Philip Schaff · 53 of 60

Appendix I. Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo XIII., Immortale Dei, conerning the Christian Constitution of Sates. Nov. 1, 1885.

Encyclical Letter of our Most Holy Lord Leo XIII., by Divine Providence Pope, concerning the Christian Constitution of States. A.D. 1885.

[The Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo XIII., De Civitatum Constitutione Christiana, which is called from the first two words, Immortale Dei, was issued Nov. 1, 1885, during the Cultur-conflict ( Culturkampf ) in Germany, as a mild interpretation of the Syllabus of his predecessor, 1864 (pp. 213–233), which was understood to be an attack upon modern civilization and civil and religious liberty. The Encyclical is addressed "to all the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic World, in the grace and communion of the Apostolic See," and partakes of that infallibility which the Vatican Decree of 1870 claims for all the official or ex cathedra deliverances of the Pope on matters of faith and morals.

The Latin text of this document is taken from Acta Leonis Papæ XIII. (1879–1885), Parisiis, 1885, pp. 283–321, the translation from the "Tablet," London, Nov. 14, 1885, as revised by authority.]

[Note.—For another translation with notes, Ryan and Millar, Church and State, pp. 1–61.—Ed.]

NOTE.

The Encyclical of 1888.

In a more recent Encyclical, "Libertas præstantissimum naturæ donum," issued June 20, 1888, Leo XIII.—one of the wisest, most moderate, and most liberal popes of modern times—reiterates the same doctrine on civil government, liberty, and the relation of Church and State, even more strongly than in the bull of 1885. He begins by praising liberty as the most excellent gift of nature, which belongs only to intellectual or rational beings, but he makes true liberty to consist in submission to the will of God, as expressed in an infallible Church with an infallible head. He severely condemns what he calls the modern liberties (1) of worship, (2) of speech and of the press, (3) of teaching, and (4) of conscience, because they tacitly assume the absence of truth as the law of our reason, and of authority as the law of our will. He first misstates the liberal theory, which he seems to know only in the form of infidel radicalism, and then denounces it.

In the same document the pope incidentally calls the separation of Church and State "a pernicious maxim." And he concludes: "From what has been said, it follows that it is in no way lawful to demand to defend, or to grant, promiscuous freedom of thought, of speech, of writing, or of religion, as if they were so many rights which nature had given to man."

Cardinal Manning, in a preface to the English translation of this Encyclical, fully approves of its sentiments, and predicts that "the pontificate of Leo XIII. will be known in history as the time when, upon a world torn and tossed by anti-Christian and anti-social revolutions, the abundant seeds of divine truths sown broadcast revived the conscience of Christendom." He also predicts that the two Encyclical letters of 1885 and 1888 "will be recorded as the pronouncements which have vindicated the political order of society from confusion, and the liberty of men from the license of liberalism."

But we venture to say that Pope Pius IX. (by the Syllabus of 1864) and Pope Leo XIII. (by these two Encyclicals) have seriously injured the cause of the Roman Church by placing her in open antagonism to the irresistible progress of history, which is a progress of liberty. By declaring the separation of Church and State "a pernicious maxim," Leo XIII. has unwisely as well as unjustly condemned the Constitution of the United States, which makes such separation the law of the land, not from indifference or hostility to religion, but from respect for religion, and which secures to the Roman Catholic Church a greater amount of liberty and prosperity than she enjoys in Italy or Spain or Austria or France or Mexico or Brazil. American Roman Catholics generally are well satisfied with the freedom they enjoy. The highest American dignitary of that Church, Cardinal Gibbons, of Baltimore, who attended the centennial celebration of the Constitution at Philadelphia, September, 1887, said in his letter of acceptance: "The Constitution of the United States is worthy of being written in letters of gold. It is a charter by which the liberties of sixty millions of people are secured, and by which, under Providence, the temporal happiness of countless millions yet unborn will be perpetuated."

The crowning feature of the American Constitution is contained in the First Amendment, which forbids Congress to establish any Church as a state religion, and to prohibit the free exercise of religion. This is the magna charta of religious liberty within the jurisdiction of the United States.