702 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



they should abhor and shun all the said errors as 

 they would the contagion of a fatal pestilence. Es- 

 pecially in Our first Encyclical Letter, written to You 

 on the 9th of November, anno 1846, and in two Allo- 

 cutions, one of which was delivered by Us in Con- 

 sistory on the 9th of December, anno 1854, and the 

 other on the 9th of June, anno 1802, We condemned 

 the monstrous and portentous opinions which pre- 

 vail especially in the present age to the very great 

 loss of souls, and even to the detriment of civil so- 

 ciety ; and which are in the highest degree hostile 

 not only to the Catholic Church, and to her salutary 

 doctrine and venerable laws, but also to the everlast- 

 ing law of nature engraven by God upon the hearts 

 of all men, and to right reason ; and out of which 

 almost all other errors originate. 



Now although hitherto We have not omitted to de- 

 nounce and reprove the chief errors of this kind, yet 

 the cause of the Catholic Church and the salvation 

 of souls committed to Us by God, and even the in- 

 terests of human society absolutely demand, that 

 once again We should -stir up Your pastoral solici- 

 tude to drive away other erroneous opinions which 

 flow from those errors above specified, as their source. 

 These false and perverse opinions are so much the 

 more detestable by how much they have chiefly for 

 their object to hinder and banish that salutary influ- 

 ence which the Catholic Church, by the institution 

 and command of her Divine Author, ought freely to 

 exercise, even to the consummation of the world, 

 not only over individual men but nations, peoples, 

 and sovereigns and to abolish that mutual coopera- 

 tion and agreement of counsels between the Priest- 

 hood and Governments which has always been pro- 

 pitious and conducive to the welfare both of Church 

 and State. (Gregory XVI. Encyclical, 13th August, 

 1832.) You are well aware that at this time, there 

 are not a few who apply to civil society the impious 

 and absurd principle of naturalism, as they term it, 

 and dare to tench that "the welfare of the State and 

 political and social progress require that human so- 

 ciety should be constituted and governed irrespective 

 of religion, which is to be treated just as if it did 

 not exist, or as if no real difference existed between 

 true and false religions." Contrary to the teaching 

 of the Holy Scriptures, of the Church, and of the 

 Holy Fathers, these persons do not hesitate to assert 

 that "the best condition of human society is that 

 wherein no duty is recognized by the Government 

 of correcting by enacted penalties the violators of 

 the Catholic Religion, except when the maintenance 

 of the public peace requires it." From this totally 

 false notion of social government, they fear not to 

 uphold that erroneous opinion most pernicious to 

 the Catholic Church, and to the salvation of souls, 

 which was called by Our Predecessor Gregory XVI. 

 (lately quoted) the insanity (Encycl. 13 August, 1832) 

 (deliramentum), namely, that " liberty of conscience 

 and of worship is the right of every man ; and that 

 this right ought, in every well-governed State, to be 

 proclaimed and asserted by the law ; and that the 

 citizens possess the right of being unrestrained in 

 the exercise of every kind of liberty, by any law, 

 ecclesiastical or civil, so that they are authorized to 

 publish and put forward openly, all their ideas what- 

 soever, either by speaking, in print, or by any other 

 method." But whilst these men make these rash 

 assertions, they do not reflect, or consider that they 

 pi-each the liberty of perdition (St. Augustine, Epis- 

 tle 105, al. 166), and that, "if it is always free to hu- 

 man arguments to discuss, men will never be want- 

 ing who will dare to resist the truth, and to rely upon 

 the loquacity of human wisdom, when we know from 

 the command of Our Lord Jesus Christ how faith and 

 Christian wisdom ought to avoid this most mis- 

 chievous vanity." (St. Leo, Epistle 1G4, al. 133, 

 ec. 2, Boll. ed.). 



And since religion has been banished from civil 

 Government; since the teaching and authority of 

 Diviue revelation have been repudiated, the idea in- 



separable therefrom of justice and human right is 

 obscured by darkness and lost, and in place of true 

 justice and" legitimate right material force is substi- 

 tuted, whence it appears why some, entirely neglect- 

 ing and slighting the most certain principles of sound 

 reason, dare to proclaim "that the will of the people, 

 manifested by public opinion (as they call it), or by 

 other means, constitutes a supreme law independent 

 of all Divine and human right ; and that, in the po- 

 litical order, accomplished facts, by the mere fact of 

 their having been accomplished, have the force of 

 right." But who does not plainly see and under- 

 stand that human society, released from the ties cf 

 religion and true justice, can have no other purpose 

 than to compass its own ends, and to amass riches, 

 and can follow no other law in its actions than the 

 indomitable wickedness of a heart given up to tha 

 service of its selfish pleasures and interests ? For 

 this reason also these same men persecute with such 

 bitter hatred the Religious Orders who have deserved 

 so well of religion, civil society, and letters ; they 

 loudly declare that the Orders have no right to exist, 

 and, in so doing, make common cause with the false- 

 hoods of the heretics. For, as was most wisely taught 

 L>- Our Predecessor of illustrious memory, Pius "VI., 

 "the abolition of Religious Orders injures the state 

 of public profession of the Evangelical counsels ; in- 

 jures a mode of life recommended by the Church as 

 in conformity with Apostolical doctrine ; does wrong 

 to the illustrious founders whom we venerate upon 

 our altars, and who constituted these societies under 

 the inspiration of God." (Epistle to Cardinal de la 

 Rochefoucald, March 10, 1791.) And these same per- 

 sons also impiously pretend that citizens should be 

 deprived of the liberty of publicly bestowing on the 

 Church their alms for the sake of Christian charity, 

 and that the law forbidding " servile labor on account 

 of Divine worship" upon certain fixed days should 

 be abolished upon the most fallacious pretext that 

 such liberty and such law are contrary to the princi- 

 ples of political economy. Not content with abolish- 

 ing religion in public society, they desire further to 

 banish it from families and private life. Teaching 

 and professing those most fatal errors of Socialism 

 and Communism, they_ declare that "domestic so- 

 ciety or the family derives all its reason of existence 

 solely from civil law, whence it is to be concluded 

 that from civil law descend and depend all the rights 

 of parents over their children, and, above all, the 

 right of instructing and educating them." By such 

 impious opinions and machinations do these most 

 false teachers endeavor to eliminate the salutary 

 teaching and influence of the Catholic Church from 

 the instruction and education of youth, and to mis- 

 erably infect and deprave by every pernicious error 

 and vice the tender and pliant minds of youth. All 

 those who endeavor to throw into confusion both 

 religious and political affairs, to destroy the good 

 order of society, and to annihilate all Divine and 

 human rights, have always exerted all their criminal 

 schemes, attention, and efforts upon the manner in 

 which they might, above all, deprave and delude un- 

 thinking youth, as We have already shown : it is 

 upon the corruption of youth that they place all 

 their hopes. Thus they never cease to attack by 

 every method the Clergy, both secular and regular, 

 from whom, as testify to us in so conspicuous a man- 

 ner the most certain records of history, such con- 

 siderable benefits have been bestowed in abundance 

 upon Christian and Civil society and upon the repub- 

 lic of letters ; asserting of the Clergy in general, that 

 they are the enemies of the useful sciences, of pro- 

 gress, and of civilization, and that they ought to be 

 deprived of all participation in the work of teaching 

 and training the young. 



Others, reviving the depraving fictions of inno- 

 vators, errors many times condemned, presume with 

 extraordinary impudence, to subordinate the author- 

 ity of the Church and of this Apostolic See, conferred 

 upon it by Christ Our Lord, to the judgment of ci*;J 



