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 STLLABUS

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STLLABUS

Catholics the world over. All Catholics, therefore, are bound to accept the Syllabus. Exteriorly they may neither in word nor in writingoppose its contents; they must also assent to it interiorly.

C. Conliinls. — The general contents of the Syllabus are summed up in the headings of the ten paragraphs, under which the eighty theses are grouped. They are: Pantheism, Naturalism, Absolute Rationalism (1-7); Moderate Rationalism (8-14); IndiiTerentism and false Tolerance in Religious matters (15-18); Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Bible Societies, Liberal Clerical Associations (reference is made to three Encyclicals and two Allocutions of the pope, in which these tendencies are condemned). Errors regarding the Church and its rights (19-38); Errors on the State and its Relation to the Church (3&-55); Errors on Natural and Christian Ethics (56-64); Errors on Christian Marriage (65-74); Errors on the Temporal Power of the Pope (75-76); Errors in Connection with Modern Liberalism (77- 80). The content of any one thesis of the Syllabus is to be determined according to the laws of scientific interpretation. First of all, one has to refer to the papal documents connected with each thesis. For, in accordance with the peculiar character of the Syllabus, the meaning of the thesis is determined by the meaning of the document it is drawn from. Thus the often-cited eightieth thesis, "The pope may and must reconcile himself with, and adapt himself to, Progress, Liberalism, and Modern Civilization", is to be explained with the help of the Allocution "Jamdudum cernimus" of 18 March, 1861. In this allocution the pope expressly distinguishes between true and false civilization, and declares that history witnesses to the fact that the Holy See has always been the protector and patron of all genuine civiliza- tion; and he affirms that, if a system designed to de-Christianize the world be called a system of pro- gress and civilization, he can never hold out the hand of peace to such a system. According to the words of this allocution, then, it is evident that the eightieth thesis of the Syllabus applies to false progress and false Liberalism and not to honest pioneer-work seeking to open out new fields to human activity.

Moreover, should a thesis, according to the papal references, be taken from a condemned book, the meaning of the thesis is to be determined according to that which it has in the condemned book. For the thesis has been condemned in this particular meaning and not in any other which might possibly be read into its wording. For instance, the fifteenth thesis, "Everyone is free to adopt and profess that religion which he, guided by the light of reason, holds to be true", admits in itself of a right inter- pretation. For man can and must be led to the knowledge of the true religion through the light of reason. However, on con.sulting the Apostolic Letter "Multiplices inter", dated 10 June, 1851, from which this thesis is taken, it will be found that not every possible meaning is rejected, but only thiit particular meaning which, in 1848, Vigil, a Peruvian priest, attached to it in his "Defensa . Influenced by Indifferent ism and Rationalism, Vigil maintained that man is to trust to his own human rea.son only and not to a Divine reason, i. e. to the truthful and omniscient God Who in supernatural revelation vouches for the truth of a religion. In the sense in which Vigil's book understands the fifteenth thesis, and in this sense alone does the Syllabus understand and condemn the proposition.

The view held by the Church in opposition to each thesis is contained in the contradictory proposition of each of the condemned theses. This opposition is formulated, in accordance with the rules of dialec- tics, by prefixing to each proposition the words: "It is not true that ..." The doctrine nf the Church which corresponcs, for instance, to the fourteenth XIV.— 24

thesis is as follows: "It is not true, that 'philosophy must be treated independently of supernatural reve- lation.'" In itself no opposition is so sharply deter- mined as by the contradictory : it is simply the nega- tion of the foregoing statement. However, the practical use of this negation is not always easy, especially if a compound or dependent sentence is in question, or a theoretical error is concealed under the form of an historical fact. If, as for instance in thesis 42, the proposition, that in a conflict between civil and ecclesiastical laws the rights of the State should prevail, be condemned, then it does not follow from this thesis, that, in every conceivable case of conflicting laws the greater right is with the Church. If, as in thesis 45, it be denied that the entire control of the public schools belongs exclusivelj- to the State, then it is not maintained that their control does in no way concern the State, but only the Church. If the modern claim of general separation between Church and State is rejected, as in thesis 55, it does not follow that separation is not permissible in any case. If it be false to say that matrimony by its very nature is subject to the civil power (thesis 74), it is not necessarily correct to assert that it is in no way subject to the State. While thesis 77 condemns the statement that in our time it is no longer expedient to consider the Catholic religion as the only State religion to the exclusion of all other cults, it follows merely that to-day also the exclusion of non-Catholic cults may prove expedient, if certain conditions be realized.

D. hnporlance. — The importance of the Syllabus lies in its opposition to the high tide of that intellec- tual movement of the nineteenth century which strove to sweep away the foundations of all human and Divine order. The Syllabus is not only the defence of the inalienable rights of God, of the Church, and of truth against the abuse of the words /recrfojn and cidlure on the part of unbridled Liberalism, but it is also a protest, earnest and energetic, against the attempt to eliminate the influence of the Catholic Church on the life of nations and of individuals, on the family and the school. In its nature, it is true, the Syllabus is negative and condemnatory; but it received its complement in the decisions of the Vati- can Council and in the Encyclicals of Leo XIII. It is precisely its fearless character that perhaps accounts for its influence on the life of the Church towards the end of the nineteenth century; for it threw a sharp, clear light upon reef and rock in the intellectual currents of the time.

II. The SvLLABn.s of Pids X. — A. History. — The Syllabus of Pius X is the Decree "Lamentabili sane exitu", issued on 3 July, 1907, condemning in sixty- five propositions the chief tenets of Modernism. This Decree, later on called the Syllabus of Pius X on account of its similarity with the Syllabus of Pius IX, is a doctrinal decision of the Holy Office, i. e. of that Roman Congregation which watches over the purity of Catholic doctrine concerning faith and morals. On 4 July, 1907, Pius X ratified it and ordered its publication; and on IS November, 1907, in a Motu Proprio he prohibited the defence of the condemned propositions under the penalty of excommunication, reser\'ed ordinarily to the pope. The Decree is supplemented by the Encyclical "Pas- cendi" of 8 September, 1907, and by the oath against Modernism prescribed on 1 September, 1910. Thus, the Syllabus of Pius X is the first of a series of ecclesi- astical pronouncements dealing with the condemna- tion of Modernism, whilst the Syllab\is of Pius IX sums up the condemnations previously passed by the same pope.

B. Conlerils. — By far the greater number of the theses of this Syllabus are taken from the writings of Loisy, the leader of the Modernists in France; only a few are from the works of other writers (e. g,,