The Poisonous Fruit of the "New Morality" ~ Pius XII and his radio address of March 23, 1952

On March 23, 1952, Venerable Pope Pius XII gave a radio address on the necessity of Catholics to properly form their own consciences and to provide for the proper Catholic education of the youth in matters of conscience. In that same address, he also cautioned of the dangers of an encroaching “new morality” which found the Church’s moral rules oppressive, rigid, and ultimately impossible to follow. 

We are now nearly 70 years from the broadcast of that radio address. When one looks at Western civilization in general and the state of the Catholic Church in the West in particular over those 70 years, it is evident that we failed to heed the Holy Father’s warnings. Catholic morality, as it is known by most Catholics today, has morphed almost completely into the “new morality.” And, as predicted by Venerable Pius XII, the results have been nothing short of disastrous. If you don’t believe me, put on your hip-waders and venture over to James Martin, SJ’s page on F-Book and read the comments on his posts from over half a million ostensible Catholics. 

On second thought, don't do that, especially if you have high blood-pressure.

Given the wretchedly muddled state of Catholic moral teaching in the early 2020s, it’s worth re-reading the clear and sparkling words of Pius XII on the subject. The radio address in full in English was made available here by Rorate Caeli some years ago.

The quote at the top of this post is perhaps the crux of the entire address and it’s refreshing to hear such things said out loud in unambiguous terms. Following is the context of this quote as taken from the radio address:

Conscious, therefore, of the right and the duty of the Holy Apostolic See to intervene, when it be necessary, authoritatively in moral questions, We, in the address of October 29 last year, proposed to illumine consciences about the problems of conjugal life. With the same authority we declare today to educators and to the same youth: The divine commandment of purity of soul and of body also applies without diminishment to today’s youth. They too have the moral obligation, and with the help of grace, the possibility of keeping themselves pure. Therefore, we reject as erroneous the claim of those who consider failings inevitable in the years of puberty, considered by them of no great import, as if they were not a grave fault, because ordinarily, they add, passion takes away the liberty necessary so that an act is morally imputable. 

On the contrary, it is a fitting and wise rule that that the educator, by not neglecting to impress upon the young the noble qualities of purity so as to induce them to love it and desire it for its own sake; nonetheless, he should  clearly inculcate the commandment as it stands, in all its gravity and seriousness as a divine ordinance. He will thus urge the young to avoid near occasions [of sin], he will comfort them in the struggle, of which he shall not hide the hardness, he will induce them to embrace courageously that sacrifice which virtue demands, and he will exhort them to persevere and not to fall into the danger of disarming themselves from the beginning and of succumbing without resistance to perverse habits.

In previous posts here and here, I mentioned other instances that Pius XII had made plain the errors of the “new morality,” more commonly known as “situation ethics.” In the following passage from his radio address, Pius XII points out the “disastrous consequences” of uncoupling morality from the traditional strictures and guidance of the Church and making Christian morality free-floating, relative to time, place, and individual circumstance. Indeed, he maintains that the result would be the “devastation of the very foundations of education.” 

Well? In 2021, we find ourselves in a place where many or even most ostensibly Catholic institutions are openly promoting grotesquely non-Catholic morality, to the point where devout parents are unable in good conscience to send their Catholic children there to be educated. As Pius XII warned in 1952:

Without pointing out the manifest incompetence and immaturity of judgment of those who hold similar opinions, it will be of use to expose the central flaw of this "new morality." In leaving every ethical criterion to the individual conscience, it jealously closes in on itself and, having been made the absolute arbiter of its own determinations, far from making the way easier for it [conscience], it would divert it from the highroad, which is Christ.

The divine Redeemer has entrusted his Revelation, of which moral obligations form an essential part, of course, not to individual men, but rather to His Church, to which he has given the mission to lead them to embrace that sacred deposit with fidelity….How it is therefore possible to reconcile the providential instruction of the Savior, who committed the guardianship over the Christian moral patrimony to the Church, with a kind of individualistic autonomy of conscience?

This, stolen from its natural climate, can only produce poisonous fruit, which will be recognized only when compared with some characteristics of the traditional conduct and Christian perfection, whose excellence is proven by the incomparable works of the Saints.

Poisonous fruit indeed. For anyone who has run the gauntlet of Catholic education in the United States over the past 50 years and managed to remain an ardent Catholic—a vanishingly small remnant in my experience —Pius’s words sound distinctly like those of a prophet crying out in the wilderness. As Pius suggested, we now have 50 years of the "new morality" to compare with the "traditional conduct of Christian perfection." How are things stacking up? 

Not too good, I would say. 

Indeed, the excellence and incomparable works of the saints in modern Catholicism are to be found almost exclusively among those communities where the practice of Catholic morality has a distinctly pre-1952 flavor. 

Venerable Pius XII, pray for the Church.

Other articles on Venerable Pius XII on this blog:

More on Venerable Pope Pius XII's condemnation of situation ethics

Situation Ethics - Condemned by Venerable Pope Pius XII in 1952

"Volumes could be written on the multiform works of succor of Pius XII" ~ The testimony of Eugenio Zolli, chief rabbi of Rome during World War II