35. The Papacy and Liberalism

Nothing could have inflicted deeper wounds on the Roman Catholic Church than the rigidity with which Pope Pius IX opposed any understanding with the currents of our time. The light that had come upon the nations was to be extinguished by all means; the head of the Church considered it possible to impose the beliefs of the darkest Middle Ages on modern mankind. The teachings of the modern age were not to be refuted, but the curse alone was the means that Pius IX used against them. Leo XIII recognized that this was a grave error, even from the pope's point of view. That is why his attitude towards the achievements of the time was essentially different. In his view, the spirit should beat the spirit. The teachers of the Gospel should not stubbornly reject what modern science and modern life hold against them, but rather take it into themselves, on the one hand to utilize it, as far as possible, in the spirit of Catholicism, and on the other hand to be able to refute it effectively from the standpoint of the Church. This is why the Pope recommended that his priesthood study Christian philosophy in order to turn it into a weapon against modern science. He does not dislike it when Darwinian and similar theories are presented at theological faculties and illuminated from the point of view of Catholic science, something that his predecessor would have condemned in the strongest terms.