Mortalium Animos

MORTALIUM ANIMOS. - Opening words of the encyclical letter of Pius XI of 6 January 1928, De vera religionis unitate fovenda (AAS, 20 [1928], pp. 5-16), published almost on the morrow of the Lausanne Conference (3-21 August 1927) and of the negative reply of the Congregation of the Holy Office to the question whether it is lawful for Catholics to take part in pan-Christian congresses (8 July 1927, in AAS, 19 [1927], p. 278). In opposition indeed to the attitude of the Catholic Church, firm in its principles, there was making headway, after the pan-Christian Conferences of Stockholm and Lausanne, the conception of a broader-minded Catholicism, of a kind of alliance between the Church of Rome and the other separated Christian communities, with the aim of opposing to invading unbelief the universal brotherhood of the disciples of Jesus.

The encyclical is a taking of position by the Church against this new conception; and it is divided into three parts. In the first the Pontiff notes the fact of men's desire to unite among themselves, a desire that assumes three different forms: the union of all men as all having the same common origin and nature, as the basis and guarantee of collaboration and peace, a union truly to be desired; the union of all men who have a religion, whatever it may be, as a bulwark against impiety and irreligion: such a form of union cannot simply be supported by Catholics; the union of all Christians, or pan-Christianism. It is of this third form that the Pontiff wishes to treat. In the second part, it is affirmed that by natural and divine-positive right the only true religion is the Christian-Catholic religion, and that Jesus founded one Church only, as a visible and sovereign society destined to gather all men into its bosom. Consequently the Pope denounces the error of those who see the Church only as a federation of communities; who affirm that the Lord's desire for a single flock has not yet been able to be realized, as if the true Church of Jesus Christ did not yet exist or existed without a Pastor; who aspire to a practical union with Rome, the result of compromises and of mutual concessions. In the third part Pius XI affirms that consequently neither the Holy See nor Catholics can take part in or favour these movements, inasmuch as they «falsae cuidam christianae religionis auctoritatem adiungeren». Nor is this contrary to charity, because true charity cannot be against truth and faith. The exclusion of a single magisterium that constitutes a commitment for all is a factor of disintegration and not of union, and opens the way to indifferentism. The discrimination between fundamental and non-fundamental truths, with a lesser commitment to the latter (v. JANNI, 1920), when it is a question of revealed truths, has no meaning. True union is therefore not possible except with the return of the dissidents to the true Church and with the acceptance of the primacy of St. Peter and of his successors. The encyclical, which was published in circumstances analogous to those in which in 1896 Leo XIII published the Satis cognitum, is less ample than the previous one; yet it reveals a sense of decision in affirming the doctrine of the Church in the face of the deliberately elastic declarations, full of circumspect reticences, of the Conferences of Stockholm and Lausanne. Which decision, if at first impression it may seem an obstacle to the return of the separated brethren, by the very fact that it excludes access to every dangerous equivocation, represents a step forward, which may seem short, but which is sure.

Luigi Oldani