Cardinal Ottaviani Against the "New Liberalism"

A Translation

Those with even a passing awareness of pre-conciliar American Catholic theology will recognize the name John Courtney Murray. Fr. Murray is mostly remembered today in light of this controversy which found him at odds with eminent American Theologians like Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton and Fr. Francis J. Connell on the issue of the relationship between the Church and the State.

As the story goes, after around a decade of very public back and forths, the Vatican stepped in and told Murray to stop writing on the issue publicly. Concomitant with this was a very public speech given by Cardinal Ottaviani titled Chiesa e Stato: alcuni problemi presenti alla luce del magistero di Pio XII (english here). This lecture was given before many officials and caused an international crisis, prompting the international press to run stories on the very “anti-modern” treatment of the question from Cardinal Ottaviani.

Now, in this speech, beside denouncing Stalinist Russia and praising Francoist Spain, Cardinal Ottaviani doesn’t really “call out” anyone by name. Yet, the same cannot be said for a new work that came out the next year in 1954, a new edition of his very popular Compendium iuris publici ecclesiastici, which now included a section against the “new liberals.” This caused some buzz in the theological world, especially in the United States.

The first of the “book notes” of the American Ecclesiastical Review that year read

One of the more important publications last year was that of the fourth enlarged and revised edition of Cardinal Ottaviani’s Compendium iuris publici ecclesiastici. Msgr. Giuseppe Di Meglio assisted the Cardinal in the preparation of this edition. Of special interest to Catholic scholars who followed the controversy carried on some months ago on some points of Catholic doctrine about the interrelations of Church and state is the brief section on this new edition on the errors of contemporary Catholic liberalism (pp. 296-99). This new edition of the Compendium gives a masterly résumé and an effective refutation of mistaken teachings which were sometimes taken rather seriously a short time ago. This new edition, a work of viii + 496 pages, is published by the Polyglot Vatican Press.

Almost painful to read how hopeful this review is. Also, Msgr. Di Meglio is better known for other reasons now (anti-semitism), so good luck trying to find out about his life amidst the dozens of articles kvetching about him.

Anyways, in this “expanded section” from Cardinal Ottaviani, there are actually names named and theses listed out in greater detail, so I thought it would be fun to translate it for your enjoyment.