The syllabus against racism is a historical pre-World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

 document released in order to condemn racism

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 and national-socialist

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 ideology.

In April 1938, the Sacred Congregation

Congregation (Roman Curia)

A congregation is a type of dicastery of the Roman Curia, the central administrative organism of the Catholic Church....

 of seminaries and universities published at the request of Pius XI

Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...

 a syllabus condemning racist theories, a document which was sent to Catholic school

Catholic school

Catholic schools are maintained parochial schools or education ministries of the Catholic Church. the Church operates the world's largest non-governmental school system...

s worldwide. It is stated in the preamble that teachers will apply all means, borrowing from the tools of biology, history, philosophy, apologetics, law and moral, means to refute with strength and skill the following untenable assertions :

1. The human races, by their natural and immutable characters, are so different from each other that, the humblest of them is further from the highest race than of the highest animal species .
2. We must by all means, preserve and cultivate strong race and purity of blood, so that all leads to this result is therefore honest and permitted.
3. It is blood, seat of the characteristics of the race, that all the intellectual and moral qualities of man derive as their main source.
4. The basic purpose of education is to develop the characters of the race and inflame the minds of a burning love of their own race as the supreme good
   Summum bonum
   Summum bonum is an expression used in philosophy, particularly in medieval philosophy and in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, to describe the ultimate importance, the singular and most ultimate end which human beings ought to pursue. The summum bonum is generally thought of as being an end in...
   
   .
5. Religion is subject to the law of race and must be adapted to it.
6. The first source and the supreme rule of law
   Rule of law
   The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
   
   and order is racial instinct.
7. There exists only the Kosmos or living universe ; all things, including humans, are only various forms growing over the ages of universal life.
8. Each man exists only by the State and for the State. All that he rightly possesses derives exclusively from a concession to the State.