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Title: |
Mortalium Animos
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Descr.: |
On Religious Unity
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Pope: |
Pope Pius XI
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Date: |
January 6, 1928
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To
Our Venerable Brethren the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops,
Bishops, and Other Local Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with
the Apostolic See.
Venerable
Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
1.
Never perhaps in the past have we seen, as we see in these our own
times, the minds of men so occupied by the desire both of
strengthening and of extending to the common welfare of human
society that fraternal relationship which binds and unites us
together, and which is a consequence of our common origin and
nature. For since the nations do not yet fully enjoy the fruits of
peace - indeed rather do old and new disagreements in various
places break forth into sedition and civic strife - and since on
the other hand many disputes which concern the tranquillity and
prosperity of nations cannot be settled without the active
concurrence and help of those who rule the States and promote
their interests, it is easily understood, and the more so because
none now dispute the unity of the human race, why many desire that
the various nations, inspired by this universal kinship, should
daily be more closely united one to another.
2.
A similar object is aimed at by some, in those matters which
concern the New Law promulgated by Christ our Lord. For since they
hold it for certain that men destitute of all religious sense are
very rarely to be found, they seem to have founded on that belief
a hope that the nations, although they differ among themselves in
certain religious matters, will without much difficulty come to
agree as brethren in professing certain doctrines, which form as
it were a common basis of the spiritual life. For which reason
conventions, meetings and addresses are frequently arranged by
these persons, at which a large number of listeners are present,
and at which all without distinction are invited to join in the
discussion, both infidels of every kind, and Christians, even
those who have unhappily fallen away from Christ or who with
obstinacy and pertinacity deny His divine nature and mission.
Certainly such attempts can nowise be approved by Catholics,
founded as they are on that false opinion which considers all
religions to be more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all
in different ways manifest and signify that sense which is inborn
in us all, and by which we are led to God and to the obedient
acknowledgment of His rule. Not only are those who hold this
opinion in error and deceived, but also in distorting the idea of
true religion they reject it, and little by little, turn aside to
naturalism and atheism, as it is called; from which it clearly
follows that one who supports those who hold these theories and
attempt to realize them, is altogether abandoning the divinely
revealed religion.
3.
But some are more easily deceived by the outward appearance of
good when there is question of fostering unity among all
Christians.
4.
Is it not right, it is often repeated, indeed, even consonant with
duty, that all who invoke the name of Christ should abstain from
mutual reproaches and at long last be united in mutual charity?
Who would dare to say that he loved Christ, unless he worked with
all his might to carry out the desires of Him, Who asked His
Father that His disciples might be "one."(1) And did not
the same Christ will that His disciples should be marked out and
distinguished from others by this characteristic, namely that they
loved one another: "By this shall all men know that you are
my disciples, if you have love one for another"?(2) All
Christians, they add, should be as "one": for then they
would be much more powerful in driving out the pest of irreligion,
which like a serpent daily creeps further and becomes more widely
spread, and prepares to rob the Gospel of its strength. These
things and others that class of men who are known as
pan-Christians continually repeat and amplify; and these men, so
far from being quite few and scattered, have increased to the
dimensions of an entire class, and have grouped themselves into
widely spread societies, most of which are directed by
non-Catholics, although they are imbued with varying doctrines
concerning the things of faith. This undertaking is so actively
promoted as in many places to win for itself the adhesion of a
number of citizens, and it even takes possession of the minds of
very many Catholics and allures them with the hope of bringing
about such a union as would be agreeable to the desires of Holy
Mother Church, who has indeed nothing more at heart than to recall
her erring sons and to lead them back to her bosom. But in reality
beneath these enticing words and blandishments lies hid a most
grave error, by which the foundations of the Catholic faith are
completely destroyed.
5.
Admonished, therefore, by the consciousness of Our Apostolic
office that We should not permit the flock of the Lord to be
cheated by dangerous fallacies, We invoke, Venerable Brethren,
your zeal in avoiding this evil; for We are confident that by the
writings and words of each one of you the people will more easily
get to know and understand those principles and arguments which We
are about to set forth, and from which Catholics will learn how
they are to think and act when there is question of those
undertakings which have for their end the union in one body,
whatsoever be the manner, of all who call themselves Christians.
6.
We were created by God, the Creator of the universe, in order that
we might know Him and serve Him; our Author therefore has a
perfect right to our service. God might, indeed, have prescribed
for man's government only the natural law, which, in His creation,
He imprinted on his soul, and have regulated the progress of that
same law by His ordinary providence; but He preferred rather to
impose precepts, which we were to obey, and in the course of time,
namely from the beginnings of the human race until the coming and
preaching of Jesus Christ, He Himself taught man the duties which
a rational creature owes to its Creator: "God, who at sundry
times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by
the prophets, last of all, in these days, hath spoken to us by his
Son."(3) From which it follows that there can be no true
religion other than that which is founded on the revealed word of
God: which revelation, begun from the beginning and continued
under the Old Law, Christ Jesus Himself under the New Law
perfected. Now, if God has spoken (and it is historically certain
that He has truly spoken), all must see that it is man's duty to
believe absolutely God's revelation and to obey implicitly His
commands; that we might rightly do both, for the glory of God and
our own salvation, the Only-begotten Son of God founded His Church
on earth. Further, We believe that those who call themselves
Christians can do no other than believe that a Church, and that
one Church, was established by Christ; but if it is further
inquired of what nature according to the will of its Author it
must be, then all do not agree. A good number of them, for
example, deny that the Church of Christ must be visible and
apparent, at least to such a degree that it appears as one body of
faithful, agreeing in one and the same doctrine under one teaching
authority and government; but, on the contrary, they understand a
visible Church as nothing else than a Federation, composed of
various communities of Christians, even though they adhere to
different doctrines, which may even be incompatible one with
another. Instead, Christ our Lord instituted His Church as a
perfect society, external of its nature and perceptible to the
senses, which should carry on in the future the work of the
salvation of the human race, under the leadership of one head,(4)
with an authority teaching by word of mouth,(5) and by the
ministry of the sacraments, the founts of heavenly grace;(6) for
which reason He attested by comparison the similarity of the
Church to a kingdom,(7) to a house,(8) to a sheepfold,(9) and to a
flock.(10) This Church, after being so wonderfully instituted,
could not, on the removal by death of its Founder and of the
Apostles who were the pioneers in propagating it, be entirely
extinguished and cease to be, for to it was given the commandment
to lead all men, without distinction of time or place, to eternal
salvation: "Going therefore, teach ye all nations."(11)
In the continual carrying out of this task, will any element of
strength and efficiency be wanting to the Church, when Christ
Himself is perpetually present to it, according to His solemn
promise: "Behold I am with you all days, even to the
consummation of the world?"(12) It follows then that the
Church of Christ not only exists today and always, but is also
exactly the same as it was in the time of the Apostles, unless we
were to say, which God forbid, either that Christ our Lord could
not effect His purpose, or that He erred when He asserted that the
gates of hell should never prevail against it.(13)
7.
And here it seems opportune to expound and to refute a certain
false opinion, on which this whole question, as well as that
complex movement by which non-Catholics seek to bring about the
union of the Christian churches depends. For authors who favor
this view are accustomed, times almost without number, to bring
forward these words of Christ: "That they all may be one....
And there shall be one fold and one shepherd,"(14) with this
signification however: that Christ Jesus merely expressed a desire
and prayer, which still lacks its fulfillment. For they are of the
opinion that the unity of faith and government, which is a note of
the one true Church of Christ, has hardly up to the present time
existed, and does not today exist. They consider that this unity
may indeed be desired and that it may even be one day attained
through the instrumentality of wills directed to a common end, but
that meanwhile it can only be regarded as mere ideal. They add
that the Church in itself, or of its nature, is divided into
sections; that is to say, that it is made up of several churches
or distinct communities, which still remain separate, and although
having certain articles of doctrine in common, nevertheless
disagree concerning the remainder; that these all enjoy the same
rights; and that the Church was one and unique from, at the most,
the apostolic age until the first Ecumenical Councils.
Controversies therefore, they say, and longstanding differences of
opinion which keep asunder till the present day the members of the
Christian family, must be entirely put aside, and from the
remaining doctrines a common form of faith drawn up and proposed
for belief, and in the profession of which all may not only know
but feel that they are brothers. The manifold churches or
communities, if united in some kind of universal federation, would
then be in a position to oppose strongly and with success the
progress of irreligion. This, Venerable Brethren, is what is
commonly said. There are some, indeed, who recognize and affirm
that Protestantism, as they call it, has rejected, with a great
lack of consideration, certain articles of faith and some external
ceremonies, which are, in fact, pleasing and useful, and which the
Roman Church still retains. They soon, however, go on to say that
that Church also has erred, and corrupted the original religion by
adding and proposing for belief certain doctrines which are not
only alien to the Gospel, but even repugnant to it. Among the
chief of these they number that which concerns the primacy of
jurisdiction, which was granted to Peter and to his successors in
the See of Rome. Among them there indeed are some, though few, who
grant to the Roman Pontiff a primacy of honor or even a certain
jurisdiction or power, but this, however, they consider not to
arise from the divine law but from the consent of the faithful.
Others again, even go so far as to wish the Pontiff Himself to
preside over their motley, so to say, assemblies. But, all the
same, although many non-Catholics may be found who loudly preach
fraternal communion in Christ Jesus, yet you will find none at all
to whom it ever occurs to submit to and obey the Vicar of Jesus
Christ either in His capacity as a teacher or as a governor.
Meanwhile they affirm that they would willingly treat with the
Church of Rome, but on equal terms, that is as equals with an
equal: but even if they could so act, it does not seem open to
doubt that any pact into which they might enter would not compel
them to turn from those opinions which are still the reason why
they err and stray from the one fold of Christ.
8.
This being so, it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot on any
terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for
Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises; for
if they do so they will be giving countenance to a false
Christianity, quite alien to the one Church of Christ. Shall We
suffer, what would indeed be iniquitous, the truth, and a truth
divinely revealed, to be made a subject for compromise? For here
there is question of defending revealed truth. Jesus Christ sent
His Apostles into the whole world in order that they might
permeate all nations with the Gospel faith, and, lest they should
err, He willed beforehand that they should be taught by the Holy
Ghost:(15) has then this doctrine of the Apostles completely
vanished away, or sometimes been obscured, in the Church, whose
ruler and defense is God Himself? If our Redeemer plainly said
that His Gospel was to continue not only during the times of the
Apostles, but also till future ages, is it possible that the
object of faith should in the process of time become so obscure
and uncertain, that it would be necessary today to tolerate
opinions which are even incompatible one with another? If this
were true, we should have to confess that the coming of the Holy
Ghost on the Apostles, and the perpetual indwelling of the same
Spirit in the Church, and the very preaching of Jesus Christ, have
several centuries ago, lost all their efficacy and use, to affirm
which would be blasphemy. But the Only-begotten Son of God, when
He commanded His representatives to teach all nations, obliged all
men to give credence to whatever was made known to them by
"witnesses preordained by God,"(16) and also confirmed
His command with this sanction: "He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be
condemned."(17) These two commands of Christ, which must be
fulfilled, the one, namely, to teach, and the other to believe,
cannot even be understood, unless the Church proposes a complete
and easily understood teaching, and is immune when it thus teaches
from all danger of erring. In this matter, those also turn aside
from the right path, who think that the deposit of truth such
laborious trouble, and with such lengthy study and discussion,
that a man's life would hardly suffice to find and take possession
of it; as if the most merciful God had spoken through the prophets
and His Only-begotten Son merely in order that a few, and those
stricken in years, should learn what He had revealed through them,
and not that He might inculcate a doctrine of faith and morals, by
which man should be guided through the whole course of his moral
life.
9.
These pan-Christians who turn their minds to uniting the churches
seem, indeed, to pursue the noblest of ideas in promoting charity
among all Christians: nevertheless how does it happen that this
charity tends to injure faith? Everyone knows that John himself,
the Apostle of love, who seems to reveal in his Gospel the secrets
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who never ceased to impress on
the memories of his followers the new commandment "Love one
another," altogether forbade any intercourse with those who
professed a mutilated and corrupt version of Christ's teaching:
"If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive
him not into the house nor say to him: God speed you."(18)
For which reason, since charity is based on a complete and sincere
faith, the disciples of Christ must be united principally by the
bond of one faith. Who then can conceive a Christian Federation,
the members of which retain each his own opinions and private
judgment, even in matters which concern the object of faith, even
though they be repugnant to the opinions of the rest? And in what
manner, We ask, can men who follow contrary opinions, belong to
one and the same Federation of the faithful? For example, those
who affirm, and those who deny that sacred Tradition is a true
fount of divine Revelation; those who hold that an ecclesiastical
hierarchy, made up of bishops, priests and ministers, has been
divinely constituted, and those who assert that it has been
brought in little by little in accordance with the conditions of
the time; those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy
Eucharist through that marvelous conversion of the bread and wine,
which is called transubstantiation, and those who affirm that
Christ is present only by faith or by the signification and virtue
of the Sacrament; those who in the Eucharist recognize the nature
both of a sacrament and of a sacrifice, and those who say that it
is nothing more than the memorial or commemoration of the Lord's
Supper; those who believe it to be good and useful to invoke by
prayer the Saints reigning with Christ, especially Mary the Mother
of God, and to venerate their images, and those who urge that such
a veneration is not to be made use of, for it is contrary to the
honor due to Jesus Christ, "the one mediator of God and
men."(19) How so great a variety of opinions can make the way
clear to effect the unity of the Church We know not; that unity
can only arise from one teaching authority, one law of belief and
one faith of Christians. But We do know that from this it is an
easy step to the neglect of religion or indifferentism and to
modernism, as they call it. Those, who are unhappily infected with
these errors, hold that dogmatic truth is not absolute but
relative, that is, it agrees with the varying necessities of time
and place and with the varying tendencies of the mind, since it is
not contained in immutable revelation, but is capable of being
accommodated to human life. Besides this, in connection with
things which must be believed, it is nowise licit to use that
distinction which some have seen fit to introduce between those
articles of faith which are fundamental and those which are not
fundamental, as they say, as if the former are to be accepted by
all, while the latter may be left to the free assent of the
faithful: for the supernatural virtue of faith has a formal cause,
namely the authority of God revealing, and this is patient of no
such distinction. For this reason it is that all who are truly
Christ's believe, for example, the Conception of the Mother of God
without stain of original sin with the same faith as they believe
the mystery of the August Trinity, and the Incarnation of our Lord
just as they do the infallible teaching authority of the Roman
Pontiff, according to the sense in which it was defined by the
Ecumenical Council of the Vatican. Are these truths not equally
certain, or not equally to be believed, because the Church has
solemnly sanctioned and defined them, some in one age and some in
another, even in those times immediately before our own? Has not
God revealed them all? For the teaching authority of the Church,
which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that
revealed doctrines might remain intact forever, and that they
might be brought with ease and security to the knowledge of men,
and which is daily exercised through the Roman Pontiff and the
Bishops who are in communion with him, has also the office of
defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and
decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or
the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to
stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred
doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this
extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is
brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those
truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of
Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which
are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or
that which some have previously called into question is declared
to be of faith.
10.
So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has
never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of
non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by
promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who
are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left
it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to
all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author,
exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of
centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been
contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as
Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made
false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but
one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber
chastely and modestly."(20) The same holy Martyr with good
reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that
"this unity in the Church which arises from a divine
foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments,
could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary
wills."(21) For since the mystical body of Christ, in the
same manner as His physical body, is one,(22) compacted and fitly
joined together,(23) it were foolish and out of place to say that
the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and
scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body
is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its
head.(24)
11.
Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain
who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and
supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the
ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius
and the reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of
souls? Alas their children left the home of their fathers, but it
did not fall to the ground and perish for ever, for it was
supported by God. Let them therefore return to their common
Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the
Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For
if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and
ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, "the Mother
and mistress of all Christ's faithful"?(25) Let them hear
Lactantius crying out: "The Catholic Church is alone in
keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the
house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here,
or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of
life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate
wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will
be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are
carefully and assiduously kept in mind."(26)
12.
Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic
See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the
Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat,
which is "the root and womb whence the Church of God
springs,"(27) not with the intention and the hope that
"the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth"(28) will cast aside the integrity of the faith and
tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves
submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our
happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not,
to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy
separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior,
"Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth,"(29) would hear us when We humbly beg
that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the
Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that
others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother
of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of
Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the
much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her
divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the
Spirit in the bond of peace."(30)
13.
You, Venerable Brethren, understand how much this question is in
Our mind, and We desire that Our children should also know, not
only those who belong to the Catholic community, but also those
who are separated from Us: if these latter humbly beg light from
heaven, there is no doubt but that they will recognize the one
true Church of Jesus Christ and will, at last, enter it, being
united with us in perfect charity. While awaiting this event, and
as a pledge of Our paternal good will, We impart most lovingly to
you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people, the
apostolic benediction.
Given
at Rome, at Saint Peter's, on the 6th day of January, on the Feast
of the Epiphany of Jesus Christ, our Lord, in the year 1928, and
the sixth year of Our Pontificate.
Endnotes:
1.
John xvii, 21. | 2. John xiii, 35. | 3. Heb. i, I seq. | 4. Matt.
xvi, 18 seq; Luke xxii, 32; John xxi, 15-17. | 5. Mark xvi, 15. |
6. John iii, 5; vi, 48-59; xx, 22 seq; cf. Matt. xviii, 18, etc. |
7. Matt. xiii. | 8. cf. Matt. xvi, 18. | 9. John x, 16. | 10. John
xxi, 15-17. | 11. Matt. xxviii, 19. | 12. Matt. xxviii, 20. | 13.
Matt. xvi, 18. | 14. John xvii, 21; x, 16. | 15. John xvi, 13. |
16. Acts x, 41. | 17. Mark xvi, 16. | 18. II John 10. | 19. Cf. I
Tim. ii, 15. | 20. De Cath. Ecclesiae unitate, 6. | 21. Ibid. |
22. I Cor. xii, 12. | 23. Eph. Iv, 16. | 24. Cf. Eph. v, 30; 1,
22. | 25. Conc. Lateran IV, c. 5. | 26. Divin. Instit. Iv, 30.
11-12. | 27. S. Cypr. Ep. 48 ad Cornelium, 3. | 28. I Tim. iii,
15. | 29. I Tim. ii, 4. | 30. Eph. iv, 3.
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