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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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