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Christ and in the Church which teaches in His name. Forever
blessed is that inquirer who consults a priest who, like the Apostle
Philip, has found the Lord and Light of the world and delights in
proclaiming to others, “Come and see.’’
John

T.

McGinn,

C.S.P.

New York, N. Y.

Cardinal Newman

on the

Imitation of Mary

If the Mother of Emmanuel ought to be the first of creatures in sanc­
tity and in beauty; if it became her to be free from all sin from the very
first, and from the moment she received her first grace to begin to merit
more; and if such as was her beginning, such was her end, her concep­
tion immaculate and her death an assumption . . . what is befitting in
the children of such a Mother, but an imitation, in their measure, of her
devotion, her meekness, her simplicity, her modesty, and her sweetness?
Her glories are not only for the sake of her Son, they are for our sakes
also. Let us copy her faith, who received God’s messages by the angel
without a doubt; her patience, who endured St. Joseph’s surprise with­
out a word ; her obedience, who went up to Bethlehem in the winter and
bore our Lord in a stable; her meditative spirit, who pondered in her
heart what she saw and heard about Him: her fortitude, whose heart
the sword went through; her self-surrender, who gave Him up during
His ministry and consented to His death.
Above all, let us imitate her purity, who, rather than relinquish her
virginity, was willing to lose Him for a Son. O my dear children,
young men and young women, what need have you of the intercession
of the Virgin-mother, of her help, of her pattern, in this respect! What
shall bring you forward in the narrow way, if you live in the world, but
the thought and patronage of Mary ? What shall seal your senses, what
shall tranquillise your heart, when sights and sounds of danger are
around you, but Mary? What shall give you patience and endurance,
when you are wearied out with the length of the conflict with evil, with
the unceasing necessity of precautions, with the irksomeness of observ­
ing them, with the tediousness of their repetition, with the strain upon
your mind, with your forlorn and cheerless condition, but a loving communion with her ! She will comfort you in your discouragements,
solace you in your fatigues, raise you after your falls, reward you for
your successes. She will show you her Son, your God and your all.

'

,

John Henry Cardinal Newman, Discourses Addressed to Mixed Congre-

I

gâtions (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906), pp. 374 f.

)

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THE LESSON OF THE HUMANI GENERIS
Speaking about the purpose of the Catholic Church, the Vatican
Council, in its constitution Dei Filius, declared that God had
brought this society into being “so that we might fulfill the obliga­
tion of accepting the true faith and of persevering in it constantly.”
Thus the duty of guarding the purity and the integrity of the
divinely revealed message must be reckoned as one of the highest
prerogatives of the men whom God has commissioned to rule over
His Church. The work of defending and clarifying the deposit of
divine revelation for the entire Church of God is, therefore, an out­
standing privilege and duty of Christ’s Vicar on earth, the Roman
Pontiff.
A glance through the table of contents of Benzinger’s Enchiri­
dion symbolortim or through the index of Cavallera’s Thesaurus
doctrinae catholicae is sufficient to show that a great number among
the successors of St. Peter have discharged their high obligation
in this respect by condemning errors contradictory to or incom­
patible with divine public revelation and by presenting their teach­
ings on these points in pronouncements which have become classi­
cal sources of Catholic theology. Three Pontiffs of the past century,
however, have been privileged to draw up, or, to put it in another
way, have been faced with the duty of drawing up, a rather for­
midable list of errors which have seriously affected the faithful of
their own generations.
In his encyclical Quanta cura, and in the Errorum syllabus at­
tached to it, the great Pius IX stigmatized the doctrinal aberrations
that threatened the faith of the people of his own time.1 Fortythree years later the saintly Pius X issued his encyclical Pascendi
dominici gregis, indicating and condemning the complexus of
heresies and errors which we know by the name of Modernism.2
Some of these same misstatements and misconceptions of Christian
doctrine had been listed and reproved only a few' weeks previously
in the decree Lamentabili sane exitu, issued by the Holy Office.3
Three years after the appearance of the Pascendi dominici gregis,
1 This encyclical was dated Dec. 8, 1864.
2 Sept. 8, 1907.
3 July 3, 1907.
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Pius X sent out his Motu proprio, the Sacrorum antistitum nemi­
nem, in which he warned against the continuing efforts against the
Church and made the oath against the errors of Modernism incum­
bent upon seven different groups of churchmen.45
Our own beloved Pius XII, just three months ago, found it
necessary to make another collection of errors and to reprove
these errors in the encyclical Humani gcncrisP By a remarkable
coincidence, the IIumani generis was issued forty-three years after
the Pascendi, just as this latter document appeared forty-three
years after the Quanta cura and the Syllabus. Actually it would
not be too much to say that these three pronouncements, spanning
a period of eighty-six years, deal with three distinct manifestations
of the same tendency, or the same type of disloyalty to the Catholic
Church and the Catholic faith. In each case the Sovereign Pon­
tiffs have had to deal w’ith errors professed by Catholics who have
had more confidence in the spirit and the intellectual tendencies of
the world, especially the w’orld of intellectual fashion, than they
have had in the truth of Jesus Christ. In the case of the Humani
generis, the Holy Father has likewise been called upon to condemn
the errors of men who have been led astray by an imprudent and
unenlightened desire for religious concord and unity, i
In the very heading of the present encyclical, the Holy Father
announces that he is going to treat of “certain false opinions that
threaten to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine.” The
issue of the Osservatore Romano which carries the document in
its original Latin text and in its Italian translation states in its
headline that “the Supreme Pontiff reproves certain false opinions
and tendencies that threaten to lessen the integrity of Catholic doc­
trine.” The Holy Father himself, in the brief pastoral section
which comes towards the end of the encyclical, speaks of errors
which he has reproved and of norms which he has enjoined in the
Humani generis. And, when we examine the encyclical itself, we
find that it deals primarily with doctrinal errors current in our
own day, but we learn also that it explains the various tendencies
with which these errors are connected, and gives the standards
for accurate and loyal Catholic teaching on the portions of Catholic
4 Sept. 1, 1910.
5 This encyclical was dated Aug. 12, 1950. It first appeared in the Osservatore Romano in the Aug. 21 number.

THE LESSON OF THE tlUMAXI GEXEh’IS

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truth which have been misrepresented by the contemporary writers
whose aberration^ have called forth the denunciation of Christ’s
vicar on earth. j
|The Humani generis is one of those documents which must be
analyzed very carefully if their full meaning is to be appreciated.
The docuinent is magnificently ordered and arranged, and yet its
schematic form, the very thing which must be grasped if the mes­
sage itself is to be completely understood, is somewhat obscured
under the literary perfection of the stylus curiae so characteristic
of all papal encyclicals. For those who study the document in an
unannotated translation, the work of analysis will probably be
somewhat difficult, J
ψΐιε body of the'encyclical is divided into two main parts, a
long doctrinal section (nn. 1-39), and a brief pastoral section (nn.
40-43). The doctrinal part consists of five main divisions. The
first of these (nn. 1-8), after insisting upon the evil of religious
error and discord and error in general, goes on to deal with the
occasions and the classifications of errors current among non­
Catholics in our own time. The remaining four treat of false opin­
ions that have gained adherents within the Catholic Church itself.
The second section (nn. 9-13), speaks about the fact, the motiva­
tion, and the basic errors to be found among the statements of
some Catholic writers of our day, and of the various degrees or
levels of opposition to Catholic truth to be encountered among the
pronouncements issued by this gtoup. The third section (nn.
14-28), is concerned with individual errors in the field of sacred
theology. The fourth (nn. 29-34), is devoted to false teachings
within the domain of philosophy. The fifth (nn. 34-39), describes
and corrects certain aberrations connected with the matter of the
positive sciences.
ERRONEOUS RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

The first paragraph contains the introduction to and the guiding
theme of the entire encyclical, the statement that discord and error
among men on moral and religious matters have ever been the
cause of most profound sorrow to all good people, but especially
to the faithful and loyal children of the Church, particularly today,
when we see the principles of Christian culture being attacked
on all sides. It thus disposes, of course, of the opinion occasionally

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voiced in some ill-enlightened sources not too long ago, an
opinion to the effect that at least in a democracy, diversity of reli­
gion was something desirable.
The remainder of this section, dealing with errors about religion
prevalent in non-Catholic circles, is subdivided into two parts.
The first of these deals with factors that contribute towards false
teachings about religion among those who are not members of the
Church. Some of these factors, those described in the second
paragraph, tend to hold a man back from the acquisition of na­
turally ascertainable information about God and about the natural
law. The force of the senses and of the imagination and evil pas­
sions arising from original sin combine to render the gaining of
this knowledge difficult. The third paragraph reminds the reader
of the encyclical that these factors are what render divine super­
natural revelation morally necessary that, in the present condition
of the human race, religious and moral truths of the natural order
can be known by all, readily, with firm certitude, and with no
admixture of error. The Holy Father has employed a formula
previously used in the Vatican Council’s constitution Dei Filius.
But where the Council had spoken of God’s supernatural revelation
as thus requisite that a natural knowledge about God might be
obtained, the Humani generis describes it as necessary for the
acquisition of natural truth in the fields of religion and of morals.
Another part of this first section, the fourth paragraph, lists
certain influences that tend to hinder a man from recognizing the
powerful objective evidence in favor of the Catholic faith’s credi­
bility, and which move him to reject and resist the graces God offers
him to bring him to the faith. Prejudiced opinions, the passions,
and ill will are listed as factors operating in this direction.
The second portion of the section dealing with errors prevalent
outside the true Church classifies these false teachings under four
headings. First it lists the opinion that the system of evolution,
which, incidentally, the encyclical describes as not completely
proven even in the domain of the natural sciences, can explain
the origin of all things. The Holy Father adds that the people who
adopt this opinion show favor to the monistic and pantheistic no­
tion that the whole world is in a process of continual evolution,
tie notes also that the Communists gladly make use of this opinion
to propound and to exalt their dialectical materialism in the minds

THE LESSON OF THE HUMAX’I GEXERIS

363

of those who have been deprived of all idea of a personal God by
reason of their acceptance of this “evolutionism.”
Next, the Humani generis mentions the new and erroneous
philosophy of existentialism, which ignores the immutable essences
of things and is concerned only with the existence of individuals.
In the third place it speaks of a certain “historicism,” which, being
concerned solely with the events of human life, completely ruins
the foundations of any absolute truth and law, in either the natural
or the supernatural order.
The fourth and final way of error mentioned in this section of
the encyclical is that of non-Catholics who are simultaneously en­
thusiastic for the Bible and hostile to human reason and who are
contemptuous of the Church’s teaching power while they delight­
edly praise the authority of God as the Author of revelation.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ON CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS

ERRORS PROPOUNDED BY SOME CATHOLIC TEACHERS

This part of the encyclical deals with the correct attitude on the
part of Catholic writers towards the errors mentioned in the pre­
vious section, with the twofold motivation underlying the false
opinions propounded by some Catholic teachers, and with the vari­
ous ways in which these opinions are put forward. The Holy
Father teaches that it is the duty of Catholic theologians and phi­
losophers to study the false opinions on religion and morality cur­
rent in the present-day world. They are bound to this study since
they cannot fulfill their obligation to work for truth among men
unless they understand the intellectual evils by which their fellows
are affected. The encyclical also reminds them that quite often
there is a certain amount of truth hidden in these contemporary
errors, and insists upon the fact that the proper study of these
errors will bring about a more careful consideration of known
theological and philosophical truths.
Dealing with the motives that underlie recent aberrations among
Catholic teachers, the Humani generis insists that some of these
men have been led astray by an over-eagerness for new things and
also by a fear that they might be considered ignorant of recent
scientific advances. These individuals, the Holy Father tells us.
are trying to withdraw themselves from the control of the sacred
teaching authority. There is a danger that they may gradually
depart from revealed truth and draw’ others along with them into
error.

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Other proponents of false opinions, the encyclical tells us, have
been motivated by a desire to break down the barriers that divide
good and honest men so as to bring about more readily the incor­
poration of men of every culture and religious opinion within
Christ’s kingdom. Unfortunately these individuals seek to recon­
cile dogmatic differences, and they desire that the theology and the
theological methods which have been taught in our schools with
the approval of the ecclesiastical authority itself should not only
be perfected, but completely reshaped. The Holy Father likens
their attitude towards theology and the theological methods to
that of certain Modernists with respect to the Church’s traditional
apologetics.
The Church, according to the encyclical, definitely does not ob­
ject to any efforts directed towards advancing or perfecting the
theological sciences. What it does reprove in these proponents of
a false “irenicism” is their contention that things founded on laws
and principles given by Our Lord, or on institutions brought into
being by Him—things that actually constitute the defense and the
support of the integrity of the faith, should be regarded as obstacles
standing in the way of work for Christian unity. The Holy Father
reminds us that any unity brought about by the repudiation of
these factors would involve the ruin of those unfortunate enough
to enter into it.
The encyclical then goes on to assert, in the final paragraph of
this section, that these errors, whether motivated by desire of
novelty or by a false zeal for souls, are not always brought forward
to the same degree of insistence or with the same degree of clarity,
nor presented in the same terms, nor advocated unanimously by
all the writers of the movement. The language of the Humani gen­
eris here shows clearly that the Holy Father has a definite and
fairly coherent group in mind.
He tells us that some of these men advance their opinions cau­
tiously and employ distinctions in such a way as to cover up their
real meanings, while others come along afterwards and propose
these same views openly and without moderation. We are told
that the unabashed presentation of these erroneous views has
brought harm to the younger clergy and that it has been detri­
mental to the Church’s teaching authority. The encyclical goes on
to insist that opinions which have been taught in covert fashion in
printed works have been put forth with less restraint in writings

THE LESSON OF THE HUMANI GENERIS

365

destined for private circulation and in conferences and lectures.
Such opinions have been circulated, not only in seminaries and in
religious houses, but also among the laity, especially those en­
gaged in the work of education.
This thirteenth paragraph of the encyclical is extremely interest­
ing from the point of view of recent theological history. The Holy
Father .makes it clear that the same general group, although not
necessarily the same individuals, have taught basically the same
opinions, more circumspectly in published writings and more
openly in documents intended for private circulation. Both Fr.
Garrigou-Lagrange and Fr. Labourdette, the former in his well
known article, “La nouvelle théologie, ou va-t-clle?” and the latter
in his Dialogue théologique have mentioned >uch writings. Λ great
deal of the shameful vituperation heaped on Fr. GarrigouLagrange by writers who should have been above this proce­
dure was due to his discussion of such unpublished material in
connection with his critique of published writings.
ERRORS AND NORMS IN THE FIELD OF SACRED THEOLOGY

The division of the encyclical dealing with false opinions in the
field of theology is divided into four sub-sections. The first of
these deals with errors concerning the terminology and the con­
cepts employed in Catholic dogma and in sacred theology, and
with the standards by which Catholic teaching on these subjects is
to governed. The second treats of errors with respect to the
Church's teaching office and lists the pertinent standards for teach­
ing. The third lists errors about the authority of the Scriptures,
while the fourth contains a list of individual errors that result
from the basic misconceptions mentioned in the first three sub­
sections.
Those who have gone astray in this first field are men who ad­
vise minimizing the meaning of dogma as much as possible and
who wish to free dogma from the mode of expression long estab­
lished in the Church and from philosophical concepts held in esteem
by Catholic teachers. They intend to replace the terminology now
in use with that employed by the Scriptures and the Fathers of the
Church in the explanation of Catholic doctrine. These people,
according to the encyclical, regard the terminology and the con­
cepts to which they object as extrinsic to divine revelation. The
Holy Father goes on to tie up this erroneous tendency with the
twofold motivation of which he spoke in the previous portion of

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tlie Humani generis. Those who seek the replacement of the
Church’s traditional terminology and of the various philosophical
concepts now in use in expounding God's message hope by this
means to bring about ultimately a mutual assimilation of Catholic
dogma and the tenets of the dissidents. At the same time they
expect thus to be able to satisfy what thejr consider modern needs
by expressing Catholic dogma in the terms and the concepts of
such contemporary philosophies as those of “immancntism,” “ideal­
ism,” or ‘"existentialism.”
The encyclical then indicates a second and a worse basic error
in this field. There are some bolder spirits, it informs us, who
hold that dogma can and ought to be presented clothed with the
terminology and the concepts of these false philosophies because,
they contend, the mysteries of the faith can never be expressed by
adequately true concepts, but only by notions which they call
“approximative,” notions which serve to a certain extent to disclose the truth, but which, at the same time, necessarily distort it.
Hence they believe that theology, utilizing various forms through
the course of the ages, can and must substitute new notions for old
ones, so that it may make the same divine truths available to men
in different ways, and even in ways that are to some extent opposed
to one another, but which remain, as they put it, equivalent. Such
individuals maintain that the history of dogma is the record of
these various successive forms, differing according to the various
philosophies and opinions that have come into being during the
course of the centuries, forms in which revealed truth has been
clothed.
The next two paragraphs deal with norms pertinent to these er­
rors. The Humani generis declares that this second error actually
embodies what is known as dogmatic “relativism,” and that the
contempt for traditional teaching and for traditional terminology
in which the Church’s doctrine is expressed tends effectively in
that same direction. The encyclical insists that the terminology
employed in the schools and in the Church’s own teaching office
can be perfected. Furthermore, we are told that it is common
knowledge that the Church itself has not always used the same
words in exactly the same way.
The Fïumani generis speaks out very clearly on the subject of
the Church’s relation to various philosophies which have flourished
during its own history. It insists that the Church is in no way

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THE LESSON OF THE HUMANI GENERIS

367

bound up with the various and ephemeral systems of thought
which have attracted attention for a little while. At the same time
it teaches that words and concepts composed and elaborated through
common effort by Catholic teachers during the course of many
centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are by no
means based upon any such faulty foundation as that of an evanes­
cent philosophy. It teaches that the works of these men are based
upon principles and concepts deduced from an accurate knowledge
of created reality, and confirmed by the revealed truth proposed by
the Church. Hence, the Holy Father assures us, some of these no­
tions have been used and even sanctioned by oecumenical coun­
cils, in such a way that it is wrong (nefas) to depart from them.
To neglect such notions and concepts, or to attempt to reject
them or to deprive them of their value, the Humani generis cen­
sures as supremely imprudent and as a tentative to represent
Catholic dogma itself as something subject to change. The current
contempt for notions and terms regularly employed by scholastic
theologians is designated as something which tends to weaken specu­
lative theology, a discipline which the erring Catholic teachers con­
sider incapable of generating genuine certitude because it employs
the ratio theologica.
The second sub-section of that portion of the encyclical devoted
to contemporary false opinions in the field of sacred theology deals
with the teaching office of the Church itself. The Holy Father
complains that the men who are avid for novelties pass easily from
a contempt for scholastic theology to a neglect or even a contempt
for the teaching authority of the Church, which supports scholastic
theology. In general these errant teachers are said to look upon
the Church’s magisterium as a hindrance to progress and as an
obstacle standing in the way of science. Here the Humani generis
takes cognizance of an opinion current among some non-Catholics,
a belief that the Church’s teaching authority is an unjust restrain­
ing factor, preventing some qualified theologians from reforming
their own subject. This juxtaposition of opinions is calculated to
show that these unfortunate Catholic teachers have, in effect,
adopted a characteristically non-Catholic attitude towards the
ecclesia docens.
The Holy Father states that these teachers sometimes treat the
obligation of complete adherence to the Church’s magisterium as if
it were non-existent, despite the fact that this teaching agency has

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been constituted as the proximate and universal norm of truth for
all theologians. The Holy Father reminds his readers that Our
Lord has entrusted the entire deposit of faith, including both
Scripture and tradition, to the Church, so that the Church may
guard, preserve, and explain it. The faithful are strictly obligated
to avoid errors that more or less approach the gravity of heresy,
and to obey the various constitutions and decrees in which such
evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See.
Specifically the Holy Father reproves the conduct of some men
who deliberately and habitually neglect what the Popes have taught
in their encyclicals about the nature and the constitution of the
Church in order that a kind of vague notion which they say they
have drawn from the Fathers, especially from the Creek Fathers,
may prevail. These individuals claim that the Pontiffs do not wish
to pass Judgment on matters disputed among theologians. Con­
sequently, they believe, we should go back to the earliest sources,
and from these writings of the ancients explain what the magisterium of the Church has taught in more recent times.
The Humani generis then proceeds to give the norms which
should govern Catholic teaching on the matters mentioned in this
series of errors, errors which it describes as cleverly stated, but
still fallacious. First of all, it insists that, despite the fact that
generally speaking the Pontiffs allow freedom of discussion on
points disputed among better-known theologians, history teaches
us that several issues which were once subject to discussion are
now no longer open to question.
Then, passing on to the teaching about the doctrinal import of
the papal encyclicals, the Holy Father tells us that it is a mistake
to withhold assent from doctrines proposed in these documents on
the pretense that the Pope does not exercise his supreme teaching
power in the encyclicals. These letters demand assent of themselves. Things taught in them are proposed in the ordinary magisterium, in which, just as truly as in the solemn judgments of the
Church, Our Lord’s promise set forth in the Gospel according
to St. Luke, the promise that the man who accepts the Church’s
teaching actually accepts His doctrine,0 is verified. The Humani
generis presents as a general norm to cover teaching on this point
the statement that, when the Holy Father gives his decision on
«Cf. Luke 10:16.

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369

any subject which has hitherto been subject to controversy, his
judgment is no longer open to question among theologians.
Since the errors about the Church’s teaching office involved men­
tion of the sources of revelation, the encyclical sets forth certain
norms which are to regulate their use. It informs us that it i.·,
definitely the business of the theologia)! to have recourse to Scrip­
ture and to tradition, since it is his duty to show how the truths
set forth in the Church’s living magisterium are actually to be
found, either implicitly or explicitly, in these very sources. Then
it goes on to show that an insistence upon this function in no way
closes the door upon the possibility of definiie progress in theology.
Such progress is made possible by reason of the inexhaustible
wealth of truth contained in the sources themselves.
The Holy Father assures us that positive theology is definitely
not to be considered as something on the same plane with merely
historical science, since God has given His Church both the sources
of revelation and the sacred magisterium and has commissioned
this latter to elucidate and explain what is contained only obscurely
and as it were implicitly in the deposit of faith. The encyclical
reiterates the truth that the power to expound the deposit of faith
authentically was given by Our Lord, not to all the faithful nor to
the theologians themselves, but only to the Church’s magisterium.
Since the Church has used this power time and time again through­
out the centuries in both the ordinary and extraordinary exercise
of its authority, we are told that the method of explaining these
clear statements through an appeal to obscure sources must evi­
dently be considered as entirel}' false. Exactly the opposite proce­
dure should be adopted. This paragraph of the encyclical ends
with a citation of the great Pius IX, to the effect the noblest task
of the theologian is that of showing how the doctrines defined by
the Church are actually contained in the sources of revelation in
the very sense in which they have been defined by the Church.
The third sub-section of this portion of the encyclical deals with
contemporary errors that are derogatory to the divine authority
of Sacred Scripture. The first of these aberrations consists in a ,
perversion of the doctrine that God is the Author of these books. \
The second is a renewal of the old false teaching that the infalli­
bility of Sacred Scripture extends only to its statements about
God, about morals, and about religion. Another is the teaching
that there is a human sense of Scripture, under which a divine '

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sense, the only infallible sense or meaning according to these mis­
taken teachers, lies concealed.
/
A fourth error is to be found in the tendency of some writers
k to take no cognizance of the analogy of faith or of the Church’s
) tradition in interpreting Scripture. Such individuals hold that
/ a merely human or independent interpretation of the Scriptures
) constitutes the norm by which the teaching of the Church’s viagis\ terium and that of the Fathers is to be evaluated. Actually Sacred
\ Scripture must be interpreted according to the mind of the Church.
The last mistake about the interpretation of the Bible stigma­
tized in this part of the encyclical is that of men who wish to
replace the traditional literal sense of the sacred books by a sort
of exegesis they call symbolical and spiritual. They hope, in this
way, to make the Old Testament, which they consider a “closed
fountain” in the Church at present, eventually available to all.
They claim, moreover, that all the difficulties against the Bible,
difficulties they believe to be connected with the literal sense of
Scripture, will vanish once the literal sense has been discarded.
The encyclical does not give any series of norms governing the
matter covered by these errors about Scripture and its interpreta­
tion. It simply points to the fact that all of them are in manifest
opposition to the teachings contained in Pope Leo’s Providentissimus, Pope Benedict’s Spiritus Paraclitus, and the present Holy
Father’s Divino afflante Spiritu.
The fourth and final sub-section of this part of the encyclical lists
some individual errors as “poisonous fruits” of the false teachings
and tendencies already described. The Holy Father explicitly
mentions and condemns the following.
a) Doubt that human reason, without the help of divine revela­
tion and of divine grace, can demonstrate the existence of a per­
sonal God by means of arguments deduced from created things.
b) A denial that the world had a beginning.
c) The statement that the creation of the world was necessary
d) The demal that God has an eternal and infallible foreknowl­
edge of man’s free actions.
e) A belief that the doctrine according to which angels are crea­
tures endowed with personality is open to question.
f) Admission of the hypothesis that there is no essential difference
between matter and spirit.

THE LESSON OF THE HUMANI GENERIS

371

g) A perversion of the Catholic teaching on the gratuity of the
supernatural order, based on the assumption that God cannot cre­
ate a creature endowed with intelligence without ordering and
calling that creature to the beatific vision.
h) A corruption of Catholic teaching about the concept and the
definitions of original sin, of sin in general as an offense against
God, and of the satisfaction Christ made for us. On all of these
points the Tridentine definitions have been neglected by the men
who are guilty of this faulty teaching.
i) A teaching that the doctrine of transubstantiation, as some­
thing based upon an outmoded philosophical concept of substance,
ought to be revised in such a way that Our Lord’s Real Presence
in the Blessed Sacrament would be reduced to a kind of symbolism,
according to which the consecrated species would merely be effica­
cious signs of Our Lord's spiritual presence and of His intimate
union with the faithful members in the Mystical Body.
j) An opinion that rnen are not bound by the teaching contained
in the Mystici Corporis and based upon the sources of revelation,
the teaching to the effect that Christ’s Mystical Body and the
Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. In the light
of this decision of the Humani generis, incidentally, it would hence­
forth be erroneous to deny that the Mystici Corporis had taught
that the Catholic Church is actually the Mystical Body.
k) A teaching which reduces the necessity of belonging to the true
Church in order to attain eternal salvation to an empty formula.
l) A minimizing of the rational character of the credibility of the
Christian faith.
The final paragraph in this part of the encyclical declares that
manifestly these and other evils have crept in among some of the
children of the Church who have been led astray by a false zeal
for souls and by pseudo-science. The Holy Father states that he
has been compelled to point out these errors and dangers of error,
and that he has acted “not without anxiety.”
ERRORS AND NORMS IN THE FIELD OF PHILOSOPHY

The fourth part of the doctrinal section of this encyclical opens
with a series of general norms for Catholic teaching about this
science. It then considers two sets of errors, appending after each
list the pertinent individual standards for correct presentation of
Catholic truth on this subject. Finally it speaks of the fruits of

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these errors and of the ultimate sources of the intellectual evils
reproved in this section of the papal letter.
The first paragraph of this part sets forth the Catholic teaching
about the competence of the human mind, the need of a true
philosophy for the proper operation of the human mind in mat­
ters of faith and morals, and the characteristics of this true philoso­
phy. The Catholic Church teaches that human reason is capable
of demonstrating with certainty the existence of the one personal
God, that it can build up an incontrovertible proof of the founda­
tions of the Christian faith itself from signs given by God, and that
it can achieve some understanding and a most fruitful understand­
ing of the mysteries. The Humani generis insists, however, that
reason can accomplish these functions fittingly and safely only
when it is properly trained, or in possession of the sane and tradi­
tional philosophy, a system of thought which has stood up under
the test of divine revelation, proposed by the infallible magisterium
of the Church. This philosophy is described as one which protects
the true and sincere value of human knowledge, proclaims the
basic metaphysical principles of sufficient reason, causality and of
finality, and teaches that certain and immutable truth can be known.
The encyclical acknowledges that there are points in even this
traditional philosophy which have no connection with truths of
faith and morals, and which, as a result, the Church leaves free
for discussion. It reminds its readers, however, that this same
freedom does not obtain throughout the entire extent of philosophy,
and that this is true particularly where its basic teachings are con­
cerned. Even with respect to such basic questions, it is definitely
permissible to clothe this philosophy in a better form, to endow
it with an improved terminology, cautiously to enrich it with ele­
ments gained during the advance of human knowledge, and to
divest it of some imperfections. It is never allowable, however, to
reject it, to contaminate it with false principles, or to pass it over
as something obsolete.
The Humani generis reminds us that truth and the philosophical
expression of truth do not change from day to day, and that this
holds particularly in the case of philosophical principles and con­
clusions that have been confirmed by revelation. God guides the
human mind, not so that it may replace one truth by another, but
in such a way that it puts aside errors which it may have admitted,
and builds upon its foundation of truth. Both philosophers and

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373

theologians are urged not to accept, blindly every new teaching ex­
cogitated in this world, but to subject new ideas to severe and ob­
jective criticism, lest they admit some notions that would pervert
or destroy the truth they already possess, and damage or ruin
their own faith.
The norms already given in this section serve to explain, the
encyclical tells us, why the Church, in its Canon Law, insists upon
the philosophical training of its candidates for the priesthood “ad
Angelici Doctoris rationem, doctrinam et principia.” The Holy
Father tells us that the method and the ratio of St. Thomas are
outstandingly good for the training of beginners in philosophy and
for the investigation of advanced questions, that his doctrine is
consonant with divine revelation, most useful for the defense of the
faith, and for the effective and secure assimilation of the fruits of
genuine intellectual progress.
The Holy Father complains that certain teachers within the
Church affect to despise this traditional and recognized philosophy
on the pretense that it is outmoded in form and rationalistic in its
process of thought. These men err in holding that our philosophy
is imperfect because it teaches that an absolutely true metaphysic
can exist. They hold, on the contrary, that reality, especially
transcendent reality, can best be expressed by disparate doctrines,
teachings which are supposed to complete one another, even while
they are to a certain extent mutually opposed. These same indi­
viduals, in short, are charged with passing over the systematic
philosophy of the Catholic schools as something fitted only to in­
troduce men to the study of scholastic theology, or as something
that appealed to the minds of mediaeval men and which has no
message or meaning for the men of our own time.
They turn away from the perennial philosophy as something
concerned only with unchanging essences, and claim that the con­
temporary mind necessarily looks towards the existences of indi­
vidual things, and towards an ever-changing life process. And,
while they despise this philosophy, they praise every other kind to
the sky, in such a way as to suggest that any sort of philosophy
or opinion, with some additions or perhaps corrections, can be
reconciled with Catholic dogma. The encyclical offers us as a norm
for correct teaching on this point the declaration that some phi­
losophies, particularly those of immanentism, idealism, historical

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or dialectical materialism, or atheistic or sceptical existentialism,
are incompatible with Catholic dogma.
The encyclical then takes cognizance that these teachers some­
times oppose the Church’s perennial philosophy on yet another
ground, repudiating it as something that treats only of the intellect
in explaining the process of cognition, neglecting the function of
the will and of the affections. It denounces this attitude as false
because the Christian philosoplry has never denied the utility and
the efficacy of good dispositions of the entire mind for the knowl­
edge and the acceptance of religious and moral truths. As a matter
of fact it has actually insisted that the lack of such dispositions
explains how an intellect affected by ill will and by passions can
be darkened so that it does not grasp truth properly. The Holy
Father reminds us of St. Thomas’ teaching to the effect that the
intellect can be aided in its understanding of higher things belong­
ing to either the natural or the supernatural order by a kind of
affective connaturality for these realities, whether this connaturality
be something on the level of nature or a gift pertaining to the
order of divine grace.
The Humani generis reminds us, however, that it is one thing
to acknowledge that the disposition of the affections of the will
has the power to aid the reason to acquire a more certain and firm
cognition of moral truth, and it is quite another thing to attribute,
as these innovators do, a sort of intuitive power to the appetitive or
affective faculties themselves, or to say that when the intellect has
shown itself incapable of deciding what is true in any given case, it
turns to the will which makes a free choice in such a manner that
cognition and the act of the will are mixed up together in this
operation.
The Holy Father states that the false opinions he has listed and
discussed endanger two sciences which by their very nature are
intimately connected with the doctrine of faith. The men who
propound these opinions describe theodicy and ethics as intended,
not to prove anything certain about God or about any transcendent
reality, but only to show that what faith teaches about the per­
sonal God and about His commandments is in harmony with the
necessities of life, and that this doctrine must be accepted if men
are going to escape despair and attain eternal salvation.
The Holy Father condemns these opinions as obviously contra­
dicting the statements of Leo XIII and Pius X and as incompatible

THE LESSON OF THE HUMANI GENERIS

375

with the teaching of the Vatican Council. He states that this con­
demnation would not have been necessary if men had paid proper
attention to the Church’s magisterium, which is commissioned and
obligated to watch over philosophical teachings at the same time
that it is empowered to guard the deposit of divine revelation.
ERRORS IN THE FIELD OF POSITIVE SCIENCE

This portion of the encyclical opens with a statement of general
norms. Noting that many persons insist that the Church should
take serious cognizance of the teachings of the positive sciences,
where these doctrines come into contact with the truths of the
faith, the Holy Father designates this insistence as something
laudable where it has reference to facts actually demonstrated by
these positive disciplines. He reminds us, however, that mere hy­
potheses set forth in these sciences must be handled with great
caution when they touch upon doctrine contained in the sources of
divine revelation. Hypotheses that are opposed directly or even
indirectly to revealed truth must not be accepted in any way.
The Humani generis then deals with individual hypotheses set
forth in the name of three positive sciences, biology, anthropology,
and history. The first of these hypotheses, put forward in the
name of biology and anthropology, is the evolutionistic explanation
of the origin of the human body as something which was
formed originally from existent and living matter. The Church’s
magisterium allows discussion and investigation about the truth
of this theory in the present status of theology and of the positive
disciplines by men competent in either field, but allows it under
certain conditions. The first condition is that serious consideration
should be given to reasons on both sides, those that militate against
the hypothesis as well as those that favor it. The second is that
men on both sides must be prepared to obey the Church’s judg­
ment when it is issued. The Holy Father complains that the free­
dom of discussion allowed by the Church on this point has been
definitely abused by men who conduct themselves as if the origin
of the human body from existent and living matter has been estab­
lished and demonstrated as certain from evidence now at hand and
from reasonings already made from that evidence. These indi­
viduals like-wise abuse the freedom the Church has accorded them
when they act as if there were nothing in the content of the sources

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of revelation that makes great caution on the subject matter of this
hypothesis imperative.
At the same time, the encyclical assures us that the origin of the
human soul is definitely not open to question. The Catholic faith
obligates us to hold that souls are immediate!}' created by God.
Another hypothesis, that of polygenism, is put forward in the
name of anthropology. The Holy Father tells us that this must be
rejected outright. The faithful cannot accept the doctrine that
here on earth after Adam there lived true men who did not
derive their origin from him as the first parent of all men by the
process of natural generation. They are likewise forbidden to hold
that the name “Adam” stands for a group of first parents. There
is absolutely no evidence that either of these hypotheses could be
reconciled with what the sources of revelation contain and the
Church’s magisterium teaches about original sin. The encyclical
reminds us that original sin is something that proceeds from an
offense against God actually committed by Adam as an individual
person, and that it affects each individual as something which has
come to him through the process of generation.
The last two doctrinal paragraphs of the encyclical deal with an
erroneous tendency that masks itself under the guise of history.
The Holy Father asserts that some men have interpreted the his­
torical books of the Old Testament in entirely too free a manner,
and that they have wrongly appealed to a recent letter from the
Pontifical Biblical Commission to the Archbishop of Paris in sup­
port of their position. This letter, signed by the late Fr. Vosté
and addressed to Cardinal Suhard, spoke of the first eleven chap­
ters of the Book of Genesis. The encyclical reminds us of its in­
sistence that, despite the fact that these chapters do not manifest
the qualities of historical composition to be found in the works of the
outstanding Greek and Latin historians or those manifest in com­
petent historical writings of our own time, they must be classified
in some true sense as historical. The letter also reminded the
exegetes of their duty to investigate and to determine in just what
way these chapters can rightfully lay claim to this designation.
Explaining and employing the terms used in the letter to Cardi­
nal Suhard, the Holy Father brings out the fact that these eleven
chapters accomplish a twofold work, using simple and figurative
language, adapted to the mentality of a comparatively uncultured
people. They set forth the principal truths of the order of salvation

THE LESSON OF THE HL'MANI GENERIS

and they also give a popular description of the origin of both the
human race and of the chosen people.
The Plumant generis admits the possibility that inspired writers
of the Old Testament drew some of their material from non­
inspired popular narratives. At the same time it warns its readers
not to forget that, in acting thus, these men were aided by the
process of divine inspiration, which preserved them from error in
their task of selecting and evaluating these documents.
Finally, the encyclical assures us that material taken from popu­
lar narratives and incorporai ed into the inspired writings is defi­
nitely not to be put on the same level as myths. The very character
of the sacred books of the Old Testament makes it clear that the
inspired writers utterly btirpasb the profane authors of ancient
times.
THE SITUATION AX!) ITS EXIGENCIES

In the brief pastoral portion of the encyclical, the Holy Father
describes the reaction of the Catholic academic world to the errors
he has treated in the dogmatic part of this document. He then
issues certain definite commands and admonitions, demanded by
the actual situation, to Bishops, to superiors, and to teachers.
First we are assured that these errors were being taught either
in an open or a covert manner when the encyclical was written.
Then we are told that the great number of Catholic teachers in
various institutions of higher learning have not fallen into these
false opinions. The Holy Father realizes that these teachings have
the power to attract people who are not cautious. He has preferred
to put a stop to them at the outset, rather than to be compelled to
administer medicine for a disease that had already become deepseated.
So it is that to put a stop to these errors, the Holy Father has
commanded Bishops and superiors of religious communities to
take the most diligent care to prevent such opinions from being
advanced in schools, in conferences, or in writings of any kind.
They are likewise ordered to see to it that these errors are not
taught in any way to the clergy or the faithful. This precept binds
them most seriously in conscience.
Teachers in ecclesiastical institutions are warned that they can­
not with safe conscience exercise the office of teaching entrusted
to them unless they religiously accept and strictly observe the

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norms the Holy Father has given. They are told that they are
obligated to show due reverence and obedience to the Church’s
magisterium themselves and to instill these attitudes into their own
pupils.
Catholic teachers are also urged to work towards the progress
of the sciences they teach. At the same time, however, they are
ordered to do this without violating the rules the Holy Father has
laid down in this encyclical for the purpose of guarding the truth
of the faith and of Catholic doctrine. They are to investigate the
questions that have arisen as a result of the latest scientific ad­
vances, but they are to conduct their investigation prudently and
cautiously. Finally, they are to avoid all false “irenicism” and re­
member that those outside the Church can be brought back into
it properly and successfully only when the entire truth existing
within the Church is delivered honestly to everyone, in all its
purity and integrity.
Such are the teachings of the Humani generis. The Holy Father
has warned us of existent errors, which have endangered the
existence and the integrity of the Catholic faith among the men
of our own time. These errors have been taught more forcefully
in non-published material, but they have been propounded also in
books and articles important and powerful enough to make them
dangerous for the children of the Church. The encyclical that con­
demns these false opinions is addressed, not to the hierarchy of any
one country, but to all the bishops of the world. It was so ad­
dressed only because the Holy Father realized that the errors and
tendencies he was called upon to denounce threatened the faith
everywhere.
Hence there can be no excuse whatsoever for the tactic of brush­
ing aside the lesson of this encyclical with the statement that it
refers to controversies that have aroused no interest and exercised
no influence in this part of the world. Such an assertion about the
Humani generis, made in our own country, would be manifestly
false. It would, furthermore, only serve to influence the people
for whom this encyclical was written to turn their attention from
what is, and what must be considered as, a magnificent and a
tremendously important instrument for the preservation and the
integrity of the faith in our times.
Joseph Clifford Fenton

The Catholic University of America
Washington, D. C.

Answers to Questions
MAY A HIGH MASS BE CONSIDERED
A PRIVATE MASS?

Question: On the Vigil of Pentecost, a priest who had been
singing a Pligh Mass every morning in a convent chapel said only
a Low Mass as he had not time to read the prophecies and litanies.
Could he not have sung, as usual, a High Mass, beginning with the
Introit of the day and omitting the prophecies and litanies ?
Answer: The solution of the difficulty proposed above is to be
found in the definition of a private Mass since the rubric of the
Missal on the Vigil of Pentecost provides that in private Masses
on that day the priests begin at once with the Introit omitting the
preliminary prophecies and litanies. A private Mass on this vigil
would be one apart from the blessing of the font in a parish church
or one which is not public in the sense of being a Mass which is
not conventual or capitular. In casu, the Mass in the convent
chapel, unless it were technically a conventual Mass in a com­
munity where there was obligatio chori, would be considered a
private Mass even though it were celebrated in cantu. The ex­
ternal solemnity of a High or Solemn Mass would not remove it
from the category of private Masses any more than a parochial
ora conventual Mass ceases to be a public one if happens to be cele­
brated as a Low Mass.
Wuest-Mullaney {Matters Liturgical, 640) does indeed cite
decree No. 2731 of the Congregation of Rites to support his state­
ment that a High Mass may not be celebrated on the Vigil of
Pentecost without the prophecies and litanies. The decree in ques­
tion, however, is a decision, dated August 8, 1835, addressed to
a cathedral church in Piedmont, and refers to an annual founded
Mass to be celebrated with the attendance of the cathedral chapter
and as a Solemn Mass, and decides that this Mass may not be
sung without the preliminary prophecies etc. beginning with the
Introit Quum sanctificatus as for private Masses. Such a Mass,
we think, is quite different quoad soleinnitatem intrinsecam from
the private Mass in the convent concerning which the question
was raised.
379