At the dawn of the '20th Century, several writers who were to become famous under the title of "Modernists" were advancing a deep agenda for reform in the faith and praxis of the Roman Catholic Church. But their agenda met with serious and scholarly opposition from another group of writers, whose essays are here made available in English. They include the historian and university rector Pierre Battifol, the biblical exegete M.J. Lagrange, OP, the Jesuit historical theologians Eugene Portalie and Leonce de Grandmaison, and the philosophers Eugene Franon and Joannes Wehrle. All welcomed the historico-critical methods of research, and far from thinking them fatal to orthodoxy (as the Modernists did), they thought the Church's faith would survive and be strengthened by rigorous scholarship. These thinkers, then, are the true predecessors of Pius XII (Divino a'ante Spiritu) and Vatican II (Dei Verbum). At the same time, these men thought outside the boxes drawn by 19th Century Positivism (Loisy), anti-intellectualist pragmatism (LeRoy), and romantic mysticism (Tyrrell). Their concerns hold new significance in the light of John Paul II's 1990 encyclical Fides et Ratio. Reading these too-long forgotten writers, then, deepens in a new way one's understanding of the Catholic Church's decision to decline and even condemn the Modernists' agenda, whether one ultimately applauds that decision or deplores it.

Synopsis: In his autobiography Joseph Turmel (1859-1943) has left an intensely personal account of his struggles to reconcile his Catholic faith with the results of historical-critical methods as those impacted biblical exegesis and the history of dogma. Having lost his faith in 1886, he chose to remain as a priest in the Church, even while he worked to undermine its teachings. He did so initially in writings published under his own name and, as his conclusions became increasingly radical, under a veritable team of pseudonyms. He was excommunicated in 1930. His account of his life is less a discussion and defense of his ideas than it is a moral justification of his conduct. Turmel is associated with the left wing of Roman Catholic Modernism along with Albert Houtin, Marcel Hebert, and Felix Sartiaux Endorsements: "Disillusioned as a young priest in his twenties by discovering the incongruity of Catholic dogma with serious critical scholarship on Scripture and church history, Joseph Turmel dedicated the rest of his life to destroying church authority by remaining a priest while at the same time pseudonymously publishing scholarly books and articles undermining church dogma. Only as an old man was he discovered and excommunicated." --Lawrence Barman, Saint Louis University "'Martyr to the Truth' is an important book that, for the first time, gives English readers direct access to one of the more intriguing characters involved in the modernist crisis. Turmel's account of his painful loss of faith, and his effort to justify his decision to remain in the Catholic Church under false pretenses, illustrate both the human dimension and the moral issues at stake in a controversy sometimes seen as purely intellectual." --Harvey Hill, UST School of Theology Author Biography: C. J. T. Talar is Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Saint Thomas, Houston. He has published extensively on Roman Catholic Modernism. Elizabeth Emery is Professor of French at Montclair State University. She has published works dedicated to nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European and American literature, art, and history.