The More Things Change (Cardinal Mercier Edition)

Recently I came accross a pastoral letter issued by Désiré-Félicien-François-Joseph Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Mechelen (now Mechelen-Brussels), Belgium. It was written to expound on what Pope St. Pius X had said in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis as well as in Lamentabili Sane (The Syllabus of Errors). I found several things interesting about what he said as well as why he wrote the letter. It showed how much some things have changed & how much some things are just the same.

Changed

1. In the 2nd paragraph he talks about how the Church in Belgium has avoided the errors of Modernism & why. "You have been preserved by the vigilance of your pastors, by an impartial scientific spirit, and by the Christian submission that animates the representatives of higher learning in your country." (Emphasis mine) Do I even have to expand on the hilited lines? These days there are many priests & bishops who have embraced some or all of the modernist heresies & proclaim them, misleading the people rather than leading them properly. & given the screaming here in the US about Ex Corde Ecclesia it is clear that most so-called Catholic Colleges are in rebellion rather than submission to the authority of the Church.

2. "The representatives of philosophical and theological teaching in our University, those in our free branches of studies, and those also in the Seminaries and Religious Congregations, have unanimously and spontaneously given weight to this declaration in a document signed by each one of them, in which they state that the Pope, by his courageous Encyclical, has saved the Faith and protected Science." Again contrast this to the way the majority of Catholic Colleges/Faculty have reacted to the requirements found in Ex Corde.

Same

1. Later he explains in part why he wrote the letter, looking at how the press has been covering what the Holy Father had to say. "It is a well-known fact that scarcely had the Pope spoken, or rather before he had spoken, and from the moment that the telegraphic agents heralded his coming announcement, the unbelieving press began to misrepresent it, and the newspapers and reviews hostile to the Church in our country neither published the text nor the general tenour of the Encyclical with fulness or frankness." (emphasis mine) You could substitute so many things that Papa Benedetto has written or spoken lately & the same thing about the press' handling of it could be said. & for the same reasons.

Clearly Cardinal Mercier took his responsibilities as shepherd seriously. "Nevertheless, beloved brethren, I consider it a pastoral duty to bring to your knowledge this Pontifical Encyclical." (emphasis mine) Contrast this to the silence of so many bishops in the face of pro-abortion politicians for example.

& that included knowing the need for unity with the Pope. "The unity of Christian Faith is safe only in the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church is only stable on the Chair of Peter."

May the Lord bless us with many priests & bishops who follow in the footsteps of Cardinal Mercier.