The Syllabus of Errors is the name given to an index document issued by the

Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...

under

Pope Pius IX Pope Pius IX (; born Giovanni Maria Battista Pietro Pellegrino Isidoro Mastai-Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of nearly 32 years is the longest verified of any pope in hist ...

on 8 December 1864 at the same time as his encyclical letter . It collected a total of 80 propositions that the Pope considered to be current errors or heresies, pairing the briefest headings with references to the various documents where the actual teachings are found. The documents referenced by the ''Syllabus'' were intended to be a rebuttal of

liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

, moral relativism,

secularization In sociology, secularization () is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism or irreligion, nor are they automatica ...

, and the political emancipation of Europe from the tradition of Catholic monarchies but some relate to specific nations.

Summary

A cover letter by Cardinal Antonelli notes that Pope Pius IX had ordered the creation of the list, in case some Bishops had not read all his recent allocutions, speeches or encyclicals. The ''Syllabus'' is made up of phrases and paraphrases 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 ideas of Juan Donoso Cortés helped shape the content of the Syllabus. The Syllabus is divided into ten sections on the following topics: # pantheism, naturalism, and absolute

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...

, #1–7 #moderate rationalism, #8–14 # indifferentism and latitudinarianism, #15–18 #

socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

, secret societies, Bible societies, and liberal

cleric Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

al societies, a general condemnation, unnumbered #the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and its rights, #19–38 (defending temporal power in the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

, overthrown six years later) #

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.Christian ethics, #56–64 # Christian marriage, #65–74 #the civil power of the pope in the Papal States, #75–76 #

in every political form, #77–80.

Sources cited

The ''Syllabus'' 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'' and '' Cum catholica''.

Reactions

Non-Catholics

In 1874, the British

Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the Opposition (parliamentary), largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the ...

William Gladstone published a tract entitled '' The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation'', in which he said that after the ''Syllabus''

Catholics

Catholic apologists such as Félix Dupanloup and John Henry Newman said that the ''Syllabus'' 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 opinions ''in 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 the ''Syllabus'' could be valid, if it did not take into account the cited documents and their context. 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."

As the English Catholic historian E. E. Y. Hales explained, concerning item #77:

" e 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."

Newman points out that this item refers to the 26 July 1855 allocution ''Nemo vestrum''. At this time, Spain had been in violation of its Concordat of 1851 with the Holy See (implemented 1855).

Subsequent history

In the 21 November 1873 encyclical, '' Etsi multa'' ("On the Church in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland"), which is often appended to the ''Syllabus'', Pius expresses further thoughts in the same vein. The Pope particularly condemned the recent rise of Spanish-style liberalism and

anti-clericalism Anti-clericalism is opposition to clergy, religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historically, anti-clericalism in Christian traditions has been opposed to the influence of Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secul ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, which shares the same tradition of hostility to granting religious toleration and allowing Classical Christian education rooted in the

Trivium The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The trivium is implicit in ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but the term was not used until the Carolin ...

with mainstream

Republicanism in France Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self- ...

, for unleashing "a ferocious war on the Church". In 1907, '' Lamentabili sane exitu'' was promulgated, a "Syllabus condemning the errors of the Modernists", being a list of errors made by Progressive scholars of biblical criticism.

References

External links

The Syllabus of Errors
ewtn.com online text * {{Authority control Documents of Pope Pius IX Catholic theology and doctrine Modern history of Italy History of the papacy 1864 documents 1864 in Christianity