The Programme of Modernism; A Reply to the Encyclical of Pius X
New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1908. First edition. 12mo (7 1/2 inches tall), original royal blue cloth, gilt spine and front board. Early owner signature, slight wear to spine ends and corners. A near-fine copy. Item #1521
"PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS"
First edition of one of George Tyrrell’s last books—a contemporary defense of Modernism in response to "Pascendi Dominici Gregis," Pope Pius X's withering condemnation of Modernism. A bright, fresh copy.
An Irish convert to Catholicism, "George Tyrrell was one of the most remarkable Jesuits that the English Province of the Society of Jesus has ever produced. He was a man of great pastoral sensitivity, widely sought after as a retreat giver, preacher, spiritual guide and confessor. He was also possessed of a keen intellect and deep insight into the nature and role of religion in life, amounting to what has been called ‘religious genius’. By the late 19th century he had become, perhaps, the most important Catholic theologian in England." (Oliver P. Rafferty). Tyrrell was teaching at Stonyhurst and he was prominent among those resisting the papal insistence on Scholasticism and Thomism but his break with the Church was ultimately due to a conflict over Papal infallibility. "Tyrrell’s problems stemmed, it seems, primarily from his difficulties with Catholic authority, which he found narrow and, as he put it, individualistic in the concentration of infallible authority in the hands of one man: the pope" (Robert Royal).
Tyrrell had already been expelled from the Society of Jesus (in February 1906), when he undertook this translation and refutation of Pope Pius X’s dramatic encyclical, Pascendi, promulgated in September 1907. Tyrrell's case was divided into five sections: I. Need of an Explanation, II. Explanation of the Modernist System, III. Particular Questions, IV. The Campaign against Modernism, V. Conclusion. Part VI was Tyrrell's translation of the encyclical, itself consisting of three sections: I. Analysis of Modernist Teaching, II. The Cause of Modernism, III. Remedies.
He was unrepentant to the end: "We are the true successors of the Scholastics in all that was valuable in their work - in their keen sense of the adaptability of the Christian religion to the ever-changing forms of philosophy and general culture." Tyrrell was swiftly excommunicated and when he died shortly thereafter (in July 1909), he was refused a Catholic burial. His friends arranged for him to be buried in an Anglican cemetery. With an Introduction by A.L. Lilley, dated "London, December 27, 1907." Published in the same year as the first British edition, as part of Putnam’s Crown Theological Library series, bound with the series catalogue at the rear. Oliver P. Rafferty, S.J. George Tyrrell and Catholic Modernism: A Reassessment; Robert Royal. A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.
Price: $100.00