Syllabus

SILLABO. — List of 80 propositions concerning the errors of the age, published by Pius IX on 8 December 1864.

I. HISTORY

The first idea of the S. goes back to Card. Gioacchino Pecci (the future Leo XIII), who in Nov. 1849, as archbishop of Perugia, during the Provincial Council of Spoleto, proposed asking the Pope for a blanket condemnation of the modern errors concerning the Church, authority, and property. In 1852 La Civiltà Cattolica floated the idea of a condemnation of rationalism and semi-rationalism to be included in the same bull as the future definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The idea appealed to Pius IX, who commissioned Card. Fornari (20 May 1852) to sound out the opinions of prominent members of the episcopate (e.g., Msgr. Pie), theologians (Guéranger), and several distinguished Catholic laymen. Veuillot and Count Avogadro della Motta pointed out the advisability of separating the two acts, since the modern errors deserved a separate condemnation, which, if issued on its own, would make a greater impression on the public. Pius IX accepted the proposal and instructed the papal commission, which had just completed the preparatory work for the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, to begin special investigations into the principal errors of the age. After eight years, the Instruction pastorale of Msgr. Gerbet, bishop of Perpignan (23 July 1860), in which 45 propositions to be condemned were listed, gave the work a more rapid pace. A new commission, presided over by Card. Caterini and composed of the secretary, Msgr. Iacobini, and the theologians Msgr. Pio Delicati, Fr. Giacinto Ferrari, and Fr. Giovanni Perrone, succeeded in cataloguing 70 errors (Syllabus propositionum), for which several theologians were asked (20 June 1861) to determine the precise theological censure. To facilitate this task, the Pope increased the number of consultors to 12, selecting them from the principal religious Orders. On 15 Feb. 1862 the commission had ready 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 that same year of 1862, to the three hundred bishops who had gathered in Rome for the canonization of the Japanese martyrs. Almost all replied from their respective sees after careful examination, judging the condemnation opportune and necessary and proposing some modifications with regard to the theological censures. An indiscretion, which brought the 61 propositions to public attention (they were published by Il Mediatore of Turin [Oct. 1862], edited by Passaglia), led Pius IX to suspend the promulgation of the projected bull of condemnation, awaiting a moment of less tension. Meanwhile, the idea matured of achieving the objective by using another form of condemnation: extracting from the earlier acts of his pontificate (encyclicals, apostolic letters, and consistorial allocutions) the propositions opposed to the errors of the age. A new commission was therefore established; after a year’s work (taking into account the papal acts and the reports submitted to the Apostolic See by bishops and the faithful concerning the errors of the period), it arrived at the formulation of 80 propositions. The Barnabite Fr. Bilio pointed out that it would be advisable to add to the individual propositions the exact indication of the papal documents from which they had been extracted, so that their meaning and doctrinal value might be more precisely circumscribed. The proposal was well received, and Bilio himself was entrusted with the task.

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

II. CONTENUTO

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

encicli. Qui pluribus [9 nov. 1846], Noscitis et nobiscum [8 dic. 1849], Quanto conficiamur moerore [10 ag. 1863]; 5) errori sulla Chiesa e i suoi diritti (propp. 19-38); 6) errori sulla società civile considerata in se stessa e nei suoi rapporti con la Chiesa (propp. 38-55); 7) errori sulla morale naturale e cristiana (propp. 56-74); 8) errori sul matrimonio cristiano; 9) errori sul potere temporale (civilis principatus) del Romano Pontefice (propp. 75-76); 10) errori che si riferiscono al liberalismo (propp. 77-80).

Il Papa vi tenne presenti soprattutto gli errori filosofici e teologici della Germania, penetrati Hermes (v.), FROHSCHAMMER, JACOB (v.), gli atteggiamenti laicistici formulati dal prete peruviano Francesco Gonzales Vigil, e dal boemo Giovanni Nepumoceno Nuytz (professore di diritto ecclesiastico nell'Università di Torino), tutte le sfumature delle opinioni, amiche dell'incerto, ma che sfociavano in conclusioni in qualche modo opposte alla Rivelazione.

III. DOCTRINAL VALUE

This exceptional document, which profoundly affected the whole thought and life of the modern world, not only provoked violent reactions on the part of its declared adversaries, but also occasioned concern and disappointment in certain sectors of Catholic liberalism (Montalambert [v.], Dupanloup [v.]) and left theologians divided concerning its precise doctrinal value. It is incontestable that the S. belongs to the series of those acts which emanate directly from the Supreme Pontiff, even though the Pope did not sign it personally. The manner in which it was promulgated is well known: a letter from Cardinal Antonelli, Secretary of State of His Holiness, made known to the entire Catholic episcopate 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 relation to the opinions and deviations of the nineteenth century, addressed to the whole Church, formulated negatively, with the explicit intention of rejecting whatever in the attitudes of an age heading toward apostasy was opposed to Revelation. It must therefore be regarded as an authentic act of the Church’s magisterium, possessing juridical force, which not only imposes an external obligation but also requires 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 a doctrine deriving from the Apostolic See. Leo XIII himself cited the S. in the encyclical Immortale Dei opus as an authoritative document of his predecessor.

When, however, an attempt was made to determine its dogmatic value more precisely, the most divergent opinions were expressed. Dupanloup, Fessler, Schanz, and Heiner held that the S., although authoritative, was entirely devoid of the charism of infallibility, whereas theologians of particular authority, such as Franzelin, Mazzella, Scheeben, and Pesch, considered it an act proceeding from the personal infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Between these two extreme positions, others of a more moderate character emerged: Father Rinaldi, one of the foremost scholars of the historical origins of the S., regarded it as a non-infallible act, but as an « authentic notification » of earlier infallible acts of the Magisterium, pronounced by the Pope in the promulgation of the documents from which the S. was compiled. The noted jurists B. Wernz and F. X. Ojetti asserted (and their opinion today appears singular) that the S., although 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 of the Roman Pontiff that was merely authentic.

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., since they lack any particular theological censure, possess differing values, to be determined in each case ex subiecta materia. It therefore constitutes an inescapable norm with regard to those truths which the First Vatican Council reaffirmed shortly thereafter; for the rest, it is to be upheld and understood in the precise sense determined by the Pope and the Church in the subsequent exercise of the Magisterium.