Syllabus

SYLLABUS. - List of 80 propositions concerning the errors of the time published by Pius IX on 8 Dec. 1864.

I. HISTORY

The first idea of the S. goes back to Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci (the future Leo XIII), who in Nov. 1849, as archbishop of Perugia, during the provincial Council of Spoleto, proposed to ask the Pope for a blanket condemnation of the modern errors concerning the Church, authority, and property. In 1852 the Civiltà Cattolica aired the idea of a condemnation of rationalism and semi-rationalism to be inserted in the same bull as the future definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The idea pleased Pius IX, who charged Cardinal Fornari (20 May 1852) with sounding out the opinion of prominent members of the episcopate (for example, Msgr. Pie), of theologians (Guéranger) and of certain distinguished Catholic laymen. Veuillot and Count Avogadro della Motta pointed out the advisability of separating the two acts, since the modern errors deserved a condemnation of their own, which, issued by itself, would have made a greater impression on the public. Pius IX accepted the proposal and ordered the pontifical commission, which had just then finished the preparatory work for the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, to begin special investigations into the principal errors of the time. After eight years, the Instruction pastorale of Msgr. Gerbet, bishop of Perpignan (23 July 1860), in which 45 propositions to be condemned were listed, came to give a swifter pace to the work. A new commission, presided over by Cardinal Caterini and composed of the secretary Msgr. Iacobini and the theologians Msgr. Pio Delicati, Father Giacinto Ferrari, and Father Giovanni Perrone, succeeded in cataloguing 70 errors (Syllabus propositionum), for which (20 June 1861) various theologians were asked for the precise determination of the theological censure. To facilitate this task, the Pope raised to 12 the number of consultors, drawn from the principal religious Orders. On 15 Feb. 1862 the commission had ready the list of 61 errors with their respective theological notes: Theses ad Apostolicam Sedem delatae et censurae a nonnullis theologis propositae. Under this title the future S. was delivered, in that same year 1862, to the three hundred bishops who had come to Rome for the canonization of the Japanese martyrs. Almost all replied from their sees and, after mature examination, judged the condemnation opportune and necessary and proposed some modification as regards the theological censures. An indiscretion, which brought the 61 propositions to the knowledge of the public (they were published by the Mediatore of Turin [Oct. 1862], directed by Passaglia), decided Pius IX to suspend the promulgation of the projected bull of condemnation, in expectation of a moment of lesser tension. Meanwhile the idea matured of attaining the goal by using another form of condemnation: to extract from the previous acts (encyclicals, apostolic letters, consistorial allocutions) of his pontificate the propositions opposed to the errors of the time. A new commission was therefore instituted, which after a year of work (keeping in mind the pontifical acts and the reports made to the Apostolic See by bishops and faithful on the errors of the age) arrived at the formulation of 80 propositions. The Barnabite Father Bilio pointed out that it was advisable to add to the individual propositions the exact indication of the papal documents from which they were extracted, so that their meaning and doctrinal value might be better circumscribed. The proposal was pleasing and Bilio himself was charged with the matter.

After 12 years of laborious preparation, Pius IX promulgated on 8 Dec. 1864, together with the encyclical Quanta cura (Denz-U, coll. 1688-99), the Syllabus complectens praecipuos nostrae aetatis errores (ibid., coll. 1700-80).

II. CONTENT

L'ampio documento raggruppa in 10 paragrafi gli errori condannati: 1. panteismo, naturalismo e razionalismo assoluto (propp. 1-7); 2) razionalismo moderato (propp. 8-14); 3) indifferenzismo e latitudinarismo (propp. 15-18); 4) socialismo, comunismo, società segrete, società bibliche, società clerico-liberali (si rimanda a precedenti atti pontifici, soprattutto alle encyclical. Qui pluribus [9 Nov. 1846], Noscitis et nobiscum [8 Dec. 1849], Quanto conficiamur moerore [10 Aug. 1863]; 5) errors concerning the Church and its rights (propositions 19-38); 6) errors concerning civil society considered in itself and in its relations with the Church (propositions 38-55); 7) errors concerning natural and Christian morality (propositions 56-74); 8) errors concerning Christian marriage; 9) errors concerning the temporal power (civilis principatus) of the Roman Pontiff (propositions 75-76); 10) errors that relate to liberalism (propositions 77-80).

The Pope had especially in mind the philosophical and theological errors of Germany, which had penetrated into the Church through the work of Hermes (v.), Günther and Frohschammer (v.), the laicist attitudes formulated by the Peruvian priest Francesco Gonzales Vigil, and by the Bohemian Giovanni Nepumoceno Nuytz (professor of ecclesiastical law at the University of Turin), all the shades of opinion, friendly to the uncertain, but which issued in conclusions in some way opposed to Revelation.

III. DOCTRINAL VALUE

This exceptional document, which left a deep mark on the whole thought and life of the modern world, not only provoked violent reactions on the part of declared adversaries, but also caused concern and displeasure in certain sectors of Catholic liberalism (Montalembert [v.], Dupanloup [v.]) and left the opinion of theologians divided as to its precise doctrinal value. It is incontestable that the S. belongs to the series of those acts that emanate directly from the Supreme Pontiff, even if the Pope did not personally sign it. It is well known how it was promulgated: a letter from Card. Antonelli, Secretary of State of His Holiness, made the sovereign decision of the Pope known to the entire Catholic episcopate with the words: « mihi in mandatis dedit... eiusdem Pontificis iussa ». On another occasion the same Pius IX used the phrases: « Syllabus noster... nostro iussu editus ». Furthermore, it should be noted that the S. is a doctrinal document, concerning faith and morals in themselves and in their relations with the opinions and deviations of the 19th century, addressed to the whole Church, formulated in a negative manner, with the express intention of rejecting whatever is opposed to Revelation in the attitudes of an age that was heading toward apostasy. It is therefore to be regarded as an authentic act of the Church's magisterium, with juridical value, which not only binds externally but requires a full internal assent, all the more so since it was imposed by all the bishops upon their respective faithful as a norm to be followed, as doctrine deriving from the Apostolic See. Leo XIII himself, in the encyclical Immortale Dei opus, cited the S. as an authoritative document of his predecessor.

When, however, an attempt was made to determine its dogmatic value more precisely, the most disparate opinions were put forward. Dupanloup, Fessler, Schanz, and Heiner held that the S., though authoritative, was absolutely devoid of the charism of infallibility, while theologians of particular authority such as Franzelin, Mazzella, Scheeben, and Pesch considered it an act emanating from the personal infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Between these two extreme positions, other more moderate ones took shape: Fr. Rinaldi, among the best scholars of the historical origin of the S., regarded it as an act that was not infallible, but an "authentic notification" of previous infallible acts of the Magisterium, pronounced by the Pope in the promulgation of the documents from which the S. was compiled. The well-known jurists B. Wernz and F. X. Ojetti asserted (and their opinion today seems singular) that the S., though not infallible in origin, became so through the universal assent of the episcopate: the infallibility of the Church would have conferred a new value upon an act that was merely authentic of the Roman Pontiff.

Whatever judgment one may wish to reserve for theological opinions formed in an overheated climate, it is today indisputable that the individual propositions of the S., being devoid of a particular theological censure, have a different value, to be determined, case by case, ex subiecta materia. Accordingly, it constitutes an indispensable norm as regards those truths which the Vatican Council reconfirmed shortly afterward; for the rest, it is to be held and understood in the precise sense that the Pope and the Church, in the further exercise of the Magisterium, have determined.

Antonio Piolanti