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In many ways, the Modernist Controversy was fought over how to interpret the thought of John Henry Newman. Wilfrid Philip Ward (1856–1916), who was one of Newman’s principal biographers, was concerned for Newman’s reputation in the wake of Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907). This presentation investigates why Wilfrid Ward feared that Newman had been condemned and how he defended Newman’s writings against figures associated with modernism and those associated with anti-modernism. It looks at how Ward adopted, interpreted, and defended John Henry Newman’s theory of doctrinal development during the Roman Catholic modernist controversy. A theological overview of Ward’s project is provided, which is followed by a historical and theological discussion of a series of disagreements that he had with various theologians and commentators who were central to the modernist controversy.
Marie-Joseph Lagrange, OP, was a prominent Roman Catholic biblical exegete at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. A member of the Dominican order he was the founder of the École biblique in Jerusalem. He engaged with modern methods of biblical critical exegesis, but although he was under suspicion, he was never excommunicated. Alfred Loisy, who was at the heart of the modernist controversy, was another prominent Catholic exegete who was a contemporary of Lagrange. This paper will thus examine their work in critical exegesis highlighting similarities and differences between their engagement with modern critical methods.