We wrote some time ago about the need for building a cohesive narrative on the current crisis in the Church. In that article, we suggested:

One should build the narrative around one single, connecting cause: heresy – the violation of right faith. Specifically, that heresy described, decried, defined and condemned by Popes (and Saints) for nearly two centuries before Vatican II; the tenets of which are largely the working principles underlying the current crisis. That heresy, of course, is modernism.

Thus, our central idea: grow a concise narrative around modernism, not around Vatican II per se (although it must have a mention), and end with an illustration of its present manifestations in ecclesial life – or at least, equip others to ask the question.

We recognized that to distill such an “history of an idea” into a form that could hit the highlights (without getting lost in the weeds) while still effectively showing the deleterious impact of modernism on the present would be a daunting task, even for the professional scholar.

Thus we are grateful for the recent work of well-known Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei, who has made just such a contribution!

Ideas have consequences, and anti-ideas (heresies), have dire ones. Those who would understand the current crisis would do well to understand its roots, and we have yet to find a backgrounder on modernism so recommendable as this:

https://onepeterfive.com/the-roots-and-historical-consequences-of-modernism/

(Keeping our Lord of the Rings analogy from the first article, reading Dr. de Mattei’s paper could be likened to Gandalf’s discovery of the scroll of Isildur. If you understand that reference, you may be a Tolkien nerd. You’re in good company.)

Bravo Dr. Mattei, and bravo the restoration!