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THE SYLLABUS OF PIUS IX.




I.

Introduction.

The Syllabus of Pius IX. is a series or catalogue of propositions, taken mostly from works of writers in our own century, and condemned by the See of Rome during the Pontificate of his present Holiness. The Syllabus itself was published on the 8th of December, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, in the year 1864; but all the propositions contained in it had been branded with Papal censure in some previous Bull, Brief, or Apostolic Letter, either in the reign of Pius IX. himself, or in that of his immediate predecessor, Gregory XVI. This will be seen from the references at the foot of each condemned thesis in the subjoined translation of the Syllabus, which give the date and title of the official document in which the said proposition had been previously censured. By glancing down the headings of the several classes in which the condemned errors are arranged, the reader will see that while some of them involve abstract doctrines, by far the greater part deal with those principles of Christian morals,

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