Saturday, September 28, 2019

SAINT PIUS X ON “UNIVERSAL FRATERNITY”


“But stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, "the reign of love and justice" with workers coming from everywhere, of all religions and of no religion, with or without beliefs, so long as they forego what might divide them - their religious and philosophical convictions, and so long as they share what unites them - a "generous idealism and moral forces drawn from whence they can" When we consider the forces, knowledge, and supernatural virtues which are necessary to establish the Christian City, and the sufferings of millions of martyrs, and the light given by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the self-sacrifice of all the heroes of charity, and a powerful hierarchy ordained in heaven, and the streams of Divine Grace - the whole having been built up, bound together, and impregnated by the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word made man - when we think, I say, of all this, it is frightening to behold new apostles eagerly attempting to do better by a common interchange of vague idealism and civic virtues. What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ILL-UNDERSTOOD HUMAN DIGNITY. It will be a TUMULTUOUS AGITATION, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people.

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion MORE UNIVERSAL THAN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God. We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind. And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of APOSTASY being organized in every country for the ESTABLISHMENT OF A ONE-WORLD CHURCH WHICH SHALL HAVE NEITHER DOGMAS, NOR HIERARCHY neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, UNDER THE PRETEXT OF FREEDOM AND HUMAN DIGNITY, would bring back to the world (if such a Church COULD overcome) the REIGN OF LEGALIZED CUNNING AND FORCE, AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE WEAK, and of all those who toil and suffer.”

(Apostolic Letter of St. Pius X to the French Archbishops and Bishops, Notre charge apostolique, Rome, August 25, 1910).
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