The Current Covert Demise of the Heresy of Modernism, by Raymond B. Marcin

By Raymond B. Marcin, Complicit Clergy, April 23, 2026

[Thesis Statement: The thesis of this essay is that our Catholic Church has been backing away from its 1907 condemnation of Modernism as a Heresy ever since its dalliance with the Heresy of Modernism in the Second Vatican Council. It’s a simple thesis but it leaves our Catholic Church in an untenable situation. The common if not universal belief among Catholics is that reconciling our Church with the Modern World became the purpose of the Second Vatican Council shortly after it was convened. One problem with this well-founded belief is that reconciling our Church with the Modern World implicates the very essence of the Heresy of Modernism. Another compounding problem is that every Vatican-II Council member who cast his final vote of approval for all the teachings of the Council had taken an Oath Against the Heresy of Modernism. Yet, the course that our Church has currently chosen for us to follow is that very course that implicates the essence of the Heresy of Modernism compounded by a massive violation of the Oath Against the Heresy of Modernism.]

Introduction

First of all, what is the heresy of Modernism? Modernism in Catholic theological doctrine is indeed a heresy—a heresy that progressive-minded Catholics often dally with, and that tradition-minded Catholics have always avoided like the plague.

Modernism was present in our Church for a long time before Pope Saint Pius X officially named and condemned it as a heresy in 1907.[1] Its presence in the Church had grown significantly during the 19^th century and into the early 20^th . The Church’s 1907 condemnation of Modernism as a heresy stifled its 20^th-century growth, at least superficially, for a generation or two, but the specter of Modernism never ceased haunting the corridors of the Vatican until Modernism itself broke forth big-time—in the open—in the teachings of our Church’s Second Vatican Council (1962-65).[2] …

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