By a Benedictine monk

St. Benedict died about 1360 years before St. Pius X wrote his encyclical, entitled Pascendi, in 1907 describing Modernism. In spite of many centuries that separated these two men of the Church, they had very similar thoughts about society. St. Benedict in chapter 4 of his Rule states that the monk must “Prefer nothing to Christ.” St. Pius X, at the very beginning of his pontificate declared that his goal, as the Vicar of Christ on earth, was “… to restore all things in Christ.” Although these two were so distant in the history of the Church, they desired that both the individual soul and the whole of society might be consecrated to Christ.

The Modernist, according to one author, has the “…ambition to eliminate God from all social life.” The man that attempts to remove God from society has already removed Him from his soul. As the adage states, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” If we remove God from mankind, the void must be filled with something. Modernism replaces God with man, denying God His rights as our Father. St. Pius X explains that the Modernist believes in “vital immanence” which is life developing within man without God. In his Rule, St. Benedict also reproves unstable communities of monks that replace God’s will with their personal whims. Whatever they like is considered to be lawful and their dislikes are unlawful.

Every sin is a declaration of independence from God and His Church. We, as sinners, replace God’s will with our self-will. We unjustly usurp His authority and convince ourselves that we no longer need His assistance. Today’s crisis, both in society and the Church, is not an external attack but an internal one. It is a type of intellectual decay of man’s reasoning ability. Through pride the Modernist convinces himself that everything comes from himself and all reality depends upon his individual opinion. The unchanging deposit of faith revealed by God and confided to the Church is now subjected to each man’s changing judgment or personal opinion. The Modernist concept of truth develops with, in, and through man and no longer exists outside of man’s thought. God’s truth no longer transcends from above as a gift of God but is developed by the evolving complex advancement of man’s thought. With this mindset, man’s religious duty, the content of his faith and his moral behavior are removed from the authority of the Church. All of his decisions come from within and no longer depend upon God and His Church. This evolution confirms the Darwinian phrase “survival of the fittest” in the realm of thought.

The Modernist grasps the unchanging, coherent continuity of the faith of the teaching Church as a major obstacle in the advancement of mankind. This constant and stable doctrine would block the natural development of man and is therefore detrimental to society. They essentially state that the stability of Truth stunts man’s necessary evolutionary process. If we lose sight of our absolute dependence upon God as our Creator and the author of all truth, we create an artificial world without a Father. The Modernist replaces Our heavenly Father with some idealistic slogans and becomes an orphan in a society without a Father. The Modernist declares he is essentially God.

Today’s society is fatherless. A Modernist’s life exists by vital immanence which develops with an internal energy that cannot be controlled. This is the same idea of evolution that Teilhard de Chardin proclaims “…is a general condition to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must bow and which they must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true. Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must follow.” Karl Rahner also states “grace can be considered as belonging to man’s existence.” From these ideas the Modernist can conclude that he has become God needing no Father.

These errors lead to the general upheavals in today’s society. Today children can choose their sex if they are not satisfied with the way they were born. One can legally marry another of the same sex and adopt children. The strange doctrine of transhumanism proclaims that man can and should materially and intellectually direct his evolutionary process. He can thereby improve with modern science his intellectual and physical capacities. They are even considering how they can live eternally, conquering death by science. They also speak of transferring their intellect and will to some type of robot so that, through technology, they can continue their existence. They do not want a Father.

The modern association called Black Lives Matter has been a catalyst for many violent protests across the nation. They seek a society without paternity as we know it. According to their official mission statement they declare that they want to “dismantle the patriarchal practice” and also to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another…” This is a new type of communistic society without a Father and a cry of independence in the face of God.

St. Benedict asks us to accept Christ as the source and center of our life. He teaches us of a transcendental God who loves us as a Father, not the Modernist god of vital immanence. Divine Providence is continually involved in the development of our bodies and souls. He asks us to humbly practice charity towards the elderly, the very young and the infirm, knowing that what we do to the smallest among us we do to Christ. This is not Darwin’s idea of the survival of the fittest. Our greatest glory is to be a child of God. He shows us that we have a father in the person of the superior of the monastery who takes the place of Christ in our life. If we could summarize the Rule of St. Benedict it is like the echo of Our Lord teaching us to pray: “Our Father who art in heaven…”