The governing attitude among the Catholic elite provided one of the crucial motives for opposing the historical-criticism in exegesis, theology, and other areas. The unprecedented dynamism of historical, political, and social transformation in the so-called ‘long nineteenth century’ prepared the way for conditions in which great changes were no longer conducted under the supervision of traditional elites. Phenomena such as change, development, and historicism suddenly acquired the characters of hostile, threatening foreign powers intent on challenging the traditional salvific vision of history to which Catholic leaders were devoted. The natural, intuitive response to such threats was to reject these dangerous forces en bloc.
This rejection found its justification in the church’s self-conception. In theological thinking, as well as in practical and legal terms, the church envisioned itself as a ‘perfect society.’ The only other such society was the state. But as the church, owing to its supernatural origin and metaphysical finality, was concerned with the eternal salvation of humanity, it was thought superordinate to the state, which was concerned after all only with the organization of earthly affairs for humanity’s immediate good. With all due respect to state authorities, their primary responsibility, as the church conceived it, was to assist their ecclesiastical superiors in guiding souls to eternal salvation by way of education and leadership. The structures and practices of a perfect society, by its very definition, need not and cannot evolve. Therefore, the many movements urging clerical reform in that period—from the French Revolution through the events of 1830 and 1848 to the start of the twentieth century—were rejected as too bold, too sinful, and ultimately heretical in their questioning of the church’s authority, which was indubitably of divine origin.
The governing circles of the church increasingly entertained a gloomy skepticism with regard to human nature, sustained by the heady atmosphere of traditionalism and the Jansenist-infused spirituality that influenced most of its members. No longer was it possible to leave things to themselves, to countenance the opening of new avenues of political and civic exploration; man, allowed to pursue his own course, always grows corrupt in his freedom. It was thus necessary for church and state to escort human beings from cradle to grave, firmly punishing deviation from this procession when necessary. Only this joint custody over the lives of individual persons would guarantee the successful development of human society. Any spontaneous movement of society, state, ideology, and art would, however, equal a disturbance to the status quo, dangerously unbalancing the whole process. Such movements were doubly dangerous when they arose within theology and exegesis.
Nor was it permissible to allow church teachings to undergo change and development. Dogma was perceived as essentially ahistorical; we have already referred to the famous ‘Denzinger’ case, in which the classic handbooks of the Roman Third Scholastics systematically ripped doctrinal statements and decisions out of their historical contexts, rearranging them in a purely mechanical chronological order. By this standard, theology was thought to consist of a perfectly logical system, invariable in its delimitations; yet this system was, in reality, fundamentally incapable of responding to new concepts and impulses. Catholic theologians and exegetes were advised simply to refer themselves to traditional manuals, which were upheld as ideal study tools. The rare attempts to usher in new conceptions of various theological issues resulted in exemplary punishments (as with Rosmini) or chronic scrutiny and interference (as with Newman). In such an environment, the prevailing genre was apologetics.
This situation left the Catholic relationship to modernity—with all the associated values, priorities, and approaches implied by that word—in a state of hopeless complexity, irresolution, suspension, and obstruction. Terrified by the awesome cataclysms of the second phase of the French Revolution, with its anti-Christian rampages, and the anti-clerical elements of subsequent revolutionary movements in 1830 and 1848, the Papal See responded with an official rejection of all such manifestations of the modern spirit. Catholics who sought to find common ground and conciliation with the values of this new society (Montalembert and Lacordaire, for instance) were misunderstood and rejected by popes such as Gregory XVI and Pius IX. We may sum up the curial philosophy with the following words: “History opposes us, modernity opposes us, we will oppose them.”