Pope St. Pius X and Pope Pius XI on the Apostasy of Our Age

Communium Rerum – On St. Anselm of Aosta – Pope Pius X – April 21, 1909

More bitter shall be the consequences of these threats when the vices of society are being multiplied, when the sin of rulers and of the people consists especially in the exclusion of God and in rebellion against the Church of Christ: that double social apostasy which is the deplorable fount of anarchy, corruption, and endless misery for the individual and for society.

Editae Saepe – On St. Charles Borromeo – Pope Pius X – May 26, 1910

9. This wonderful working of Divine Providence in the Church’s program of restoration was seen with the greatest clarity and was given as a consolation for the good especially in the century of Saint Charles Borromeo. In those days passions ran riot and knowledge of the truth was almost completely twisted and confused. A continual battle was being waged against errors. Human society, going from bad to worse, was rushing headlong into the abyss. Then those proud and rebellious men came on the scene who are “enemies of the cross of Christ . . .Their god is the belly…they mind the things of earth.”[18] These men were not concerned with correcting morals, but only with denying dogmas. Thus they increased the chaos. They dropped the reins of law, and unbridled licentiousness ran wild. They despised the authoritative guidance of the church and pandered to the whims of the dissolute princes and people. They tried to destroy the Church’s doctrine, constitution and discipline. they were similar to those sinners who were warned long ago: “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil.”[19] They called this rebellious riot and perversion of faith and morals a reformation, and themselves reformers. In reality, they were corrupters. In undermining the strength of Europe through wars and dissensions, they paved the way for those modern rebellions and apostasy. This modern warfare has united and renewed in one attack the three kinds of attack which have up until now been separated; namely, the bloody conflicts of the first ages, the internal pests of heresies, and finally, in the name of evangelical liberty, the vicious corruption and perversion of discipline such as was unknown, perhaps, even in medieval times. Yet in each of these combats the Church has always emerged victorious.

17. The reformers that Borromeo opposed did not even think of this. They tried to reform faith and discipline according to their own whims. Venerable Brethren, it is no better understood by those whom We must withstand today. These moderns, forever prattling about culture and civilization, are undermining the Church’s doctrine, laws, and practices. They are not concerned very much about culture and civilization. By using such high-sounding words they think they can conceal the wickedness of their schemes.

18. All of you know their purpose, subterfuges, and methods. On Our part We have denounced and condemned their scheming. They are proposing a universal apostasy even worse than the one that threatened the age of Charles. It is worse, We say, because it stealthily creeps into the very veins of the Church, hides there, and cunningly pushes erroneous principles to their ultimate conclusions.

19. Both these heresies are fathered by the “enemy” who “sowed weeds among the wheat”[29] in order to bring about the downfall of mankind. Both revolts go about in the hidden ways of darkness, develop along the same line, and come to an end in the same fatal way. In the past the first apostasy turned where fortune seemed to smile. It set rulers against people or people against rulers only to lead both classes to destruction. Today this modern apostasy stirs up hatred between the poor and the rich until, dissatisfied with their station, they gradually fall into such wretched ways that they must pay the fine imposed on those who, absorbed in worldly, temporal things, forget “the kingdom of God and His justice.” As a matter of fact, this present conflict is even more serious than the others. Although the wild innovators of former times generally preserved some fragments of the treasury of revealed doctrine, these moderns act as if they will not rest until they completely destroy it. When the foundations of religion are overthrown, the restraints of civil society are also necessarily shattered. Behold the sad spectacle of our times! Behold the impending danger of the future! However, it is no danger to the Church, for the divine promise leaves no room for doubt. Rather, this revolution threatens the family and nations, especially those who actively stir up or indifferently tolerate this unhealthy atmosphere of irreligion.

20. This impious and foolish war is waged and sometimes supported by those who should be the first to come to Our aid. The errors appear in many forms and the enticements of vice wear different dresses. Both cause many even among our own ranks to be ensnared, seducing them by the appearance of novelty and doctrine, or the illusion that the Church will accept the maxims of the age. Venerable Brethren, you are well aware that we must vigorously resist and repel the enemy’s attacks with the very weapons Borromeo used in his day.

21. Since they attack the very root of faith either by openly denying, hypocritically undermining, or misrepresenting revealed doctrine, we should above all recall the truth Charles often taught. “The primary and most important duty of pastors is to guard everything pertaining to the integral and inviolate maintenance of the Catholic Faith, the faith which the Holy Roman Church professes and teaches, without which it is impossible to please God.”[30] Again: “In this matter no diligence can be too great to fulfill the certain demands of our office.”[31] We must therefore use sound doctrine to withstand “the leaven of heretical depravity,” which if not repressed, will corrupt the whole. That is to say, we must oppose these erroneous opinions now deceitfully being scattered abroad, which, when taken all together, are called Modernism. With Charles we must be mindful “of the supreme zeal and excelling diligence which the bishop must exercise in combating the crime of heresy.”[32] · 

29. Matt. 13:25. · 30. Conc. Prov. I, sub initium.·  31. Conc. Prov. V, Pars I. ·  32. Ibid.

Notre Charge Apostolique

Our Apostolic Mandate – Pope Pius X – Aug. 15, 1910

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the “Kingdom of God”. – “We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind.” And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.

Rerum Omnium Perturbationem

St. Francis De Sales – Pope Pius XI – Jan. 26, 1923

Like those brilliant examples of Christian perfection and wisdom to whom We have just referred, he seemed to have been sent especially by God to contend against the heresies begotten by the Reformation. It is in these heresies that we discover the beginnings of that apostasy of mankind from the Church, the sad and disastrous effects of which are deplored, even to the present hour, by every fair mind.

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Religious Liberty and the Dignity of the Human Person

An old 2012 First Things article by Thomas Pink is making a second round among some recognize and resist folks, like my younger anything but sedevacantism brother. [1] Apparently, they’re waking up to their error of resisting (rejecting) magisterial documents. Therefore, they’re taking another look to see if the documents of Vatican 2 can really be interpreted with the “hermeneutic of continuity.” After all, if an ecumenical council ratified by a pope can be heretical, what’s the foundation to believe anything outside of dogmatic definitions? Perhaps, some recognize and resist folks realize they can’t really be recognizing and resisting as they are.

Their first obstacle to overcome is the religious liberty issue from Vatican 2’s Dignitatis Humanae. They turn to Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, Thomas Pink who spins the Vatican 2 document to make it mean exactly opposite to what it says.

He begins by giving examples from Popes Gregory XVI and Leo XIII and said they, “taught that the state should not only recognize Catholic Christianity as the true religion, but should use its coercive power to restrict the public practice of, and proselytization by, false religions—including Protestantism. Yet in its declaration on religious freedom, Dignitatis Humanae, the Second Vatican Council declared that the state should not use coercion to restrict religion—not even on behalf of the true faith. Such coercion would be a violation of people’s right to religious liberty.”

Professor Pink explains: “The declaration is not a statement about religious liberty in general but about a specifically civil liberty: religious liberty in relation to the state and other civil institutions. It does not oppose religious coercion in general, but coercion by the state. The state is forbidden to coerce in matters of religion, not because such coercion is illicit for any authority whatsoever, but because such coercion lies beyond the state’s particular competence.”

Pink encapsulates his point: “We can now see how Dignitatis Humanae does not change doctrine after all. Religious coercion by the state is now morally wrong, and a violation of people’s rights, not because religious coercion by any authority is wrong, but because the Church no longer authorizes it. The Church is now refusing to license the state to act as her coercive agent, and it is from that policy change, and not from any change in underlying doctrine, that the wrongfulness of religious coercion by the state follows.”

First of all, Popes Gregory and Leo condemned freedom to error in religion publicly declaring that it is not a right given by nature of man. [2] This is the key issue, a person’s God-given right by his nature as a human person. Not even the Church can violate a God-given right by nature of man. Professor Pink is saying something entirely different than Vatican 2. Pink makes Vatican 2 out to be merely changing policy on civil matters when, in fact, Vatican 2 is changing the doctrine based on the rights of man.

Vatican 2 defines what is meant by coercion:

This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.

It’s true that neither the Church nor the state can force someone to be Catholic, but that’s different from granting freedom to be publicly anti-Catholic. That’s precisely what Vatican 2 continues to teach by granting false religions to publicly profess and spread heresy and error as a God-given civil right. [3] According to Vatican 2, the foundation for this right is the dignity of the human person:

The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself. (2) This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right. [4]

Gaudium et spes of Vatican 2 reinforces the above teaching in Dignitatis Humanae. [5] Ratizinger wrote in his Principles of Catholic Theology, 1982, p. 381: “If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [of Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter syllabus… As a result, the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution, was, to a large extent, corrected…”

Professor Pink is proven entirely wrong. It is a doctrinal change and it’s about the intrinsic rights of man, which necessarily condemns the Catholic doctrine taught by Popes Gregory and Leo.

Regardless, the state does not need the Church to grant authorization to prohibit public error against God. The Church does not govern non-Catholics, the state does. Pope Leo XIII declared that it was “quite unlawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, or writing, or of worship. For, if nature had really granted them, it would be lawful to refuse obedience to God, and there would be no restraint on human liberty. It likewise follows that freedom in these things may be tolerated wherever there is just cause, but only with such moderation as will prevent its degenerating into license and excess. And, where such liberties are in use, men should employ them in doing good, and should estimate them as the Church does; for liberty is to be regarded as legitimate in so far only as it affords greater facility for doing good, but no farther.” [6] That means the state must NOT demand, defend, or grant such freedoms, regardless whether it’s a Catholic state or not, because it contrary to divine law. Pink’s explanation that the state is forbidden to coerce in matters of religion, not because such coercion is illicit for any authority whatsoever, but because such coercion lies beyond the state’s particular competence IS CONDEMNED by the very pope he cites. 

Vatican 2 is clear that religious liberty is a human right that not even the Church can prohibit. It declared that this “right” be made into constitutional law. The results were dissolving the Catholic Nations and Catholic Constitutions around the world. The Catholic State is being declared by the Second Vatican Council as a violation of the rights of man. Countries, such as Spain and Colombia, were forced to give up their Catholic constitutions and follow this document.

Vatican 2 implies religious liberty for non-Catholics is a right by nature of man because of the dignity of the human person. The teachings of Popes Gregory XVI and Leo XIII say it’s not a right given by nature of man, just the opposite.

The dignity of the human person concept is the basis for Vatican 2 popes to condemn capital punishment, too.

Francis declared: Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,^[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide. [7]

The Vatican 2 religion is attempting to raise the dignity of the human person to the level of God Himself. According to the council, man has an intrinsic right to publicly blaspheme God’s Name, His Nature, His Church, His Mother (which all heresy does) and he can never be put to death for any cause.  

 IT TRULY TOUCHES UPON THE DOCTRINE OF ANTICHRIST.

 

Footnotes

[1] https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/08/conscience-and-coercion

[2] Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (# 15), Aug. 15, 1832: “Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor.  We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice.”

      Pope Leo XIII, Libertas (# 42), June 20, 1888: “From what has been said it follows that it is quite unlawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, or writing, or of worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature of man.”

[3] Dignitatis Humanae # 4: “In addition, religious communities are entitled to teach and give witness to their faith publicly in speech and writing without hindrance.”

[4] Dignitatis humanae (vatican.va)

[5] 28. Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters. In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them.

This love and good will, to be sure, must in no way render us indifferent to truth and goodness. Indeed love itself impels the disciples of Christ to speak the saving truth to all men. But it is necessary to distinguish between error, which always merits repudiation, and the person in error, who never loses the dignity of being a person even when he is flawed by false or inadequate religious notions.(10) God alone is the judge and searcher of hearts, for that reason He forbids us to make judgments about the internal guilt of anyone.(11) Cf. Matt. 22:37-40; Gal. 5:14.

60. It is now possible to free most of humanity from the misery of ignorance. Therefore the duty most consonant with our times, especially for Christians, is that of working diligently for fundamental decisions to be taken in economic and political affairs, both on the national and international level which will everywhere recognize and satisfy the right of all to a human and social culture in conformity with the dignity of the human person without any discrimination of race, sex, nation, religion or social condition. Therefore it is necessary to provide all with a sufficient quantity of cultural benefits, especially of those which constitute the so-called fundamental culture lest very many be prevented from cooperating in the promotion of the common good in a truly human manner because of illiteracy and a lack of responsible activity.

THE LIFE OF THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY

73. In our day, profound changes are apparent also in the structure and institutions of peoples. These result from their cultural, economic and social evolution. Such changes have a great influence on the life of the political community, especially regarding the rights and duties of all in the exercise of civil freedom and in the attainment of the common good, and in organizing the relations of citizens among themselves and with respect to public authority.

The present keener sense of human dignity has given rise in many parts of the world to attempts to bring about a politico-juridical order which will give better protection to the rights of the person in public life. These include the right freely to meet and form associations, the right to express one’s own opinion and to profess one’s religion both publicly and privately. The protection of the rights of a person is indeed a necessary condition so that citizens, individually or collectively, can take an active part in the life and government of the state.

However, those political systems, prevailing in some parts of the world are to be reproved which hamper civic or religious freedom, victimize large numbers through avarice and political crimes, and divert the exercise of authority from the service of the common good to the interests of one or another faction or of the rulers themselves.

Gaudium et spes (vatican.va)

[6] Pope Leo XIII, Libertas (# 42), June 20, 1888.

[7] New revision of number 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty – Rescriptum “ex Audentia SS.mi” (vatican.va)

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