TheSyllabus of Errors is the name given to an index document issued by theHoly See underPope Pius IX on 8 December 1864 at the same time as hisencyclical letterQuanta cura.[1] It collected a total of 80 propositions that the Pope considered to be currenterrors orheresies, pairing the briefest headings with references to the various documents where the actual teachings are found.
The documents referenced by theSyllabus were intended to be a rebuttal ofliberalism,modernism,moral relativism,secularization, and thepolitical emancipation of Europe from the tradition of Catholic monarchies[2] but some relate to specific nations.
A cover letter byCardinal Antonelli notes that Pope Pius IX had ordered the creation of the list, in case some Bishops had not read all his recentallocutions, speeches or encyclicals.[3]
TheSyllabus is made up of phrases andparaphrases from earlier papal documents, along with index references to them, presenting a list of "condemned propositions". The Syllabus does not explain why each particular proposition is wrong, but cites the earlier document considering each subject.
The Syllabus is divided into ten sections on the following topics:
TheSyllabus cites a number of previous documents that had been written during Pius's papacy. These include:Qui pluribus,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 andCum catholica.
In 1874, the BritishLeader of the OppositionWilliam Gladstone published a tract entitledThe Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation, in which he said that after theSyllabus
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.
Catholicapologists such asFélix Dupanloup andJohn Henry Newman said that theSyllabus 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 opinionsin 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 theSyllabus could be valid, if it did not take into account the cited documents and their context.[3] Newman wrote:
"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."[4]
As the English Catholic historianE. E. Y. Hales explained, concerning item #77:
"[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."[5]
Newman points out that this item refers to the 26 July 1855 allocutionNemo vestrum. At this time, Spain had been in violation of itsConcordat of 1851 with the Holy See (implemented 1855).[6][7]
In the 21 November 1873 encyclical,Etsi multa ("On the Church in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland"), which is often appended to theSyllabus, Pius expresses further thoughts in the same vein. The Pope particularly condemned the recent rise ofSpanish-style liberalism andanti-clericalism inSouth America, which shares the same tradition of hostility to grantingreligious toleration and allowingClassical Christian education rooted in theTrivium with mainstreamRepublicanism in France, for unleashing "aferocious war on the Church".
In 1907,Lamentabili sane exitu was promulgated, a "Syllabus condemning the errors of theModernists", being a list of errors made by Progressive scholars ofbiblical criticism.[8]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
Quanta Cura & The Syllabus of Errors public domain audiobook atLibriVox
