APPENDIX
DISCOURSE OF PIUS X.
ON THE OCCASION OF CONFERRING
THE CARDINAL'S HAT ON THOSE
RECENTLY PROMOTED TO THE
PURPLE, APRIL 17, 1907
DISCOURSE OF PIUS X.
We welcome with the liveliest satisfaction the sentiments of devotion and of filial love towards ourselves and this Apostolic See which you, in your own name and the name of your most beloved brethren, have manifested, to the honour of the purple to which you have been called. But in accepting your words of gratitude we must insist on saying that the illustrious virtues with which you are adorned, the zealous works which you have accomplished, and the other signal services which in different fields you have rendered to the Church, have made you entirely worthy of being included in the roll of our Sacred Senate. And it rejoices us to have, not only the hope, but the certainty, that, now that you are clad with new dignities, you will, as in the past, consecrate your genius and your force to the assistance of the Roman Pontiff in the government of the Church. If the Roman Pontiffs have always had need of external aid for the accomplishment of their mission, this need is to-day making itself more vividly felt owing to the very serious conditions of the time in which we are living, and of the continual assaults to which the Church is exposed on the part of her enemies.
And here do not suppose, Venerable Brethren, that we wish to allude to events in France, painful as they are, since they are largely compensated for by very precious consolations—by the admirable union of that venerable episcopate, by the generous disinterestedness of the clergy and the pious firmness of Catholics ready to face every sacrifice for the defence of the Faith and the glory of their fatherland. Once more it is proved that persecutions but put in evidence and mark out for the admiration of all the virtues of the persecuted. At the most they are like the waves of the sea, which, dashing themselves against the rocks in the tempest, purify them, if it is necessary, of the mud which has defiled them. You know. Venerable Brethren, how for this reason the Church felt no fear when the edicts of the Caesars bade the first Christians either abandon the worship of Jesus Christ or die, being assured that the blood of the martyrs was a harvest of new proselytes to the faith. No, the war which really afflicts her, the war which makes her cry "Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima," is that which springs from intellectual aberrarions in virtue of which her doctrines are despised, and there rings through the world that cry of revolt for which the rebel hosts were driven from heaven.
And rebels, indeed, they are, those who profess and spread abroad under artful forms monstrous errors on the evolution of dogma; on the return to the Gospel—the Gospel, that is to say, stripped, as they put it, of the explanations of theology, of the definitions of Councils, of the maxims of asceticism; on the emancipation of the Church, but conceived after a new fashion—an emancipation which will enable them not to revolt, so that they may not be cut off, and yet not to submit, so that they need not abandon their own convictions; and, finally, on adaptation to the times in everything—in speech, in writing, even in the preaching of a charity without faith which, while extremely tender to the unbeliever, is opening up the path to eternal ruin for all.
You see clearly, Venerable Brethren, whether we, who must defend with all our force the deposit which has been entrusted to us, have not reason to be in anguish in presence of this attack, which is not a heresy, but the compendium and poisonous essence of all heresies, which aims at undermining the foundations of the Faith and annihilating Christianity. Yes, at annihilating Christianity, for the Holy Scripture is no longer for these critics the trustworthy source of all the truths which pertain to the Faith, but a common book. For them inspiration is confined to its dogmatic teachings, and those understood after their fashion; is, indeed, but slightly distinguished from the poetical inspiration of Æschylus and of Homer. The Church is the legitimate interpreter of the Bible, but only if she submits her interpretation to the rules of so-called critical science, which imposes itself upon theology and makes it its slave. As for tradition, finally, everything is relative and subject to change, and so the authority of the holy Fathers is reduced to nothing. All these and a thousand other heresies they publish in pamphlets, in reviews, in ascetic treatises, even in novels, and they wrap them up in certain ambiguous terms, in certain nebulous forms, so that when put on their defence they may always keep open a way of escape without incurring open condemnation, and thus catch the unwary in their nets.
We count, however, much on your aid, Venerable Brethren, so that whensoever you, with the Bishops your suffragans in your provinces, learn of these sowers of tares, you may unite with us in combating them, inform us of the peril to which souls are exposed, denounce their books to the Sacred Roman Congregations, and meanwhile, using the powers which have been granted to you by the Sacred Canons, may solemnly condemn them, persuaded of the very serious obligation you have assumed to aid the Pope in the government of the Church, to combat error and defend the truth even to the shedding of blood.
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.