Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/77

Rh and most pernicious sects diffused on every side: the education of hapless youth, withdrawn everywhere from the clergy, and, what is worse, in not a few places intrusted to the teachers of iniquity and error.

Wherefore, following closely in the footsteps of our predecessors, we have judged it to be opportune to bring together into a General Council, which has long been our desire, all our venerable brethren, the ministers of the sanctuary, of the whole Catholic world, who have been called to share in a portion of our solicitude. For in this Œcumenical Council must be examined with the greatest accuracy, and decreed, all things which, especially in these rough times, relate to the greater glory of God, the integrity of faith, the gravity of divine worship, the eternal salvation of men, the discipline of the secular and regular clergy, its wholesome and solid culture, the observance of ecclesiastical laws, the amendment of manners, and the instruction of Christian youth. And with the most intent study care must be taken that all evils may be averted from the Church and from civil society. For no man can deny that the power of the Catholic Church and of its doctrine bears not only upon the eternal salvation of men, but also promotes the temporal welfare of peoples, their true prosperity, order, and tranquillity, and also the progress and solidity of human sciences, as the annals of both sacred and profane history clearly and openly show by luminous facts, and demonstrate with constant evidence.

Having thus drawn in outline the work of the Council, and declared the motives of its convocation, Pius the Ninth solemnly convoked it in these words:—

Wherefore, resting upon and upheld by the authority of Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, which we exercise on earth, by the counsel and assent of our venerable brethren

Rh