REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 559 from disaster the glorious patrimony of arts, history, science, and letters; and imbuing deeply the whole body of society with the spirit of the Gospel, she created Chris- tian civilization — that civilization to which the nations, subjected to its beneficent influence, owe the equity of their laws, the mildness of their manners, the protection of the weak, pity for the afflicted and the poor, respect for the rights and dignity of all men and thereby, as far as it is possible amidst the fluctuations of human affairs, that calm of social life which springs from the just and prudent alliance between justice and liberty.
Those proofs of the intrinsic excellence of the Church are as striking and sublime as they have been enduring. Nevertheless, as in the Middle Ages and during the first centuries, so in those nearer our own, we see the Church assailed more harshly, in a certain sense at least, and more distressingly than ever. Through a series of well- known historical causes, the pretended Reformation of the sixteenth century raised the standard of revolt; and, determining to strike out straight into the heart of the Church, audaciously attacked the Papacy. It broke the precious link of the ancient unity of faith and authority, which, multiplying a hundredfold power, prestige, and glory, thanks to the harmonious pursuit of the same objects, united all nations under one staff and one shepherd. This unity being broken, a pernicious principle of disintegra- tion was introduced amongst all ranks of Christians.
We do not, indeed, hereby pretend to affirm that from the beginning there was a set purpose of destroying the principle of Christianity in the heart of society; but by refusing, on the one hand, to acknowledge the supremacy of the Holy See, the effective cause and bond of unity, and by proclaiming, on the other, the principle of private judgment, the divine structure of faith was shaken to its deepest foundations and the way was opened to infinite variations, to doubts and denials of the most important things, to an extent which the innovators themselves had 560 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.
not foreseen. The way was opened. Then came the con- temptuous and mocking philosophism of the eighteenth century, which advanced farther. It turned to ridicule the sacred canon of the Scriptures and rejected the entire system of revealed truths, with the purpose of being able ultimately to root out from the conscience of the people all religious belief and stifling within it the last breath of the spirit of Christianity. It is from this source that have flowed rationalism, pantheism, naturalism, and ma- terialism — poisonous and destructive systems which, under different appearances, renew the ancient errors trium- phantly refuted by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church; so that the pride of modern times, by excessive confidence in its own lights, was stricken with blindness; and, like paganism, subsisted thenceforth on fancies, even con- cerning the attributes of the human soul and the immortal destinies which constitute our glorious heritage.
The struggle against the Church thus took on a more serious character than in the past, no less because of the vehemence of the assault than because of its universality. Contemporary unbelief does not confine itself to denying or doubting articles of faith. What it combats is the whole body of principles which sacred revelation and sound philosophy maintain; those fundamental and holy principles which teach man the supreme object of his earthly life, which keep him in the performance of his duty, which inspire his heart with courage and resigna- tion, and which, in promising him incorruptible justice and perfect happiness beyond the tomb, enable him to subject time to eternity, earth to heaven. But what takes the place of these principles which form the incom- parable strength bestowed by faith? A frightful scep- ticism, which chills the heart and stifles in the conscience every magnanimous aspiration.
This system of practical atheism must necessarily cause, as in point of fact it does, a profound disorder in the do- main of morals; for, as the greatest philosophers of an REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 561 tiquity have declared, religion is the chief foundation of justice and virtue. When the bonds are broken which unite man to God, who is the Sovereign Legislator and Universal Judge, a mere phantom of moraUty remains; a morality which is purely civic and, as it is termed, inde- pendent, which, abstracting from the Eternal Mind and the laws of God, descends inevitably till it reaches the ultimate conclusion of making man a law unto himself. Incapable, in consequence, of rising on the wings of Chris- tian hope to the goods of the world beyond, man will seek a material satisfaction in the comforts and enjoyments of life. There will be excited in him a thirst for pleasure, a desire of riches, and an eager quest of rapid and un- limited wealth, even at the cost of justice. There will be enkindled in him every ambition and a feverish and frenzied desire to gratify them even in defiance of law, and he will be swayed by a contempt for right and for public authority, as well as by licentiousness of life which, when the condition becomes general, wiU mark the real decay of society.
Perhaps We may be accused of exaggerating the sad consequences of the disorders of which We speak. No; for the reahty is before our eyes and warrants but too truly Our forebodings. It is manifest that if there is not some betterment soon, the bases of society will crumble and drag down with them the great and eternal principles of law and morality.
It is in consequence of this condition of things that the social body, beginning with the family, is suffering such serious evils. For the lay State, forgetting its limi- tations and the essential object of the authority which it wields, has laid its hands on the marriage bond to pro- fane it and has stripped it of its religious character; it has dared as much as it could in the matter of that natural right which parents possess to educate their children, and in many countries it has destroyed the stability of marriage by giving a legal sanction to the licentious insti 562 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.
tution of divorce. All know the result of these attacks. More than words can tell they have multiplied marriages which are prompted only by shameful passions, which are speedily dissolved, and which, at times, bring about bloody tragedies, at others the most shocking infidelities. We say nothing of the innocent offspring of these unions, the children who are abandoned or whose morals are cor- rupted on one side by the bad example of the parents, on the other by the poison which the officially lay State constantly pours into their hearts.
Along with the family, the poHtical and social order is also endangered by doctrines which ascribe a false origin to authority, and which have corrupted the genuine conception of government. For if sovereign authority is derived formally from the consent of the people and not from God, who is the supreme and Eternal Principle of all power, it loses in the eyes of the governed its most august characteristic and degenerates into an artificial sovereignty which rests on unstable and shifting bases, namely, the will of those from whom it is said to be de- rived. Do we not see the consequences of this error in the carrying out of our laws? Too often these laws in- stead of being sound reason formulated in writing are but the expression of the power of the greater number and the will of the predominant political party. It is thus that the mob is cajoled in seeking to satisfy its desires; that a loose rein is given to popular passion, even when it disturbs the laboriously acquired tranquilhty of the State, when the disorder in the last extremity can only be quelled by violent measures and the shedding of blood.
Consequent upon the repudiation of those Christian principles which had contributed so efficaciously to unite the nations in the bonds of brotherhood, and to bring all humanity into one great family, there has arisen little by little, in the international order, a system of jealous egoism, in consequence of which the nations now watch each, other, if not with hate, at least with the suspicion of REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 563 rivals. Hence, in their great undertakings they lose sight of the lofty principles of morahty and justice and forget the protection which the feeble and the oppressed have a right to demand. In the desire by which they are actuated to increase their national riches, they regard only the opportunity which circumstances afford, the ad- vantages of successful enterprises, and the tempting bait of an accomplished fact, sure that no one will trouble them in the name of right or the respect which right can claim. Such are the fatal principles which have consecrated material power as the supreme law of the world, and to them is to be imputed the Umitless increase of mihtary establishments and that armed peace which in many respects is equivalent to a disastrous war.
This lamentable confusion in the realm of ideas has produced restlessness among the people, outbreaks, and the general spirit of rebellion. From these have sprung the frequent popular agitations and disorders of our times which are only the preludes of much more terrible disorders in the future. The miserable condition, also, of a large part of the poorer classes, who assuredly merit our assist- ance, furnishes an admirable opportunity for the designs of scheming agitators, and especially of socialist factions, which hold out to the humbler classes the most extrava- gant promises and use them to carry out the most dread- ful projects.
Those who start on a dangerous descent are soon hurled down in spite of themselves into the abyss. Prompted by an inexorable logic, a society of veritable criminals has been organized, which, at its very first appearance, has, by its savage character, startled the world. Thanks to the solidarity of its construction and its international ramifications, it has already attempted its wicked work, for it stands in fear of nothing and recoils before no danger. Repudiating all union with society, and cynically scoffing at law, religion, and morality, its adepts have adopted the name of Anarchists, and propose to utterly subvert 564 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE the actual conditions of society by making use of ev^ery means that a bUnd and savage passion can suggest. And as society draws its unity and its Ufe from the authority which governs it, so it is against authority that anarchy directs its efforts. Who does not feel a thrill of horror, indignation, and pity at the remembrance of the many victims that of late have fallen beneath its blows, em- perors, empresses, kings, presidents of powerful repub- lics, whose only crime was the sovereign power with which they were invested?
In presence of the immensity of the evils which over- whelm society and the perils which menace it, Our duty compels Us to again warn all men of good will, especially those who occupy exalted positions, and to conjure them as We now do, to devise what remedies the situation calls for and with prudent energy to apply them vidthout delay.
First of all, it behooves them to inquire what remedies are needed, and to examine well their potency in the present needs. We have extolled liberty and its advantages to the skies, and have proclaimed it as a sovereign remedy and an incomparable instrument of peace and prosperity which will be most fruitful in good results. But facts have clearly shown us that it does not possess the power which it attributed to it. Economic conflicts, struggles of the classes are surging around us like a conflagration on all sides, and there is no promise of the dawn of the day of public tranquillity. In point of fact, and there is no one who does not see it, hberty as it is now understood, that is to say, a liberty granted indiscriminately to truth and to error, to good and to evil, ends only in destroying all that is noble, generous, and holy, and in opening the gates still wider to crime, to suicide, and to a multitude of the most de- grading passions.
The doctrine is also taught that the development of public instruction, by making the people more polished and more enlightened, would suffice as a check to unhealthy tendencies and to keep man in the ways of uprightness REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 565 and probity. But a hard reality has made us feel every day more and more of how little avail is instruction without religion and morality. As a necessary consequence of in- experience, and of the promptings of bad passions, the mind of youth is enthralled by the perverse teachings of the day. It absorbs all the errors which an unbridled press does not hesitate to sow broadcast and which depraves the mind and the will of youth and foments in them that spirit of pride and insubordination which so often trouble the peace of families and cities.
So also was confidence reposed in the progress of science. Indeed the century which has just closed, has witnessed progress that was great, unexpected, stupendous. But is it true that it has given us all the fulness and health- fulness of fruitage that so many expected from it? Doubt- less the discoveries of science have opened new horizons to the mind; it has widened the empire of man over the forces of matter, and human life has been ameliorated in many ways through its instrumentality. Nevertheless, every one feels and many admit that the results have not corresponded to the hopes that were cherished. It cannot be denied, especially when we cast our eyes on the intel- lectual and moral status of the world as well as on the records of criminality, when we hear the dull murmurs which arise from the depths, or when we witness the pre- dominance which might has won over right. Not to speak of the throngs who are a prey to every misery, a super- ficial glance at the condition of the world will suflfice to convince us of the indefinable sorrow which weighs upon souls and the immense void which is in human hearts. Man may subject nature to his sway, but matter cannot give him what it has not, and to the questions which most deeply affect our gravest interests hirnian science gives no reply. The thirst for truth, for good, for the infinite, which devours us, has not been slaked, nor have the joys and riches of earth, nor the increase of the comforts of life ever soothed the anguish which tortures the heart.
566 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.
Are we then to despise and fling aside the advantages which accrue from the study of science, from civiUzation and the wise and sweet use of our hberty? Assuredly not. On the contrary, we must hold them in the highest esteem, guard them and make them grow as a treasure of great price, for they are means which of their nature are good, designed by God Himself, and ordained by the Infinite Goodness and Wisdom for the use and advantage of the human race. But we must subordinate the use of them to the intentions of the Creator, and so employ them as never to eliminate the religious element in which their real advantage resides, for it is that which bestows on them a special value and renders them really fmitful. Such is the secret of the problem When an organism perishes and corrupts, it is because it had ceased to be under the action of the causes which had given it its form and constitution. To make it healthy and flourishing again it is necessary to restore it to the vivifying action of those same causes. So society in its foolhardy effort to escape from God has rejected the divine order and revela- tion; and it is thus withdrawn from the salutary efficacy of Christianity which is manifestly the most solid guarantee of order, the strongest bond of fraternity, and the inex- haustible source of all public and private virtue. This sacrilegious divorce has resulted in bringing about the trouble which now disturbs the world. Hence it is the pale of the Church which this lost society must re- enter, if it wishes to recover its well-being, its repose, and its salvation.
Just as Christianity cannot penetrate in the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God who governs all, who is infinitely wise, good, and just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has trans- formed pagan society — and that transformation was a veritable resurrection — for barbarism disappeared in pro REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 567 portion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the states and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is incarnate. It identifies itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the mystical body of Jesus Christ and which has for its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Sa\aour, the daughter and the heiress of His redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of its blood, and strong in the divine assistance and of that immortality which have been promised it, it makes no terms with error, but remains faithful to the commands which it has re- ceived to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the utter- most limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispen- ser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and redeemer of souls, but it is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In apply- ing the doctrine of its divine Founder, it maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and pri\dleges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself de- mands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emanci- pated from faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Nor does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere 568 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.
numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity.
In the domestic circle, the Church is no less fruitful in good results. For not only does it oppose the nefarious machinations which increduhty resorts to in order to attack the hfe of the family, but it prepares and protects the union and stabihty of marriage, whose honor, fidelity, and holiness it guards and develops. At the same time it sus- tains and cements the civil and political order by giving on one side most efficacious aid to authority, and on the other by showing itself favorable to the wise reforms and the just aspirations of the classes that are governed; by imposing respect for rulers and enjoining whatever obe- dience is due to them, and by defending unwaveringly the imprescriptible rights of the human conscience. And thus it is that the people who are subject to her influence have no fear of oppression because she checks in their efforts the rulers who seek to govern as tyrants.
Fully aware of this divine power, We, from the very beginning of Our Pontificate, have endeavored to place in the clearest light the benevolent designs of the Church and to increase as far as possible, along with the treasures of her doctrine the field of her salutary action. Such has been the object of the principal acts of Our Pontificate, notably in the Encyclicals on Christian Philosophy, on Human Liberty, on Christian Marriage, on Freemasonry, on The Powers of Government, on The Christian Constitu- tion of States, on Socialism, on the Labor Question, and the Duties of Christian Citizens and other analogous subjects. But the ardent desire of Our souls has not been merely to illumine the mind. We have endeavored to move and to purify hearts by making use of all Our powers to cause Christian virtue to flourish among the peoples. For that reason We have never ceased to bestow encouragement and counsel in order to elevate the minds of men to the goods of the world beyond; to enable them to subject the body to the soul; their earthly Hfe to the heavenly one; REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 569 man to God. Blessed by the Lord, Our word has been able to increase and to strengthen the convictions of a great number of men; to throw light on their minds in the difficult questions of the day; to stimulate their zeal and to advance the various works which have been un- dertaken.
It is especially for the disinherited classes that these works have been inaugurated, and have continued to grow in every country, as is evident from the increase of Christian charity which has always found in the midst of the people its favorite field of action. If the harvest has not been more abundant. Venerable Brothers, let us adore God who is mysteriously just and beg Him, at the same time, to have pity on the blindness of so many souls, to whom unhappily the terrifying word of the Apostle may be addressed: The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, shoidd not shine to them} The more the Catholic Church devotes itself to extend its zeal for the moral and material advancement of the peoples, the more the children of darkness arise in hatred against it and have recourse to every means in their power to tarnish its divine beauty and paralyze its action of life-giving reparation. How many false reasonings have they not made and how many calumnies have they not spread against it! Among their most perfidious devices is that which consists in repeating to the ignorant masses and to suspicious governments that the Church is opposed to the progress of science, that it is hostile to liberty, that the rights of the State are usurped by it and that politics is a field which it is constantly invading. Such are the mad accusations that have been a thousand times repudiated and a thousand times refuted by sound reason and by history and, in fact, by every man who has a heart foi honesty and a mind for truth.
1 2 Cor. iv. 4, 570 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.
The Church the enemy of knowledge and instruction! Without doubt she is the vigilant guardian of revealed dogma, but it is this very vigilance which prompts her to protect science and to favor the wise cultivation of the mind. No! in submitting his mind to the revelation of the Word, who is the supreme truth from whom all truths must flow, man will in no wise contradict what reason discovers. On the contrary, the light which will come to him from the divine Word will give more power and more clearness to the human intellect, because it will preserve it from a thousand uncertainties and errors. Besides, nineteen centuries of a glory achieved by Ca- thohcism in all the branches of learning amply suffice to refute this calumny. It is to the Catholic Church that we must ascribe the merit of having propagated and defended Christian philosophy, without which the world would still be buried in the darkness of pagan superstitions and in the most abject barbarism. It has preserved and trans- mitted to all generations the precious treasure of htera- ture and of the ancient sciences. It has opened the first schools for the people and crowded the universities which still exist, or whose glory is perpetuated even to our own days. It has inspired the loftiest, the purest, and the most glorious literature, while it has gathered under its protection men whose genius in the arts has never been eclipsed.
The Church the enemy of liberty! Ah, how they travesty the idea of liberty which has for its object one of the most precious of God's gifts when they make use of its name to justify its abuse and excess! What do we mean by liberty? Does it mean the exemption from all laws; the deliverance from all restraint, and as a corollary, the right to take man's caprice as a guide in all our actions? Such liberty the Church certainly reproves, and good and honest men reprove it likewise. But do they mean by liberty the rational faculty to do good, magnanimously, without check or hindrance and according to the rules REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE. 571 which eternal justice has established? That hberty which is the only hberty worthy of man, the only one useful to society, none favors or encourages or protects more than the Church. By the force of its doctrine and the effica- ciousness of its action the Church has freed humanity from the yoke of slavery in preaching to the world the great law of equaUty and human fraternity. In every age it has defended the feeble and the oppressed against the arrogant domination of the strong. It has demanded liberty of Christian conscience while pouring out in torrents the blood of its martyrs; it has restored to the child and to the woman the dignity and the noble prerogatives of their nature in making them share by virtue of the same right that reverence and justice which is their due, and it has largely contributed, both to introduce and maintain civil and political liberty in the heart of the nations.
The Church the usurper of the rights of the State! The Church invading the political domain! Why, the Church knows and teaches that her divine Founder has commanded us to give to Csesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, and that He has thus sanctioned the immutable principle of an enduring distinction between those two powers which are both sovereign in their respective spheres, a distinc- tion which is most pregnant in its consequences and emi- nently conducive to the development of Christian civiliza- tion. In its spirit of charity it is a stranger to every hostile design against the State. It aims only at making these two powers go side by side for the advancement of the same object, namely, for man and for human society, but by different ways and in conformity with the noble plan which has been assigned for its divine mission. Would to God that its action were received without mistrust and without suspicion. It could not fail to multiply the numberless benefits of which We have already spoken. To accuse the Church of ambitious views is only to repeat the ancient calumny, a calumny which its powerful enemies 572 REVIEW OF HIS PONTIFICATE.
have more than once employed as a pretext to conceal their own purposes of oppression.
Far from oppressing the State, histoiy clearly shows when it is read without prejudice, that the Church like its divine Founder has been, on the contrary, most commonly the victim of oppression and injustice. The reason is that its power rests not on the force of arms but on the strength of thought and of truth.