès Wehrlé. All welcomed the historico-critical methods of research; and far from thinking them fatal to orthodoxy (as the Modernists did); they thought the Church's faith would survive and be strengthened by rigorous scholarship. These thinkers; then; are the true predecessors of Pius XII (Divino afflante Spiritu) and Vatican II (Dei Verbum). At the same time; these men thought outside the boxes drawn by 19th Century Positivism (Loisy); anti-intellectualist pragmatism (LeRoy); and romantic mysticism (Tyrrell). Their concerns hold new significance in the light of John Paul II's 1990 encyclical Fides et Ratio. Reading these too-long forgotten writers; then; deepens in a new way one's understanding of the Catholic Church's decision to decline and even condemn the Modernists' agenda; whether one ultimately applauds that decision or deplores it.
#1467017 in Books The University Press of Kentucky 2011-01-18Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .88 x 6.00l; .99 #File Name: 0813133793304 pages
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