SYLLABUS. – List of 80 propositions concerning the errors of the time, published by Pius IX on 8 December 1864.
I. HISTORY
The first idea of the S. goes back to Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci (the future Leo XIII), who in November 1849, as Archbishop of Perugia, during the provincial council of Spoleto, proposed asking the Pope to condemn en bloc the modern errors concerning the Church, authority, and property. In 1852, La Civiltà Cattolica aired the idea of condemning rationalism and semi-rationalism to be included in the same bull as the future definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The idea pleased Pius IX, who entrusted Cardinal Fornari (20 May 1852) with sounding out the opinion of prominent members of the episcopate (e.g., Bishop Pie), theologians (Guéranger), and some distinguished Catholic laymen. Veuillot and Count Avogadro della Motta noted the advisability of separating the two acts, since the modern errors deserved a separate condemnation, which, if issued alone, would have an immediate impact on the public. Pius IX accepted the proposal and ordered the pontifical commission, which had just 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 Pastoral Instruction of Bishop Gerbet of Perpignan (23 July 1860), which listed 45 propositions to be condemned, gave a faster pace to the work. A new commission, presided over by Cardinal Caterini and composed of the secretary, Bishop Iacobini, and the theologians Bishop Pio Delicati, Fr. Giacinto Ferrari, and Fr. Giovanni Perrone, drew up a catalogue of 70 errors (Syllabus propositionum), for which (20 June 1861) several theologians were asked to determine the precise theological censure. To facilitate this task, the Pope increased the number of consultants to twelve, drawn from the principal religious orders. By 15 February 1862, the commission had prepared a 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 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 careful examination, judging the condemnation opportune and necessary, they proposed some modifications regarding the theological censures. A leak, which brought the 61 propositions to public knowledge (they were published by Il Mediatore of Turin [October 1862], directed by Passaglia), led Pius IX to suspend the promulgation of the planned bull of condemnation, awaiting a moment of lesser tension. Meanwhile, the idea matured of achieving the goal through another form of condemnation: extracting from previous acts (encyclicals, apostolic letters, consistorial allocutions) of his pontificate the propositions opposed to the errors of the time. He therefore set up a new commission, which, after a year’s work (taking into account the papal acts and the reports sent to the Apostolic See by bishops and the faithful on the errors of the epoch), arrived at the formulation of 80 propositions. The Barnabite Fr. Bilio noted that it would be opportune to add to each proposition 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 approved, and Bilio himself was entrusted with the task.After twelve years of laborious preparation, Pius IX promulgated on 8 December 1864, together with the encyclical *Quanta cura* (Denz., nn. 1688–99), the *Syllabus complectens praecipuos nostrae aetatis errores* (ibid., nn. 1700–80).
II. CONTENT
The extensive document groups the condemned errors into 10 sections: 1. pantheism, naturalism, and absolute rationalism (props. 1–7); 2. moderate rationalism (props. 8–14); 3. indifferentism and latitudinarianism (props. 15–18); 4. socialism, communism, secret societies, Bible societies, clerical-liberal societies (cross-reference to previous papal acts, especially *Qui pluribus* [9 November 1846], *Noscitis et nobiscum* [8 December 1849], *Quanto conficiamur moerore* [10 August 1863]); 5) errors concerning the Church and its rights (props. 19–38); 6) errors concerning civil society considered in itself and in its relations with the Church (props. 39–55); 7) errors concerning natural and Christian morality (props. 56–74); 8) errors concerning Christian marriage; 9) errors concerning the temporal power (civil principate) of the Roman Pontiff (props. 75–76); 10) errors relating to liberalism (props. 77–80).The Pope had especially in mind the philosophical and theological errors of Germany, which had penetrated the Church through the work of Hermes (q.v.), Günther, and Frohschammer (q.v.), the secularist attitudes formulated by the Puritan priest Francisco González Vigil, and by the jurist Giovanni Nepumoceno Nuytz (professor of ecclesiastical law at the University of Turin), as well as all the nuances of opinions friendly to uncertainty but which led to conclusions in some way opposed to Revelation.
III. DOCTRINAL VALUE
This exceptional document, which deeply influenced all modern thought and life, not only provoked violent reactions from declared adversaries but also caused concern and disappointment in some circles of Catholic liberalism (Montalembert [q.v.], Dupanloup [q.v.]) and left the opinion of theologians divided on its precise doctrinal value. It is incontestable that the S. belongs to the series of acts emanating directly from the Supreme Pontiff, even though the Pope did not sign it personally. It is known how it was promulgated: a letter from Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary of State of His Holiness, made known to the entire Catholic world the sovereign decision of the Pope with the words: «mihi in mandatis dedit... eiusdem Pontificis iussa». On another occasion, Pius IX himself used the phrases: «Syllabus noster... nostro iussu editus». Moreover, 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, directed to the whole Church, formulated negatively, with the express intention of rejecting what is opposed to Revelation in the attitudes of an age that was drifting toward apostasy. It must therefore be considered an authentic act of the magisterium of the Church, with juridical value, which not only externally obliges but also requires full internal assent, all the more so since it was imposed by all the bishops on their respective faithful as a norm to be followed, as doctrine deriving from the Apostolic See. Leo XIII himself cited the S. in the encyclical *Immortale Dei* as an authoritative document of his predecessor.When, however, an attempt was made to determine more precisely its dogmatic value, the most varied opinions were expressed. 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 emerged: Fr. Rinaldi, among the best scholars of the historical origins of the S., considered it a non-infallible act, 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. Our jurists B. Wernz and F. X. Ojetti asserted (and their opinion today seems singular) that the S., though not originally infallible, has become so through the universal assent of the faithful: the infallibility of the Church would have conferred a new value on an act that was merely authentic when issued by the Roman Pontiff.
Whatever judgment may be reserved for theological opinions formed in a heated climate, it is today beyond dispute that the individual propositions of the *Syllabus* (S.), being devoid of any particular theological censure, possess varying value, to be determined case by case, *ex nube*, in relation to our subject matter. Consequently, it constitutes a norm that is not absolute, insofar as it concerns those truths which shortly after the Vatican Council were reconfirmed; for the rest, it must be held and understood in the precise sense that the Pope and the Church, in the further exercise of the Magisterium, have determined.