Theological Foundations new file

208 Theological Foundations theologian, Cornelius Jansen (1585-1638), Bishop of Ypres, dominated especially the French and Dutch Catholicism of the 17th and the 18th centuries and was a rigorous reaction to the moral relativism and per- missiveness of those times. Father Stanislaus, far from such extreme attitudes, tried to form the consciences of the faithful in such a way that they would be sensitive to moral evil and inclined to choose a more per- fect way. If he ever supported radicalism, it was only the kind of radi- calism that had its source in the Gospel and had no connection with erro- neous trends appearing in the Church. Father Matulaitis-Matulewicz, in turn, was very vigilant with regard to modernism, which was a popular trend in his times, and managed to assume a critical attitude towards it. This religious trend at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century betrayed tendencies towards reconciling Christian Revelation with the conclusions of agnosticism in order to create a religious system for all mankind, built on new founda- tions. In this system, each truth loses its objective value and the only source of religion is “a deep aspiration of the human soul to be with a deity and to live with it.” 20 Father George, always listening to the voice of the Church, helped his religious confreres to be more aware of these erroneous tendencies and, following the voice of Pope Pius X, who demanded that the religious take an anti-modernism oath, ordered in his religious constitutions that such an oath be taken before assuming cer- tain duties and offices, 21 which was required by common law anyway. 2. The Formal Aspects of the Teaching In order to render a better judgment about the value of Father Papczynski’s and Father Matulaitis-Matulewicz’s teaching, let us now examine the formal aspects of this teaching. First, let us ask a question about its connection to systematic theology, its manner of argumenta- tion, the authors’ interests and, finally, the language and style of their discourse. By simply pointing to the basic source of our authors’ reflections, we