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For Those Non-Catholics Who Blame The Catholic Church For Not Joining With Protestant Churches, Here Are The Reasons Why...
Year 1928 - Threatening Doctrinal Error [The Encyclical
"Mortalium Animos"] ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF OUR MOST HOLY POPE
PIUS XI BY
DIVINE PROVIDENCE ON
"FOSTERING TRUE RELIGIOUS UNITY"
POPE PIUS XI
TO HIS VENERABLE BRETHREN GIVES GREETING
AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION.
Never perhaps in the past have the minds of men been so engrossed as they
are today with the desire to strengthen and extend for the common good of
man kind that tie of brotherhood--the result of our common origin and
nature--which binds us all so closely together. The world does not yet fully
enjoy the fruits of peace; on the contrary, dissensions old and new in various
lands still issue in rebellions and conflict. Such disputes, affecting the
tranquil prosperity of nations, can never be settled without the combined and
active goodwill of those who are responsible for their government, and hence it
is
easy to understand--especially now that the unity of mankind is no longer
called into question--the widespread desire that all nations, in view of this
universal kinship, should daily find closer union with one another.
It is with a similar motive that efforts are being made by some, in connection
with the New Law promulgated by Christ our Lord. Assured that there exist few
men who are entirely devoid of the religious sense, they seem to ground
on
this belief a hope that all nations, while differing indeed in religious
matters, may yet without great difficulty be brought to fraternal agreement
on certain points of doctrine which will form a common basis of the
spiritual life. With this object congresses, meetings, and addresses are
arranged, attended by a large concourse of hearers, where all without
distinction, unbelievers of every kind as well as Christians, even those who
unhappily have rejected Christ and denied His divine nature or mission, are
invited to join in the discussion. Now, such efforts can meet with no kind of
approval among Catholics. They presuppose the erroneous view that all religions
are more or less good and praiseworthy, inasmuch as all give expression, under
various forms, to that innate sense which leads men to God and to the obedient
acknowledgment of His rule. Those who hold such a view are not only in
error;
they distort the true idea of religion, and thus reject it, falling gradually
into naturalism and atheism. To favor this opinion, therefore, and to
encourage such undertakings is tantamount to abandoning the religion
revealed by God.
Nevertheless, when there is a question of fostering unity among Christians,
it is easy for many to be misled by the apparent excellence of the object to
be achieved. Is it not right, they ask, is it not the obvious duty
of all
who invoke the name of Christ to refrain from mutual reproaches and
at last
to be united in charity? Dare anyone say that he loves Christ, and yet
not
strive with all his might to accomplish the desire of Him who asked His Father
that His disciples might be "one" (John xvii. 21)? Did not Christ will that
mutual charity should be the distinguishing characteristic of His disciples? "By
this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for
another" (John xiii. 35). If only all Christians were "one," it is
contended,
then they might do so much more to drive out the pest of
irreligion which with its insidious and far-reaching advance is threatening to
sap the strength of the Gospel. These and similar arguments, with
amplifications, are constantly on the lips of the "pan-Christians" who, so far
from being a few isolated individuals, have formed an entire class and grouped
themselves into societies of extensive membership, usually under the direction
of non-Catholics, who also disagree in matters of faith. The energy with which
this scheme is being promoted has won for it many adherents, and even many
Catholics are attracted by it, since it holds out the hope of a union apparently
consonant with the wishes of Holy Mother Church, whose chief desire it is to
recall her erring children and to bring them back to her bosom. In reality,
however, these fair and alluring words cloak a most grave error, subversive of
the foundations of the Catholic faith.
Conscious, therefore, of Our Apostolic office, which warns Us not to allow
the flock of Christ to be led astray by harmful fallacies, We invoke your
zeal, Venerable Brethren, to avert this evil. We feel confident that each of
you, by written and spoken word, will explain clearly to the people the
principles and arguments that We are about to set forth, so that Catholics may
know what view and what course of action they should adopt regarding schemes for
the promiscuous union into one body of all who call themselves Christians.
God, the Creator of all things, made us that we might know Him and serve Him; to
our service, therefore, He has a full right. He might indeed have been contented
to prescribe for man's government the natural law alone, that is, the law which
in creation He has written upon man's heart, and have regulated the progress of
that law by His ordinary Providence. He willed, however, to make positive laws
which we should obey, and progressively, from the beginnings of the human race
until the coming and preaching of Jesus Christ, He Himself taught mankind the
duties which a rational creature owes to His Creator. "God, Who at sundry times
and in diverse manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last
of all in these days hath spoken to us by His Son" (Heb. i. 1, seq.). Evidently,
therefore, no religion can be true save that which rests upon the revelation of
God, a revelation begun from the very first, continued under the Old Law, and
brought to completion by Jesus Christ Himself under the New. Now, if God has
spoken--and it is historically certain that He has in fact spoken--then it is
clearly man's duty implicitly to believe His revelation and to obey His
commands. That we might rightly do both, for the glory of God and for our own
salvation, the only-begotten Son of God founded His Church on earth. None, we
think, of those who claim to be Christians will deny that a Church, and one sole
Church, was founded by Christ.
On the further question, however, as to what in the intention of its Founder was
to be the precise nature of that Church, there is not the same agreement. Many
of them, for example, deny that the Church of Christ was intended to be visible
and manifest, at any rate in the sense that it was to be visibly the one body of
the faithful, agreeing in one and the same doctrine under one teaching and
governing authority. They conceive the visible Church as nothing more than a
federation of the various Christian communities, even though these
may hold
different and mutually exclusive doctrines. The truth is that Christ founded His
Church as a perfect society, of its nature external and perceptible to the
senses, which in the future should carry on the work of the salvation of mankind
under one head, with a living teaching authority, administering the sacraments
which are the sources of heavenly grace (John iii. 5, vi 48-59, xx. 22 seq.; cf.
Matt. xviii. 18, etc.). Wherefore He compared His Church to a kingdom (Matt.
xiii), to a house (cf. Matt. xvi. 18), to a sheepfold (John x. 16), and to a
flock (John xxi. 15-1 7). The Church thus wondrously instituted could not cease
to exist with the death of its Founder and of the Apostles, the
pioneers of
its propagation; for its mission was to lead all men to salvation, without
distinction of time or place: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations" (Matt.
xxviii. 19). Nor could the Church ever lack the effective strength necessary for
the continued accomplishment of its task, since Christ Himself is perpetually
present with it, according to His promise: "Behold, I am with you all days, even
to the consummation of the world" (Matt. xxviii. 20). Hence not only does the
Church still exist today and continue always to exist, but it must ever be
exactly the same as it was in the days of the Apostles. Otherwise we must
say--which God forbid--that Christ has failed in His purpose, or that He erred
when He asserted of His Church that the gates of hell should never prevail
against it (Matt. xvi. l8).
And here it will be opportune to expound and to reject a certain false opinion
which lies at the root of this question and of that complex movement by which
non-Catholics seek to bring about the union of Christian Churches. Those
who
favor this view constantly quote the words of Christ, "That they may be one (Ut
unum sint)... And there shall be one fold and one shepherd" (John xvii. 21, x.
16), in the sense that Christ thereby merely expressed a desire or a prayer
which as yet has not been granted. For they hold that the unity of faith and
government which is a note of the one true Church of Christ has up to the
present time hardly ever existed, and does not exist today. They consider that
this unity is indeed to be desired and may even, by cooperation and good will,
be actually attained, but that meanwhile it must be regarded as a mere ideal.
The Church, they say, is of its nature divided into sections, composed of
several churches or distinct communities which still remain separate, and
although holding in common some articles of doctrine, nevertheless differ
concerning the remainder; that all these enjoy the same rights; and that the
Church remained one and undivided at the most only from the Apostolic age until
the first Ecumenical Councils. Hence, they say, controversies and long-standing
differences, which today still keep asunder the members of the Christian family,
must be entirely set aside, and from the residue of doctrines
a common form
of faith drawn up and proposed for belief, in the profession
of which all
may not only know but also feel themselves to be brethren. If the various
Churches or communities were united in some kind of universal federation, they
would then be in a position to oppose resolutely and successfully the progress
of irreligion.
Such, Venerable Brethren, is the common contention. There are indeed some who
recognize and affirm that Protestantism has with inconsiderate zeal rejected
certain articles of faith and external ceremonies which are in fact useful and
attractive, and which the Roman Church still retains. But they immediately go on
to say that the Roman Church, too, has erred, and
corrupted the primitive
religion by adding to it and proposing for belief doctrines not only alien to
the Gospel but contrary to its spirit. Chief among these they count that of the
primacy of jurisdiction granted to Peter and to his successors in the See of
Rome. There are actually some, though few, who
grant to the Roman Pontiff a
primacy of honor and even a certain power or jurisdiction; this, however, they
consider to arise not from the divine law but merely from the consent of the
faithful. Others, again, even go so far as to desire the Pontiff himself to
preside over their mixed assemblies. For the rest, while you may hear many
non-Catholics loudly preaching brotherly communion in Jesus Christ, yet not one
will you find to whom it even occurs with devout submission to obey the Vicar of
Jesus Christ in his capacity of teacher or ruler. Meanwhile they assert their
readiness to treat with the
Church of Rome, but on equal terms, as equals
with an equal. But even if
they could so treat, there seems little doubt
that they would do so only on condition that no pact into which they might enter
should compel them to retract those opinions which still keep them outside the
one fold of Christ.
This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See can by no means take part in
these assemblies. nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics to give to such
enterprises their encouragement or support. If they did so, they would be
giving countenance to a false Christianity quite alien to the one Church of
Christ. Shall we commit the iniquity of suffering the truth, the truth revealed
by God, to be made a subject for compromise? For it is indeed a question of
defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent His Apostles into the whole world
to declare the faith of the Gospel to every nation, and, to save them from
error, He willed that the Holy Ghost should first teach them all truth. Has this
doctrine, then, disappeared, or at any time been obscured, in the Church of
which God Himself is the ruler and guardian? Our Redeemer plainly said that His
Gospel was intended not only for the apostolic age but for all time. Can
the
object of faith, then, have become in the process of time so dim and uncertain
that today we must tolerate contradictory opinions? If this were so, then we
should have to admit that the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles, the
perpetual indwelling of the same Spirit in the Church, nay, the very preaching
of Jesus Christ, have centuries ago lost their efficacy and value. To affirm
this would be blasphemy. The only-begotten Son of God not only bade His
representatives to teach all nations; He also obliged all men to give credence
to whatever was taught them by "witnesses preordained by God" (Acts x. 41).
Moreover, He enforced His command with this sanction: "He
that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi.
16). These two commands, the one to teach, the other to believe for salvation,
must be obeyed. But they cannot even be understood unless the Church proposes an
inviolate and clear teaching, and in proposing
it is immune from all danger
of error. It is also false to say that. although the deposit of truth does
indeed exist, yet it is to be found only with such laborious effort and after
such lengthy study and discussion, that a man's life is hardly long enough for
its discovery and attainment. This would be equivalent to saying that the most
merciful God spoke through the prophets and through
His only-begotten Son
merely in order that some few men, and those
advanced in years, might learn
what He had revealed, and not in order to inculcate a doctrine of faith and
morals by which man should be guided throughout the whole of his life. These
pan- Christians who strive for the
union of the Churches would appear to
pursue the noblest of ideals in promoting charity among all Christians. But how
should charity tend to the detriment of faith? Everyone knows that John himself,
the Apostle of love,
who seems in his Gospel to have revealed the secrets of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress upon the memory of
his disciples the new commandment "to love one another," nevertheless strictly
forbade any intercourse with those who professed a mutilated and corrupt form of
Christ's teaching: "If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive
him not into the house, nor say to him, God speed you" (2 John 10). Therefore,
since the foundation of charity is faith pure and inviolate, it is chiefly by
the bond of one faith that the disciples of Christ are to be united. A
federation of Christians, then, is inconceivable in which each member retains
his own opinions and private judgment in matters of faith, even though they
differ
from the opinions of all the rest. How can men with opposite
convictions belong to one and the same Federation of the faithful: those who
accept
sacred Tradition as a source of revelation and those who reject it;
those who recognize as divinely constituted the hierarchy of bishops, priests,
and
ministers in the Church, and those who regard it as gradually introduced
to
suit the conditions of the time; those who adore Christ really present in
the Most Holy Eucharist through that wonderful conversion of the bread and
wine, transubstantiation, and those who assert that the body of Christ is
there only by faith or by the signification and virtue of the sacrament; those
who in the Eucharist recognize both sacrament and sacrifice, and those who say
that
it is nothing more than the memorial of the Lord's supper; those who
think it right and useful to pray to the Saints reigning with Christ, especially
to Mary the Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who refuse
such veneration as derogatory to the honor due Jesus Christ, "the one mediator
of God and men" (cf. I Tim. ii.5)?
How so great a variety of opinions can clear the way for the unity of the
Church, We know not. That unity can arise only from one teaching authority, one
law of belief, and one faith of Christians. But we do know that from
such a
state of affairs it is but an easy step to the neglect of religion or
"indifferentism," and to the error of the modernists, who hold that dogmatic
truth is not absolute but relative, that is, that it changes according to the
varying necessities of time and place and the varying tendencies of the mind;
that it is not contained in an immutable tradition, but can be altered to suit
the needs of human life.
Furthermore, it is never lawful to employ in connection with articles of faith
the distinction invented by some between "fundamental" and "non-fundamental"
articles, the former to be accepted by all, the latter being left to the free
acceptance of the faithful. The supernatural virtue of faith has as its formal
motive the authority of God revealing. and this allows of no such distinction.
All true followers of Christ, therefore, will believe the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God with the same faith as they believe
the mystery of the august Trinity, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff in the
sense defined by the Ecumenical Vatican Council with the same faith as they
believe the Incarnation of our Lord. That these truths have been solemnly
sanctioned and defined by the Church at various times, some of them even quite
recently, makes no difference to their certainty, nor to our obligation of
believing them. Has not God revealed them all?
The teaching authority of the Church in the divine wisdom was constituted on
earth in order that the revealed doctrines might remain for ever intact and
might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men. This authority
is indeed daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops who are in
communion with him; but it has the further office of defining
some truth
with solemn decree whenever it is opportune, and whenever this is necessary
either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or again to impress the
minds of the faithful with a clearer and more detailed explanation of the
articles of sacred doctrine. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching
authority no fresh invention is introduced, nothing new is ever added to the
number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained within the
deposit of Revelation divinely committed to the Church; but truths which to some
perhaps may still seem obscure are rendered clear, or a truth which
some may
have called into question is declared to be of faith.
Thus, Venerable Brethren. it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed
its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics. There is but one
way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering
the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it;
for from that one true Church they have in the past fallen away. The one Church
of Christ is visible to all, and will remain, according to the will of its
Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. The mystical Spouse of Christ has
never in the course of centuries been contaminated, nor in the future can she
ever be, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot become false
to her Spouse; she is inviolate and pure. She knows but one dwelling and
chastely and modestly she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber" (De Cath.
Ecclesiae unitate. 6). The same holy martyr marveled that anyone could believe
that "this unity of the Church built upon a divine foundation, knit together by
heavenly sacraments, could ever be rent asunder by the conflict of wills"
(ibid.). For since the mystical body of Christ, like His physical body, is one
(I Cor. xii.12), compactly and fitly joined together (Eph. iv. 15), it were
foolish to say that the mystical body is composed of disjointed and scattered
members. Whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member thereof,
neither is he in communion with Christ its head.
Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not
accept, recognize, and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his
legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in
the errors of Photius and of the Reformers obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief
shepherd of souls? Their children, alas! have left the home of their fathers;
but that house did not therefore fall to the ground and perish for ever, for
it was supported by God. Let them. then, return to their Father, who, forgetting
the insults in the past heaped upon the Apostolic See, will accord them a most
loving welcome. If, as they constantly say, they long to be united with Us and
Ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, "the mother and mistress
of all Christ's faithful."? (Conc. Lateran. iv. c. 5). Let them heed the
words of Lactantius: "The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship.
This
is the fount of truth, this the house of faith, this the temple of God;
if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to
the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate
wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, and these will be lost
forever unless their interests be carefully and assiduously kept in mind"
(Divin. Inst. lv. 30, 11-12).
Let our separated children. therefore, draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up
in the City which Peter and Paul, Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by
their blood; to the See which is "the root and womb whence issues the Church of
God" (Cypr. Ep. 48 ad Cornelium, 3); and let them come, not with any intention
or hope that "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth"
(l Tim. iii. 15), will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their
errors, but to submit themselves to its teaching and government. Would that the
happy lot, denied to so many of Our Predecessors, might at last be Ours, to
embrace with fatherly affection those children whose unhappy separation from Us
We now deplore. Would that God our Saviour, "Who will have all men to be saved,
and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (Tim. ii. 4), might hear our humble
prayer and vouchsafe to recall to the unity of the Church all that are gone
astray. To this all-important end We implore, and We desire that others should
implore, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of divine grace,
Help of Christians, victorious over all heresies, that
she may entreat for
Us the speedy coming of that longed-for day, when all
men shall hear the
voice of her divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv. 3).
You, Venerable Brethren, know how dear to Our heart is this desire, and We wish
that Our children also should know, not only those belonging to the Catholic
fold, but also those separated from Us. If these will humbly beg light from
heaven. there is no doubt but that they will recognize the one true
Church
of Jesus Christ, and entering therein, will at last be united with Us
in
perfect charity. In the hope of this fulfillment, and as a pledge of Our
fatherly goodwill, We impart most lovingly to you, Venerable Brethren, and
to your clergy and people, the Apostolic Benediction. Given at S. Peter's,
Rome, on the 6th day of January, the Feast of the Epiphany of our Lord
Jesus Christ in the year 1928, the sixth of Our Pontificate.
Pope
Pius XI
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