Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors
To the venerable brethren the patriarchs, primates,
archbishops, and all bishops having the grace and communion of
the apostolic see.
Pius PP. IX
Venerable brethren, health and apostolic blessing.
With great care and shepherdlike watchfulness Our
predecessors, the Roman pontiffs, following the duty asked
them by Christ the Lord Himself in the person of the Blessed
Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and the duty of feeding the
lambs and the sheep, never left off carefully feeding the
Lord's whole flock with the words of faith, and filling it
with saving teaching, and keeping it away from the poisoned
pasture, in all of which indeed it has been proven and
investigated especially by you, venerable brethren. And well did
these same leaders, asserters and defenders of our august
Catholic religion, of truth, and of justice, greatly
concerned for the salvation of souls, preferred nothing at
all more than, with their own very wise letters and
constitutions, to uncover and condemn all heresies and
errors which, contrary to our divine Faith, the teaching
of the Catholic Church, the honesty of morals, and the
eternal salvation of men, frequently rouse up grave
disturbances, and pollute in a pitiable way the Christian
and civil republic.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Wherefore, these same men, Our Apostolic Leaders,
continuously stood with strength against the wicked grinding of
evil men, who, depositing their confusions like a wave of the
wild sea, and promising freedom, since they were the
servants of corruption, they tried to shatter the
fundamentals of civil society and the Catholic religion with
their deceitful opinions and destructive writings, and to
take away every virtue and justice from the midst, and to
distort the minds and souls of all, and to turn away
especially the incautious and the inexperienced youth from
the right teaching of morals, and to miserably spoil it, to
lead it into the snares of error, and finally to take it
away from the bosom of the Catholic Church.
Already, indeed, in order that it may be especially
known to you, venerable brethren, we had scarcely been
carried up to this Chair of Peter—certainly by none of
Our own merits, but by the hidden counsel of divine
Providence—when We saw with the greatest sorrow of Our soul
the horrible storm stirred up by such deformed opinions, and
the most serious punishments, never to be bewailed enough,
which overflow from so many errors into the Christian
people; following the brilliant footsteps of Our
Predecessors for the duty of Our apostolic ministry, We
brought forth Our voice, and by many encyclical letters and
allocutions in consistory in the vulgar tongue, and by other
apostolic letters, We condemned the particular errors of our
most sad age, and We stirred up your special episcopal
watchfulness, and again and again we warned and exhorted all
the children, dearest to Us, of the Catholic Church, that
they might dread and avoid entirely the contagion of so dire
a plague. And especially Our first encyclical letter
written on the 9th day of November 1846, and by a twofold
allocution, of which one was had on 9 December 1854 and the
other on 9 June 1862, in consistory by Us, we condemned the
monstrous omens of the opinions, which dominate principally
in this age, with the greatest loss of souls and harm to
civil society itself, and which is turned against the
salvation of teaching and the veneration of the laws not
only of the Catholic Church, but even truly to the eternal
natural law carved into the hearts of all by God, and
especially right reason, and from which nearly all other
errors have their origin.
But even if we had failed to often announce and condemn the
most powerful errors in this way, nevertheless the cause of
the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, divinely
entrusted to Us, as well as the good of human society
itself, begs that we stir up again your pastoral concern
toward overthrowing these deformed opinions which burst out
from these same errors as if from fountains. These false
and perverse opinions must be detested all the more, because
they chiefly look to that, that the saving strength, which
the Catholic Church ought to freely exercise from the
establishment and command of her divine Author even to the
completion of the age, not only toward individual men, but
also toward nations and whole peoples and their princes, and
that the joint partnership and agreement of counsels between
the priesthood and the government, which has always stood
out as favorable and useful not only for the sacred but for
civil thing, [Gregory XVI, Epist. Encycl. Mirari, 15 Aug
1832.] might be hindered and removed.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
And indeed you know properly, venerable brethren, that not a
few have been discovered, who, applying to the civil
community he impious and absurd beginning of naturalism,
as they call it, dare to teach that “the best basis of
public society, and civil progress altogether requires that
human society be established and governed with no respect
held to religion, and if that is not possible, at least with
no distinction made between the true and false religions.”
And against the teaching of the sacred Letters, of the
Church, and of the holy Fathers, they do not doubt to assert
that “it is the best condition of society, in which the duty
of checking with approved penalties the violators of the
Catholic religion does not belong to the Imperium, except
insofar as the public peace requires.” From this altogether
false idea of the social direction, they do not at all fear
to maintain that wrong opinion (and greatly destructive to
the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls), called by
Our predecessor of recent memory, Gregory XVI, a
delusion [Encycl. Mirari.], namely, that “it is the
proper right of any man whatever to be free of conscience
and worship, which ought to be preclaimed by law and
asserted in every rightly constituted society, and the right
is in citizens for every sort of liberty, to be hemmed in by
no authority, either civil or ecclesiastical, by which he
may strongly and publicly make plain and declare his own
conceptions, of whatever type, either by voice, or in print,
or in any other way.” While, indeed, they rashly affirm
this, they do not at all think or consider that they preach
a freedom of destruction [S. Aug. Apist. 195 al. 166.],
and that “if one is free to always dispute with human
persuasions, they will never be wanting, who dare to re-echo
and to trust in the talkativeness of human wisdom against
the truth, when how much faith and Christian wisdom ought
to avoid this most harmful vanity one knows from the
institution of Our Lord Jesus Christ itself.
And also, where religion has been moved out of civil
society, and the teaching and authority of divine relation
has been rejected, and the true notion of justice and
of human right itself is obscured by darkness and lost,
and material strength is substituted in place of true
justice and legitimate right, thence it is proven why many
have dared to cry aloud, with certain principals of sound
reason nearly thoroughly neglected and unesteemed, that
“the will of the people, which they say, is manifested
by public opinion or in some other way, constitutes the
highest law, unbound from every divine and human right,
and made complete in the political order, in which what
is completed has the force of law.”
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Indeed, is there anyone who does not see and plainly
understand that the society of men released from the bonds
of religion and true justice can certainly have no other
purpose, except the powers of preparing and accumulating
wealth, and to follow no other law in its own actions except
that untamed desire of the soul of serving its own desires
and convenience? These things, because of men of this sort,
reasonably, with a bitter hatred they pursue religious
orders, however much deserving on account of Christian,
civil, and literary things, and prate that the same things
have no legitimate reason to exist, and thus they clap for
the inventions of heretics. For just as Our predecessor of
recent memory, Pius VI, most wisely taught, “the annulment
of religious regulars strikes at the state of the public
profession of the evangelical counsels, strikes at a way of
living committed in the Church, just as it is agreeable to
Apostolic teaching, strikes at those notable founders whom
we venerate upon the altars, who did not found these
societies except that they were inspired by God.” [Epist. ad
Card. de La Rochefoucauld, 10 March 1791.]
And they even impiously announce that they are taking away
from citizens and the Church the ability “by which they
powerfully openly pay out the alms of Christian charity”,
and that they will remove the law from the midst “by which
on some certain days servile works are prohibited on account
of the worship of God”, very deceitfully pretending that
this comemmoration opposes the working and law of the best
public economic principle.
Nor are they content to remove religion from public society;
they want religion itself kept away even from private
families. And indeed, teaching and professing the most
fatal error of Communism and Socialism, they assert that
“domestic society, or the whole family, borrows the reason
for its own existence to this extent by law; and hence all
rights of parents in children flows down from and hangs on
the civil law, with the first indeed being the right of
attending to instruction and education.” To these impious
opinions and contrivances in it, especially, these most
deceitful men, exert themselves that the saving teaching and
strength of the Catholic Church may be eliminated from the
instruction and education of youth, and the tender and
pliant minds of the young may be wretchedly infected and
deformed by these pernicious errors and vices. Accordingly,
everyone who has tried to confuse not only the sacred but the
public order, and to overturn the right order of society,
and to wipe away all divine and human rights, all their
wicked counsels, all their efforts and works, always come
together especially for deceiving and deforming the unwary
youth, as we have nodded to above; and they place together
every hope in the corruption of youth [This is dative in the
Latin; I think this is likely a misprint, and should end in
-is rather than -i, as I can't make a
dative make sense here.] itself.
Wherefore, they are never remiss to harry both types of
cleric, from which, just as the most certain monuments of
history splendidly attest, so many great advantages overflow
into the Christian, civil, and literary republic, in so many
unspeakable ways, and to proclaim that “the clergy itself,
inasmuch as they are the enemy of the progress of useful
knowledge and civilization, must be removed from all care
and duty in the instruction and education of the youth.”
But indeed, others, renewing the deformed and so often
condemned schemes of novelties, dare with a marked
shamelessness to subject the supreme authority of the Church
of this Apostolic See, given to her by Christ the Lord, to
the will of the civil authority, and to deny all the rights
of this same Church and See, concerning those things which
pertain to the outer order. For they shamefully affirm that
“the laws of the Church do not bind in conscience, unless
they are promulgated with the civil power; the acts and
decisions of the Roman Pontiffs, looking at the religion and
the Church, need the sanction and approval, or at least the
assent, of the civil power; that the Apostolic
constitutions [Clement XII, In eminenti. Benedict XIV,
Providus Romanorum. Pius VII, Ecclesiam. Leo XII, Quo
graviora.] by which they condemned secret societies,
whether an oath of keeping secrecy is driven out or not, and
their followers and patrons, are punished by anathema, have
no force in those regions of the world where their
gatherings are tolerated by the civil government; that the
broad excommunication by the Council of Trent and the Roman
Pontiffs of those who invade the rights or posessions of the
Church, and seize them, leans upon a confusion of the
spiritual order and the civil order, and to this extent
pursues a worldly good; that the Church ought to decide
nothing which could confine the consciences of the faithful
in the order of the use of temporal things; that the right
of the Church is not adequate for the punishment of
violators of her own laws with temporal punishments; that it
is in agreement with the principles of sacred theology and
public law to assert and claim that the property of goods,
which are possessed by the Church, by religious orders, and
by other pious places, is for the civil government.”
Nor do they blush to profess the pronouncement and beginning
of heresies openly and publicly, by which also so
many perverse notions and errors arise. For they repeat
that “the ecclesiastical power is not, by divine law,
distinct and independent from the civil power, nor can the
distinction and independence be preserved, without the
essential rights of the civil power being invaded usurped by
the Church.”
And We cannot pass by their audacity in silence, who not
supporting sound teaching, contend that “to those judgments
and decrees of the Apostolic See, the object of which is the
general good of the Church, and the rights of the same, and
are declared to look to discipline, provided that it does
not touch on the dogmas of faith and morals, can be refused
assent and obedience without sin, and without any loss of
Catholic profession.” Because indeed, there is no one who
does not see and understand, clearly and openly, how greatly
this is opposed to the Catholic dogma of the full power of
feeding, ruling, and governing the universal Church,
bestowed on the Roman Pontiff by Christ the Lord Himself.
In such a perversity of deformed opinions, therefore, We,
mindful of Our apostolic duty, and the commission divinely
given to Us concerning our most holy religion, sound
doctrine, and the salvation of souls, and most greatly
concerned about the good of human society itself, We judged
that We raise again Our apostolic voice. And so, therefore,
We reject, proscribe, and condemn each and all of the
deformed opinions and doctrines separately recalled in these
letters by Our apostolic authority, and We desire and
command that they be held altogether by all Catholic sons of
the Church, just as rejected, proscribed, and condemned.
And besides these things, you know very well, venerable
brethren, that the haters of every truth and justice in
these times, and the bitterest enemies of our religion,
through pestilential books, booklets, and newspapers spread
over the whole world to the peoples, mocking and wickedly
lying to disseminate other impious teachings. Nor do you
not know that, also in this our age, that many are
discovered who, moved by the spirit of Satan and urged by
one of impiety, come to the point that they deny the Ruler,
Our Lord Jeus Christ, and do not tremble to attack with a
wicked effrontery His Divinity. Here we can by no means but
carry you out with the greatest and deserved [The text is
meristisque; this appears to be a typo for
meritisque.] praise, venerable brethren, who have
with every zeal least omitted to raise up your episcopal
voice against so great an impiety.
Therefore, with these Our letters, we against speak most
lovingly to you, who are called to Us into the part of Our
concern among Our greatest bitterness to the highest
comfort, joy, and consolation, on account of singular
religion (by which you excel), piety, and that marvelous
love, faith, and observance, by which you, bound to Us and
to this apostolic see with most like-minded souls, you
strain, strenuously and carefully, to fulfil your most
weighty episcopal ministry. And indeed, we look forward,
from your extraordinary pastoral zeal, that taking up the
sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and
strengthened in the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, you will
more daily foresee with redoubled eagerness that the
faithful entrusted to your care “may stay clar from the
harmful herbs which Jesus Christ doth not cultivate, because
they are not the planting of the Father.” [S. Ignatius, M.
ad Phila., 3.] And never cease to impress upon those
same faithful that all true happiness among men overflows
from our august religion and from its teaching and exercise,
and that blessed is the people whose God is the Lord. [Ps.
143.] Teach “that kingdoms stand on the foundation of the
Catholic Faith, [S. Cœlest. epist. 22 ad Synod. Ephes. apud
Const, p. 1200.] and that there is nothing so deadly, so
headlong to the fall, so exposed to every danger, as
thinking this alone can be enough for us: that we receive
free will when we were born, beyond which we seek nothing
from the Lord; that is, forgetful of our author, We
repudiate His power, that We might show ourselves to be
free.” [S. Innocent I, epist. 29 ad Episc. conc. Carthag.
apud Const. p. 891.] And also, let us not omit “to teach
that kingly power is not brought together only for the
control of the world, but more for the protection of the
Church, [S. Leo, Epist. 156 al. 125.] and that there is
nothing which can be more fruitful and glorious for the
princes and kings of cities than, as Our most wise and
strong predecessor S. Felix reported to the Emperor Zeno,
that they permit the Catholic Church her own laws, nor
permit anyone to obstruct her liberty… for it is certain
that this is helpful for their own matters, that, when it is
done for the causes of God along the lines of His
appointment, they rush to subdue, not favor, the royal will
to the priests of Christ.” [Pius VII, Epist. Encycl. Diu
satis. 15 May 1800.]
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
But if it is always altogether necessary, venerable
brethren, that now, principally in such great disasters of
Church and civil society, in so great a conspiracy of
adversaries against the Catholic thing and this apostolic
see, and so great a heap of errors, that We approach with
trust to the throne of grace, that We might come to mercy,
and that We might find grace in suitable help. Wherefore,
We think to stir up the piety of all the faithful, that they
might pray together, with Us and with you, to the mildest
and most merciful Father with the most fervent and humble
prayers without ceasing, and that they may beg and always
fly in the fullness of faith to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who
redeemed us with God in His own Blood, and that they might
entreat His sweetest Heart, victim of flaming love toward
us, continually and earnestly, that He might draw all things
to Himself in the bonds of His love, and that all men,
inflamed with His most holy love, might walk worthily
according to His Heart, pleasing God in all things, bearing
fruit in every good work. And since without doubt the
prayers of men are more pleasing to God, if they approach to
Him with souls pure from any decay, therefore We have
determined to open up the heavenly riches of the Church,
committed to Our stewardship, to the Christian faithful with
apostolic generosity, that those same faithful, kindled more
vigorously to true piety, and expiated from the stains of
sin through the sacrament of penance, may more confidently
pour forth their prayers to God, and come to His mercy and
grace.
With these letters, therefore, by Our apostolic authority,
we grant a plenary indulgence in the image of the Jubilee to
all and every faithful of the Catholic world, of both sexes,
within the space of at least one month until the completion
of the coming year 1865 and not beyond, established by you,
venerable brethren, and by the other legitimate ordinaries
of places, rightly in the same form and manner, by which We
granted from the beginning of Our supreme pontificate
through Our apostolic letters in forma brevis, on the 20
day in the month of November, 1846, and sent to your entire
episcopal order, of which the beginning is Arcano Divinæ
Providentiæ consilio, and with all the same faculties which
were given in the same letters by Us. However, We wish that
all things be kept, which are ordered in the recalled
letters, and that those things be taken out which We
declared to be removed. And We grant it, notwithstanding
doing anything whatever to the contrary, even by those
worthy of special and individual mention and derogation.
And that every doubt and difficulty be removed, We command
that the original of the same letters be born to you.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
“We ask, venerable brethren, from the inmost heart and with
the entire mind, the mercy of God, for He also adds, saying:
I will not scatter my mercy away from them. Let us ask and
receive, and if there is a delay and slowness in receiving
because we have gravely offended, let us knock, for also to
him knocking it will be opened, if only our prayers, groans, and
tears are knocking at the door, by which we must stand and
delay not, and if the prayer is of one accord… let each one
pray God not only for himself, but for all the brethren, as
the Lord taught us to pray.” [S. Cyprian, Epist. 11.] But
indeed, God more easily assents to Our prayers and
vows, and
yours, and those of all the faithful, when we summon with
all trust the interecessor before Him, the Immaculate and most
holy God-bearer, the Virgin Mary, who kills all heresies in
all the world, and who is the most loving mother of us all,
who is “all sweet…”, and full of mercy… who can be moved by
us all, presents gentleness to all, pities with the greatest
feeling the needs of all, “and inasmuch as the she is the
Queen standing at the right hand of her own Only-Begotten
Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in clothing of gold and
surrounded by variety, there is nothing which she cannot
obtain from Him. We beg also the judgements of the Blessed
Prince of the Apostles, Peter, and his Coapostle Paul, and
of all the heavenly saints, who, having already become
friends of God, have come through to the heavenly kingdoms,
and having been crowned, possess the palm; and,
secure in their own immortality, take concern for our
salvation.
Finally, beseeching from the soul an abundance of all
heavenly gifts to you from God, as a pledge of Our singular
love for you, venerable brethren, We very fondly bestow the
apostolic benediction, set out from the inmost heart, on you
yourselves, on all clerics, and on all the lay faithful
committed to your care.
Given at Rome before St. Peter, on the 8th day of December
1864, the tenth from the dogmatic definition of the
Immaculate Conception of the God-bearer, the Virgin Mary.
The nineteenth year of Our pontificate.
Pius PP. IX
SYLLABUS
COMPRISING THE PARTICULAR ERRORS OF OUR AGE
WHICH ARE NOTED
IN THE CONSISTORIAL ALLOCATIONS, OTHER ENCYCLICALS, AND APOSTOLIC LETTERS OF OUR MOST HOLY LORD, POPE PIUS IX
§ I
Pantheism, Naturalism, and Absolute Rationalism
I. No supreme, most wise, most provident, divine Will
exists distinct from this universe of things, and the
same God is both of the nature of things and on that account
liable to changes, and God Himself is in man and the
world, and all things are God and have the very substance of
God; and God is one and the same thing with the world, and
hence spirit with matter, necessity with liberty, the true
with the false, the good with the bad, and the just with the
unjust.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
II. All action of God in men and the world must be
denied.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
III. Human reason, not held at all in respect of God,
alone is the determiner of the true and the false, the good
and the wicked; it is a law unto itself and by its own
natural powers suffices for attending to the good of men and
peoples.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
IV. All truths of religion derive from the native power of
human reason; hence reason is the chief standard by which
man can, and must, pursue knowledge of things of any type
of truths whatsoever.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 November 1846
Epist. encycl. Singulari quidem17 March 1856
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
V. Divine revelation is imperfect and therefore subject to
a constant and unrestricted progress, which may respond to
the progression of human reason.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 November 1846
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
VI. The faith of Christ is opposed to human reason, and
divine revelation profits nothing, and in truth harms the
perfection of man.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 November 1846
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
VII. The prophecies and miracles set out and told in the Sacred
Scriptures are the inventions of poets, and the mysteries of
the Christian faith are the heights of philosophical
inquiries; and in the books of both Testaments are contained
invented myths; and Jesus Christ Himself is a mythic
invention.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 November 1846
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
§ II
Moderate Rationalism
VIII. Since human reason is equal to religion itself,
therefore theological and philosophical teachings have been drawn
out in the same way.
Alloc. Singulari quadam perfusi9 December 1854
IX. All doctrines of the Christian religion whatever are
the object of natural science or philosophy; and human
reason can be so improved historically by its own natural
powers and principles to arrive at true knowledge even about
better formulating all dogmas, if only these dogmas will be
proposed as an object to reason itself.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Gravissimas11 December 1862
Epist. ad eumdem. Tuas libenter21 December 1863
X. Since the philsoopher is one thing, and the philosopher
is another, he has the right and duty of submitting himself
to the authority which he himself approves as true;
but philosophy neither can nor should submit itself to any
authority.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Gravissimas11 December 1862
Epist. ad eumdem. Tuas libenter21 December 1863
XI. The Church not only must not ever attend to
philosophy, in truth she must even tolerate errors of philosophy
itself, and leave to it that it might correct
itself.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Gravissimas11 December 1862
XII. The decrees of the Apostolic See and of the Roman
Congregations hinder the free progress of science.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter21 December 1863
XIII. The method and principles by which the ancient
scholastic teachers improved Theology agree very little with
the necessities of our times and the progress of the
sciences.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter21 December 1863
XIV. Philosophy must be drawn out having no reckoning of
supernatural revelation.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter21 December 1863
N.~B. The errors of Anthony Günther coincide with the
greatest part with the system of rationalism, which is
condemned in the letter to the Cardinal Archbishop of
Cologne, Eximiam tuam, 15 June 1857, and in the letter to
the Bishop of Wratislav, Dolore haud mediocri, 30 April
1860.
§ III
Indifferentism, Latitudinarianism
XV. Each man whoever is free to embrace and profess that
religion which he, led by the light of reason, has thought
to be true.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1851
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
XVI. Men are able to discover the way of eternal salvation, and
obtain eternal salvation, in the worship of any religion
whatever.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 novembre 1840
Alloc. Ubi primum17 decembris 1847
Epist. encycl. Singulari quidem11 martii 1850
XVII. It must be well-hoped, at least, for the eternal salvation
of all those who in no way dwell in the true Church of Christ.
Epist. encycl. Singulari quidem11 martii 1850
Epist. encycl. Quanto conficiamur17 augusti 1803
XVIII. Protestantism is nothing else but a different form
of the same true Christian religion, in which it is given to
please God equally as in the Catholic Church.
Epist. encycl. Noscitis et Nobiscum8 decembris 1849
§ IV
Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Biblical Societies, Clerico-Liberal Societies
Plagues of this type have been often and in the gravest
verbal formulas been rejected in the encyclical letter Qui
pluribus, 9 Nov 1846; in the Allocution
Quibus quantisque, 20 Apr 1849; in the encyclical letter
Noscitis et Nobiscum, 8 Dec 1849; in the Allocution
Singulari quadam, 9 Dec 1854; and in the encyclical letter
Quanto conficiamur mœrore, 10 Aug 1863.
§ V
Errors on the Church and Her Rights
XIX. The Church is not a true and perfect society, completely
free, nor does she exert power in her own proper and
unchanging rights brought together for her by her divine
Founder, but it is of the civil power to define what are the
rights of the Church, and the limits within which she is able to
exercise those same rights.
Alloc. Singulari quadam9 December 1854
Alloc. Multis gravibusque17 December 1860
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
XX. The ecclesiastical power cannot exercise its authority
without the favor and assent of the civil
government.
Alloc. Meminit unusquisque30 September 1861
XXI. The Church does not have the power of dogmatically
defining that the religion of the Catholic Church is the
uniuely true religion.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1851
XXII. The obligation by which Catholic judges and writers
are bound, is restricted in those things only which are
proposed by the infallible judgment of the Church as
dogmas of the faith to be believed by all.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter21 December 1836
XXIII. The Roman pontiffs and the ecumenical Councils have
gone away from the limits of their own power, usurped the
rights of princes, and even erred in the things defined
about faith and morals.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1851
XXIV. The Church does not have the power of using force,
nor any temporal power either direct or indirect.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XXV. Besides the power inherent to the episcopate,
temporal power is ascribed in another way by the civil rulership, given
either expressly or tacitly; therefore, it is revoked by the
civil rulership when it pleases.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XXVI. The Church does not have an inborn and legitimate
right of acquiring and possessing.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
Epist. encycl. Incredibili1 September 1863
XXVII. The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman
pontiff must be altogether excluded from every care and
rule of temporal things.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1802
XXVIII. It is not lawful for bishops, without the favor of
the government, to promulgate even apostolic
letters.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
XXIX. Favors given by the Roman pontiff must be considered
as void, unless they have been begged for through the
government.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
XXX. The immunity of the Church and ecclesiastical
persons had its rise from the civil law.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1853
XXXI. The ecclesiastical forum for the temporal causes of
clerics, whether civil or criminal, must be entirely taken
away, even with the Apostolic See being
unasked or protesting.
Alloc. Acerbissimum27 September 1852
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
XXXII. The personal immunity by which clerics are removed
from the burden of submitting to and practicing in the
military, can be abolished without any violation of natural
right and equity; in truth, civil progress demands this
abolition, most especially in a society constituted in a
pattern of freer direction.
Epist ad Episc. Montisregal, Singularis Nobisque29 September 1861
XXXIII. It does not pertain solely to the ecclesiastical
power, by its proper and native right of jurisdiction, to
direct the teaching of theological matters.
Epist. ad Archiep. Frising. Tuas libenter22 December 1863
XXXIV. The teaching of treating the Roman pontiff as a
Prince, free and active in the universal Church, is a
teaching which prevailed in the Middle Ages.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XXXV. Nothing forbids the Supreme Pontificate being
transferred from the Roman bishop and city to another bishop
and another city, by the statement of some general council
or an act of all the people.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XXXVI. The definition of a national council permits no
other discussion, and the civil administration can drive a
matter to these boundaries.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XXXVII. National churches can be founded transferred from,
and clearly divided from, the authority of the Roman
pontiff.
Alloc. Multis gravibusque17 December 1860
Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus18 March 1861
XXXVIII. The excessive authority of the Roman pontiffs brought about the division of the Church into east and west.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
§ VI
Errors about Civil Society Considered First in Itself, then in its
Relationships to the Church
XXXIX. The status of the republic, in as much as it is the
origin and source of all rights, exerts power by a certain
right surrounded by no limits.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
XL. The teaching of the Catholic Church is opposed to the
good and advantage of human society.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 November 1846
Alloc. Quibus quantisque20 April 1849
XLI. An indirect, negative power over sacred things is
admissible for the civil power, even exercised by a
ruling unbeliever; hence, much more is the right which is
called execution, but also the right which they call appeal from
abuse.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XLII. In a conflict of the laws of each power, the civil
law prevails.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
XLIII. The lay power has the authority of rescinding, and
of making void, solemn agreements (“concordats” in the
vernacular) about the use of the laws pertaining to
ecclesiastical immunity entered into with the Apostolic See,
without her consent; indeed, even against her
protest.
Alloc. In consistoriali1 November 1850
Alloc. Multis gravibusque17 December 1860
XLIV. The civil authority can mix itself into things which
pertain to religion, morals, and spiritual rule. From this,
it can judge concerning instructions which the pastors of
the Church take from their own office for the standard of
consciences, so that it can even judge concerning the
adminstration of the divine sacraments and the dispositions
necessary for receiving them.
Alloc. In consistoriali1 November 1850
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
XLV. Total rule of the public schools, in which the
youth of any Christian republic is instructed, as long as
episcopal seminaries are for some reason excepted, can and
must be given over to the civil authority, and indeed so
given over, that no right be recognized to any other
authority whatsoever of mixing itself in the discipline of
the schools, the rule of studies, gathering of grades, or in
the choosing or approval of teachers.
Alloc. In consistoriali1 November 1850
Alloc. Quibus luctuosissimis5 September 1851
XLVI. Indeed, the method of studies to be employed in
the seminaries of clerics themselves is subjected to the
civil authority.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
XLVII. The best reason of civil society, that the popular
schools, which stand open to all children of whatever class
from the people, and public foundations generally, which are
aimed at handing down letters and weightier disciplines and
the arranging for the education of the youth, should be removed
from all authority, moderating power, and interference of
the Church, and be subjected to the will of the civil and
political authority for the pleasure of the ruling ones and
to the standard of the common opinions of the age.
Epist. ad Archiep. Friburg, Quam non sine14 July 1864
XLVIII. That reasoning regarding the instruction of
youth, which is separated from the Catholic faith
and the authority of the
Church, and which looks to the knowledge of natural
things only, and the ends of earthly social life only, or at least
primarily, can be approved by Catholic men.
Epist. ad Arch. Friburg, Quam non sine14 July 1864
IL. The civil authority can prevent that the bishops of
sacred things and the faithful people communicate freely and
mutually with the Roman pontiff.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1562
L. Lay authority has, in itself, the right of presenting
bishops, and can drive out from them that they enter into
the management of their dioceses before they receive
canonical installation and apostolic letters from the Holy
See.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
LI. Indeed, lay government has the right of deposing
bishops from the exercise of pastoral ministry, nor does it
need to obey the Roman pontiff in which things which respect
the institution of bishoprics and the bishops.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1851
Alloc. Acerbissimum27 September 1892
LII. The government can, by its own right, change the age
for religious profession of both men and women which is
prescribed by the Church, and proclaim to all religious
families that they admit no one to solemn vows without their
permission.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1856
LIII. Laws which pertain to the defense of the state of
religious families, and of their rights and duties, must be
abrogated; indeed, the civil government can stand as a help to
all those who wish to falter in the accepted institution
of religious life or to break solemn vows; and equally it
may thoroughly destroy the same religious families, and
likewise collegiate churches and simple benefices, even those of
patronage right, and both subject to judgment and claim
their goods and revenues for the administration of the civil
power.
Alloc. Acerbissimum27 September 1852
Alloc. Probe memineritis22 January 1855
Alloc. Cum sæpe26 July 1855
LIV. Kings and princes are not only removed from the
jurisdiction of the Church, but truly are even superior to
the Church in settling questions of jurisdiction.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1851
LV. The Church must be separated from the state, and the state from the
Church.
Alloc. Acerbissimum27 September 1852
§ VII
Errors about Natural and Christian Ethics
LVI. The laws of morals by no means need the divine sanction,
and least of all do human laws need to conform to the law of
nature or receive the power of obligating from God.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
LVII. Knowledge of philosophical matters and morals,
and likewise civil laws can and should turn away from
divine and ecclesiastical authority.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
LVIII. Other powers must not be recognized except those
which are placed in matter, and every honesty and teaching
of morals must be placed in the gathering and
increasing of wealth in any manner whatever, and in
satisfaction of pleasures.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
Epist. encycl. Quanto conficiamur10 August 1863
LIX. Right consists in a material fact, and all duties of
men are an empty name, and all human deeds have the force of
right.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
LX. There is no other authority except numbers and the
sum of material powers.
Alloc. Maxima quidem9 June 1862
LXI. A lucky injustice of deed bears no harm to the
sanctity of law.
Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus18 March 1861
LXII. The principle which is called
non-intervention must be proclaimed and observed.
Alloc. Novos et ante29 September 1860
LXIII. It is permitted to refuse obedience to legitimate
princes, and even to rebel.
Epist. encycl. Qui pluribus9 November 1846
Alloc. Quisque vestrum4 October 1847
Epist. encycl. Noscitis et Nobiscum8 December 1849
Litt. apost. Cum catholica26 March 1860
LXIV. Not only a violation of any sacred oath, but also
any wicked and shameful act whatever opposed to the eternal
law, not only must be not at all disapproved, but truly is
altogether lawful, and must be carried out with the greatest
praises, when it is done for the love of the
fatherland.
Alloc. Quibus quantisque20 April 1849
§ VII
Errors about Christian Marriage
LXV. It can be said with no justification that Christ has
exalted matrimony to the dignity of a sacrament.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXVI. The sacrament of matrimony is nothing but an
accessory to a contract and separable from it, and the
sacrament itself is situated in one nuptial blessing only.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXVII. By the law of nature, the bond of marriage is not
indissoluble, and in various cases divorce, properly so
called, can be sanctioned by the civil authority.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
Alloc. Acerbissimum21 September 1852
LXVIII. The Church does not have the power of introducing
diriment impediments to matrimony, but this power lies in
the civil authority, by which existing impediments must be
taken away.
Litt. apost. Multiplices inter10 June 1851
LXIX. The Church of prior ages began to introduce diriment
impediments not by its own right, but by that right having
been used, which it borrowed from the civil power.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXX. The canons of Trent which brought the censure of
anathema on those who dare to deny the ability of the Church
to introduce diriment impediments, are either not dogmatic
or must be understood concerning this borrowed power.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXXI. The form of Trent does not oblige under pain of
weakness where the civil law establishes another form, and
it wishes that marriage in this new inserted form should
prevail.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXXII. Boniface VIII first asserted that the vow of chastity
made at ordination renders marriages null.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXXIII. By the force of a merely civil contract, a
marriage of true name may exist between Christians; and
it is false either that a contract of marriage between
Christians is always a sacrament, or that there is no
contract if the sacrament is excluded.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
Lettera di S. S. Pio IX al re di Sardegna9 September 1852
Alloc. Acerbissimum27 September 1852
Alloc. Multis gravibusque17 December 1860
Causes of matrimony and betrothal, from their very own
nature, pertain to the civil forum.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
Alloc. Acerbissimum27 September 1852
N.~B. To this point can be made two other errors concerning the
celibacy of clerics being abolished and the state of
marriage being placed before the state of virginity. They
are fatally pierced, first in the encyclical Qui
pluribus of 9 November 1846, then in the apostolic letter
Multiplices inter of 10 June 1851.
§ IX
Errors concerning the civil primacy of the Roman Pontiff
LXXV. Concerning the compatibility of the temporal kingdom with
the spiritual, sons of the Christian and Catholic Church
argue among themselves.
Litt. apost. Ad apostolicæ22 August 1851
LXXVI. The revocation of the civil rule which the
Apostolic See possesses leads to the freedom and happiness
of the Church, even greatly so.
Alloc. Quibus quantisque20 April 1849
N.~B. Besides these errors explicitly noted, many others
are implicitly disapproved, by a doctrine put forward and
asserted which all Catholics must firmly hold about the
civil primacy of the Roman Pontiff. Doctrine of this sort
is brilliantly handed down in the allocution Quibus
quantisque of 20 April 1849; in the allocution Si semper
antea of 20 May 1850; in the apostolic letter Cum
catholica Ecclesia of 26 March 1860; in the allocution
Novos of 28 September 1860; in the allocution Jamdudum
of 18 March 1861; and in the allocution Maxima quidem of 9
June 1862.
§ X
Errors which are brought back to today's liberalism
LXXVII. In this, our time, it is no longer expedient to
have the Catholic religion as the only religion of the
state, with all other religions whatsoever excluded.
Alloc. Nemo vestrum26 July 1855
LXXVIII. Now, it is praiseworthy in any region of Catholic
name to be provided by law, that it be permitted to
immigrants coming there to have the public exercise of their
own particular religion
Alloc. Acerbissmum9 Sept. 1852
LXXIX. It is certainly false, that the civil liberty of
any religion, and likewise the full power allotted to all of
public and openly manifesting whatever opinions and thoughts
they please, conduces more easily to the corruption of
the morals and minds of the people and to the spreading
plague of indifferentism.
Alloc. Nunquam fore15 December 1836
LXXX. The Roman Pontiff can and must reconcile and place
himself with progress, with liberalism, and with recent
politics.
Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus18 March 1861
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