The Catholic Historical Review • Vol. 98, N. 1, January 2012 • pp. 145-147 La condanna del modernismo: Documenti, interpretazioni, conseguenze. Edited by Claus Arnold and Giovanni Vian. (Rome: Viella. 2010. Pp. 260. €30.00 paperback. ISBN 978-8-883-34440-4.) by David G. Schultenover The 2002 opening of the Vatican archives to church-state friction particularly in these two coun- scholars through 1922 has enabled a series of highly tries heightened the bishops’ vigilance against mod- illuminating publications on the modernist period, the ernism. Most hierarchs around the world, aided by most recent being the present volume. Claus Arnold apostolic visitations (promoted by the staunchly anti- introduces this superb collection with an astute ob- modernist Cardinal Gaetano de Lai), adhered strictly servation: To understand the modernist crisis on to the provisions of Pascendi. References to the en- its own terms, one must see it in the context of the cyclical in church documents “into the third millen- struggle between Christianity and “modernity” from nium have been frequent enough to reinforce church the early Renaissance to the present; ecclesiastical discipline to combat” modernist seductions (p. 136). opponents saw modernism as but an acute phase The relationship between Lucien Laberthonnière of this age-old confrontation. Decisions made during and Blondel following the publication of Pascendi is this acute phase had, Arnold observes, precedents in fairly well known from previously published works. Pope Leo XIII’s interventions regarding biblical criti- Giacomo Losito, however, fills out the story, using the cism, which Pope Pius X escalated to a worldwide minutes of the fifty-seven meetings of the vigilance antimodernist campaign with chilling consequences committee (1907–25) of the Archdiocese of Paris and lasting to the present day. important unpublished correspondence. Far clearer Annibale Zambarbieri begins his chapter on the now is why the two collaborators had a falling out af- censure of Ernesto Buonaiuti by thanking Hubert ter the Holy Office “indexed” the series of the Annales Wolf and his associates for publishing descriptions de philosophie chrétienne edited by Laberthonnière. of Vatican archival holdings that facilitate research Judith Schepers’s account of the curial interpreta- into the microhistory and thus the composition of the tion of the antimodernist oath of 1910 guides readers “mosaic” of the modernist crisis, with sharper deline- through the oath’s complex development within the ations of the protagonists, the theological issues, and Holy Office, its debated wording, and its final official the enduring repercussions. Zambarbieri’s contribu- interpretation, thus clarifying the oath’s enduring his- tion outlines the charges against Buonaiuti, among torical significance – how, until 1967, it permanently which were “ambiguous language,” the dangerous stamped many church officials with a paranoia about influence of Maurice Blondel, and failure sufficiently “modernists” as the Church’s “fifth column.” An ap- to credit the intellectual content of Christian beliefs as pendix includes key Latin documents. incompatible with the contemporary mentality. The most affecting chapter is the one by Raffaella Arnold details the internal story of the process Perin, who details how the antimodernist campaign against Alfred Loisy from the initial “indexing” of five played out in the fractious Diocese of Vicenza. Using of his works (1903) to the drafting of Lamentabili, and heretofore unknown correspondence, Perrin shows the publication of Pascendi dominici gregis (1907) – the terrible toll the campaign took (and continues to the latter accompanied by Pius X’s letter to the world’s take) on the lives of flesh-and-blood clerics as well bishops and religious superiors on the execution of as on the Church as a whole. She appropriately high- antimodernist measures. Arnold provides the drama lights the role of De Lai. who was “rigidly antimodern- that other kinds of historical treatments cannot sup- ist” (p. 208n5). ply. No one interested in the historical development This collection shines a bright light into some dark of modern theology should miss this section. corners of contemporary ecclesiology. Giovanni Vian’s chapter on the reception of Pascendi by the bishops of France and Italy adds Marquette University a fascinating and chilling piece to the mosaic. The David G. Schultenover, S.J. .