Syllabus of Errors
Encyclopedia
The Syllabus of Errors was a document issued by Holy See
under Pope Pius IX
on December 8, 1864, Feast of the Immaculate Conception
, on the same day as the Pope's encyclical
Quanta Cura
.
's reasons for saying each proposition is false. With the exception of some propositions drawn from Pius' encyclical Qui pluribus
of November 9, 1846, all the propositions were based on documents that postdated the shocks to the Pope and the papacy of the Revolutions of 1848
(see Italian unification
).
The Syllabus was divided into ten sections which condemned as false various statements about these topics:
world, reactions were uniformly negative. In 1874 the British
Leader of the Opposition William Ewart Gladstone
published a tract entitled The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation, in which he said that after the Syllabus:
The government of France
briefly tried to suppress the circulation of the encyclical and the Syllabus within its borders; it forbade priests to explain the Syllabus from the pulpit, though newspapers were allowed to discuss it from a secular point of view.
Catholic apologists
such as Félix Dupanloup
and John Henry Newman said that the Syllabus was widely misinterpreted by readers who did not have access to or did not bother to check the original documents of which it was a summary. The propositions listed had been condemned as erroneous opinions in the sense and context in which they originally occurred; without the original context, the document appeared to condemn a larger range of ideas than it actually did. Thus it was asserted that no critical response to the Syllabus which did not take the cited documents and their context into account could be valid (Newman 1874). Newman writes:
In the wake of the controversy following the document's release, Pius IX referred to it as "raw meat needing to be cooked." However, others within the church who supported the syllabus disagreed that there was any misinterpretation of the condemnations.
, Maxima quidem, Singulari quadam, Tuas libenter, Multiplices inter, Quanto conficiamur, Noscitis, Nostis et nobiscum
, Meminit unusquisque, Ad Apostolicae, Nunquam fore, Incredibili, Acerbissimum, Singularis nobisque, Multis gravibusque, Quibus quantisque, Quibus luctuosissimis, In consistoriali, Cum non sine, Cum saepe, Quanto conficiamur, Jamdudum cernimus
, Novos et ante, Quibusque vestrum and Cum Catholica.
("On the Church in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland"), which is often appended to the Syllabus. There Pius condemned current liberalizing anti-clerical legislation in South America
as "a ferocious war on the Church."
In 1907 Lamentabili Sane was promulgated, a "Syllabus condemning the errors of the Modernists", being a list of sins that might be made by scholars engaged in biblical criticism
.
Some think that the political or dogma
tic propositions of the Syllabus may be abrogated by later documents coming from the Second Vatican Council
in 1962. Others argue that this view results from an excessively broad interpretation of statements that had a narrower sense in their original context, and from contrasting the infallible
documents of the ecumenical council with papal statements that were not infallible because they were not addressed to the whole church.
English historian E.E.Y. Hales argues that:
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...
under Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
on December 8, 1864, Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrates belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is celebrated on 8 December, nine months before the Nativity of Mary, which is celebrated on 8 September. It is the patronal feast day of the United States and the Republic of the...
, on the same day as the Pope's encyclical
Encyclical
An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...
Quanta Cura
Quanta Cura
There is also an earlier encyclical of the same title, issued in 1741 by Pope Benedict XIV, forbidding traffic in alms. -Historical context:The encyclical was prompted by the September Convention of 1864, an agreement between the Kingdom of Italy and the Second French Empire of Napoleon III,...
.
Format
The Syllabus was made up of phrases and paraphrases from earlier papal documents, along with index references to them, and presented as a list of "condemned propositions". For instance, in condemning proposition 14, "Philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation", the Syllabus asserts the truth of the contrary proposition — that philosophy should take account of supernatural revelation. The Syllabus does not explain why each particular proposition is wrong, but it cites earlier documents to which the reader can refer for the PopePope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
's reasons for saying each proposition is false. With the exception of some propositions drawn from Pius' encyclical Qui pluribus
Qui Pluribus
Qui Pluribus - was an encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1846. It disputed the belief that reason should be put above faith.It singled out the free gift of anti-Catholic Bibles...
of November 9, 1846, all the propositions were based on documents that postdated the shocks to the Pope and the papacy of the Revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It was the first Europe-wide collapse of traditional authority, but within a year reactionary...
(see Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
).
The Syllabus was divided into ten sections which condemned as false various statements about these topics:
- pantheismPantheismPantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
, naturalism, and absolute rationalismRationalismIn epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, Propositions 1-7; - moderate rationalism, Propositions 8-14;
- indifferentismIndifferentismIndifferentism, in Roman Catholic theology, describes the belief that there is no evidence that one religion or philosophy is superior to another. The Catholic Church ascribes indifferentism to all atheistic, materialistic, pantheistic, and agnostic philosophies...
and latitudinarianismLatitudinarianLatitudinarian was initially a pejorative term applied to a group of 17th-century English theologians who believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice, and ecclesiastical organization were of relatively little importance...
, Propositions 15-18; - socialismSocialismSocialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, communismCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
, secret societiesSecret societyA secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
, Bible societiesBible societyA Bible society is a non-profit organization devoted to translating, publishing, distributing the Bible at affordable costs and advocating its credibility and trustworthiness in contemporary cultural life...
, and liberal clericClergyClergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
al societies, a general condemnation; - the churchChristian ChurchThe Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
and its rights, Propositions 19-38 (defending temporal power in the Papal StatesPapal StatesThe Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
, which were overthrown six years later; - civil society and its relationship to the church, Propositions 39-55;
- natural and Christian ethicsEthicsEthics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, Propositions 56-64; - ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
marriageMarriageMarriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
, Propositions 65-74; - the civil power of the sovereign Pontiff in the Papal StatesPapal StatesThe Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
, Propositions 75-76 and - modern liberalismLiberalismLiberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, Propositions 77-80.
Some statements of condemnation
Statements the encyclical condemned as false include the following:- "human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil" (No. 3) "All the truths of religion proceed from the innate strength of human reason; hence reason is the ultimate standard by which man can and ought to arrive at the knowledge of all truths of every kind." (No. 4)
- "in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)
- "Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church" (No. 18).
- "the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." (No. 55)
- "every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that "it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No. 78)
- "the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with, progress, liberalism and modern civilization." (No. 80) (cf Jamdudum cernimusJamdudum cernimusJamdudum cernimus is a declaration in the form of an allocution given by Pope Pius IX on 18 March 1861. It has been cited as a source for the last and most famous statement of the syllabus of Errors, that of the irreconcilability between Christian civilization and modern liberal civilization...
)
Non-Catholics
Within the ProtestantProtestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
world, reactions were uniformly negative. In 1874 the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Leader of the Opposition William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
published a tract entitled The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation, in which he said that after the Syllabus:
- . . . no one can now become (Rome's) convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.
The government of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
briefly tried to suppress the circulation of the encyclical and the Syllabus within its borders; it forbade priests to explain the Syllabus from the pulpit, though newspapers were allowed to discuss it from a secular point of view.
Catholics
The document met with a mixed reception among Catholics; many accepted it wholeheartedly, others wanted a clarification of some points, and still others were as shocked as their Protestant neighbors by the apparent broad scope of the condemnations.Catholic apologists
Apologetics
Apologetics is the discipline of defending a position through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers Apologetics (from Greek ἀπολογία, "speaking in defense") is the discipline of defending a position (often religious) through the systematic use of reason. Early Christian writers...
such as Félix Dupanloup
Félix Dupanloup
Félix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup was a French ecclesiastic.-Biography:He was born at Saint-Félix, in Haute-Savoie. In his earliest years he was confided to the care of his brother, a priest in the diocese of Chambéry. In 1810 he was sent to a pensionnat ecclésiastique at Paris...
and John Henry Newman said that the Syllabus was widely misinterpreted by readers who did not have access to or did not bother to check the original documents of which it was a summary. The propositions listed had been condemned as erroneous opinions in the sense and context in which they originally occurred; without the original context, the document appeared to condemn a larger range of ideas than it actually did. Thus it was asserted that no critical response to the Syllabus which did not take the cited documents and their context into account could be valid (Newman 1874). Newman writes:
The Syllabus then has no dogmatic force; it addresses us, not in its separate portions, but as a whole, and is to be received from the Pope by an act of obedience, not of faith, that obedience being shown by having recourse to the original and authoritative documents, (Allocutions and the like,) to which the Syllabus pointedly refers. Moreover, when we turn to those documents, which are authoritative, we find the Syllabus cannot even be called an echo of the Apostolic Voice; for, in matters in which wording is so important, it is not an exact transcript of the words of the Pope, in its account of the errors condemned, just as would be natural in what is an index for reference.
In the wake of the controversy following the document's release, Pius IX referred to it as "raw meat needing to be cooked." However, others within the church who supported the syllabus disagreed that there was any misinterpretation of the condemnations.
Sources cited
The Syllabus cited a number of previous documents that had been written during Pius' papacy. Among these include : Qui PluribusQui Pluribus
Qui Pluribus - was an encyclical promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1846. It disputed the belief that reason should be put above faith.It singled out the free gift of anti-Catholic Bibles...
, Maxima quidem, Singulari quadam, Tuas libenter, Multiplices inter, Quanto conficiamur, Noscitis, Nostis et nobiscum
Nostis et nobiscum
Nostis et nobiscum is an encyclical given by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1849 on the topic of the Church in the Papal States.In this document, the Pope denounces socialism and communism for attempting to confuse the faithful with new doctrines. He speaks of plots and conspiracies created by...
, Meminit unusquisque, Ad Apostolicae, Nunquam fore, Incredibili, Acerbissimum, Singularis nobisque, Multis gravibusque, Quibus quantisque, Quibus luctuosissimis, In consistoriali, Cum non sine, Cum saepe, Quanto conficiamur, Jamdudum cernimus
Jamdudum cernimus
Jamdudum cernimus is a declaration in the form of an allocution given by Pope Pius IX on 18 March 1861. It has been cited as a source for the last and most famous statement of the syllabus of Errors, that of the irreconcilability between Christian civilization and modern liberal civilization...
, Novos et ante, Quibusque vestrum and Cum Catholica.
Subsequent history
Further thoughts in the same vein were expressed in Pius' encyclical of 21 November 1873, Etsi multaEtsi multa
Etsi multa - On The Church In Italy, Germany, And Switzerland is a papal encyclical that was published by Pope Pius IX on November 21, 1873.The encyclical claimed that there were three campaigns being waged against the Church at the time:...
("On the Church in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland"), which is often appended to the Syllabus. There Pius condemned current liberalizing anti-clerical legislation in South America
History of South America
The history of South America is the study of the past, particularly the written record, oral histories, and traditions, passed down from generation to generation on the continent in the Earth's western hemisphere and southern hemisphere. South America has a history that spans a wide range of human...
as "a ferocious war on the Church."
In 1907 Lamentabili Sane was promulgated, a "Syllabus condemning the errors of the Modernists", being a list of sins that might be made by scholars engaged in biblical criticism
Biblical criticism
Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
.
Some think that the political or dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...
tic propositions of the Syllabus may be abrogated by later documents coming from the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
in 1962. Others argue that this view results from an excessively broad interpretation of statements that had a narrower sense in their original context, and from contrasting the infallible
Infallibility of the Church
The Infallibility of the Church is the belief that the Holy Spirit will not allow the Church to err in its belief or teaching under certain circumstances...
documents of the ecumenical council with papal statements that were not infallible because they were not addressed to the whole church.
English historian E.E.Y. Hales argues that:
- "[T]he Pope is not concerned with a universal principle, but with the position in a particular state at a particular date. He is expressing his "wonder and distress" (no more) that in a Catholic country (Spain) it should be proposed to disestablish the Church and to place any and every religion upon a precisely equal footing. ..... Disestablishment and toleration were far from the normal practice of the day, whether in Protestant or in Catholic states."
External links
- The Syllabus of Errors online text
- A. Haag, "Syllabus" in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1912)
- John Henry Newman's discussion of the Syllabus in Difficulties of Anglicans volume 2 (1874)
- Excerpt from Gladstone's The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: a Political Expostulation at Victorian WebVictorian WebThe Victorian Web is an online resource of information about the Victorian Era created at Brown University and at the University Scholars Program of the National University of Singapore....
- Explains how "apparent contradictions" between the Syllabus and Vatican should be reconciled.
- The Syllabus, the Controversy, and the Context in This Rock Magazine January 2009
Further reading
- Pio Nono: A Study in European Politics and Religion in the Nineteenth Century, by E.E.Y. Hales (P.J. Kenedy, 1954)
- The Catholic Church in the Modern World by E.E.Y. Hales (Doubleday, 1958)