Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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OATH AGAINST MODERNISM

A solemn declaration against Modernism issued by Pope St. Pius X (September 10, 1910) and required to be taken on oath by all clergy to be advanced to major orders, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and by professors of philosophy and theology in seminaries. The first part of the oath is a strong affirmation of the principal Catholic truths opposed to Modernism: the demonstrability of God's existence by human reason, the value of miracles and prophecies as criteria of revelation, the historical institution of the Church founded by Christ, the invariable constancy of the essentials of Catholic tradition, and the reasonableness and supernaturality of the Christian faith. The second part of the oath is an expression of interior assent to the decree Lamentabili and the encyclical Pascendi. Particular modernist errors are singled out for censure and rejection. In 1967 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a new Profession of the Faith to replace the longer Oath against Modernism.